The only SUCCESSFUL AND RELIABLE way I found to prevent Windows 10 from doing this shit was to remove the HDD from my ThinkPad on which I have Linux, then install Windows on SSD, then put back Linux HDD, then in BIOS deprioritise booting SSD, so I can only manually select and boot SSD/Windows when I really want to use it.
This approach means there is only 1 existing OS on my machine – Linux (Debian) – unless I quick select different boot device. There is nothing that can defeat this approach, and is the best one.
Oh my god, this truly was one of the biggest reasons I didn’t use Linux in college. After I built a rig with two SSDs, it felt so much easier to get into Linux.
people who insist on using windows should just run it in a VM, it has suprisingly low overhead these days, you can even game with it if you insist, but i’m hearing wine/proton is getting good enough that it doesn’t even matter
Siege is honestly awful these days (not complaining about the sci-fi ops, reality is lame as shit why not spruce it up a bit) but what they have done to the UI and the queues (bring unranked back please) is honestly unforgivable and makes the game hard to play. (It isn’t all bad, but more bad than good)
You're still stuck when it comes to anti-cheat in multiplayer games. Some do allow it to work on Linux, but a significant number don't. Hopefully the tides slowly start to change thanks to the Steam Deck.
I mean I do that currently and it is okay, but file transfer is still not working. The rest is, and I think it even was pretty much ootb, but the SPICE drivers are a real hassle to get installed, while it could be a one click solution?
(This “insert spice CD” thing has no option to download the driver ISO, right?)
Also windows11 is a bit bloated. Bulk crap uninstaller and ChrisTituses Winutil really help making it less fancy but more performant, or just usable.
But yes, VM is way better than hardware. If your Laptop supports that.
Unfortunately not possible for me. I daily Arch (btw) and hadn’t booted into Windows for months and months until my university professor came along and said “btw, we’re gonna build GUIs using Microsoft Foundation Classes in Visual Studio now, and yes, you have to use Visual Studio on Windows in the exam”. So nope, not uninstalling Windows.
I was wondering if you can do BIOS updates through wine (because obviously they only are supplied as .exes) but it doesn’t sound like something I’d like to try …
Aren't BIOS updates usually done by putting the update file on a flash drive and installing it from the BIOS? I've never heard of updating BIOS from Windows with an executable.
Yeah, some vendors do this, I think the .exe basically unpacks the .bin file then calls some API or something to push it from Windows while it’s running. Probably done for the sake of more casual users who don’t know/want to mess with the actual BIOS UI.
I don’t think so. You just want to pick the right tool for your system. With modern uefi boot systems, systemd-boot is simpler and quicker. There are use cases for grub, such as if you have the kernal outside of an efi partition.
Systemd-boot is my personal preference, boots fast, is unintrusive, and you never have to rebuild anything to make changes.
In the end, everyone is free to use what they want. That’s the beauty of Linux.
After buying a steam deck and seeing how good everything worked I just yeeted my entire bootdrive. Never looked back ever again (Then again I still own a surfacebook so it’s not fully commiting)
Yeah, I’ve been using systemd-boot for over 6 months, close to a year, and I’ve never had issues with Windows. And I’ve been dualbooting a lot. Multiple times, using different windows editions, like AtlasOS, or Windows after Winutil, and my sytem has never broken because of Windows and boatloader shenanigans. And to top it all off, in all of these instances, I had Windows installed AFTER Linux, and the only tbing I had to fix after install is to change the boot order so Systemd-boot takes priority.
Truthfully, I don’t know what the secret sauce is. In my experience: system d boot is very simple and allows us to hook directly into the bootloader without any fuss. GRUB seems to be an operating system of its own and windows knows how to hook into it if you will.
this one i don’t understand im in windows insider beta so i get a lot of frequent updates but i never notice them because windows has gotten good at only doing them when im not on the computer. so ill wake up and they’re already completed
My GF had a Windows laptop until this week and her last straw was three reboots in a row, each with over an hour of waiting for updates on shutdown and startup. She never asked for the updates, and wasn’t asked ifbahe wanted to perform them.
Now her password is required for any updates, and she controls her computer,as it should be.
Too real. I booted up windows last week because I wanted to test something quickly before going to bed… starting it and testing my thing took about 5 mins; but then shutting down took more than half an hour.
