Weird hill to die on perhaps but I’ll never forgive Microsoft for arbitrarily deciding not to support my 4Ghz i7 6700K CPU on Windows 11. It’s perfectly technically capable, they just decided I hadn’t spent enough money lately. Well now I won’t on your products, ever again.
I’m in a similar boat. My computer meets all of the other requirements like TPM and whatnot, yet they are arbitrarily deciding that my processor is too old. And for some reason you can walk into your local computer store and buy a laptop with the shittiest processor and other specs possible that somehow runs Windows 11. Just because the processor on the new shitbox was manufactured more recently. Ridiculous.
assuming you use steam, see which of your favorite games run with proton compatability layer and which absolutely require windows. You may be suprised.
I run everything on steam with proton that I did on my windows PC, nothing was left behind. If you ‘add a game’ from outside steam, you can run the installer and then change the game location to the executable. Ubuntu or Ubuntu mate are what I install on everything. Recommend.
WINE works surprisingly well too. I’ve seen people talk about gaming on Linux using Lutris or launching it through Steam as a “Non-Stean game” but I just put my files in my WINE directory and have better success.
It boils down the CPU microarchitecture
6700k is 64 bit.
They mean the x86-64-v1, x86-64-v2 stuff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64#Microarchitecture_levels
I figured it was related to the hardware architecture, but I’m curious if this is for security reasons (potential exploits that the OS can’t resolve) and/or just a support bandwidth concerns managing 2 OS code bases (on top of the obvious revenue from new licenses).
If the hardware security isn’t the issue, then switching to Linux is a good money saving choice for those that are tech savvy.
In the same boat with the same CPU. The beast is running Cyberpunk 2077 fairly well at 1440p with a DLSS/ray tracing card but it can’t run Windows 11 🙄🙄🙄
Gaming is great on Linux nowadays btw. I installed Fedora a few weeks ago and haven’t had a single problem with any of my games - I’m getting better framerates, too.
Any reason you went with fedora? I’ve been partial to fedora for a decade, but last I knew it wasn’t recommended for a daily driver given the upstream fuckery from redhat.
Asking cuz I’m about two weeks from kicking win10 in the dick and moving to alma or something.
I’m actually using Nobara, but it’s not very popular so I just say Fedora in day-to-day conversation. From my understanding, Fedora-based distros play better with Nvidia GPUs.
Best of luck to you my friend. Like I said, fedora was my go-to for years, and I regularly fought against the Nvidia drivers and kept going back to windows.
I’m running AMD now, so I’m hoping my experience is better than it was when I was using nvidia
I’m responding to you, but this is more for others to see since you moved to AMD.
I used Nvidia cards for many years on Linux and only recently switched back to AMD. The main issues I ran into with Nvidia were related to driver updates breaking things rather than things not working in general. So, I eventually found that holding Nvidia drivers to versions that worked without issues was the best bet and only updating them on occasion after they had been out for a bit and the consensus was that they weren’t breaking stuff.
Just to make things easier on others (or myself of the amd drivers have similar issues), how would one go about holding the driver at a specific version?
I’m on a Debian based distro, but it is super simple. To hold a driver, or any package to a version just use “sudo aptitude hold <name or package here>” to undo this at any point just use “sudo aptitude unhold <name or package here>”. If you use the GUI package manager, there is a “Lock Version” option in a menu that does it.
If you’re on a Redhat based distro, Federa et al, I believe the keyword is “versionlock” for yum or dnf, but I would definitely recommend looking at a reference for the command before blinding following me on that one.
If you’re into gaming, Bazzite is based on Fedora (SilverBlue, so immutable), and it works amazingly for gaming and everything else.
It was my first experience with anything Fedora after coming from Arch, and I have to say that I’m pleased.
Everyone should use the most polished, solid and up to date distros. Opensuse and Fedora. There is no fucked up. Fedora is a serious project that Red hat uses to base their distro on. And Opensuse is German engineering. Serious is not even the correct word here, they are state of art distros.
My GPU runs out of memory if I try to play DRG on linux (fedora), Zerotier and XLink Kai run but won’t connect or plainly don’t work inside the games I’ve tried with, and the mumble server just won’t work (even using the docker) because it seems my motherboard’s network isn’t compatible or something, so if I want to use Linux I’d have to upgrade my pc anyway.
