The update last night seems to have presented me with 24H2 version of windows 11 on my laptop. Now it’s doing some funny things which lead me on websites that told me that’s nothing yet!
While it was great fun between about 1992 and 2010-ish to spend numerous nights and days (losing track of which was which) on the computer I kind of lost interest long ago. Since I pay for Windows (which I never did for decades before) and if it’s only for OEM-versions from my dealer I also have no desire to sort out the numerous fuck-ups Windows delivers with their updates for the customers to sort out. (Delivering the prototype, we used to call it.)
However, my PC is very old and I managed to put Windows-11 on it in spite of it officially not being capable to take it (oh, I lied, I DID play around on the computer since 2010). Works fine. But from what I read it won’t with the 24H2.
That was a long intro for a simple question: Should it be Ubuntu Linux or Linux Mint?
A long time ago I had Ubuntu installed on an other computer and went off it again but can not remember why anymore.
Are you folks all on Windows or Mac - or Android if via handy? Can you give some user-friendly simple hints and advice which of the above I should go for without going all techy? As I said, I got lazy, don’t want to study one of the two systems, just use them.
Ah yeah and since I got that lazy I just need it for internet, the usual office-stuff, email etc. etc. I don’t game and I already use OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird since for ever.
I completely ditched Windows 11 for kubuntu. Kubuntu 24.04 LTE installed 100% nice without any fiddling from my part. Bonus, the KVM works like miracle for booting windows on it, followed the article
Actually I first saw this on YT by video of this guy, then I followed the link and bookmarked it.
You might ask why did I install Windows 11 in KVM. Actually I don’t know. I just wanted to know that I’ll have it in case I need it, but honestly KDE works perfectly for me. The laptop feels faster than ever.
OK, I lied, I followed up with fiddling, to enable hibernation. The sleep mode works perfectly, but I prefer to hibernate laptop before putting it into bag for a long journey.
It’s off topic, but I’m really fed up with assistants. I’m over-assisted. Whatever software I touch these days blocks me from using it by throwing some kind of assistant at me. That’s certainly too much if the operating system does it to you, it’s responsibility is to just keep files and run programs for you, period. It’s a plague like over-population of sales men in the digital world.
I swapped my work laptop for an upgraded one and it came with Windows 11. It is terrible. So many bad things about it. I’d take Windows XP over this steaming turd.
Ubuntu was always my default, but looking around I got convinced to try KDE, it’s amazing. Ubuntu with it’s javascript backed UI doesn’t compare. It intrigued me so much, that I started reading about the topic why KDE is not the default in the Linux desktop world… interesting story. Despite the fact that the licensing threat was debunked long time ago, people stay with inferior Gnome just because it promised since the beginning to be the only one truly opensource UI. Well, I much more like KDE and I even consider donating them now.
One thing which just star struck me, was how easy it is to choose the right start menu - a little thing but it’s so annoying when it was changing for the worse with every upgrade of Windows.
So in KDE just right click, show alternatives, and switch to the one you prefer, as many times as you want
As long as it is mostly *NIX like, I don’t really care too much about the underlying OS or UI. I started with BSDs and after a few years switched to RH (with KDE) briefly then Debian (with Gnome until Gnome 3 arrived when I switched to XFCE) for a long time and finally now Ubuntu (XFCE until I had to switch to KDE for better multi-monitor support).
I like KDE for its configurability and powerful features.
What problems are you all having with W11? I got a new laptop just over a year ago with W11, it just updated to the 24H2 version a couple of weeks ago, with another update last night. I haven’t noticed anything behaving differently.
What is it you guys are doing that’s no longer working correctly?
Well for one every time I turn it on, it opens firefox and tries to reach https://~~or-upgraded-session. I found two people complaining about that on the internet but no good answers. Ah yeah, the page can never be found - no surprise really.
Also it hinted a fault (my laptop makes a noise when there is one, that’s wanted) and after logging on (the noise comes before) I get
“Error: Array has incorrect number of subscripts or subscript dimension range excelled”. That was gone this morning though without me even trying to approach a possible cause.
It is just annoying and from what I read windows doesn’t really care either. That used to be different.
My main reason though for a move to Linux is my old PC which is great (and not really outdated) which apparently will not be able to run the next WIn-11 (had to do some work-arounds last time already).
I’ve been using Zorin for years as my daily driver, think Ubuntu that looks largely like Windows. 9 computers in the house, two running Windows server for virtualisation - everything else is Linux.
Sounds like something weird in your taskbar settings. I just opened far more ‘tasks’ than I would ever have running at any one time, and it lets me see the ‘extra’ ones when I click on the three dots.
They stayed there. On that screenshot there are five that pop up from the three dot icon, the more I add the more there are in that popup, the other… 14 on that screen just stay where they are. Here’s my taskbar settings, for reference.
I wouldn’t have ‘upgraded’ either, being of the “if it aint broke don’t fix it” mentality for all of my working life in IT, but my old (not that old, actually) HP laptop, which said it would be fine with W11, gave up the ghost - the final straw was the wifi adaptor just stopped working and I couldn’t be arsed with yet another repair, this one perhaps slightly more complex than the new keyboard/trackpad I’d fitted less than a year earlier, oh, and the new battery.
So I managed to find a sweet deal on a Lenovo, touch screen, folds back 180 deg to make a tablet, battery manager that stops any charge/discharge cycles when plugged in and should extend its life, etc. etc. And Windows 11. Sure, it took me a few weeks to get it configured to my liking, but never had any real issues with it since.
The only downside is the Swiss keyboard, but I have it mapped to UK layout, with hotkeys to switch to International when typing in French or German, only make the odd mistake with the keys next to the enter key, which are shaped differently from a UK or US one, but nothing I can’t live with.
I installed the Kubuntu, all went smoothly, explored it, all well as long as I used the mouse. Then I used the keyboard and all my keys which work with ctrl+Alt don’t work! So things like @ or \ just don’t show! I went back and forth, checked fora (German ones as it’s about a Swiss keyboard), found nothing useful.
There was even a button I discovered which shows a picture of the chosen keyboard and it is exactly.my.keyboard.
What a dumb problem!
I finally decided to call it a day when I realized I didn’t know how to shut it down on Kubuntu Fun factor: Hit the windows key and there it is. Didn’t expect to use that again, specially as I didn’t even use it under Windows.
I realize you folks can’t help me with that keyboard-problem as none of you use a Swiss one under Kubuntu. Ah well, tomorrow is an other day. I hope it rains.
Oh you lucky people. The organisation with a policy based IT that I work for has a five figure amount of laptops and PC’s in the fleet and the decision was made to auto upgrade them all to win 11 despite being warned to wait.
And now laptops where the upgrade failed are being fed to the shredder in their hundreds.
) and your links!
Fun factor: Hit the windows key and there it is. Didn’t expect to use that again, specially as I didn’t even use it under Windows.