I wouldn’t be surprised if they get a class action suit over security/data violations.
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No, it was chrome crashing. I dont use Windows
I literally only use Windows for video games these days and Steam OS is looking better and better for that.
I really wish sim racing worked well on Linux. The other stuff I need windows for I can work around or compromise. But the sim rig is just too damn windows dependant
Will it work running in a VM with pass through?
You can also use wine and other emulators to play games.
Look into bazzite. LTT and Game Foundry have made videos about it too, and they were pleasantly surprised
Pretty much any Linux distro will work for gaming. Some just do more work for you at the beginning. Linux mint, Pop OS, Endeavor, manjaro, etc, you can game on basically any of them. After familiarizing myself I eventually swapped to Arch, but if any of the other distros I mentioned work, and you feel satisfied with it, then stick with it. Its about finding a distro you enjoy and can work around despite it’s flaws.
Yeah, some distros just make it easier for the user
Bazzite works wonders for gaming. Nvidia cards are supposedly the one’s you will have to tinker with a bit, but everything besides VR has worked for me without needing to do a thing. Only really needed to install ALVR to get that working which took about 20-30 minutes to get set up.
You can also undervolt, overclock and all that with LACT. I believe it’s installable through the software center too if I’m remembering correctly. It fully supports Nvidia cards now.
VR is indeed a thing that keeps me chained to Windows for now. I spend a lot of time in Visual Pinball VR especially! But it’s not the biggest problem having a dual boot situation and only using Windows for games. Perhaps one day even VR will be doable in Linux and I can abandon Windows entirely. For now, it looks like my gaming sessions are going to be spied on so I better aim to impress. Heh.
SteamOS will not be your best option for desktop. Stop waiting for it. It’s made for the Deck and console like experiences, not desktop. It’s immutable too, which is great for a console experience, but probably not ideal for a desktop user.
Just go download Linux now. There’s nothing special in SteamOS that you need. I use Garuda, which is Arch based (which SteamOS is also, if that matters), and has a version specifically designed for gaming. It comes with most of what you could need set up, and a tool to quickly install any packages you may want for additional things like controllers or whatever.
It’s immutable too, which is great for a console experience, but probably not ideal for a desktop user.
I’ve been enjoying Fedora Atomic, personally.
Aurora DX (which is based on Fedora atomic) has been the best distro I’ve used in a long time. Immutable OSes are great for general purpose desktop use! I set up a container for each development environment and never need to worry about conflicting dependencies anymore. But yeah, I wouldn’t go with Steam OS for that. Steam works fine on pretty much any modern distro, so I don’t see any obvious benefit to using it.
immutable too, which is great for a console experience, but probably not ideal for a desktop user.
What?
I know what it is, my question was more at the “not for desktop use”
I think being able to rollback is better for new users
Sure, that is an advantage. There’s a lot of advantages. I just don’t think it’s good for users willing to learn. It’s good to make sure the user can’t fuck up, but then it also limits what they can do. I think if you’ve made it here and can use a full OS currently, you should try a non-immutable distro. If it turns out you fuck it up then you can swap to something that’ll hold your hand.
Fair enough
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Most distros will run games just about the same as any other. No point waiting for SteamOS like it’s the golden egg.
I use Mint btw.
Buts its unique Gamescope is hard to recreate
Just install gamescope then
Thats very wrong. Its hard to get just gamescope as Login together with steam and think everything works.
I am unsure what was missing but many people get low fps when doing it by themselves while the steam deck works fine.
I’ve only used it with Heroic and had no issues
No issues doesnt mean there is no difference. Its still not the same at all.
Doing the same on Ubuntu myself after trying Bazzite for a couple weeks. Bazzite kept messing up SSSD and would prevent me from authenticating with my home domain.
Will definitely try SteamOS once it is fully released.
I installed Bazzite on my ROG Ally to get rid of Windows. I have a gaming laptop with Windows installed for 3 games that aren’t compatible with Linux and that’s all it’s used for.
Is this legal in EU? I mean not the tool itself but just enabling it by default.
From the comments it seems like you have to opt in to the screenshots. But I’m sure they do it at the bottom of a three thousand page EULA or something so most users will wind up opting in by default
Probably in the same dark pattern bullshit they do to get you to turn the rest of their crap on.