Gaming on Linux has taken huge steps, but I’d hardly call the current state as great, it’s ok and improving, but still requires tinkering and knowledge beyond just turning it on, installing and using… And something might not work because fuck you.
You’re also describing what happens on Windows. Gaming on PC requires some tinkering and knowledge. If you want to turn a machine on, install a game and play it you’ll buy a gaming console.
Regarding Mumble, Zerotier and XLink Kai, sorry to read that. Hopefully there’ll be something in their docs that help you or other alternatives you can switch to. Deep Rock Galactic can be a bit of a resource hog, but there’s probably a solution for that too. Have you used the latest community recommendations on it’s ProtonDB page? https://www.protondb.com/app/548430?device=pc
You’re also describing what happens on Windows. Gaming on PC requires some tinkering and knowledge. If you want to turn a machine on, install a game and play it you’ll buy a gaming console.
Regarding Mumble, Zerotier and XLink Kai, sorry to read that. Hopefully there’ll be something in their docs that help you or other alternatives you can switch to. Deep Rock Galactic can be a bit of a resource hog, but there’s probably a solution for that too. Have you used the latest community recommendations on it’s ProtonDB page? https://www.protondb.com/app/548430?device=pc
Any good step by step explainers nowadays? Been over a decade sinceI set my last Linux machine up for a friend, and have been thinking about trying one for a Jellyfish server.
Knowing that my gaming PC could get a few extra frames might intrruige me into performing the upgrade there too if the jellyfish machine goes well.
Most distros have a great getting started guide.
If you have an Nvidia card, make sure you’re looking at distros with Nvidia support and are using the correct installer version for Nvidia support. Some have both supported in the distro and require Grub modifications and I’d recommend avoiding those if you’re not comfortable doing that.
Some great distros to look into with above in mind:
PopOS Ubuntu Mint Fedora
As much as I thing it’s a great distro, and abstracts away a lot of the difficulties, Garuda Linux, should probabaly be avoid until you’re more comfortable with Linux due to its Arch roots (even if the docs are robust, they dive deep on tech concepts and require tons of requisite knowledge).
I can help you through a fedora install, I just did it for the first two times myself. If you want to dual boot, it’s easiest to have windows set up first too, so you’re in good shape for that
Might take you up on that in a couple of months if I don’t feel like destroying the old gaming PC hahaha
That’s what’s nice about dual booting! You can add a hard drive and use both! Easy to set up so you can choose to launch windows or Linux when it boots up! Gives you the opportunity to play around and get a feel for it without giving up your tried and tested setup!
I have that same issue. My older laptop barely misses the cutoff, even though everything meets the requirements except the cpu. I have a newer laptop with Win11, and the old one runs circles around it. It’s faster and has way more RAM, yet somehow won’t run 11? I’m going to keep it and just run Linux instead. I’ll use the crappy Win11 lappy just for MS office and keeping papers from blowing off my desk.
I’ll use the crappy Win11 lappy just for MS office
LibreOffice works very well. I use it often in a company that uses Office exclusively, and I’ve never had a compatibility issue.
I use power query and so far haven’t found a replacement that works in Linux. Otherwise I would drop MS office altogether.
I upgraded to Windows 11 it’s not that bad.
Bro, my win11 family gaming machine can’t even properly display the game icons or open the file explorer
I just installed Mint instead.
end of support for windows 10
beginning of support for linux mint
Windows 11 is the most secure Windows ever built
They’ve been saying that about every single one since that notoriously insecure one. ME, I think?
Also, I’m pretty sure that Tiny11 or the like is more secure if you consider data privacy important, since a lot of the privacy issues of Windows 11 are coming from the unnecessary parts of Windows itself…
I mean, one would hope that whenever there is a new version it’s more secure than the last one. Not that it’s true, but that’s how it should be, so nothing weird about the claim.
that’s how it should be, so nothing weird about the claim.
As long as you consider every claim Microsoft makes to be either a lie or inherently unprovable until the opposite is proven, that is. Which you should tbh.
most secure windows.jpg
I mean, Tiny11 both is and isn’t Windows, depending on whether you count “Windows 11 with everything but the bare essentials optional” as “Windows” 🤷
something something windows ltsc versions
I just lost out on the sale of two Lenovo P51 thinkpads because the CPU has been literally arbitrarily cut off. 32gb ddr4 2400mhz, quad core xeon, Nvidia GPU w/ 4gb gddr5, 512gb SSD. Because Microsoft decided to leave it off of a spreadsheet. Fuck this company….
