I Can't Upgrade to Windows 11, Now Leave Me Alone
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The frustrations of being unable to upgrade to Windows 11 sparked a lively debate about who truly understands - or disregards - user consent. As one commenter quipped, "software developers don’t understand consent," only to be countered by others who pointed fingers at salespeople and top-down administrative decisions. The discussion revealed a surprising consensus: the problem isn't exclusive to proprietary software, with open-source worlds facing similar issues, and the blame game continued with some arguing that developers are often just following orders. The thread's relevance lies in its timely examination of the complex dynamics between developers, sales teams, and user agency.
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It describes so much
Upgrade, to Linux.
I haven't even tried windows 11 even though my PC is compatible.
Went full Linux and I'm not sure what I was missing at this point that I needed from Windows.
Ran Pop OS (cosmic) which is the new Wayland based one but unfortunately it's still buggy and then I switched to a gaming focused Linux called Bazzite which has been perfect.
Tiny learning curve because it's an "immutable" OS but have everything I need running on it plus everything gaming related works out of the box.
If Linux supported all the games I wanted to play, I would ditch Windows on my home PC.
But Firefox on Ubuntu is not very good. It can expand to fill the whole machine and get killed by the OOM killer. Sometimes during long text input it hangs and has to be killed and restarted. 8 GB isn't enough any more.
It just depends on application compatibility and to a smaller extent driver support, though that shouldn’t be a problem for an older laptop.
It’s become a boring appliance that just works every time. Just they way I want it. I even forgot how to use grub.
I just upgraded my PC’s motherboard, CPU, memory, and video card and used Claude as a build buddy to help me lay out steps to follow. I also used it after installing CachyOS for the second time, but on this new hardware. It had me double checking to make sure I had all the proper drivers set up by running commands, but everything was already setup correctly by CachyOS. It even helped me figure out that I had a fan wire half plugged in, which was causing a fan not to throttle. I would alternate between Claude Sonnet 4.5 and ChatGPT 5.2. But it’s so much easier and quicker than the old days of sifting through the manuals and forums, if you could get online to a forum that is.
Both Mac and Windows are for suckers.
Linux was designed to run on potatoes and has very little bloat over the years. The UX isn't terribly worse on fairly old hardware.
In windows, the bloat is built in by default. You don't get to chose how the start menu works, you get the windows default start menu and you better like the ads in it. It takes work to pull that garbage out.
In linux most stuff is opt in.
The other part of linux is most stuff isn't simply there running in the background by default. Firefox eats a decent amount of memory, but it's not doing that when I don't have my browser open.
Nobody is yelling at you not to remove it, or trying to prevent you from removing it, or obscuring where it is and cross-linking everything to make it harder to remove, but it's still there and requires substantial work to remove, just like in Windows.
This is factually not true.
You should try Haiku, and read about its package virtual file system, Linux in comparison will forever after that look like a bloated hog.
Most people with ad blockers don't realize how unusable the web is for those that don't have ad blockers. I think most would agree this is a poor state that industry incentives have landed us in, and with the web being distributed, it's hard to know how to fix.
Similarly those who use Linux probably don't realize how bad Windows has got recently.
Microsoft has managed to replicate this awful ux problem on a system that they entirely control...
> You do not have a valid subscription for this server. Please visit www.proxmox.com to get a list of available options.
every time I log in.
I haven't recommended Ubuntu to anyone for years but there are still people recommending it because it was great years ago and they don't seem to know it's now lagging other distributions.
I get what the author is trying to say, but...like... obviously?
https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds
> Reproducible builds are only as good as the compiler used to compile them.
Which is so so so much better than "as good as nothing".
Of course every time I run an update, they can install whatever. But that's different from what Windows is doing as I understand it...
https://documentation.ubuntu.com/server/how-to/software/auto...
OTOH the real issue with Ubuntu is snap(d). Snap packages definitely do auto-update. You may want to uninstall the whole snap system - it's (still?) perfectly possible, if a little bit convoluted, due to some infamous snaps like firefox, thunderbird, chromium, or eg. certbot on servers
Or just use Debian or any snap-free fork for the matter.
Edit: fixed
The other OS distributions let you turn it off.
In the case of Ubuntu and Debian, and to a lesser extent RedHat, I trust the developers not to do that because they have a history of not "just pushing whatever".
Also in many cases I actually know these developers, and I can go round and ask them / remonstrate with them / put a brick through their window / other response if required about it.
None of them comes close to what Microsoft is doing. To me, so your comment looks like you do not understand Linux eco-system. Plus IIRC, LFS can now come with compiled binaries.
From my earlier comment to another Windows post:
Windows 11 has transitioned from a standalone tool into a digital storefront that prioritizes recurring revenue through aggressive prompts for Microsoft 365 and OneDrive subscriptions. By mandating cloud-based Microsoft Accounts, the OS effectively anchors your identity to a marketing ID, allowing the company to track behavior and monetize your data. The interface now functions as an advertising platform, injecting "recommended" apps and sponsored content directly into the Start menu and search results. Ultimately, this shift means users are no longer just customers of a product, but recurring assets whose attention and telemetry are sold to sustain Microsoft’s ecosystem and maximize shareholder value.
