Actually real, I’m genuinely planning to flash steamOS os my school laptop, sincr I have no need for adobe apps, I usually use web based stuff and the apps I do want are just games id likely be able to run through proton.
You should check out Bazzite. Based on Fedora, works much the same way as SteamOS since its meant as a replacement, and there’s a version for non-Steamdecks. bazzite.gg
Thanks man, I was actually trying tomake a similar implementation on another machine to test out, since I use fedora, but I never knew I could get it out of the box. I’ll try this out on one of my mains since I distro hop occasionally on there to test stuff.
I don’t know what you do or do not know about Linux, but I’d highly recommend using a desktop Linux distribution instead, like Fedora, OpenSUSE, Debian, or Arch. Something with quick releases so you get new performance improvements and bugfixes quickly.
SteamOS in particular is really cool on a handheld, but would be kind of irritating to use on a regular laptop. It’s also immutable, which protects you from fucking up too bad, but also makes certain types to configuration way harder.
I love Arch, but don’t install it unless you want to learn how it works. Archinstall is quick and easy if you aren’t scared of the terminal, but it doesn’t hold your hand at all and you will break something if you don’t read the news or fuck about without knowing what you’re doing.
I got rid of my Surface, bought a FrameWork, and installed PopOS on it. Can’t say I’m any kind of a PC guru, certainly not a Linux expert, but it works awesome. I have zero complaints or regrets.
I’ve been using Linux since 4 years ago, I’ve distro hopped between Ubuntu, OpenSuse, Fedora and others, I’m currently on Fedora and its working well. I’m not too sure how to manually integrate windows apps into the mix, but it sounds it would take time I don’t really have.
ive known of the pitfalls of SteamOS, i fully agree with you on that and i was considering using it as a 2nd or 3rd option. someone actually mentioned me to use Bazzite, basically fedora based steamOS with either KDE or GNOME, and Android apps through Waydroid.
trying to get windows apps working for me at least was quite difficult last year, ill try it out this time and see if its easier, but if its not i may just switch to bazzite or other steamOS like distros.
they’ll probably do a lot of computation ally expensive preprocessing / analysis of your behavior on-device to save costs. They’ll only send home the relevant results of the analysis. So it’s “only very little of the data” - like the important part :-)
Windows 11 is really shooting itself in the foot. Not just the privacy implications of this, but also the CPU and memory usage will surge once again. Why is this important?
I went to an electronics store recently to see the state of brand new laptop performance in 2024. Here’s what I found:
Laptops with 16GB RAM, an SSD, and a good CPU (3K/13K single/multi thread on Passmark) will run Windows 11 smoothly. File manager, task manager takes about a second to open, while the start menu takes around 400ms. It feels like a truck with 350hp.
Laptops with 8GB RAM, an SSD, and a mediocre CPU (2.5K/9K Passmark) will noticably struggle with Windows 11. The file manager takes 3 seconds to open and the start menu takes 1 second, with stutters and hiccups using it. It’ll be usable, but quite slow. It feels like a truck with 100hp.
Laptops with 4GB RAM, eMMC, and a bad CPU (1.5K/4K Passmark) will be brought to its knees by Windows 11. Task manager takes 27 seconds to open! A web browser takes even longer, and loading my light game somehow took 7 seconds (this game loaded in under a second on the better computers) to open. The CPU, RAM, and storage were pinned to 100% most of the time. Completely unacceptable performance, it’s like a truck with 10hp.
And a laptop with the above but with a CPU with a Passmark score of 1K/2.5K was so bad that it couldn’t open literally anything in Windows 11. It’s literally a brick. I cannot believe the store (a giant multinational company) is selling this laptop. It’s like a truck with 5hp that cannot go up a moderate hill.
But now, the store also sold ChromeOS laptops. As much as I hate how locked down ChromeOS was, I was delighted by the performance of it. The worst laptop specs I mentioned (4GB RAM, 64GB eMMC, CPU with 1K/2.5K Passmark score) ran actually quite reasonably on ChromeOS. It opens Chrome in about 3 seconds, and my game in 1 second, with some stutters but no freezes. It struggled with YouTube, but this is due to YouTube’s own bloat, which is like a 1000lb trailer to a bike with 5hp.
In conclusion, Windows is losing due to its incredible bloat. It’ll make every computer–including my friend’s 7900X, 4070, 1TB SSD, 64GB RAM, water-cooled beast–sweat, and will make low-end computers unusable. The super locked down ChromeOS is literally more desirable to me on laptops under $400. Yet Microsoft is still deciding to add even more bloat! No wonder why Linux market share is skyrocketing, because Windows can barely run on their computers!
I know you can disable this, but most non-techy people won’t even know this exists and won’t do anything to disable it, because they just want to browse the web and read emails. But the added bloat by this “feature” will cause them to notice their computers are even slower, and switch away from Windows when they realize they need a $800 Windows laptop to have a smooth OS experience, when they can buy a $250 Chromebook or $1000 Mac with a smooth OS experience.
TL;DR: Microsoft is shooting itself in the foot by adding more bloat to an obese OS, and Windows’s bloat is its biggest liability.
I know you can disable this, but most non-techy people won’t even know this exists and won’t do anything to disable it,
Even if you can, the ones that do that get annoyed once again, as it will likely in windows tradition be randomly reset after an update: “oops, we reframed this feature you previously consciously turned off and thought we’ld give it a spin for you”
“AI Explorer will utilize next-gen neural processing unit (NPU) hardware to process these machine learning and generative AI experiences locally on the device with low latency.”
“The feature is also said to be exclusive to devices powered by Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon X series chips,”
If you actually read Qualcomm’s white paper for their NPU you’d know OPs concerns about windows resource bloat is still a reasonable concern to have at least on the memory side of things.
The memory on their SoC is shared between the CPU, GPU, and critically the NPU. This is so they can save on memory bandwidth since they won’t have to copy the same data potentially three times over. However this also means by adding more AI bloat into windows will also clog up precise memory that could be used elsewhere.
That SoC, the snapdragon elite x supports eight channels of LPDDR5x which means the lowest amount of memory we could see is 16Gb assuming all eight channels used with 2Gb memory packages (which is the smallest size JEDEC allows LPDDR5x).
Is that really going to be enough for everything? In my opinion no because the the GPU will take a chunk, windows will take a chunk, the NPU will take a chunk, and the storage will try to take a chunk for caching if there’s anything left.
TL;DR: You should read the white papers instead of the marketing fluff articles.
All the Windows fanbois must be kicking themselves as of late with Microsoft doing all these Ls, making those switching to MacOS/Linux for a better experience.
Is there such a thing? I’m nearly certain that everyone is using windows as a result of compatibility issues and/or indifference. It’s an oxymoron, like “vanilla enthusiast.”
I’ve seen not so much fanboys but more like enraged children who were unable to make Linux work with their hardware. Just hanging out wanting to start arguments in the comments sections of linuxmemes. They don’t seem to enjoy Windows, they just want to play games on Nvidia cards.
Correct me if I’m wrong, because I’d like to read if Windows has anything comparable to people nerding out about their Linux selfhosted stuff.
switching a while back was best decision ever esp since Windows situation has been rapidly deteriorating. Yes to get most of linux there is a learning curve but once that is down, it is a superior experience most of the time. Privacy and Security is the cherry tho.
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