What a coincidende, the end of my support for windows is also approaching.
jk I srubbed that shit from my personal devices years ago after graduating.
I’m getting annoyed with windows… I have a small laptop I like to use for streaming, and the stupid updates keep on maxing out the drive space… It is 32gb, and i can’t get it to download the updates on an external drive. I wish they’d have an option to turn off automatic updates, and just let me do a single click and download the updates manually to an external drive so i can have a usable goddamn computer.
Microsoft claimed that Windows is compatible with 32gb drives but that’s not actually true. Those will get automatically filled by winsxs updates within a few hours. It’s impossibile to use one of those windows mini PC with a 32gb emmc unless you exclusively use it offline for typing with a word processor.
All those $100 32gb emmc “computers” available on Amazon are just “direct to landfill” ewaste
I have the exact same problem. I’ve maxed out my hardrive and every week or so it complains that there’s no storage space and I’m like, I HAVEN’T DOWNLOADED OR INSTALLED ANYTHING IN MONTHS, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS YOU SHITTY OS! So I delete some stuff so it will continue to operate, maybe free up 1 or 2gb, and then a few weeks later it’s full again.
There also isn’t space to install Windows 11 😑 I only use it for DJing and I’m not sure you can run Rekordbox on Linux but I need to find out.
For those who is not quite ready for Linux and don’t want to be left behind, you have options.
Do a search for Tiny11. It’s super lightweight and you can set what you want to share with MSFT.
Old machines can run as well.
This is just replacing one unsupported OS with another?
unsupported by microsoft
I would highly avoid getting Windows from anywhere but Microsoft. That’s just asking for trouble.
Instead install Windows 11 Pro and then go though and remove the unnecessary apps. Then use group policy to tweak the system in a way you are happy with. You can do everything from disabling Bing search in start to preventing full screen popups from Edge.
Some of us have older processors that is more powerful than some current gen processors yet Microsoft decided that it’s too old and won’t let you install it.
Tiny11 is a community driven OS. I have been using it for years and has never given me any problems. If your computer is not able to legitimately upgrade to Win11, you can either spend money to buy a newer computer or install Tiny11.
Tiny11 creates a massive security problem since they disable a bunch of critical security features and fixes in the name of performance. Also Windows isn’t community driven and it will never be.
i like how you made up a quote from the post.
Throw it away.
Gently
In my direction
Time to encourage people to switch to Linux instead
If Linux had more support for games I would
When’s the last time you tried?
I’ve been gaming on bazzite and haven’t found a game that doesn’t work. Haven’t had to touch a command line or anything, everything has been stable out of the box
How about Valorant? Its basically the only game (+ rainbow six siege / PUBG potentially, idk if these work) blocking me from switching. I know all my other games will work without issue cause they run on my steam deck as well.
EA’s fancy new kernel level anti-cheat is plaguing battlefield games. Also Rockstar broke GTA:O with their Anti-cheat (even though the Anti-cheat they use supports Linux)
The issue is that the Linux playerbase is so small, but its a self fulfilling prophecy. Players don’t play on Linux cause of the issues and the issues are there cause there are not enough players on Linux.
This simply isn’t true. Fragpunk, a brand new title, works without a single modification on Linux. It takes a negligible amount of effort for the developers, often just a single toggle in the anticheat config.
Depends on the anti-cheat bud
Bazzite runs really badly
Funny because I tried 4 different distros before I found one that would load on my laptop… Bazzite.
I’ve been gaming on Linux for close to two years now. I believe there have been two games that actually caused some issues in getting them to run. But for the most part Proton does everything out of the box. And especially older games work way better than on Windows. There are no problems with compatibility mode or deprecated WinAPI-Calls. It just works.
The only thing I would advise is to install Steam and all your other launchers via Lutris. That will save you some hassle.
Games aren’t much of an issue anymore, it’s the other software that keeps me from switching
Me spending 4 hours last night trying to get a repack to install in lutris for it to crash every 5 mins xD
Oh no! Your pirated game isn’t working properly! Let’s blame the OS!