GDPR regulation mandates that there is at least informed consent. So MS has to ask users if they want all their data to be uploaded. This includes of course a disable option. But knowing big tech companies, they’ll find a way to make users press that Okay button.
I just want to tip my fellow colleagues that need to use windows for their job (and also maybe have invested thousands in pc games).
This is my favorite tool for debloating and uncrappifying and more. If you have others please reply with yours. 😊
Or install an OS without most of the crap? https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links
I use linux so idk how that is but I heard is lightweight in bs
Hey, thanks for the laptop IT guy! Yeah everyone around the office has been very welcoming, I’m happy to be here. I’m pretty handy with computers so hopefully I won’t be bothering you too much haha…. Yeah anyway, I know you just imaged this laptop, but the thing is, I really don’t like all the fluff in the Windows updates, can I instead provide my own Windows image? It’s straight from Microsoft but you get it through a site called MASS GRAVE. And then you can apply the group policies and enable the drive mapping scripts and reinstall the secure company network client infrastructure —
I think when most people mean work they mean corporate where you have zero control. I’m just happy they let me use PowerTools. At home, manually amputating pieces of Windows has been a bit fiddly but no less fiddly than what people think configuring is still like.
It’s annoying, but for most people, even among the technically inclined, it’s fine. For now. I’m more likely to pivot to Linux than to OSX eventually.
Well this news helped motivate me to overwrite my Windows 10 install with Linux Mint as of yesterday. So far so good.
I switched to Linux Mint a few months ago on my main PC. I do not regret it. In fact, when I need to use one of my windows PCs for something, I am instantly reminded why I switched. If you are new to Linux, there will be some bumps here and there, but it can all be overcome with some help from LLMs. I hope more people make the switch. As a windows user since 3.11, I don’t want to go back to windows now.
Fuuucking hell. I have to keep a laptop on win for work purposes and i just finished decrapifying 11 last night
https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links
It should have little to 0 crap since its the version used by companies
Microsoft has shown over the years they will undo your preferences if they aren’t what they prefer. They are the worst
I always keep an old windows iso file just incase I need to use it.
Slap it into a VM. Name it jail. Call it Windows with bars.
I’m certain this can be disabled in windows at any moment as without it loads and loads of criminal evidence would be available for discovery and litigation against the wealthiest people and businesses across the world.
A real fear is being a worker in a world with micromanagers inspecting your workweek, 3 second snapshots at a time.
Windows as is, is a valid, fast and private OS. The lack is that it is by default a bundleware, full of telemetries, spyware, services which nobody needs, trials and other crap “to improve the user experience”. All this can be gutted by an advanced user. The alternastive for those which need use Windows, is to install one of the WindowsX series, an independent modification and optimization, without all these M$ crap.
Quick way of accomplishing the “de-bloating” of windows is by 1) managing your own DNS and blocking telemetry connections network wide (quite easy to do with PiHole + Docker Engine) or 2) installing Glasswire and blocking connections on the specific device however, I believe Glasswires Firewall is subscription based so this may be a turn-off for people.
Either work and are more efficient than digging around your Windows install and finding all the different variants of the same bloatware.
Simplewall works quite well too! And it’s free.
I use Portmaster, there go nothing in or out without my permissions.
Ah I figured Portmaster was only for Linux, I dabbled around their software and found it quite good!
I think the reason I stopped using it in lieu of OpenSnitch was because 1) most features were locked behind a subscription and 2) already had PiHole running so the firewall wasn’t something I really needed.
Regardless thanks for letting me know it works for Windows, I’ll started recommending it over Glasswire!
There are no need of subscriptions in Portmaster, it’s FOSS. Well, the subscription is only if you want to use additional also the inbuild SPN service (optional service), which need an paid subscription like any good VPN (server cost money). I Prefer to use Portmaster over Pi-Hole, because Portmaster permits per app settings, Pi-Hole don’tm apart is way easier to setup, with already a good default settings, its almost download it, run install and peace. Then maybe open it, browse your listed apps and block their traffic if needed with an click.
Windows has a built in firewall, so why install a paid one?
Not nearly as user friendly for the non-networking types hence why I recommend one with a fancy GUI.
Edit: Also, I suspect Microsoft will do Microsoft things and hide/prevent their telemetry from being blocked, ultimately I don’t know the state of Windows right now as I’ve made the switched to Linux many years ago.