Windows is what it is because it's really not important to Microsoft to anymore.
This isn't specifically or even unique to Microsoft. In fact, it perfectly explains Windows because this pattern has been repeated so often by so many other companies.
Personally, I think Microsoft's strategy when it comes to Windows is a mistake. There are so many companies that would kill to own a platform (see Meta) and Microsoft has this dominate platform position. It's Windows that is, I believe, responsible for their cloud success. It also makes decent revenue. But they have a cloud CEO and they have cloud success and desktop operating systems are out of fashion.
Microsoft is trying to escape this trap by pivoting to Windows as a subscription service. It will get worse, not better.
Also, even when they are the same, on certain laptops you literally hit the key-rollover problem.
Detached keyboards seem to be more of a wild west, especially when they target multiplatform -- and it's always the stuff they don't document that screws you.
When the Eject key became obsolete, Apple had a perfect opportunity to fix this omission with essentially no effort. NOPE. Meanwhile, everybody else managed to have a proper Delete key on their laptops.
Backspace makes sense if you see the computer as a fancy typewriter.
Delete makes sense if you consider the actions from first principles.
Consider the various forms of deletion (forward, backward, word, file deletion, etc.) Each of these just has a modifier key in Apple's way of thinking. (None, Fn, Option, Cmd) which makes complete sense when viewed against how consistent it is with the whole set of interface design guidelines for Apple software.
The only reason that this doesn't make sense is that it's incompatible with your world view brought from places with different standards. They will never "fix" this as there's just nothing to fix.
Backspace on a typewriter only moved the position (~cursor) back one space. Hence why its symbol is the same as the left arrow key's.
Backwards Delete was a separate additional key, if the typewriter even had one, and its symbol was a cross inside an outlined left-arrow: ⌫. Contemporary Apple keyboard has this symbol on the "Backspace" key in some regions instead of the text "delete".
Apple also had separate Return and Enter symbols on keyboards for a while, which also sounds like typewriter territory but their intended use was a bit different: https://creativepro.com/a-tale-of-two-enter-keys/
The problem is missing functionality. And hiding it behind unmarked, multi-hand hotkey combinations is neither equivalent nor discoverable.
It's just deleting. And that's an absurd assertion for which you've provided no support. You seriously think people Backspace old E-mails away? They Backspace unwanted files away? They Backspace selected areas away in Photoshop? OK.
"I find it much easier to just Fn+Backspace"
Except most people don't find that at all, because it's not marked on the keyboard. And again, you're asserting that a secret, two-keyed, two-handed hotkey is easier than pressing a clearly marked button?
If you watch real users when they're faced with the lack of Delete, they use the arrow keys to move the cursor across the characters they want to delete, and then Backspace them away. Twice as much work. Or they reach for the mouse or trackpad and tediously highlight the characters to delete.
And there is no separate function row on Apple laptops. The Eject key was right above the Backspace key... easily reachable.
You've provided zero evidence that the Del key is used with any appreciable frequency at all. And the fact that Apple doesn't even bother to include one strongly suggests it's rarely used. You're literally the first person I've ever heard even complain about it.
> You seriously think people Backspace old E-mails away? They Backspace unwanted files away? They Backspace selected areas away in Photoshop? OK.
Um, yes? If you insist on calling it Backspace, that's the key that deletes e-mails in Mail.app, that deletes files in Finder (with Cmd), and that deletes the selected area in Photoshop. At least on a Mac. I mean, it's labeled delete.
> Except most people don't find that at all, because it's not marked on the keyboard.
And most people don't need to, because they never use it anyways, even when it's a dedicated key wasting spacing on the keyboard.
> And again, you're asserting that a secret, two-keyed, two-handed hotkey is easier than pressing a clearly marked button?
Yes, because the Del position is awkwardly far away and smaller than Backspace. If you find two hands or two keys difficult, are capital letters hard for you?
> And there is no separate function row on Apple laptops.
I don't know what that means? Apple laptops certainly have a function row. And where the Eject key was is where the TouchID button is now. But it's literally one of the two farthest keys on the keyboard. It's not ergonomic to make it something used in regular text editing.
I never said it was. You're the one who pompously declared the opposite. I merely pointed out an easily-verifiable fact: Apple neglects to provide the functionality.
But since you've exposed yourself to statistics-based ridicule now, I'll lazily rely on Google's so-called "AI"-based summary of your absurd position:
"Apple's global PC market share generally hovers around 8% to 10%"
This indicates that 90% of the world's computer-using population apparently DOES find Delete to be a compellingly distinct function from Backspace, and sees fit to include a dedicated key for it on its keyboards.
