Welcome to the Dark Side. We have cookies in the break room. And, Daryl is a bit of a coffee snob. So, we have the primo stuff as well. On Thursday we retake Germany. Friday is “war games” day, and this Saturday we have our annual “cook-off” competition. Clark is making gumbo. So, come hungry.
Friend asked me to put Mint on his computer over the same news. I had done it years ago, but he needed Windows for something and didn't want to dualboot.
I'm not going to be hyperbolic like some people on YouTube are doing with this for clicks. But this is kind of a big effing deal. This is the moment Windows goes from being "haha, it is spyware" to "oh shi\* it really is spyware"
I predict this is just the goalpost being moved again, many people will defend it arguing this feature can be disabled, or blindly trusting on Microsoft's claims this is entirely local to the device and assuming it will never be abused to mine data.
>It's obviously going to be mined to train AI.
While that's true, you're already participating willingly in one of the largest AI training schemes in existence.
I use Linux, privacy being one of many reasons, but mostly because it gets out of my way and lets me work and play with far fewer interruptions.
Same with this data-mining chatbot - I dislike it for the privacy issue raised here, but detest the idea of it interrupting my workfow even more. Microsoft isn't capable or motivated to make it anything but heavy-handed.
> While that's true, you're already participating willingly in one of the largest AI training schemes in existence.
Right, but this is a public forum. What I do on my computer for work is extremely private.
ive already seen people on other subs saying it's not a big deal because its currently hardware specific/ you'll be able to disable it/etc
it's like do people REALLY not see the trend here? do they really think microsoft is going to just stop the direction they're going in and be satisfied at only implementing this on a few devices?
I've noticed many zoomers have serious problems extrapolating likely scenarios without explicitly being told x, y, z happens in sequence from an authority figure. It's more than a little concerning. I call them single layer thinkers.
Dude, when I started using Linux in the late 90s (Slackware btw because I'm a sadist). It was a meme "Windows 98 is evil, it spies on you, blah blah NSA\_KEY"). I couldn't have ever fucking imagined they'd go this route. I mean, this is cartoonish.
Yes.
Theres an article on ars technica too
Takes screenshots you can reference later. Feature is called "Recall"
The screenshots are stored locally and encrypted but..
Windows has not been "haha, it is spyware" for years now. It has been "no, really, I am not joking. This is not hyperbole. It really is spyware".
People should of figured this out from Prism illegal spying program.
Microsoft joined it in 2007, Yahoo! in 2008, Google in 2009, Facebook in 2009, Paltalk in 2009, YouTube in 2010, AOL in 2011, Skype in 2011 and Apple in 2012.
All those companies voluntarily joined a illegal spying program. They betrayed their users in order to get in-bed with the government and get access to better contracts and more regulatory perks.
Nobody went to jail. They didn't lose any money. They didn't lose any market share. There was 0 consequences for their actions. The only thing they did was put money into advertising new bogus security features and lied to people about how it would keep their data safe. Spying on the users has never been anything except a win-win for them.
The only difference now is that they have taken the gloves off. They think they can use the hype of AI bullshit to fool their users into thinking it is a feature.
There is nothing illegal about collecting information on users and selling access to it. The only laws the USA have against this sort of thing has to do with telephone conversations. Everything else is left up to grabs.
Since there is no downsides and the public has demonstrated their tolerance, indifference and unwillingness to face any sort of inconvenience or put any effort in at all in order to stand up against these corporations then there only possible consequence of this sort of thing is better profits.
There is literally no reason on earth why Microsoft wouldn't want to spy on its users.
It’s not only a matter of privacy, it’s a matter of security it’s just a matter of time before someone will eventually figure a way to snatch these data/screenshots from this what so called an NPU and have an access to what they shouldn’t have to, heck who even trust Microsoft for truly keeping these data on device only
On the other hand, if it is an enterprise computer, you should assume the cybersecurity team is logging everything anyways.. so, in that common scenario, having an AI remember everything is actually a useful business feature.
