You’ll be hounded relentlessly to upgrade until you give up and pay the monthly usage fee

Yeah, you don't get to say no thanks. Your boss will still buy Windows 12. The corporate world will still steal your soul. The world of politics will still be corrupt. And Tupac Shakur will still continue to be the CEO of Burger King.

I use 10 for my gaming/media PC.

I'll use 11 if I have to when using some public computer or something.

But I absolutely, categorically, refuse to even touch a 'subscription-based, AI-focused' OS, ever, for any reason.

🤢

Just it being Windows, no matter those things, should be enough for everyone to go "Lol. No thanks." But sadly that isn't and won't be the case. Hundreds of millions of people will just go along with it, even the idea of something else existing will never occur for them and Microsoft knows this. All the hate and outrage about how evil they are and how Windows has gone to (from like Windows 95) absolute shit has only made a very small portion of their possible userbase switch to or even ignited the idea of finding out about something else. I think the only way Microsoft will loose enough "customers" is if it just dies, nothing else will make the average person lift a single finger or have a neuron activate for making the leap.

🌎👨‍🚀🔫👨‍🚀

Not only that, but increasingly worse versions, apparently.

I'd argue Vista was way better than people gave it credit for.

[insert "Had me in the first half" image macro here]

I know he’ll spend it on a good cause.

Antibiotics, for those times when he cares enough to give the gift that keeps on giving

I can’t wait to give my credit card information to my AI agent so it can buy more features for me without me monitoring it!

Imagine waking up to a fully decked out Windows 12 plus pro 365 hell yeah 730 Copilot ?

Linux Mint, for sure.

If you've got a geeky power user strain in you, try Pop_OS! with their new COSMIC desktop. The blend of traditional window manager and tiling is an absolute delight. But if you're just trying to stay in your comfort zone as you explore the unfamiliar waters of Linux, I heartily recommend Linux Mint.

I've installed Mint on my own gaming desktop, and it's invariably what I install for customers who can't afford a PC upgrade to deal with Microslop's Windows 11 bullshit. They all do fine on it, no one even appreciates the difference from Windows except that they all recognize their old hardware is suddenly much snappier than it was. And as for Pop_OS! COSMIC, I'm running that on the laptop from which I'm typing this comment now. I like them both, but Linux Mint is definitely more battle-tested.

Ubuntu's GNOME layout isn't really for me, but if you're looking for something that's...I don't know, a little Mac-ier than Windows-y, then Ubuntu isn't a bad way to go. I tried Kubuntu (that's Ubuntu with KDE instead of GNOME) recently and I had a lot of trouble with it for some reason so I just fell back on Linux Mint (which is how it became my desktop computer's OS).

Don't over-think it. The joy of live ISOs is that you can put them on USB disks and try various interfaces out. At the end of the day though, it's like human DNA...99% the same product under the hood, and you can typically change things around after the fact.

Actually, I have a good example of that: I put Linux Mint XFCE on my grandma's machine because it was especially under-powered. XFCE is just about the lightestweight traditional desktop environment around. I was worried Linux Mint's typical Cinnamon environment might be a little heavier and therefore leaving some performance on the table. Well, I spent hours trying to troubleshoot why I couldn't use RustDesk to remotely connect to her computer for support, and it finally occurred to me that XFCE might be the problem. I didn't have to reinstall the entire OS! I just installed the Cinnamon package (one single line of a command in the terminal), then I logged out, chose Cinnamon on the login screen, logged back in under this different desktop environment, and was able to use RustDesk successfully! No fuss, no muss. I'm not going to say you won't have occasional headaches with Linux but you tell me what comparable options I have when Windows 11's heavy fucker of an interface with a taskbar I can't move around the screen is ruining my day, or macOS replaces a tried and true GUI aesthetic with a batshit broken liquid glass one? I certainly can't swap in the older GUIs I liked, but in Linux, it's totally an option, like changing the exhaust on a car or whatever.

Have fun :)

Fedora

https://distrosea.com/

You can give it a test drive, given peoples suggestions. The most common desktop environment are Gnome and KDE, and I think they tend to have the least issues with stability, screen tearing, scaling, and fps, since they're the most actively developed.

I just started using Linux, but Bazzite has been treating me well. If you are primarily using your PC for gaming, that might be the way to go.

