I've been Linux only for around 15 years personally, but I don't push it on others.
A few weeks ago I told the company our few Windows machines are going to be sunset-ted. No push back (other than a request to have one for the odd thing - but will do that in a VM. Even the devs who have always been on Windows are up for it.
At home my kids use computers for playing and making games. Windows was the path of least resistance. I realized it'll make essentially no difference to them to switch to Linux. And boy do kids adapt quickly.
So thanks MS, sincerely. I've never both worked and lived completely Windows free, but your encouragement to drop Windows has made me realize how painless it is, and I should have done it years ago.
Edit: One guy is on mac. And always will be. No issue there IMHO
Tangentially, i find it amusing when people say they would be ok to switch to linux but not mac. It’s a valid preference, of course. The amusing part is how they justify it. Most of the time, it’s not the hardware that scares them away. Nope, it’s the software. Specifically, they believe mac has no CLI, no tools, no way to install your own software without paying apple, no open source stuff, none of that! You would think people working in IT should know about the origins of mac os, but i guess apple did too good of a job marketing their mac os devices to “content creators”.
What about people who need to use creative tools? There is Blender and Davinci Resolve, which are great. But GIMP is just not a match for Affinity. And what about apps like Ableton?
I wish I could make the full switch, but it's just not possible at the moment.
> What about people who need to use creative tools?
Then for them a bad tool is still the best tool for the job of those available.
OP did say they don't push Linux on others. If you have a specific need that ties you to Windows (due to platform incompatibility that you have no power to change) then you use Windows.
No point the rest of us sticking with Windows if we want to move and don't have reason not to though.
> But GIMP is just not a match for Affinity.
The fact a piece of software is not considered exactly as good as another one doesn't need the work cannot be done.
What is important is the outcome, not the tool. We were editing pictures at the beginning of the century on Photoshop 6 or something when it was not nearly as good as 2025's Gimp or Affinity of 5 years ago.
> And what about apps like Ableton?
Bitwig, Reaper and Waveform are available on Linux as well as Ardour, Renoise, Mixbus, Zrythm and a few others. Ableton is ome of the most popular DAW with Logic but there is not a situation in the music industry where a particular tool/format/protocol forces a monoculture.
It's not just the features, but also the UX itself.
GIMP feels clunky and the UI is not as good. I haven't tried out the Photoshop mod. Apparently it matches all the keyboard shortcuts.
Many who tried to switch are complaining about how unintuitive it is. I know you can just try to get used to the different workflows, but unless the UX issues are addressed you won't see professionals making the switch.
Blender managed to completely overhaul their UI and it's now being used to create Oscar winning animated feature films.
I used Photoshop in the past and I think the UX complains are overly exaggerated and mostly come down to resistance to change. Most of the complains come from people who never used Gimp or only tried it for a couple of tried minutes. These people have lost every right to complain about windows really.
Because the same thing happens to me when I am asked to do anything in Microsoft Excel. I am using MS Office so infrequently that it is super unintuitive for me. It takes me less time to convert the file and edit it in libreoffice then convert it back to xlsx than using Excel.
> What is important is the outcome, not the tool.
Productivity can also matter: if one tool allows you to get outcome X in 2 hours, but with another it takes 6 hours (or 20 vs 60 minutes), that can also be important.
When taking into account productivity, you have to take into account the loss of productivity of using Windows. I know that because I changed job and have recently been asked to work on a windows machine after a decade on Linux and the time lost every day is huge. To the point I am considering looking for a new job and would probably be willing to lower my income in favor of happiness in my day to day use of the tools.
Also you have to separate the professionals, the hobbyists and the vanity users.
The 1st population has very strong productivity requirements.
For the 2nd population the decision comes down to motivation. As a hobbyist I don't care if it takes me a few minutes more to process an image because my livelihood doesn't depend on it and I know how to appreciate the effort made by the volunteers that are building such a useful product and release it both for free and under an opensource license that nobody can pry out of my hands. The same way my more practical to maintain (because external cable routing) road bicycle is a better option for me and I don't need to ride the same aero bike as the Tour de France winner because those couple of watts gained here and here would only makes me reach home 2 minutes earlier without making the activity any more enjoyable.
