I'm not in a hurry to switch to Linux, but I think I will, eventually

I'm not in a hurry to switch to Linux, but I think I will, eventually

Here is the thing: I'm not in a hurry to switch to Linux. I have Windows 11 under control. For now.

Once a year I spend an afternoon and I build my own Windows 11 Pro ISO image with NTLite. Another afternoon to do a clean install on my four desktops and one laptop. I got this down to science by now. It runs a fully unattended installation, creates a local account, bypassing all Microsoft requirements and skipping all those annoying questions, and boots straight to already customized, clean desktop, with a custom theme, custom icons and hundreds of tweaks, optimizations and hacks already applied and most settings set to my preferences. All cloud stuff, AI crap, unwanted applications (Edge, OneDrive, Teams, all third party crapware, all gone) and other bloat removed permanently, no re-installs, telemetry removed and blocked.

All settings and configs are backed up and it takes maybe half an hour per PC to set it all up. The longest part is re-synchronizing Nextcloud, but I self-host it on my home LAN, so it's no so bad.

Windows feature updates are blocked for two years, so there won't be any nasty surprises, I only get security patches and Defender updates and definitions and I install them manually, once a week, there are no forced updates of any kind.

People look at my screen and ask me if it's Linux, it's so different from vanilla Windows 11, all custom stuff with Windows 10 like Explorer (which doesn't have the lag problem like the default Windows Explorer:

Calm, custom goofy-floating (the float is optional) Start Menu and Task Bar with no crapware, no spam and no ads (StartAllBack):

And it can stay worry-free this way for two years, but I usually build a new one once a year. I don't need to worry about system updates breaking stuff or changing settings. It's perfectly stable and as fast as it can be expected from the hardware. I only update the graphics drivers and individual applications.Since updating graphics drivers doesn't require a reboot and sleep works properly on Windows, unlike on Linux, my Windows desktop can stay up for months, unless I trip the breakers, need to do something with the BIOS, or just shut them down if not needed for a while. Other than that my custom Windows build requires no attention until the next build.

Man, I can't imagine what would happen to Linux if Microsoft had a sudden change of heart and released the mythical open source Windows Core at very low cost? Windows Core is an imaginary product that features the base Windows OS without all the apps, bloat, ads and telemetry. It boots to under 1GB of RAM, runs fast and smooth and costs $10 :) Hell, I managed to make a Windows 11 "server build" that boots to around 1.2 GB of RAM with fewer than 60 tasks running yet everything needed for base operation works. There is shitload of bloat in Windows! Linux would become irrelevant as a desktop OS overnight.

Wake up!

But this is all going to end, or become too difficult to be practical or worthwhile, most likely in the next 2-3 years. It gets more difficult to customize Windows with every annual update. Microsoft is going all in with their cloud bloat and forced AI garbage and there are rumors of Windows subscriptions. So, I'm sure Windows will become unusable to me as a lot of that rubbish will be baked into the core of the OS and impossible to rip out without breaking something else in the process.

Honestly, I would prefer to stay on Windows for as long as I can. I don't find Linux desktop that much superior to Windows 11 (with the exception of Plasma customization), nearly all Windows issues and annoyances can be addressed for now. Linux is just a another, different OS, basically a good one, but it comes with its own set of problems and annoyances and the lack of quality desktop software is a huge problem for me and many like me. It's not like switching to Linux will result in some sort of computing nirvana. Far from it.

This is my opinion and I'm quite set in this, I've tried pretty much all major Linux distros, Desktop Environments and all major applications and I have read a massive number of documentation, posts, blogs and articles over the last two years. Nobody can change my mind on this. I'm making an honest disclosure. Windows is a better overall experience for a person who doesn't care about "having fun withe their OS" and just wants to use apps and play games with minimal fuss.

Sure, building a custom Windows installer ISO seems like a lot of complicated work, but NTLite is a GUI app, using plain language and the process is a lot less frustrating and less time consuming than constant tinkering with Linux. Linux is needy unless you just need the bare basics: email and web. NTLite also has a very helpful and friendly community that won't call you a noob, blame you for everything and tell you to read the fucking manual. They will actually help you and presets for NTLite are available too.

Then a lot of what I do with NTLite, can be done post-setup too, once Windows is installed using free utilities such as O&O ShutUp 10++, Chris Titus Windows Utility, WinaeroTweaker and WAUManager. Miscrosoft's own AutoRuns for Windows lets you disable a lot of their own crap even. Doing it this way is not as thorough but it gets rid of most annoyance. Registry tweaks are also easier than typing a long line after a long line of terminal commands. Rufus, a utility used to "burn" Windows ISO to a USB drive lets you create a custom USB installer drive though that bypasses most of the annoying crap during Windows 11 installation:

One other trick is that many of the most useful and permanent tweaks do not work in Windows 11 Home and require Windows 11 Pro. However, licenses for Windows 11 Pro go for as low as $5 on discount sites. I won't argue whether they're legal or not but they exists, I used them several times, Microsoft has not sued them out of existence yet and these Windows keys work just fine and these websites even have better and more responsive customer support than large online vendors. I got a bad key once and I got a quick refund with zero hassle the next day.