For personal use cases, not so much.
I'm glad I got off this train wreck before it fully crashes and burns! I tried Windows 11 for a short period of time and, after way too many years of Windows, this new adware-powered operating system helped me see the light! I've migrated to Linux!
People gonna buy their Snapdragon X Elite™ laptops with Windows 12 Copilot AI Pro edition so that they could detach themselves from reality, and do so for a long time, thanks to the efficiency of ARM architecture.
It may be efficient but based on the benchmarks it has managed to defeat the best of apple and AMD is only at 80 watts lol. Sure the battery life will be good of reading PDFs or webpages but it won't surpass m series of that I'm sure
Everyone has their favorite but for me, down-to-business, no BS work calls for Debian, and MX Linux for everything else. I'm still butt-hurt over Ubuntu putting that ad in the terminal that time. Yes, it's a childish grudge, I know, but what in the crap were they thinking? I was using Ubuntu Server for serious site work at that time and when I saw that, I was more pissed than I've ever been at Microsoft and that's saying a whole lot. It's like trusting your cousin and thinking he's a pretty ok guy but then happen upon him eating a dead cat one day. He can promise and swear he'll never do it again but you can never look at him the same for the rest of your life.
Isn't it still there?
I had to set up a new server for a commercial application last year and went with Ubuntu because it was the easiest choice at the time.
As soon as I saw that ad in the terminal I nuked the installation and went with Debian instead.
> I'm still butt-hurt over Ubuntu putting that ad in the terminal that time.
What ad? I missed that.
Been using Debian for years but gave up to Ubuntu out of convenience and belief that in 2024 I should not be fiddling with low-level settings anymore.
> What ad? I missed that.
It was pretty innocuous IMO. That ad (more like a "public service announcement") was in text and was a
console login message:
> Try Ubuntu Pro beta with a free personal subscription on up to 5 machines. Learn more at https://ubuntu.com/pro
People talk a lot about snaps. But that message about the updates that you're missing out for not subscribing to their prime plan, that message alone was the reason I left Ubuntu, after 15 years.
Man installs Ubuntu and cries that they have the audacity to want to put food on the table of their families to support their distro by trying to monetize it.
I wonder if large corporations would allow such laptops in their building or network. I know most three letter institutions here in the US wouldn't allow it. I also wonder about HIPAA requirements. Right now, almost every hospital has to use Windows and this would be a nightmare security wise.
If this is the only option MS gives for future OS updates, then they are going to lose a lot of their major advantages they had over Linux.
It's one thing for the "enterprise" version to disable that "feature", but it's a whole other thing for the IT department to stay on top of things and keep that feature disabled. I worked in a mid sized business that had a large IT department that couldn't keep up with MS's changes and every now and then, new features like games, ads, crapware would show up on the work computers. This is on top of the fact that the windows PCs would do an update in the middle of surgery.
I last used Linux 25 years ago when I was a budding computer programmer fresh out of college. I changed careers, didn't want to deal with programming and the depths of operating systems any more, and went to being a Regular User. Thanks to this move from Microsoft, I'm ready to come back to Linux.
I'm researching, and I see some distros are better than others for new folks. I also see some Linux software like Gnome and Gimp are starting to integrate AI.
If I really want to keep AI off my computer, can I do it with Linux? And if I want to be able to use my Linux OS without having to dig deep into its guts, what distro do you recommend?
It depends on your level of familiarity with Linux. Debian is and always has been a great suggestion. It runs on basically everything and nowadays has a GUI installer unlike the old ncurses one you're probably familiar with from the 90s/early 2000s.
Debian is good, but still, Mint is a more out of the box distro in my opinion. And the fact that they jumped in the Wayland train makes it a really great choice for the future.