They also recently got their team reinforced, so I am hoping that carries them much farther in the future. https://www.xda-developers.com/bazzite-reveals-the-open-gaming-collective-to-make-gaming-on-linux-even-better/

1. If you want something that never changes, Mint.
2. if your main use is gaming: Bazzite
3. For any other use case, Bluefin or Aurora (Bluefin for rounded corners, Aurora otherwise).

Nobody is asking you what hardware you're running or your use case...

If your computer is a couple years old and you're doing general web browsing, then I would recommend Kubuntu 24.04, latest version of Linux Mint, or Debian.

If your computer is newer, as in a year old or so, I would recommend Kubuntu 25.10, latest version of Fedora(KDE/Plasma spin), or possibly CachyOS(Arch based).

If you're a gamer, then same as above, Kubuntu 25.10, Fedora, or CachyOS, but I would highly recommend CachyOS in this instance.

The main things to consider for Linux is the version of the Kernel you may need and what Desktop Environment(Gnome, Plasma, Cinnamon, etc) you prefer.

The Linux Kernel is where most drivers will come from and are baked in. You can install proprietary drivers, but that process can vary depending on the distro.

The Desktop Environment is what you'll be interacting with on a daily basis. Personally I prefer and highly recommend Plasma. It has great Wayland support(newer way to render and manage programs graphically) and customization is there if you need it. You CAN install multiple Desktop Environments at the same time and you're not stuck with whatever is the default. But again, I'd recommend Plasma.

Now, why CachyOS? Simply because it has a lot of quality of life aspects available. It's not a "gaming" distro, but it can be right out of the box. It's built for speed, but also convenience in my opinion. Cachy can automatically detect and install the latest Nvidia drivers during the initial install. The "gaming" packages are a single click in their "CachyOS Hello" window on startup. And if you choose GRUB or Limine for your bootloader and BTRFS for your filesystem, you'll have snapshots for recovery automatically setup for you(which saved my butt twice now).

Definitely try out a few distros. Personally I started with Mint and loved it, but I ran into driver issues eventually due to how they do kernel releases. Then tried Ubuntu, Fedora, Manjaro, Endeavor, Debian...all of these never "kept" me because of something breaking or lack of timely driver updates. But I'm on CachyOS now and within a month of trying it I ended up switching all of my Windows machines to it, which I've never done before. I've never gone "full Linux" before, but Cachy pulled me right in. I've thrown it on multiple laptops, a NUC, and a desktop gaming PC and it's "just worked" on all of them.

Ubuntu or anything Ubuntu-based should be smooth sailing. e.g. Linux Mint treated me well when I switched from Windows 7, and I'm still using a heavily modified Ubuntu to this day.

If you don’t need lots of up-to-date gaming support, Mint. The newest games and hardware are more likely to have issues than older. If you’re looking for something approachable and built specifically for gaming, Bazzite. If Bazzite is a bit too strong on the gamer feel and you want something a bit more toned down, I personally use EndeavourOS.

ZorinOS seems like a decent choice.

Mint.

Mint and some Ubuntu flavor such as Kubuntu. These two have the biggest userbase and thus problemsolving via internet search aswell as lots of deb packets come in handy.

Also they are out of the box experience straight from the start and everything just works.

As others have already recommended, Linux Mint. Although I had trouble getting my two monitor set up to work, I couldn't set the Scale for each monitor individually). Or Bazzite, which worked right out of the box for me

I am entry level and mint is so far being nice with me, just that my pc is old so it kinda lags

When I started 3 years ago I was distrohopping almost every week... For gaming on Nvidia+Intel combo - arch Linux distros with kde is where I found peace... Started with endeavouros and now I use cachyos with kde plasma. Both are quite good. I have installed limine+ Snapper and this does system snapshot on each update. Never needed it though and every time I am updating irresponsibly. Gl, install any Linux.

One of us!

Ubuntu based for sure like Linux Mint, ZorinOS or PopOS

but I wouldn't recomnend Ubuntu for their Snap

For the distribution (distro), Ubuntu. There's a chance that you experienced this distro growing up at your school or local library.

For the desktop environment (DE), GNOME is most like Apple OSes, while Cinnamon and KDE Plasma are most like Windows 10.

Cinnamon tends to go better with the Mint distro though, and GNOME is the default DE for Ubuntu. I use KDE Plasma with Ubuntu (Kubuntu) personally and I've enjoyed it.

PopOS

Something modern and immutable (so its harder to break) like KDE-Linux. Otherwise, something like Bazzite which is good for gaming. If you want low resource and flatpak (its the future) built in, ZorinOS.