If you wanna flash Android phone, or resurrect usb flash, then you’ll NEED windows, I’ve been daily driving Linux for 8 years myself, but sadly, some specific software don’t work under wine and if you run it in virtual machine then you’ll never know what’ll happen, may as well brick device you’re flashing
i am fortunate enough to not need a vm often, but the last time i had to use one, i just didnt bother with win11 and used a win 10 installer image. also i think the xiaomi tool didnt/doesnt work with usb 3.0 so i had to use usb 2.0 drivers in order to flash
Yes, with Xiaomi there are also Linux terminal app and you can flash through adb/fastboot but i was talking about some obscure hardware like speedtrum cpus and others also obscure memory manufacturers when i ressurect usb flash drives or chinese ssd, i am using Xiaomi poco x3 pro 8/256 and Xiaomi redmi note 4 4/64 and alldocube iplay 30 pro 6/128 and ressurect second hand devices as hobby, when looking for rom reviews i check “channel48” this guy reviews new roms on old hardware
That does not sound like trash to me. I can see how those issues with Google connections are problematic for some users, but as the article acknowledges, lineage is primarily targeting people who want to update their old devices. Sounds like degoogling is best done with a different rom is all.
ADB and Fastboot both run natively on Linux. I don’t think I’ve needed other tools since the HP Touchpad days. And that didn’t come with Android in the first place.
Just use some unknown program in binary form downloaded from random site that require adminstration access and God knows what it does, because Windows don’t have an option or config file to change simple thing👌.
The thing that annoys me the most with this is powershell “modules.” Like the most recommended module to use powershell to update windows… just has a raw DLL in its repo
Exactly. I have tried them all before and it is a lot of work and that’s why I opted for this one click solution. Sure, it’s not open source, but I’ve been using it for years, it’s never done something malicious. I’ve also done some RCE on it, and I came to the conclusion that this thing is most probably legit and has no malicious intents.
Have been using it for a while, does nothing malicios, plus I’ve done some RCE on it, as far as I’m aware, there is no malicious code in it.
And I would love to know how I can stop automatic updates in Windows with a config file… cuz… you know, Windows never uses the registry for those kinds of things.
As far as you are aware. Only author knows what code is in it.
It’s basically like giving computer to a random guy on the street for a day as he promise to disable Windows update for you. Maybe he do it, maybe not, for you it worked, would it work for me? Will there be anything additional in the background running after, I don’t know.
But, on the other hand Windows is not open source as well and I have to use it for work or an oddball proogram here and there that just doesn’t run on Wine.
Hell, people also use a lot of closed source code in their Linux installs as well. Let’s strat with drivers and firmware binary blobs, printer drivers (binary blobs as well, depends on manufacturer) and end with NLE software like DaVinci Resolve… we use binary blobs all the time, including our phones, and even though none of us asked for that, but instead was shoved down our throat in order to be able to live in a modern society, no one seems to complain about that… but, when a random stranger suggest using something, oh no, that thing most definitely is something malicious 😒.
Run it in a sandbox for a while, see if it calls home. If it does try to call, block it with a firewall, is that so hard 😒… though I’ve never seen it even try to call home or do something malicious, and as I said, I’ve been using it for years. Also, people use a lot of their products, I have yet to see one complaint regarding any of their products doing something malcious.
There is nothing better out there, trust me, I’ve searched. I would love to use something open source, but short of me writing it myself, there is no better solution at the moment… well, at least not for my needs.
I have a single windows 11 system while everything else is on some form of Linux distro.
That windows system has never been connected to the internet, and it has been great without ever causing any of the typical update issues (although I update applications/components manually over an isolated NAS link).
It’s sad to see that everyday users have gotten habituated to these constant workflow braking updates. No wonder many people I know are jumping to the Apple ecosystem after getting a taste with a M2.
I remember when I went on my lunch break and came back to see my PC part way through upgrading to Windows 10, which I never agreed to. So yeah, Windows update can definitely act bizarrely.
I mean… having updates that suck is not a good solution but for sure do every update please.
Its just excrutiatingly slow, like 5min one time where Fedora Kinoite is more stable, doesnt fuck up other partitions and goes in the background while using the system!
Android (GrapheneOS) is even better with updates in the background and very low CPU usage, one reboot and you are there.
Or just regular mutable Linux distros seperating packages that dont need a reboot from packages that do.
You can delay all other updates with the group policy editor. You can disable preview builds and you and delay quality updates by 30 days and delay feature updates by 365 days. The bugs are always worked out by then.
Feature updates are necessary after a while. There’s SOME important stuff in there. And if you wait a whole year before installing the new one, all the bugs will be fixed by then
For me it was the opposite. I had Ubuntu installed and wanted to do a upgrade to the next release, took around 2 hours “settings things up” where I just said fuck it and force closed it.
My experience with big release distros was like that. I rarely had an upgrade complete without issue. Rolling release has been good to me so far. Granted, this was 10 years ago and things gave probably gotten better since.
I used Manjaro in 2015 for about a year before switching to Arch and sticking with that for a long time. Recently I tried EndeavorOS for a few months, then I switched to Void just to try it.
I like EndeavourOS (Arch based) and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed (or Gecko Linux). But if you prefer sticking with apt based distro Debian Sid is a rolling release.
I think so, but from what I hear it is pretty stable, enough to use. I’d keep backups of important files, but I do that anyway. I use the Branched release myself, but an aquaintance of mine uses rawhide.
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