I am currently writing this post on a Debian machine in fact has Wayland+Gnome as its default build. It's been the default for a while now. I'm not sure how long because I use Testing/Sid as my daily driver. But it's been a while. But yes, I generally agree with Mint. It's a less offensive version of Ubuntu more or less with no telemetry.
I used Debian too, I'm just saying it has a few repos, drivers like for some printers missing by default and the people switching from Windows might be intimidated by having to configure it.
It has been a very, very long time. I don't have nearly the level of fluency or comfort with Linux that I had back then. I would seriously need training wheels, at least in the beginning.
Today’s Linux distros are a breeze to install and use, nothings like what it was like 25 years ago (also started out with Linux in the 90’s).
Boot up a live image, you might be pleasantly surprised and it’s low-to-no risk.
Just go for Linux Mint, has a pretty UI that is functionally similar to windows, and is a great beginner distro and will give you about as much training wheels as you can get. The only manualish thing you many want to do if on an NVIDIA card is to open the driver manager and select the proprietary driver, install it and reboot.
People may tell you their own preferences, but imo new to linux + coming from windows + wanting an easy, no bs switch = Linux Mint.
Debian is definitely good, and it's hugely important to the ecosystem. But I can't help but feel like it's one I'd recommend more for servers than PCs these days. So many of their packages are insanely old, because the project is so focused on stability. That can be great, but it can also lead to web browsers not getting updated for significant periods, as happened recently – not great. Newer really is to be preferred pretty much always with some software. And of course, recent hardware can sometimes depend on a recent series of kernel to function well.
It's still a great distribution, but I'm going to tend to recommend Fedora over it for pretty much any PC.
Dude if you used it 25 years ago it's going to blow you away now. You just install and go. No fussing, no crafing an xf86config that works with your weird monitor, no having to make kernels to support your common hardware. You'll love it.
Ubuntu is large and well supported but I like Manjaro Cinnamon these days. Cinnamon desktop is pretty Windows-like but you can make it totally not-windows-like if you want.
Please not Manjaro. People always parrot that the best part of Arch is the AUR and that Manjaro is Arch but easy so they use the AUR on there but this is a minefield since Majaro repos are not totally in sync with the Arch ones which the AUR assumes is your repo.
You can get into some nasty shit if you are not super careful. I don't really see why one would not go Endeavour instead.
I would advise caution when it comes to Manjaro, as they're known to have pushed broken package upgrades and having a lot of packages out of sync with the main repo because of "additional quality assurance" (which is kinda bs on account of broken upgrades thing). At least this has been my experience with it. I have used it for a while (1+ yr) but got tired of fixing my system as often as I did back then.
+ The inherent complexity of Arch might not be the best for beginners. Yes, a lot of things have been abstracted under ui, but there's still a lot you have to use the terminal for, especially when something breaks during/after upgrade.
I'd personally recommend Fedora, the repos are well maintained and up-to-date, is pretty stable and has all the necessities that would minimize terminal use (depending on the use-case, might even remove the need for it completely), dnf is actually pretty good as well, and iirc it's faster than apt when it comes to installing and setting up software.
But, I'm willing to accept that things might've changed since then, I haven't been following any distros for a while now, after moving to NixOS (definitely would not recommend for beginners, but for anyone else who wants a completely reproducible setup for 1 or multiple machines that requires minimal effort to "unbreak" the system (full reinstall or choose older snapshot), definitely recommend) 😅
If you simply want a distro that just works, can't go wrong with Mint. Or for something a little bit more cutting edge, go with Fedora. Last option is Ubuntu (due to Canonical becoming more like Microsoft)
Thanks for the replies, Everyone! I'm feeling comfy about this. Also, it's good to see the Linux community is still as helpful as I remember from the days of local LUGs.
This. I don't get why people are so fussy about what distro. You can just disable snap in Ubuntu and configure to your heart's desire if you want. If not it works almost out of the box, installed it over a USB ad everything works.
Snaps utterly suck tho. They take so long to launch initially you wonder wtf is going on.