I don't wanna sound like someone defending Microsoft, but that line was taken out of context. It was originally something like "last one you'll buy" meaning they're giving free upgrades now to future OSes.

...but then again, even under that meaning this is pretty shitty. Most people would rather buy something than have to rent it forever. Especially when the norm is already that they own it. Doubly so when that price is already hidden and baked into the price of the hardware the user is buying. Most folks probably aren't even aware they're "paying" for Windows in some form when they buy a laptop.

(Yes yes nobody owns Windows, they own a license to use it blah blah blah.)

It's sort of funny to me, that original Windows 10 "last OS" thing came from around the time Jetbrains tried to push a subscription model over a purchase model. They ended up going with subscription with a perpetual fall back license which seems to be the best of both. (Once you pay for 12 continuous months, whatever version you had at the start of the 12 months you get a perpetual license for. So if you stop paying the subscription after 15 months, whatever version existed 12 months ago you can use forever.) I can't really see Microsoft doing that though.

It's like complaining about requiring the command line but willing to mess with regedit, group policies or even powershell to just get Windows to a temporarily usable state (before an update overrides your settings).

I have been getting ever more smug and feeling more vindicated about this decision every day for the past two years.

This is so true. I'm at about twenty years since I switched and Microsoft has done nothing but validate my decision over and over and over since then. I sincerely feel bad for people who still use Windows.

AI is currently massively unprofitable, at some point they’re going to try to make money off it.

They need to make people dependent upon it first, then do the rug pull, and the dependent people will have no choice but to pay.

They're still stuck on that first step, though. Very few people are adopting it to a level where they'll depend on it. Even the ones who do mess around with it are mostly just doing so casually and wouldn't really miss it if it went away.

Some telecom companies are starting to embed AI subscriptions in regular internet+TV service contracts

Subscriptions never get cheaper over time.

Nah, most people are basically NPCs lacking critical thinking and just do and consume whatever their corpo overlords want them to do lol. I mean just look at the amount of people who continue to have dozens of streaming subscriptions although those get worse and expensive by the year. Same with people who every year purchase the new iPhone for 2k dollars or whatever and then only use it for WhatsApp and Instagram and stuff lol.

Ugh. I've never wanted to use Linux and can't afford a Mac, but with this situation, Linux is all I have left. Which I do find annoying but I just can't keep justifying using Windows.

Um, asking for a friend... How much do your nut subscriptions cost?

FUKKIN GOTTEMMMMMMM DAB. ON. IT.

Not only do you get to pay for the hardware to be able to use the software, and then pay for the software to be allowed to use it. When you use the software it siphons various user data off of you to train their AI with, so that you, the valued customer, can also pay for that AI service.

Most POSes are running custom Android ROMs which are super locked down for PCI compliance nowadays; the only apps that are allowed are those provided by the POS company, basically.

The POS industry is lucky that custom ROMs are exempt from the upcoming Google lockdowns or they like other embedded device industries running on Android would be screwed.....

Here's the wiki page for PCI compliance, but the jist is in order for a POS to be able to process payment cards, it has to be crazy locked down for actually valid security purposes.

probably to MACOS, which would be mainstreamed.

They've got plenty of revenue from Azure, Office 365, and other sources. I think what they fail to realize is that all of that is due to the dominance of Windows as a platform. As someone who has to use Azure, I don't think I would, if my company wasn't in the Windows ecosystem. Lots of companies that are locked into Windows still use AWS or Google Cloud instead, because Azure is pretty awful. I can't speak to how it compares to other platforms, but it feels fucking expensive too.

Same for Office, there is no shortage of free/better options for productivity that are merely lacking the close integration Office enjoys with Windows. Once you stop using windows, that benefit very quickly becomes a $140 dollar per user, per year, dead weight.

Oh quite the opposite. A mass adoption of GNU+Linux OSes would be great for consumers / non business users.

Great so now I need both a new motherboard and a new CPU also it can install the operating system and I can then not use the AI features because I don't want them. Especially stupid because I can already use AI if I wanted without having to get an NPU by going on Microsoft's own AI website.

I can't see corporations going for this.

What a joke.

I would say, "to go out of business?" However, Windows is not even their main revenue driver anymore.

I understood quickly increasing hardware requirements when 95 replaced 3.1, 98 replaced 95, 2000/XP replaced 98, or 7 replaced XP, because those new versions brought noticeable usability and quality updates, as well as lots of new media- and game-related features. I'm still unsure in what visible ways 11 is an improvement over 7, and 12 seems to not offer anything interesting compared to 11? Basically a statement of, "we can no longer code efficient software and pull new requirements out of thin air".