When did I once “blame the OS”? Just because I am frustrated with not being able to get it running I never once said it was the fault of the OS. In fact the opposite, I care about continuing to use the OS and that is why I spent so long troubleshooting my issue…
It was a sarcastic jab. I don’t agree with software piracy in general, that’s all.
Just play steam games. Then it’s only 90 minutes every other night of troubleshooting
(Mostly satire, proton has gotten incredible. I still have a windows install on my PC for gaming but I honestly don’t know the last time I’ve had an issue on my steam deck)
looks at empty wallet after paying for rent and food for the month :P
Yeh proton is pretty good and I know things are way better than they ever were before but things still aren’t always simple for people with no experience of Linux :)
looks at empty wallet after paying for rent and food for the month :P
continues to choose a paid platform over an arguably-superior free alternative
Hi Hawke, I understand your fustration with needing to troubleshoot things. Steam allows you to import any exe as a ‘non-steam game’ to your library and run it with the proton compatability layer. I sometimes have success getting a GOG game installed by running the install exe through proton or wine. Make sure you are using the most up to date version of lutris many package managers are outdated flatpak will gaurentee its most up to date. Hope it all works out for you
Lol wut, my wallet is empty hence why I’m using repacks and my initial post was about the frustration of getting them to run on Linux… So what are you on about?
Tbh, the only problems I ever had with gaming on Linux was:
- Nvidia driver bullshit
- Couldn’t do multiplayer on one indie game
Gaming on Linux is like 98% of the way there imo. It was overall a good experience, and we’ve got plans to switch the big family gaming computer to Linux when MS starts pushing their live service windows 12 crap
Games with kernal anti-cheats sadly are the main issue still
You’re begging to get hacked by installing that garbage
Ahyes, most sensible answer I’ve gotten on this topic as of yet
glad to help
Nah, the real problem is people willing installing rootkits on their computer because anticheat is somehow very important…
I don’t believe kernal anti-cheats add enough value for the risk they add but I still enjoy the games.
Dude…c’mon now. Check my history. I am NOT a linux defender. I am more along the lines of a linux user mocker. I find the OS to be confusing, but I find the userbase to just be SO…SO mockable. Just making fun of linux brings them out in droves. And it’s so funny to point out how the whole OS is clearly terminal mandated to enjoy the OS. Just say something like that, and you’ll twist somebodies knickers.
That being said, of all the things that are legitimately awful about linux, you chose the GAME SUPPORT??? My god. Steam is THE storefront on PC. They have a vested interest in helping linux’s development, as long as that development goes towards making games work. The steamdeck is literally their financial incentive to make certain that your claim isn’t close to being true.
And sure, you could say you disagree with Steam’s practice of LICENSING you a game. Not selling. There is a difference. I get it. That is something that is in itself a problem, but that also doesn’t relate to your issue. Because even if you stayed on Windows, you’d still have to buy from Steam. They’re just as dominant on Windows, as they are on linux.
So, you COULD buy from GOG. The issue is, they specialize in retro games. So, their library may have massive gigantic gaps in titles. But again, this would also be true on Windows.
So…yeah, I don’t know how you would defend linux game support being lackluster.
I actually agree with most of what you’re saying but you could at least pretend to sound less insane.
I had to check which comment you were referencing. I thought it was going to be the one where I said how hot it would be if Taylor Swift wore a strap-on, and made Mr Feenie (the teacher from boy meets world) her bitch. But about linux gaming? Me? Insane sounding? :O
username checks out.
I don’t like how you worded this because you overlook the fact that games with a kernal anti-cheat don’t work on Linux. This is the only reason I haven’t switched over yet. The only arguments people make is “just play other games” which is not helpful at all and suggesting dual booting which I’d have to do what? Daily? Maybe twice a day? Whats the use of having Linux then?
which game?
Valorant
ew
no, i’m kidding. that one’s completely on riot, their other games worked fine on linux until they turned that feature off. it’s shitty behaviour and they’re basically the only ones doing it.
100% its just riot being an ahole but its still the reason I’m not switching
Unless you use something other than iOS or Android, you’re also a *nix user. Have fun lol
What games don’t work?
Most of the time, the issue is the drm on games or anticheat.
Check out distros like Pop!_OS or Nobara. Linux gaming has come a long way recently due to Valve going all in on linux for the Steam Deck. Frankly even just the standard mainline distros aren’t terrible for gaming these days tbh.
If yoy have a fairly recent gpu, windows games run fine on linux. The exception is games with agressive anti-cheat.