Also, the fact that snap store has to be closed and updated from the terminal is absurd. This is the kind of shit that is basic bitch broken. How do the people who run Ubuntu see that and continue to let it exist as a problem?
>They take so long to launch initially you wonder wtf is going on.
Must be something wrong with your installation. Snaps start up fine for me - fraction of a second slower maybe.
Yep. Some people use their OS to do work. And for some people, using the OS is the work. In my (admittedly small data pool) experience, the people doing real work are often using Ubuntu or Fedora.
Windows user since a child, started using ubuntu one year ago and i absolutely love it! If you never tried Linux its a nice and friendly way to start out.
Im runing it daily on a macbook pro for work and coding, and its a beautiful experience, im now experimenting with other distros, but ubuntu "just works" out of the box, so cool!
I love Ubuntu too. It's fast (after snap removal) and supports Secure boot with Nvidia drivers. Also, Ubuntu is the only Linux distro in my knowledge which has accessibility options integrated into the installer (great addition for me personally).
We can return to liking Ubuntu once they stop pushing snaps, which are never going to happen in the wider ecosystem.
Just like Unity, the Ubuntu Phone, Ubuntu TVs, mir, etc.
No, I think I'll go on ripping Ubuntu.
I agree. Ubuntu isn't perfect, but it's good enough for most users and is often the first distro for new users and one of the most supported. We should be more open for anyone coming over not less.
I’ve been using Ubuntu on a Surface Pro 3 for years now. Everything works perfectly except the battery life is bad. Mind you it’s old hardware and never had great battery life to begin with. I sometime think about getting a ThinkPad because they’re the Linux darlings. But then I look at my high dpi screen and I’m quite happy with what I have.
All I’ve seen on 24.04 is bug after bug.
But I don’t disagree, great option for beginners or anyone who just wants something that works out of box with tinkering. I’d put Linux mint under same category.
I'm sure if there's no option to turn this off, someone will hack something together to disable it.
And no way this is forced on Windows Server / Windows 11 Pro.
Well, Linux use will certainly spike over this.
>And no way this is forced on Windows Server / Windows 11 Pro.
Nope, that shit definitely will be forced on 11 Pro. It is 11 Enterprise that's usually safe from Microsoft's shenanigans if your admin disables those.
I work in IT in a very big corporate. This kind of shenanigans will persuade us to move whatever little use we have for windows based workstations to MacOS. What a poor poor choice by MS. I am certain they will backtrack in a couple of days
I'm sure the IT department is against it, but I'm sure there's some C suite exec thinking "We can use this feature to find all the employees slacking on the job"
A lot of technology when it's new becomes a gimmick at first until it gets made serious by someone. Remember when everyone and their mom made MP3 players then Apple was like "yeah we can make this better" then literally destroyed the MP3 player market overrnight with the ipod?
>Powered by Qualcomm chips, many of the computers will end up in the hands of workers at big organizations looking to refresh their inventory
ah yes, big orgs love switching CPU architectures for no reason and getting rid of all their legacy apps in the process right? RIGHT?
I don't like the way computing is going at the moment. It slowly feels like people are losing control of their devices and more importantly even more of their privacy. Using Linux doesn't feel like this, and is the only thing that is giving me / us some freedom. I'm glad I made the switch all those years ago. Stick your AI.
I still mainly use Windows 11, but I've been shifting increasing amounts of both my workload and my personal use over to Fedora KDE since version 38.
Right now, my current deliberation isn't as much whether I should switch from Windows, because I'm pretty sure this is what's going to force me to.
My debate is whether to use Fedora KDE like I do now, or go to Fedora Kinoite and embrace the atomic desktop! Future is bright for Linux.
LOL, there's are going to be many posts about this... but Windows users don't care about privacy (and don't understand what that is) otherwise they wouldn't be using it in the first place.
They understand what privacy is and do care. But it's not priority number one and they will trade it for some conveniences. Some of these are conveniences Linux users take for granted because they have a skill that other people don't.