The calculator app is now a link to Copilot. You can ask it in natural language to multiply 2 by 3 and it will tell you "West Dakota".

For a recurring fee, it'll work half the time.

"Bitch, it might! Sometimes! Sometimes it might not, sometimes it might do "alternative math", you're telling me you can tell the difference, like you're some kinda math expert?! (oh btw fuck you, forgot to say that part)"

• Satya Nadella, pretty sure

The real question is - is 64GB RAM and a 5090 the minimum system requirements?

The calculator app might have remote code execution vulnerability, so you are better off uninstalling it and asking Copilot instead.

OR!

Hear me out - keeeep gooooing!

You got this M$LOP! Just one more half-baked "fuck you, customers!" release - cmon bro just one more bro, just trust you, bro

It's nice over here.

I've hated Microsoft for as long as I can remember. I refused to ever own an Xbox and only used Windows because I felt I had to. Once I could afford a Mac I never looked back (that was in 2006). I can say that I've blissfully only had to touch a Windows device maybe a dozen times since then.

EDIT: I've since moved over to Linux. I mentioned that elsewhere on this thread. But I didn't want folks thinking I was a Mac fanboy over here trying to act smug like Apple ain't just a few years behind Microslop on this crap.

No good reason to wait.

Gets me everytime

10 IOT has several years of security support, and of not activated you only get the watermark.

Massgrave to activate (haven't done it myself though, I don't care about the watermark)

Big Tech has decreed you will use AI. Stop resisting and follow your masters wishes.

And selling consumer software licenses is dead. And the only way to get any revenue out of consumers these days is to sell their eyeballs to advertisers.

Microslop learned how to sell ads in OS from Goolag. There's no need to sell OS license.

People will buy that. People will take on debt to affort it. Because for most people the PC is an appliance they use to watch Facebook and use Office. They don't want to learn anything more than the bare necessities.

Reviled by tech-savvy users, not suits. They get a lot more money from suits, so we can hang for all they care.

I live here. Yes and yes to both of your assessments.

As an American who used to work in tech, yes.

Not just the tech companies.

To take just one example, our soft drink companies have had South American mercenary hit squads on their payroll.

The only fitting way to convey news about Microslop is to filter it through an LLM first.

tripling down, when you double down again after doubling down.

Their AI capex is too big to fail, that's why Microslop pushing AI so hard into Winslop

Only if you switch to Linux

Maybe when you keep your feature requests reasonable then Microsoft will be willing to consider them.

Pay extra to be allowed to save files locally.

Pay extra for "offline access" to your files.

Various ad-tiers.

Among others.

Modular probably means multiple tiers of AI that you can subscribe to.

I bought a copy of Visual Basic 3 in 1995 for $50 and that's it for MS products for me.

We all thought it meant 'no more Windows'.

But it actually meant, 'More windows, but AI makes it now.'

Lol no. It means you pay a subscription fee for everything individually. MicroTransactions, only this time they have your files hostage.

Also rumored to require a CPU with a npu 😂

If AI was actually good, I could see it being particularly useful for a file search.

Where you could type, "Hey, um, find me that one expense report file from a few years ago, the one that shows expenses of both companies together" and it would actually be able to 'understand' what file you were looking for and go find it.

But I'm sure if you type that into Microslop's AI search bar, it will respond by launching Edge to search Bing for '10 most expensive companies'.

What’s so bad about homosexuality?

Don’t reduce gay people to the level of Microsoft.

No. Modular payment methods you can assign for your daily usage fees.

Unfortunately you can't remove AI from Winslop 12

Unfortunately, these are the only bright sides to this new OS. Microsoft’s Copilot, the AI assistant the company has been aggressively injecting across the ecosystem, will now be a core part of the next Windows iteration rather than a supplementary feature.

Some parts of the OS might also be locked away behind a subscription model that are expected to be “advanced AI services”, etc.

I'm saying they go back to the Win8 Metro touchscreen UI thing. With a Windows ME kernel.

There was a Microsoft engineer who once said (on twitter maybe?) that Windows 10 would be the last version ever and it would simply be updated again and again, and even though that one employee is the only source, the Internet took it as gospel. After Windows 11 came out, the story shifted to Windows 11 being the last version ever.

I mean Linux can run command line mode only, most server variants do this :p