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.

Is ASAP Linux a variant of Asahi that I’m not hip enough to get?

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.

You can also use wine and other emulators to play games.

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.

Look into bazzite. LTT and Game Foundry have made videos about it too, and they were pleasantly surprised

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

@CallateCoyote @zdhzm2pgp

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.

I use Debian for video games. Haven’t had a problem yet.

Fedora’s like the Windows of Linux.

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.

Slap it into a VM. Name it jail. Call it Windows with bars.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Microsoft has shown over the years they will undo your preferences if they aren’t what they prefer. They are the worst

https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links

It should have little to 0 crap since its the version used by companies

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.

I wish I could just keep upvoting this.

I’ll add, want to see your average person roll their eyes and say “nope”, just tell them they have to manually edit a bunch of config files to get going. How much about your car do you need to know to start your car and get somewhere?

But why even care if some random loser gets fucked by Microsoft? It’s like the religious idiots out there who don’t believe in global warming and hate trans people: you can’t deprogram stupid. It’s like waging a war against bears taking a shit in rivers.

I don’t think this community is a stronghold of linux, as you can see in the comments. We need to start from somewhere.

Yeah,there is one dude in the Linux group here that is just a complete jackass. Half answers your question, and most of it is just telling you a line of code with no other input and basically treating you like an ass hole for even asking. I don’t remember his name, I have him blocked, but absolutely hated seeing Linux posts with this fucking turd each time. Very demeaning and completely ruins the community. I feel like his personality is just trash and he’s always in a “roll your eyes / deep sigh” mood.

I’m halfway competent, spent 10 years in IT and even compiled my own kernel back in the early 2000s.

My last 3 attempts at running Ubuntu turned into complete and utter failures, including having to totally reinstall the system over the top of itself because the system became so corrupted it wouldn’t even boot.

And, I barely got steam to work on it. I wasted hundreds of hours and ended up with a barely functional computer that couldn’t print, didn’t support my computers wifi card, and 90% of my work programs aren’t available.

Oh, and someone please support AMD video cards.

Personally I’m tired of people telling disgruntled Windows users to switch to Linux.

Linux is not your backup plan, it’s not a “Windows alternative”. Yes, there are projects out there that try to make Linux easier for Windows users, and honestly they can fuck right off. Way too many people are trying to dumb down this incredibly powerful operating system to expand the market into the “gamers” and the “grannies who want to browse the web and send e-mail”.

Just… just stop.

@deepfuckingdumb @zdhzm2pgp

A. Fuck Adobe
B. I tend to direct people to Linux Mint. It’s so user friendly and similar to Windows its perfect for the Windows Refugees to start out with. It’s what I installed two months ago after having used Windows since Windows 95.

Linux bros have been told this for literally decades. They’ll never get it. As long as I can’t use my air pods or even the built in fingerprint reader for my laptop, plug and play, I won’t even try making the switch.

Linux is serverware with a barely working GUI and people are still talking about “just switch”.

Microsoft turns things back on all the time though. It doesn’t matter what you set if they can unset it whenever they want.

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.