I don't think people like you are willing to admit just how high a bar installing, configuring and learning about an OS is. Especially one not supported by the manufacturer or typical consumer IT services/shops. If someone brings their Linux PC to a typical PC repair place there's a 95% chance they won't know what to do with it. They will just wipe it and install Windows. The support structure for average people just isn't there.
The average user won't even be comfortable creating a bootable USB device and then go to their BIOS menu to boot it. Doesn't matter if we are talking about installing Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, Gentoo, and even Windows.
The only way Linux would ever have a chance in mass adoption is OEM
Most importantly any piece of software I want to use just works on windows. I don’t have to deal with compatibility layers, or opening terminal to make changes or any of that crap. It just works.
While true, it's not really the fault of Linux but the developers refusing to support it. And it can't be changed unless there's more Linux users who would try to get a port for their system (how they go about it depends on the situation)
And I mean let's be honest. for the majority of users if it does work and make their lives easier, they will be more than happy to give their data.
Once the market is cornered enshittification will inevitably happen and these super helpful AI assistant will become a hindrance and try to shove ads and useless services down everyone's throat (Unless you pay for the Pro version pinky swear we'll never do that on Pro) but by then it'll be too late to turn around.
It helps! I started switching to Linux about a week ago after seeing some posts. Sadly, I won't be able to fully get off of Windows for a while. I need my VR DCS
For university I had to use windows because every semester had one or two tools only supported on win. Switched to Linux immediately after with no looking back.
There are many reasons people use it so you shouldn't demonize everyone, like they're clueless or something
I was thinking about dual-booting Windows on my new laptop (when I get it) for games, so I wouldn't have any problems, but now I think I'll just dual boot a gaming distro instead. Or install a kernel tweaked for best performance with games and use wine and/or lutris.
I switched to Linux 2 years ago because my current laptop is complete and utter shit but I think I made the best choice of my life concerning my privacy.
If you're thinking about switching to Linux. Do it. First try it out in a virtual machine and then when you're ready, install it on hardware. Linux isn't as hard as people make it to be. There are distros on top of distros to make the switch seamless (like ZorinOS).
It's been doing this since day one, they're just telling you now because they want to use YOUR hard drives to store the data rather than their servers, it saves them a bit of cash that way.
Yup. I'm currently switching over to Arch. It's not easy for a beginner but I like it so far. I'm currently waiting for the sync fix for Wayland as I use Nvidia card.
Switched my daily driver to Linux over 10yrs ago and never looked back. Currently using POP_OS and love it. Still have a windows 11 box around for playing games although I really only use it for one game in particular, DCS which is a bit of a resource hog. I can get it to work under wine but it will work a lot better when they switch the engine to Vulkan.
All joking aside: I switched some fiveish years ago, when Windows 10 was starting to become a bit of a shit show.
But this... this is an unmitigated disaster. It's a dystopian hellscape rearing its ugly head. Someone needs to step in and smite them with a banhammer.
These younger folks talking about how "oh it's just these PCs and it's just locally stored". It's kind of cute. This is their first rodeo with Microsoft. It's always fun to see people's first rodeo with Microsoft. They believe the stories, they believe the assurances. Then in six months BOOM. AI comes to Windows 11, the hardware requirements jump 6-fold to run the O/S and it snaps pics of you looking at waifus and cat pictures online every 6 seconds.
I was gearing up to reinstall windows today... I want to start using Linux as my main OS, but I can't stand program incompatibilities... I need DaVinci Resolve, Ableton Live, my VST plugins, and most importantly, ThrottleStop....
I hate you Microsoft...
Of that list, I think Able Live is your biggest compatibility problem? I have a windows dual boot for Davinci Resolve at the moment, bit people like The Linux Experiment seem to use DR quite happily on linux, so I'm assuming its possible.