Once you have a new Windows 11 Pro key simply enter it in Windows Activation settings and your Home edition becomes Pro edition without having to reinstall. It will download some updates, because software needs to be added, like Group Policy Editor.

- But... buying cheap licenses from shady websites? I don't know, man...

I hear ya, but consider what Microsoft is doing: they take $150 for lame-ass home edition from you, or $250 for Pro, and then they force Microsoft account login on you so they can shove ads and collect your data for fuck knows what purposes just because they're a fucking monopoly. Is that cool? Ten years ago I would not consider buying a shady Windows license, but now I have no qualms. When my Windows 11 Pro de-activated itself after a BIOS update I had no options but to get a new license for $250. Microsoft support was no help. By then Microsoft revoked all my old Windows 7 licenses too. So, I bought a $5 license and started looking at Linux.

Microsoft could and should give Windows for free to consumers and schools and they wouldn't even feel it as vast majority of Windows license sales and other business are in the enterprise, the cloud, the education markets and then OEMs like Dell, Acer, HP, etc.

Wait, they kinda do, actually...

If buying a cheap license this way bothers you then just run Windows 11 for free and entirely legal.

- Um.. what?

What a lot of people don't realize: you can run Windows 11 for free without activation for as long as you want. Microsoft doesn't seem to mind. Windows 11 Pro installation ISO is freely available for download. Install it and simply ignore Windows activation. Everything will work, all software and all hardware will work, Steam will work. The only limitations, right now, imposed on non-activated Windows are: inability to change desktop wallpapers, change icons and colors and you get a nag on the desktop after a month which can also be dismissed but I won't talk about that here.

None of these will prevent you from using Windows otherwise. If you install StartAllBack it comes with some additional tweaks, besides replacing your start menu, like it restores the old school Control Panel in its entirety which gives you the old Personalization Control Panel back, and that allows you to set your own desktop Wallpaper and colors on un-activated Windows.

So, download the free Windows installer ISO from Microsoft, make a custom Windows USB drive with Rufus, ignore activation, debloat and customize with the free utilities I mentioned above and you can enjoy free, debloated, non-intrustive, calm Windows 11 Pro and the process is easier than switching your entire OS to Linux which has problems of its own AND you get to keep and enjoy ALL your favorite software and games.

How long will we be able to do it? Like I said, I think 2-3 years, maybe more if you can live with some of the annoyances. Unless the AI bubble really bursts and Microsoft stops with the idiocy they're perpetuating now.

BTW, macOS doesn't exists as far as I'm concerned. But it's a viable choice if you don't care about privacy much and need something like Adobe or Affinity software, since macOS itself is somewhat less annoying than Windows, but not by much, but it's more cohesive and looks way better. It's another privacy nightmare though, except it's disguised very well by the Apple propaganda machine playing the "good guys". And you have to buy new, expensive and non-upgradable hardware, even if very good quality (Apple laptops are legendary). If you must drop Windows and prefer to keep your hardware then Linux is a much better, if not the only choice. If you've got the cash and want something that just works, then get a Mac.

I will switch to Linux as the last resort then when Microsoft makes it too difficult to customize Windows. Linux servers are great, I love them, but the Linux desktop... not so great. It's fun to tinker with but, as soon as I try to actually do stuff that I normally do, I hit walls and roadblocks everywhere. The main issues are availability and quality of desktop applications and hardware compatibility. Distros themselves are mostly fine. Debian and Fedora are my favorite and I really do like KDE Plasma but I need my applications.

There are some other problems with Linux, like the fragile graphics subsystem where games take the entire system down when they crash. This never happens on Windows as the graphics drivers are a user process that run separate from the kernel. Luckily, games don't crash that often so this is something I'd be willing to live with. Only two out of six audio jacks on my main PC work under Linux and I need three of them. Sound quality is much worse in Linux too and needs a lot of tinkering. There are lots of problems, some are insurmountable, with NVIDIA and Realtek hardware and all my PCs have NVIDIA GPUs and are full of Realtek on-board tech (network, sound, Bluetooth, USB) that works fine in Windows. Oh yeah, Bluetooth is another nightmare on Linux. The newer the hardware, the more problems you will have under Linux.

To learn more about Linux, from a Windows user perspective, read this piece. It's very long but I wrote an extensive intro to Linux, explained a lot of the confusion and covered all pros and cons of Linux in lots of detail.

Sure, whenever you complain about these problems on Linux forums someone will pop in instantly with the "it works fine for me" fallacy and tell you you're doing something wrong. The only thing you did wrong was installing Linux without trying to learn to tame Windows first.

To be clear, I don't love Windows either, I use it because it works and runs my apps. I despise Microsoft though. If I could have the same applications on Linux, that I have on Windows, I would have already switched, a long time ago, as I can work around the hardware related issues to some degree.

But I'd rather deal with Windows annoyances and have access to large selection of high quality, mature and polished software, than limit myself to poor quality and limitations of Linux desktop applications.

Another problem is the Linux community, I wrote more about this here. It's not for the fain of heart!

In the end, I'm familiar enough with Linux so I can use it as my desktop, if I have to; but I'd prefer not to use it, if I don't have too.

I will keep tinkering with Linux then to stay familiar and keep up to date so, when the time comes to ditch Windows, I will be able to do it with minimal friction and delays.

-- Henry Lootgraab