I don’t see anywhere where I can see the source code of that build. Not saying it’s a bad project just that I’d like more transparency.
I’m more trusting of the debloat scripts that I can read and inspect. https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat
Well, there are several methodes, WinX is one of the options and naturally can’t be OpenSource, because Windows isn’t, even not in this debloated version. As you said, there are several FOSS tools to do it, maybe the best is the hellzerg Optimizer, very capable to eliminate the bad Windows habits and apart improving the system-
All this can be gutted by an advanced user.
valid, fast and private OS wut?
Yes, as said, the problem isn’t the OS as is, it’s all the crap, spy- and bloatware which M$ put in it.
@Zerush @muusemuuse all of that “crap, spy- and bloatware” is baked into the OS and the only reliable way to remove it isn’t not use Windows.
The problem is 100% the OS.
It isn’t, I use currently W11 24H2 with less than 0,9GB on disk, no unwanted nettraffic shown in Portmaster. Full BOOT in less than 5 seconds and snappy responses. No problems with it, no unwanted apps in the updates or other issues. This certainly wasn’t the case as default in my new laptop. Well “un-microsofted” Windows, not even with it’s original UI.
Tools that claim to lighten windows are almost always riddled with malware. You should never ever trust them. Those project build a base of loyal users, then change and add in malware later, compromising the system.
Windows is not a system you modify like that. It’s actually surprisingly Mac like in how you have to handle it. Be responsible. Build an OS up and out, bow down and back.
The hellzerg Optimizer is FOSS and well known since years, do not confuse with proprietary tools, like those from IObit or Ashampoo, these are certainly not recommended. Anyway, also with the default Windows GodMode you can do a lot, also with the Regedit, if you know well what you do (somewhat risky)
Microsoft turns things back on all the time though. It doesn’t matter what you set if they can unset it whenever they want.
Took this crap off my computer and installed Fedora as my daily. If I need to run Windows, I’ll run it in a VM.
When I originally switched, I kept an ultra clean windows 2000 VM going for a solid decade. Any time I needed it, I could install stuff, do the work, and then blow away the crud that always builds up with Windows. I would suggest using the oldest version of Windows you can practically use, de-bloating it, and taking vm snapshots.
You could even firewall it using another VM or the host if you wanted. Put windows in jail, erase its memory, and cut it off from the outside world so it behaves, lol.
I have yet to need Windows for anything and I switched when my WinXP machine decided booting was too difficult.
Fedora’s like the Windows of Linux.
No it’s not
Yes huh.
What aspects then? You can’t just throw out a baseless statement without justification and think others will agree with you.
Why would you assume I expect others to agree with me?
because you gave no justification for calling fedora the windows of Linux. Simple as that.
Windows is malware. If you give the slightest shit about your privacy, switch ASAP
Is ASAP Linux a variant of Asahi that I’m not hip enough to get?
Just made the switch to ZorinOS (aesthetics + pre installed FOSS). Couldn’t be happier. My laptop is shockingly silent and cool even when I’m running multiple apps.
It’s incredible how much processor windows telemetry uses.
Even when I put it to sleep. I feel like I own my laptop again after I kicked Windows out of it.
I’m not going to use this myself but I don’t know why everyone’s complaining about it so much. It requires opt-in, it does all the processing locally, and if someone nefarious gets to the point they can read this stuff then they’ll already be able to record your screen, log keystrokes, etc. I expect it won’t be straightforward to view the data as well, it’s not just gonna be a folder full of jpegs.
I’m glad that people are actually trying to make interesting features still. OSs have been so boring years now, it’s good to see people actually trying to introduce standout features even if they are controversial. More of this I say.
Well, that someone nefarious who gets access can then only steal from that point on. Recall will allow him to find out you were having a wank last Tuesday at 7PM.
if someone nefarious gets to the point they can read this stuff then they’ll already be able to record your screen, log keystrokes, etc.
The point is, that with Recall, they can do this back in time. A regular keylogger can only see what you do after he was installed. If you realize that your computer was compromised fast enough, then you can react. With Recall, everything you did in the last months is open to the attacker.
It requires opt-in,
Because GDPR requires it to be so. Ask people overseas if they can turn that feature off. With the current government they have in the US, is this really something that the anybody should be comfortable having?