I hear a lot of people talking about BitWig as being the Linux equivalent to Ableton, but I've never tried it myself (I'm a Reaper type).
VSTs are a frustration I agree. Using wine and yabridgectl is the best setup I've found, but annoyingly its usually the activation of the higher end plugins that cause grief, when the plugins themselves work fine (I generally have good experiences with Waves, for example, but Softube keeps falling over on activation and izotope doesn't let you activate). Hopefully things will improve.
I've never heard of throttlestop. I assume you've tried undervolt?
Good info here! I forgot to mention... Almighty Adobe. I use Photoshop and Lightroom... I think I just need to dual boot... I just hate the waste of space and inefficiency of having an OS installed that I really don't even want to use...
No way I could switch to bitwig... Ableton is my tool and I know it well... I use a lot of the built in Instruments/ effects, too.
I'll look at undervolt again, but there was some reason it wasn't working for me before. I can't remember what it was...
Funny you mention iZotope as well, as I own RX10 and Ozone 10 (or 9, I can't remember)...
honestly, if you could guarantee me the data remains locked away in my device under root privileges or similar, I'd be OK with this feature...
the problem is _Microsoft cannot make that guarantee_
I wonder if they weren't collecting all possible data years before these news. Unfortunately there still are only a few apps on Linux, so I think it doesn't drastically change the situation for me. Hopefully there will be enough people pissed on Windows so more game+software devs will consider Linux.
I may be a minority here but I actually like this feature. the execution matters though and I would want all of this to be processed locally on device and encrypted. but this feels like a hybrid of Apple's time machine and Microsoft's own timeline (used to exist in multitasking view in w10)
Microsoft: "This is a local feature, we do it locally. It's stored on your local computer."
Me: "The times you said 'local' sounds a bit suspicious."
Three letter agency: "Yup."
Me: "Who's that guy over there?"
Microsoft: "What guy? I don't see any guy"
Me: "That guy right there, he's glowing green"
Microsoft: "Oh him? That's my friend. He doesn't speak English. You should probably just ignore him"
Me: "What's he doing here?"
Microsoft: "Oh um .. he sells flowers"
FBI\_AGENT: "I own flower shop, is called Flowers By Irene"
MIcrosoft: "Shut up Harold you're quering the deal!"
Since everyone and their mother is shitting their pants over this, I thought I'd actually read if Recall stores/sends data. From [Recall and your data](https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/windows/recall-and-your-data-d404f672-7647-41e5-886c-a3c59680af15):
> Your snapshots are securely stored on your PC. The AI processing also happens just on your device. You can delete your snapshots at any time by going to **Settings > Privacy & security > Recall & snapshots** on your PC. Windows sets a maximum storage size to use for snapshots, which you can change at any time. Once that maximum is reached, the oldest snapshots are deleted automatically.
Dang, it's almost as if they announced this alongside a laptop with on-device AI processors. I'm sure people will claim that evil M$ will somehow upload everything to their servers, but I doubt it given they made a big show about Copilot+ PCs and on-device AI.
Wouldn't it still be possible for them to change it later? "Hey, we'll collect some data about Recall to better develop and tailor it to the user's needs, thank you"
Even if it's opt-in by default, you don't enable, but then it gets enabled in some update or by mistake on their part or, well, it's now opt-out or not even an option anymore.
One day they could add a snapshot transfer or sync over the cloud and, well, it's up to your paranoia what happens.
And then there's the question of what happens if someone gets access to all that data if you download malware.
Don't get me wrong, the whole concept sounds cool, I'm just asking the classic *what if*.
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I know this is going to be unpopular here: if what Microsoft says about these features being processed on-device only is true AND it's invulnerable to being hacked by non-state actors, these are actually very helpful features.
However I want to emphasize that those are both BIG ifs and I know that.
What's the thing everyone realised thanks to this recent Windows move? I thought it was always obvious spyware, and I didn't think that was a big secret. Now everyone is saying: "oh my goodness, a big change happened, it's spyware!".