It is not worth trying to convince the 3rd population, these are the ones who will buy an Ipad Pro instead of the base model only to use it to doom scroll social medias or lookup kitchen recipes. They just want the perceived best of everything and will look down as anything less than a status symbol.
Network effects says that is long-term immaterial; there just needs to be some event that breaks a self-reinforcing cycle.
The reason there is no linux version of Affinity is thus simple: Because there aren't enough linux users to warrant spending the relatively tiny cost it takes to do that. It won't cost much and it won't significantly change Affinity as a product to have a linux release. They just don't bother; not enough paying users.
And why aren't there enough linux users? Because Affinity, for one, doesn't run on it.
That is the self reinforcing cycle that so far kept Windows around as default choice.
But that cycle can be broken. If not through a sudden burst based on some serious hype, then perhaps simply with slow and steady change.
Or through emulation, but then the incentive is more to make the software work well in the emulator, rather than natively.
Then again, maybe we just need to wait longer for the market to catch up. Not many Steam games support Linux natively yet, even though Linux is a close second to Windows for how many games run on it through Proton. I guess developers figure that they don't need to do extra work when Valve will do it for them, but maybe that will change after a portion of the market has migrated to Linux, especially if Valve slows down on the compatibility work.
On the other hand, I migrated from macOS, and chose to stick to Gimp. Its interface is the worst I’ve seen, but with PhotoGIMP it’s tolerable. Now, when I’m used to it, I don’t care about Affinity or Photoshop to ever come to Linux. I want Gimp to consider rewriting their interface. And maybe to change this idiotic name nobody in the real world thinks is funny. Then it would be quite good product to promote.
Also, I use Pinta for simple tasks. And Krita for something bigger (or more drawing), but I wish it to be Wayland-ready.
What’s the wine and proton compatibility look like for those? You might be surprised, at least for Affinity
Bitwig runs on Linux, and to be honest I feel it's a better workflow than Ableton Live, Live only has M4L as a differentiator.
Which distro do you use with Bitwig?
I read on Reddit that some folks experienced latency issues. But I don't know whether it's to do with Linux in general or just some issues with their config / setup.
There's more than GIMP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krita
2025, the year of Linux on the desktop. :)
Ha, it might be real this time, ironically all thanks to MS!
Probably better by now to just drop windows. Other ecosystems seem fairly mature by now and running the one off windows application when necessary seems to be getting easier all the time.
> fairly mature
That's the part that's hiting me the most. Macos and major linux envs are squarely focused on traditional desktop experience, mouse and keyboard, and I sense a "that should be good enough for everybody" patronizing vibe from the designers of the interfaces.
Gnome did a big effort to better support touch, but that's thousand miles away from what win11 supports and I got the sense they didn't actually try to use it day to day with a Z13 with no keyboard attached for instance (dumb anecdote: tried to vim a config, just to realize the stock virtual keyboard has no escape key)
And I get it, the vast majority of the community probably doesn't give a damn about touch or even actively dispises it.
That just leaves people who found actual benefits to the paradigm stuck in dark corner where fighting win11 has a better ROI than fighting a whole community.
Indeed, leaving Windows behind for the odd application is easy.
With the depreciation of my late 2017 Intel iMac 5k incoming, i however wonder how to ditch macOS for Linux and keep the one odd Mac App I kinda depend on - ideas welcome!
If you’re wondering, the App is MoneyMoney and keeps track of all bank accounts automatically, sorts all spendings into categories etc.
There simply seems to be no equivalent, and running Mac Apps on Linux just doesn’t seem to be a thing yet (at least in a half-viable way I know of, and yes, I at least read about Darling).
Again, if anyone does have a pointer (running macOS virtualized? What’s the status there?) would be much appreciated..
Edit: oh and i fully intend to keep using the iMac, its an i7 with 64GB RAM and the 5k display is still so gorgeous to look at.
Why bother? If you run updates, it'll randomly crap on all your custom settings anyway.
You win, MS. I thought I could keep a Windows box around for the occasional game and as an emergency backup for when I need random peripherals to "just work". I give up. The current Windows box (which I barely use anyway) is my last one.