Also, nothing is stopping malware from turning it on without your consent, because the technology will be backed in into the OS by default.
and if someone nefarious gets to the point they can read this stuff then they’ll already be able to record your screen, log keystrokes, etc
So we should just ignore that Microsoft just created a new attack vector that nobody asked for?
I expect it won’t be straightforward to view the data as well, it’s not just gonna be a folder full of jpegs.
Source?
I’m glad that people are actually trying to make interesting features still.
What’s interesting about this? Not only are you training AI models using your data without getting paid for it, I don’t understand what use case you can have by asking Microsoft what porn you were watching at 2 am of February 19th. For important stuff that needs remembering, you can just go back to your browser history. Its easier to search there than to remember the specific time you were doing something anyway.
Literally, nobody wants this.
OSs have been so boring years now, it’s good to see people actually trying to introduce standout features even if they are controversial. More of this I say.
Okay so this is that mindset that seems to permeate the Tech industry through and through, these days. The idea that things that are working fine, need to be forcefully “improved” even when it’s not necessary.
A pen can’t just be a pen anymore, it needs to connect to the cloud so that the ink levels can be properly measured and new ink sent to you on a subscription basis to make sure you never run out of ink.
A juicer needs its own proprietary juice bags and it won’t work with different ones, and how does it know you’re not using the brand’s originals? Why, it must be connected to the internet of course, otherwise it won’t juice.
Your car can’t just be a car anymore, it needs to have integrated mics and an internet connection so that the manufacturer can listen to all your calls and ear your sex sounds, and then sell that to advertisers who will know whether they should sell you a MagicWand or fisting lube, based on whether the moaning sounds they heard coming out of your car sound masculine or feminine.
So on and so forth.
You might think your take is unique, but it really isn’t. It aligns perfectly with everything that companies want nowadays, which is to get your data at all costs.
For me, I want none of that shit. To the point that I go out of my way to make sure I only buy stuff that doesn’t connect to the internet.
Which, BTW, this is the privacy community, I thought there was a common understanding of how abusing these features are, but I guess not.
I expect it won’t be straightforward to view the data as well, it’s not just gonna be a folder full of jpegs.
Source?
Tbf, I (and I’m a random third guy not the guy to which you’re replying, for clarity’s sake), also doubt it’ll be a folder of jpegs…but I think it’ll be fairly trivial to exploit whatever it is, and it’ll take way too much storage (storage cheap now, whatever, I know I’m old but I don’t use cloud and I’ve got other shit to spend money on than HDDs or SSDs, which I do also need as a pirate/data hoarder and don’t want to waste space on).
I don’t understand what use case you can have by asking Microsoft what porn you were watching at 2 am of February 19th.
Well you see I have my browser set to delete history on exit because of security so this would override that and keep the history…that I…deleted… Wait…
Lmao idfk why people would possibly want this either.
time for player 2 to join
Even if Copilot was suspended, the idea was put into the heads of managers and executives. My work laptop current has three applications constantly locking files as they track everything I do and every file that gets touched and upload it all to the servers. Git now takes a ridiculous amount of time to check in and push files since it creates tons of small changes to the cached files that a the tracking applications block further changes or uploads until they can record the information. It takes about 30 seconds to a minute to check in a single small file. Something that used to take a second or two at most. Worst part is if I’m in a WebEx meeting, the fighting over caches in it and git and any other processes,often causes deadlocks that crash the machine. I’m constantly apologizing for being late for meetings because the laptop crashed and had to reboot. It’s gotten to the point that they finally gave me a much faster laptop rather than just excluding cache and git folders and such from the tracking because the people who want literally everything tracked don’t know what cache or git is, much less how much useless data they’re gathering or how the AI that analyzes it all is going yo get distracted by the garbage and not find any useful data anyway. Microsoft needs to get in the game to push the others back out.
No bro! I promise bro! It’s just because Michaelsoft isnt tracking and indexing that info. I promise this next micromanaging software won’t be as bad! The next one will be as good as teams bro! I promise!
I ran into this as my IDE is also constantly touching temporary files to maintain its state. It wasn’t copilot though, it was one drive. So I moved my work files into a local-only location, and then periodically rsync to the synced folder, excluding .git and other folders that have no business on a synced folder.
Why would you even have git repositories in OneDrive in the first place? Or are those local-only repos without an actual server to push to?
