6* months away now. If you're on 10, do you plan to upgrade? Make the jump to Linux?
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I want to move to Linux, but I need to be able to use the VPN service my work uses and I'm just not sure how to get it working on Linux. I should just dual boot.
Without prodding too much into what VPN you work uses
Most VPN solutions run on linux just fine, even Microsoft PPTP VPN solution works fine. I would probably check with your IT department what protocol they use and any connection caveats (like machine certificates used for authentication) and look into the different VPN solutions (some examples; WireGuard and OpenVPN are very well supported, IPSec (libreswan or strongswan are options here) depends on setup, PPTP/L2TP should work with most setups (I have to admin I havn't touched those enough), vpnc works with Cisco base IPsec setups and openconnect works with most SSL VPN connection)
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Anybody tried a steam deck with dock? Gaming and casual desktop should be doable with that.
Steam deck with dock is amazing. I picked up a dock about 6 months ago and have gotten so much use out of it.
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Without prodding too much into what VPN you work uses
Most VPN solutions run on linux just fine, even Microsoft PPTP VPN solution works fine. I would probably check with your IT department what protocol they use and any connection caveats (like machine certificates used for authentication) and look into the different VPN solutions (some examples; WireGuard and OpenVPN are very well supported, IPSec (libreswan or strongswan are options here) depends on setup, PPTP/L2TP should work with most setups (I have to admin I havn't touched those enough), vpnc works with Cisco base IPsec setups and openconnect works with most SSL VPN connection)
It's Watchguard. Though looking at their site, it seems like there might be support that I wasn't able to find last time I looked into this. Definitely want to dual boot at some point. I've got a Surface Book 3 though, and I know it needs special kernel stuff to get working properly, so I'd almost rather just wait until my boss retires and everyone's out of a job to dive into Linux. Easier than finding spare time in my life. Living the dream
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Yea just set up a windows 11 pc for the first time and the experience was basically:
It forces you into making a Microsoft account or log in with one, then it told me mine was locked even though I was able to log in fine elsewhere. I had to use the alternate log in method to get in (I know you can make a local account but I already had one set up for this).
Then it tries to force you to "back up from your old pc" which this was an entirely different system so I'm not even sure why I would want that.
Then it tries to convince you to send them a bunch of telemetry while reminding you that you'll still get ads if you don't, they just won't be targeted towards you.
Then it tries to push microsoft office on you.
Then it needs to do updates which took like 45 minutes.
Then you're finally at the desktop where you get probably half a dozen othe pop ups between windows and the vendor.
Then it's "usable"
By comparison Bazzite took like 20 minutes to get to a usable desktop and isn't nagging me about ads at all. I have a laundry list of things still to figure out but so far way less annoying.
- There is a workaround for installing win 11 with local account, it's still horseshit
- the fact that they think that just because they still show ads it's ok in any way shape or form to collect any personal information is insane
- don't forget they are also trying to screen record 24/7 and then store it in the cloud (yes they store it "locally" in you appdata, that they then decided to sync with OneDrive)
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How are you finding it?
No complaints about Fedora KDE specifically. I've had it on my spare laptop since version 30 or so. Desktop is on 41 now. The only "issues" I've had running this full-time is lack of support for Fidelity Active Trader Pro (which kinda sucks anyway), I haven't been able to make my bluetooth shipping label printer work yet, and I haven't gotten my Logi MX Keys / Master S mouse working as it works in Logi Options (on windows or mac) to switch over to my work mac as intended. Otherwise, I prefer it to other distros I've used.
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it's a death by a thousand cuts situation, more friction to use a local account, less convenience in accessing rarely used settings (most recently I was trying to help someone change a setting located in the advanced power management control panel thing), more pressure to use edge, continuing to shove one-drive down our throats, copilot, implementing features that knowingly make third party tools work significanly less well without proper customization to fix it, weirdness around Multi-Display setups on laptops, the maps app getting worse at giving directions.
So.. in my experience edge runs better than all other browsers with the ability to mute individual tabs without an addon. I disabled copilot. I disabled one drive and use local storage only. All settings can be accessed by just typing what you want in the search bar. If you need advanced settings for anything you just click the button that says "advanced settings"
To me it's fairly simple, but it's all I've ever used. My Mac knowledge is minimal and my Linux knowledge is also minimal, so for me both those OS's are difficult to use and navigate.
I also like the ability to double click something to install it and not have to open a command box and do child coding just to use something.So I get what your saying. If I had Linux only for the last 30 years I would also find windows to be confusing and stupid.
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It's Watchguard. Though looking at their site, it seems like there might be support that I wasn't able to find last time I looked into this. Definitely want to dual boot at some point. I've got a Surface Book 3 though, and I know it needs special kernel stuff to get working properly, so I'd almost rather just wait until my boss retires and everyone's out of a job to dive into Linux. Easier than finding spare time in my life. Living the dream
I have not any experience with WatchGuard, but it from some quick searching around it seems to not be far from the easiest to set up for linux. dual-booting is probably the easier solution.
I hope you find a solution to what sounds like not the best life situation, and may you have an otherwise have a nice Linux journey.
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No complaints about Fedora KDE specifically. I've had it on my spare laptop since version 30 or so. Desktop is on 41 now. The only "issues" I've had running this full-time is lack of support for Fidelity Active Trader Pro (which kinda sucks anyway), I haven't been able to make my bluetooth shipping label printer work yet, and I haven't gotten my Logi MX Keys / Master S mouse working as it works in Logi Options (on windows or mac) to switch over to my work mac as intended. Otherwise, I prefer it to other distros I've used.