You upgrade to professional and edit the local group policy settings and this is no longer a problem
Microsoft is user hostile and all but there is a good product in there somewhere
> You upgrade to professional and
It is like the old “Linux is only free if your time is worth nothing”.
Windows only costs what-ever-portion-of-you-new-machine's-price-it-is⁰, if your time, privacy¹, attention², and just your general desire to be given some respect³, are all worth nothing.
I kept Windows on my main home PC when 10 tuned up (I very nearly switched then) because of games & DayJob compatibility, and a side-order of laziness. These days I game very little⁴, DayJob stuff never touches my personal equipment, and panel-beating Windows into being less annoying is much more effort than Linux on the desktop⁵, so that is the way I've gone.
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[0] Very few people buy Windows directly. Standard UK pricing for Win11 Home is £119, but I doubt more than a few people pay close to that much.
[1] Even if you pay for Enterprise licensing, I'd easily believe that without jumping a few hoops there are still potential issues here for the truly concerned.
[2] Adverts on the 'king start menu and elsewhere? Get stuffed. No, I didn't want to consider installing “Keeper of the Golden Bollock”, or whatever that game was that popped up as an option when I was starting keepass on the [day job] laptop the other day…
[3] I consider the pop-ups and other nagging inserts, for adverts and extolling the virtues of CoPilot & other things, that only have “yes” and “maybe later” buttons with no “leave me alone, I know it exists, when/if I want to look at it I'll let you know” option, as signs of disrespect.
[4] That industry has pushed me away with irritations too, and I have significant other hobbies now.
[5] Linux has been my core OS server-side for decades, but aside from my University years and the netbook era that MS killed, I've not used it significantly elsewhere⁶ for long periods.
[6] caveat: I'm counting Android as different enough to be considered something else, more so as the walls around that garden are slowly inching up.
Even upgrading to Pro is not enough to completly remove all the junk in Windows without an unreasonable amount of effort. Enterprise is easier to debloat but that is not as easy to come by for the average user.
Suppose it depends on your definition of unreasonable. People spend a lot more time screwing the linux configurations, it's annoying defaults.
Even LTSC has bloat and telemetry these days. I use it a lot because it's still better than pro and enterprise but it's ridiculous.
My gaming PC was the only one left running Windows. 10 Pro which I paid $200 for just a few years ago. Last time I booted it up, Minecraft wouldn't work, and I couldn't update anything, even the game. Funny, no other games had issues continuing to support Win 10.
I put Arch on it last week and couldn't be happier. My 3080 is working just fine. Rocket League is even better on Proton than native Windows; turns out Java MC is a nice switch from bedrock, and my kid that I play with agrees, so we'll play that version together instead.
I have a tiny partition with unregistered Win 11 just for Roblox now. I tired to put MC on there, in case we wanted to do bedrock once in a while, but now the MC launcher is, for some reason, tightly coupled to the Microsoft Store, and if you're not logged into that, you can't play MC, not even the Java Edition, so that's the end of Windows MC for me.
Roblox is on a flatpak check out org.vinegarhq.Sober
Windows was tolerable up until they introduced their extremely intrusive service that will monitor if the user has disabled Windows updates and then undo the user's settings quietly and without notification, again allowing the updates to occur.
This single feature is almost certain to kill off the use of Windows for any important use cases, like kiosk-type softwares in non-trivial environments. It's impossible to control software updates deterministically.
You forgot about how they have confusing setup screens for each major Windows update. Every one of my and my family’s machines have been swapped from Chrome to Edge. They can’t find their bookmarks, don’t know how things work, and call me to fix it.
They want you to use IOT for kiosk use cases.
Whilst I appreciate you can do this, and some people have programs they need Windows for, I am sick of fighting my OS.
One thing I realised when I switched to desktop Linux was just how quiet it was.
It just sits there until I want to do something. It doesn't try and trick me into changing my default browser, or put adverts in my program launcher, or harvest my data.
It just runs my programs when I ask it to.
I'm tired of fighting my software in general, not just my OS. I only wish it was as easy to "declutter, quiet down, and take the AI out of" my other software as it apparently is to do with Windows. I'm tired of all the pushiness, nudging, pressuring, and coercion. Software products should not be trying to change my behavior.
