Only want to run Linux as your primary operating system? If you are good with a slightly more complicated install process and don’t need access to Windows tools (like Outlook, Teams, Word, PowerPoint, etc), you can run Linux on bare metal to access the full potential of your hardware without any overhead from virtualization or emulation.
They know they cannot stop those determined. So they worded some parts to try to make it sound like “it will inconvenience you and Linux is hard” so that people are like “Ok, I will not do it if it is hard”.
You can bypass the network and MS account requirement using a registry entry. Thankfully, they included a handy script that will do it for you, located at C:WindowsSystem32OOBEbypassnro.bat. The easiest way to run it is
Press Shift+F10 during the OOBE. This should bring up Command Prompt.
Type oobebypassnro (no spaces, case insensitive).
The computer should now restart.
Unplug any network cables.
When prompted to connect to a network, you will now see “Not now”. Click it and proceed.
Bonus tips:
When creating a local account, use a short name without spaces, ideally one that won’t doxx you if leaked. I use cnc. You can change the displayed name (but not Users folder name) later. Read more about this in the last paragraph.
Once you’re on the desktop, copy winutil-main.zip you get from this GitHub repo’s ZIP download onto your new PC. You can now eject and use your installation/recovery flash drive to transfer the file, it won’t interfere with its functionality. Follow instructions on the repo’s page for running it.
Uninstall bloat like Spotify; disable telemetry, Microsoft Edge etc. using Winutil’s GUI while you’re still offline.
Only now connect the network cable or Wi-Fi.
Use Winutil to quickly install some handy programs like a web browser, Classic Shell, VS Codium, Notepad++, Git, Krita, GIMP, Steam etc. (your choice) from official repos.
Use Explorer Patcher to restore Explorer’s (mainly taskbar) functionality that got removed after 8.1 (clicked clock shows seconds, semitransparent non-blurring taskbar that can be enabled in Classic Shell).
Bonus trick for installation, which comes in handy before you start OOBE: Unlike Linux, when asked to select partition to install to, you cannot repartition your disk in the GUI. But you can do that from another OS, or even right there: press Shift+F10 to bring up Command Prompt, run diskpart and follow guides online on how to use it. What you want is the following partitions:
At least 120 GiB (122882 “MB”) for Windows (C:, NTFS), more if you want to install modern games, on an SSD
A big round number of GiB for storage (to convert to “MB” (actually MiB), multiply by 1024 and add 2 to avoid Explorer showing an unsatisfying number like 499.99 “GB”) (D:, NTFS) next to the system partition or to an HDD
At least 50 GiB (51202 “MiB”) for installing Linux to later (don’t format), on an SSD
Maybe a backup partition on the HDD?
You can change your username later but not paths like C:UserscncAppDataLocalTemp, spaces in which cause headaches. Also, move Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures and Videos to D: (look up how to do that).
This is about how I go about doing a somewhat clean, safe install of Windows 11. No sus binaries involved. Yes, Linux is better and you should install it on its partition right away; then you can symlink your home folders to D:.
Oldest developer trick in the book. Program in a bunch of useless delays everywhere. On the next few updates, slowly remove them and say you are "improving" the system.
This is on an M.2 with a i7-10870H and a 3080M. I installed Windows some days ago on my main Desktop and didn’t have to deal with any of that. It must be a new “feature”.
There’s no such thing as an old crappy m.2. That format is way too new to be called old and crappy. Ide hdds are old and crappy, some sata are old and crappy, m.2 is not even old and certainly not crappy
And neither are old or crappy. Any m.2 format drive does not deserve to be called either. That just reeks of entitlement to consider any m.2 bad, just sounds like a kid that never used anything actually bad
Any modern SATA SSD will still nearly max out the bus in sequential writes, delivering sequential performance ~3x that of a spinning disk and random performance, even for the cheapest of drives, at >100x a disk.
Installing windows is not generally going to be enough to fill the drive write buffer, and even if it does, they’re still going to be comparable to spinning rust. This is a problem that affects low quality (not necessarily cheap) drives, both SATA and NVME.
There are definitely crappy M.2 drives. Drives with no cache, slow nand, slow processors, and awful TBW. They’ll be light years faster than a hard drive, but if they fail in a year then are they not crappy?
Sure there are. It’s several years old and was low spec already then. You know the timeline of m.2 seemingly so you should be aware what old and crappy means in the context of m.2’s age.
When I had to reinstall Windows 11 on a laptop at work with an 11th Gen i7 it took a good 30+ minutes of it faffing about between finishing the setup wizard and reaching the deskfop and when I to installed PopOS on a much older laptop with a 6th Gen i7 it took less than 5 minutes to perform the install
If nobody bashes the negative and half assed aspects of Windows then Microsoft will start getting lazy.
Windows isn’t the the only thing that gets criticized, we also criticize various Linux projects.
Even some Windows users critize Windows too.
Chosing to outright dismiss criticism is a bad thing that only serves to hamper growth.
I am not an audio expert by any means. I am a gamer though and haven’t noticed any issue with audio on Linux in any distro I’ve tried in the past 2 years.
Every linux distro I’ve used, and every device I’ve used them on, I’ve had to do hours, sometimes days of googling and editing config files just to get the audio to work right. Then half the time I update and it’s broken again.
I’m a major linux newbie though. Not in terms of actually being new, but in terms of having no clue how to fix basic things.
I have to agree, I have not had any of the infamous desktop audio issues in the decade or so I’ve been running Linux on things. I’ve had plenty of wake from sleep issues and plenty of other issues which are definitely my fault, but never audio
Which audio stack are you referring to?
Pipewire doesn’t have many issues even in the pro-audio space.
If you’re referring to Jack, PulseAudio, & Alsa, etc. then you have something in common with the Pipewire devs. The entire reason for Pipewire is solve the issues with the other audio stacks.
We tend to criticize these aspects directly to devs because it’s more effective than criticizing it on some random forums.
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