Thanks for the feedback - currently weighing up disros (was thinking mint, but a few folks have praised fedora KDE based distros now).
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Depends if your on x11 or Wayland ahk does have a port to x11 scripts do require modification otherwise ydotool is available on Wayland I haven’t done much research into it but appears it can do a lot of what you might want
Hey that’s pretty cool, I happen to be on x11 still but plan to switch to Wayland once Cosmic is in beta.
This is great info, will look into this further. Ty!
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Framework 13 DIY edition. I've been quite happy so far and so has she. Configuring it was trivial and the one issue I ran into (setting up backups) was due to my not being familiar with fedora and KDE. Build quality is good, the bezel was the only part that gave me pause. She doesn't use it a ton so it's likely any minor nagging quirks will take a while to tease out.
Cool, thank you. What's up with the bezel? Flimsy?
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For now, ctt winutil does a pretty good job at removing the cruft. I've long since switched to debian for my daily driver, but as a remote-access sunshine host for games that require kernel level anticheat, it's surprisingly usable.
For anyone looking to keep windows around in some capacity, I strongly recommend it. https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil
I need something automated that I can run on each machine in the domain. I haven't read any of the docs on this utility. Perhaps it has a way to do that.
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- There is a workaround for installing win 11 with local account, it's still horseshit
- the fact that they think that just because they still show ads it's ok in any way shape or form to collect any personal information is insane
- don't forget they are also trying to screen record 24/7 and then store it in the cloud (yes they store it "locally" in you appdata, that they then decided to sync with OneDrive)
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Yea, I had a throwaway account already to use for the login so I didn't bother trying it. They still managed to make it annoying even when I did it their way and agreed it is horseshit.
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Agreed.
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I DID forget about that. Thanks for reminding me I need to figure out how to opt out (assuming it's even possible).
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Autocorrect on my phone always chooses fiancé for some damn reason but I showed her how to update when I set it up for her and she’s been keeping up with it checking once a week and she’s had a couple questions I’ve had to answer but less then when she was just trying to do basic things on windows so it’s been great for me
The thing with autocorrect is that you don't have to accept the correction.
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43% of Steam is still on Windows
10 with support...
Seems not so many.
And if they are ending in 7 month why bother.Just put the lin
e break right, the
n it's understanda
ble. -
Can I ask what distro you're running? Some of the gaming-focused ones like Bazzite still seem to gather some comments about working better with AMD, though it seems like there are some workarounds. I am resolved to leave Microsoft behind completely at the W11 switch so I'm trying to get my bearings!
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The thing with autocorrect is that you don't have to accept the correction.
Yea iOS does it automatically unless you select it I’m just lazy
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I did used to use xfce back in the day, yes. Never had a problem with it, but those were maybe simpler times. Might look into KDE this time, why not.
I was really thinking less of the DE and more along the lines of if you had any recommendations that weren't Ubuntu- or Debian-based, as that's pretty much all I've used I think. But maybe that's too much experimenting...
Yeah, I always hesitate to recommend distros.
There's tons out there and they all exist, because some smart person decided to put in lots of work, as the existing ones didn't match what they wanted.If we exclude Ubuntu/Debian-based, that narrows it down somewhat. The other major distros are:
- Fedora: Rather much tied to the corporate side (Red Hat / IBM), tends to be rather up-to-date. Kind of has a focus on GNOME, but other "Spins" are available.
- Arch: Community-driven, pretty much a DIY distro, so the initial setup is somewhat challenging. It's really up-to-date, so much that it's referred to as "bleeding edge" (rather than cutting edge), meaning you might get faulty updates from time to time. It's also often loved by minimalists, because they can decide for each component, if they want to install it.
- Well, and perhaps the most niche of these – which is what I'm on – openSUSE: Has the best integration of KDE (not by a huge margin, but still). I like it in particular, because of its snapshotting system. It automatically starts snapshotting your OS (not the user files) once per hour or whenever you make changes to the installed packages. If something breaks, you can boot into a previous snapshot from the bootloader and roll things back.
It's the most "maximalist" mainstream distro, in that it preinstalls relatively much software. Personally, I think the other distros are a bit silly with their minimalist tendencies, but yeah, I'm biased. And well, downsides of openSUSE are that it is somewhat niche. You'll find a helpful, tight-knit community, but it's less likely that guides mention how to do things on openSUSE. Similarly, you're less likely to find pre-packaged software for openSUSE. May have to compile from source more often, although SoS has a good amount of software, too.
As for whether a different distro is too much experimenting, if you do jump into it, you'll understand why I talked about the desktop environment instead.
The DE makes a much bigger difference. Some people conflate distro and DE, because certain distros will have certain default DEs.
But if you used the same DE on two distros, honestly the main difference you'd notice is a different package manager. Where Ubuntu Studio and Mint useapt, openSUSE useszypper, Fedora usesdnfand Arch usespacman. They handle somewhat differently, but largely do the same things (i.e. install/update/remove packages).
Obviously, there are more differences to the distros, like how quickly they update and some of the default configuration, like the snapshotting I raved about, but ultimately it's still a Linux system with much of the same software running on both...