This is really uncommon outside of bigtech/VC startup companies' products. The only "misbehaving" Linux programs I can name from the top of my head are google chrome and postman (both which I no longer use).
This problem is unfortunately also prevalent in websites and it's even harder to evade.
I installed bare chromium the other day and it reset all of my defaults without asking. Brave asks every single time to be my new default BFF.
Librewolf doesn't ever say a goddamn thing and that's how it should be.
I feel like that also happens on Linux tbh. Gnome has very specific ideas of how everything should be, and anything they let you do through plugins today, they will take away tomorrow.
Of course, you have the option of not using gnome. I myself use xmonad and don't bother with desktop environments anymore.
I think there's a fundamental difference between software with strong opinions and software that fights and tricks you. I definitely use some applications "wrong" but I recognize and accept that's on me. The programs don't really care, but Windows feels like a lawn mower that hates me, or Larry Ellison.
I like Gnome on my Surface Go, because the defaults make sense on a touch interface, but all my other computers are running Xfce.
I changed the panel to mimic OpenSuse (it’s already a preloaded template) and it is perfect for using with a keyboard and mouse with a familiar interface.
If anyone is looking for a desktop environment that does not get in your way, that is the one. Things evolve slowly on Xfce, it is for some of us a feature, not a bug.
I tried Gnome 5 years ago and all we could do is point and laugh at it. I tried it recently with a new framework laptop "official support" and all, still a horrible OOBE and I don't feel like I can trust them.
Hey - I wonder if you might be able to elaborate on this? I'm on gnome and have had by and large a pleasant experience, and now I'm curious what I might be missing out on. What made it feel like a horrible OOBE for you?
GNOME was started by a guy who thought Microsoft was peak software design. Its founding document is called "Let's Make Unix Not Suck" where not sucking basically means being more like Windows. Make of that what you will.
That's OK. That was a different time, that was an effort to attract people, for whom, windows was their baseline. Bringing people in like that was not a wrong decision, many people first experience of non windows was gnome, many of those stuck around.
> GNOME was started by a guy who thought Microsoft was peak software design
It was then, now it's about trying to outapple MacOS in braindead minimalism
How is gnome minimalistic compared to say, a default conf of fvwm, dwm, i3, sway, weston? It has all the things most people need: access to wifi/bluetooth/launcher/a file manager, apps for nearly everything, etc.
Yes it is opinionated and there are stuff you can only configure using gconf or extensions if the default conf is not your preference but minimalistic it isn't.
Anyway I don't really understand the Gnome bashing when there are KDE and at least 6 or 7 other complete desktops availables for the users + millions of windows managers and wayland compositors for those that want a more personalized experience. The fact it is proposed as a default desktop by many distros who aren't forced to choose it is a testament at how sane its defaults are.
It is not like the situation in the windows and macOS where the desktop is almost impossible to customize without breaking stuff[1]
[1] I tried litestep on windows decades ago, it was mostly usable but it only changed the shell, windows were still managed the same terrible way as in vanilla windows.
It's minimalist in the sense that they have decided what you should be allowed to have as a user, and any extensions you rely on to bring back functionality that has been considered basic for 30 years will break with every version.
other environments can start as minimalist, but once you have set them up in the way you want, those features will rarely go away. usually that would be considered a bug/regression, not a feature.
In my experience unless you upgrade on the exact date of the new Gnome release most of those extensions get updated within a month or 2 of the release.
Additionally if non breakage and stability is a must for you the long term support distros such as debian, ubuntu LTS or an rhel derivative such as Almalinux are available.
While obtaining and using newer software was annoying on long term support distros in the past, tools such as flatpak, toolbox and distrobox have made it super easy now so you can run a super stable system+desktop basis that doesn't change in 10 years alongside bleeding edge apps.
It will be hilarious if the thing that finally brings us "the year of Linux on the desktop" is not some killer new advance in Linux UX, but just the implosion of the Windows UX.
Nice guide. One small practical tip I rarely see mentioned: if the setup forces a Microsoft account, just create a fresh throwaway account during install. In my experience it only asked for a name and password, no phone or extra data. Once Windows finishes installing you can immediately disconnect that account and leave it unused, or delete it later if you prefer. No command-line tricks needed, just a quick burner account and you’re done.