If yoy have a fairly recent gpu, windows games run fine on linux.
I’ve been using my nearly 8-year-old GPU (an AMD Vega 56) in Linux just fine for nearly 8 years (i.e., since the day I bought it). Even in the first few years, before Proton existed, I had been playing Windows games on it using plain old WINE via PlayOnLinux.
The even older GPU I used to use before that (an AMD Radeon R7 260X) is still installed in my Linux home server, and I would expect to be able to play Windows games on it just fine too (at least in terms of compatibility, if not raw performance of decade-plus-old hardware).
All that is to say, I’m confused about what you mean by “fairly recent.”
Isn’t that counter to telling people to switch because their computer is too old for win 11?
Everyone should try it out by all means. I’d like everyone to use linux. All I’m conveying is my own experience. If you have an ancient GPU, and things are seemingly running fine on windows, you might yet find that it does not run fine on linux. I guess I should have emphasised that I am refering to hardware from a decade ago.
Yes but it more “the manufacturer decided not to pay us to test it” rather than “it actually won’t work”
Ironically SteamOS is based on Arch Linux lol
I’m not a huge gamer myself but the handful of games I do like to play every now and then all run on Linux.
Real, Valorant is the only game really keeping me from Linux at this point. Steam with proton has really improved linux gaming
I can’t get the more elaborate functions of my common Logitech mouse to work properly. And Linux systems like to cause my computer to periodically hang for some reason. In Windows, it used to BSOD, and I managed to fix the issue in Windows but it seems impossible for me to fix in Linux because of how vague of an issue it is.
As much as I dislike Windows, it’s incredibly uncommon for it to blue screen unless there’s some kind of hardware fault. And if it’s happening in Linux too, you’ve got bad/dying hardware.
In Linux, if your system is hanging for a bit then coming back, then it’s probably a drying hard drive.
One thing you can check with is Burn In Test on Windows. It will stress all the individual components and tell you what’s failing.
Like I said, my computer no longer has BSODs in Windows after some settings I changed. I think I just ended up reducing the max percentage of the processor usage or something and it worked great after.
I do remember when I first got the laptop, it was frustrating because it would BSOD with relative frequency. I was very frustrated with the manufacturer…because the laptop would always pass hardware benchmark tests and the BSODs were random, so they refused to look at it under warranty. Errors were always super vague but primarily seemed to point toward the video card. The video card is integrated and not its own dedicated card.
I don’t think I have ever tried that particular set of texts before, though. I tried googling it…is it the one by Pass Mark? If so, I’ll check it out, thanks.
Re: hanging in Linux…no, the system would completely freeze up and never recover until I manually powered down the system. Interestingly, I found some other users stating that they had this issue with Firefox because of some resources issue or something. So I planned to try to switch to Chrome, but got frustrated with the features mouse not being compatible anyway. So I left it at that.
Do you remember what you fixed when you fixed it on the window side? Asking because what you’re describing almost sounds like you have a bad driving it, which would explain why your Linux side would also have a similar problem, IE locking up completely start, if it had the same bad driver and interacted with the hardware the same way causing a similar crash.
Honestly, if it’s fixable in the windows it’s definitely fixable Linux. It just might take a little bit more extra work to figure it out.
Sounds like a bad piece of hardware if it spans OS’s.
Wouldn’t surprise me, but the point was that it’s fixable in Windows but not the Linux distros I have tried.
I’d ask which ones you’ve tried but I can tell you already made up your mind.
So far I’ve tried Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and Pop OS. Although I only briefly tried Pop OS. Didn’t stick around long enough to see if it would have issues as well. There were other issues with that one that I can’t quite remember…I think it was that often the OS would decide not to boot. Something about a weird compatibility issue with the BIOS or something.
Just buy a working mouse, stupid
The basic mouse features work, stupid. It’s the gesture button/features that don’t work, stupid. No one has come up with good support for anything other than basic mouse features on Linux, stupid.
Does anybody know the best way to transfer all my files to Linux? I dabbled in it a bit, but I was a little worried I’d have to reinstall everything, considering I had to make a (relatively small) partition using my unused d drive space
Is there a way to transfer ~2TB worth of steam games, outside of uninstalling then reinstalling them?
It’s probably a non monitored email but I just replied, “I already switched to Linux because of this”