So you can continue to lash out against the harmless, innocuous inclusion of a useful key that doesn't impede YOUR mode of operation at all, while the vast majority of the computer-using world demonstrates its disagreement with you by including it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I don't know what you're bringing up market share for. The idea that most people buy non-Apple because it has a DEL key is, honestly, absurd. Like INS, it's a vestigial key maintained mainly for backwards compatibilty with legacy enterprise software used by a tiny minority of businesses. Not for everyday use by normal users.
Now, you started this conversation by complaining about the lack of a DEL key, yet you're the one going on about how I'm continuing to "protest and cry"? Wow. You might need to look in the mirror, buddy. You're the one asking for a feature almost nobody uses, and all I'm doing is pointing that out. No, it shouldn't be included on Macs because it's completely and utterly unnecessary.
Says the guy who declared, without evidence, that "Not many people use forward-deleting."
And who, after complaining about my digging-up of statistics, doubles down by crowing about "a feature almost nobody uses," again without any evidence.
See, when rebutting an argument, you gain credibility if you at least make an effort to back up your assertion with facts. It's a fun and useful exercise, because everybody learns something... if they're willing to.
Meanwhile, your comments provide an amusing clinic on hypocrisy.
Not sure Windows as a subscription service is the end goal though. But maybe we should all wish for M$ to do that, maybe that would be what's needed to finally bring about the Year of The Linux Desktop™.
Open source drivers, and a sense that Linux support will forever be top priority, would be a motivator for me. Most of my tech spend has been with Valve in the past few years. I'd love if there was another company I actually enjoy giving my money to.
This allows Microsoft to protect parts of their software even from the user that owns the hardware it's running on. With TPM enabled you finally give up the last bit of control you had over the software running on your hardware.
For example - it's not possible to protect SSH keys from malware that achieves root without hardware storage. Only hardware storage can offer the "Unplug It" guarantee - that unplugging a compromised machine ends the compromise.
Do new computers have such a button? I've failed to locate it.
As a bonus, it prevents those pesky Windows API compatibility tools like Wine from working if the application is designed to expect signed and trusted Windows.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Linux-gaming-growth-SteamOS-sh...
Going back to my Windows install every now and then to do things feels uncomfortable. Almost like I'm sullying myself! The extent of Microsoft's intrusiveness kind of makes it feel like entering a poorly maintained public space...at least compared to my linux install.
I'm not sure that the majority of people feel this way about Windows 11. They just put up with it in the same way as they do YouTube ads, web browsing without ublock origin, social media dark patterns etc. But certainly, never been a better time I think to move to linux for my kind of user, i.e. the only mildly technologically adept.
But by saying 'For home users they literally have 0 lock in now days other than familiarity.' I think you severely underestimate how powerful familiarity is in anchoring non-tech users to particular platforms. However dysfunctional they can be.
As I mentioned, I moved to linux myself earlier this year. But the first time I tried it was probably around 2004. And I've dipped in and out occasionally but not stuck with it until this year, when I've found it to be a significant improvement on the Windows alternative.
Microsofts own creation presents a real opportunity for an uptake in linux adoption. But I do think it still presents sufficient friction and unfamiliarity for average non-tech users to take on. The only significant issue I had with your initial comment was with your reference to a 'mass' exodus, even if it is confined to the gaming community.
Happy to be proven wrong of course. And perhaps to the annoyance of my friends, willing to help anyone I know interested with a linux install.
But looking forward to the Dec 2025 steam survey. Looking forward to the tiny contribution my little install will make to the linux numbers!
What familiarity? Microsoft has changed the look and feel of the OS to the point that it no longer retains that familiarity from version to version.
There are a lot of Steam gamers with 5 games in their library who log on once a month. There are a few Steam gamers with 5000 games in their library who are permanently logged in. There's folks who play one game obsessively, and folks who tinker around with many games.
I'm willing to bet that the 3% are the kind of people who buy a lot of games.
I'd love to see that "what percentage of games have been bought by people on which platform?" metric. I think it'd be a lot more than 3% on Linux, even if you count Steam Deck as a separate platform.
I think SteamOS being available for PC and promoted by Valve could be a game changer. It provides a trusted and familiar pathway for a different way of doing things. But while it would perhaps reduce Windows installs, I can't see it help grow a user base of DIY linux tinkerers, if that is of any importance. I can kind of see it being a bit like Android makes the majority of phone users linux users, but not entirely sure what that means for linux desktop.
I think SteamOS's desktop mode will get used more as people discover it. I was kinda impressed that I could just switch out to a desktop on my Steam Deck, and then used it to play videos while travelling.
The whole "it's better than a console at being a PC, and better than a PC at being a console" thing. It'll be interesting to see if it takes off.
Being in kernel mode does give the rogue software more power, but the threat model is all wrong. If you're against kernel anti-cheat you should be against all anti-cheat. At the end of the day you have to chose to trust the software author no matter where the code runs.
Yep. And you got what you've paid for.
Look at it. This is "pro" now.
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