Plus: I also recommend running O&O ShutUp10++ (ShutUpWin11) for quick privacy hardening. It’s portable and includes a good default preset that makes Windows less intrusive. From the same developer, O&O AppBuster lets you remove bundled apps that can’t normally be uninstalled. Both are one-time portable tools, and while Windows updates may re-enable some settings or reinstall apps, it’s still a solid baseline to start from.
Or of course, ditch Windows for Ubuntu, Mint, Zorin or other solid distro, but you can't always do that for friends and family without causing issues for them.
In case you want to use Windows, hopefully ReactOS can be improved (one thing would be to make it possible to install; I have been told that it is too difficult to install), so that you can use ReactOS instead of Windows. In case you do not want to use Windows, then hopefully Linux or BSD will do. (There are also other operating systems that people make up, but they are less common; nevertheless some people might like it too.)
It is quite telling that a mainstream portal like Ars Technica is publishing an article on how to de-clutter and de-AI Windows.
On that subject I really miss deep technical publications these days. Anandtech is gone and it was already down the hole when its namesake left for Apple. Ars never was really deep but it seems more shallow these days. Here in Europe we had ix but it stopped publishing in Holland (not sure if it's still in Germany).
I've used Revision [0] which tightly strips Microsoft rubbish out of the OS on my mother's new build. Rather then relying on GitHub PowerShell scripts
I was skeptical at first but after having a phone call with her today and telling me it just works. That made me happy
That is a very opinionated tool - it doesn't just uninstall some bloat, it disables Windows Updates, Windows Defender, memory compression, automatic BitLocker, core parking, switches to dark mode by default, adjusts the time the OS waits to kill apps, adjusts cursor acceleration, etc. (And it has an open issue of "default settings cause overheating during sleep".)
No Windows Updates is the worst part of all that. The rest one can live without.
It comes with Windows Update. It's just paused, you can always resume it manually.
I recommend IoT LTSC
Speaking of cleaning up, as evidenced in the url this is just an article repurposed multiple times earlier this year and a year earlier than that. Thanks Ars.
My windows won't update due to some firmware bug past 23h2, every time I try it just blue screens, even from a disk
Didn't think it would end up being the perfect time to stop taking feature updates and use security updates alone
Microsoft will just cotton onto the workarounds, block them, and force the crudware back in in an update.
The only way to win this game is not to play. Use a different OS. It will hit Microsoft where it hurts.
Although that may hasten Linux's demise, since it is only by Microsoft's good graces that Linux is allowed to run on PCs in the first place. Linux is Zion (The Matrix)—not a true resistance, but controlled opposition that reinfirces dominance. Once it gets too big, the Architect can wipe it and start again.
Is windows even really that important to Microsoft anymore? I get that most people still think of it as the flagship product but isn’t that azure and cloud now?
Then what’s the best option? (Other than to not play)
Windows LTSC.
LTSC is not as good as it used to be. There's no "all telemetry off" button, there's still a Windows store in the latest version. You still can't turn updates off. I guess you can do these things in group policies but it used to be much better in the gui.
Ps yes I'm using the IoT Enterprise LTSC. Not the non IoT
It's true that you can't turn disable software updates without a registry edit, but those updates are purely security patches and nothing else. Although I do believe on principle that users should always be able to control updates, there's really not a lot to complain about here. (And you can control the updates, with a registry edit.)
> there's still a Windows store in the latest version.
There is? Not in mine.
I just double checked, I'm running Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2024, which appears to still be the latest.
I'm running the Win10 version (the latest for that). I will doublecheck, I'm sure I saw the windows store. Mainly running it because my skylake NUC is no longer supported by Win11. And it still works totally fine for programming microcontrollers.
And I do want updates, I just want to decide when to install them. Not that "install before next tuesday or we will do it for you" mafia bullshit.
Everything is moved to Linux, but I still need Windows for the occasional proprietary Office document and tax software, which is available for Mac. I expect Windows 10 malware to be horrific so security risk is unacceptable and I despise Windows 11. I guess I’m buying a MacBook Air.