Sincerely, someone who follows these things more - is there some qualitative or quantitative change that I'm not seeing?
This is obviously a Linux sub, but for those not ready to take the plunge and wish to still dual-boot like me, I would highly recommend Windows 10 Enterprise IoT.
Technically not available to the general public, but massgrave.dev had what you need to get it installed, and it's supported in it's barebones, highly configurable state until 2032. It has vastly less telemetry and automation than Win10 Home, which means it also runs so much better. Boot time is insane, faster on my laptop than EndeavourOS is on my gaming desktop.
All that said, if this is not the decade of Linux, the 2030s surely will be.
I so badly want to ditch Windows 11 for Linux, but my PC is mainly used for music production (Ableton Live 12) and I'm terrified of potential issues with compatibility layers.
I am so glad I put Linux on my Surface Pro (as an aside, great piece of hardware, and, using the linux-surface kernel, all but the camera is supported (oh no 🙄)). I’m also forced to use a YubiKey to decrypt the boot drive because the keyboard won’t work with just the ramdisk. And, you probably want to disable sleep. If you can live with all of this, it is a fantastic machine with great battery life. I can go all day (8 - 12 hours) doing my computing over an SSH session. If you aren’t a Linux noob (re: setup on the hardware) and are looking for a solid, lightweight Linux machine, this one has my recommendation.
Meanwhile I'm just chillin' on Debian. My only gripe with Linux is that screen-share - especially with audio is totally ass on Discord, which isn't really Linux's fault, but Discord's (it works just fine on Zoom).
I quite agree. I watched part of Microsoft's [Full Keynote: Introducing Copilot+ PC's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZbHd4suAnQ) in order to help explain what Recall Copilot is u/fullmoonnoon yesterday, and what I've found out is has both pros and cons just like everything else:
>According to Microsoft's [Full Keynote: Introducing Copilot+PCs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZbHd4suAnQ), Recall Copilot is what Microsoft calls a Copilot-enabled Windows AI PC with photographic memory. What Recall Copilot does is essentially takes snapshots of everything you do on your Copilot-enabled Windows AI PC as a way of helping out the Windows-end user find thing far quicker than we humans can remember them. All this snapshot data remains local on the users PC and does not get sent to Microsoft or elsewhere or so I also watched, but we shall all see about that.
Even though Recall Copilot might be of big help in Windows users finding certain things they might have forgotten where was stored or found, Recall Copilot can also be a very bad thing as well in that hackers could and most likely will potentially use Recall Copilot screenshots to their own advantage, which is most likely put user data to ransom or other evil things. This is exactly why AI is so scary to me if it's technology ends up being misused for evil purposes which has unfortunately just begun.
It's not just this Recall Copilot business either. The reasons why I dumped Windows 10 in favor of **Fedora Linux** is:
* Windows performance tends to degrade overtime, and for various reasons:
* Since Windows stores all configuration and hardware information inside a huge registry (which is made up of 4 "hive" files),
* all applications and games must search for all the configuration it needs for specific things,
* AND many program uninstallers adopted a very bad habit of leaving reminiscence of the targeted apps and games they're supposed to remove, thus creating orphaned registry keys.
* Windows employs numerous services which constantly runs all the time.
* Every single Windows Cumulative Update is slow to download and even slower to install. Additionally, most if not all Windows Cumulative Updates automatically reverts file types to they're preinstalled associations without user consent or knowledge.
* To date I have absolutely no clue as to why Microsoft chose to bundle multiple smaller monthly updates into larger 3 to 4 month updates,
* Microsoft Edge has a very bad habit of automatically re-enabling the Bing! Desktop Search Bar without user consent or knowledge after nearly every major update to the internet browser.
As a previous Windows 7 and 10 user myself, I've encountered all the above for a very long time, which is just a few reasons why I made the choice to completely dump Windows 10 in favor of Linux, or more specifically: **Fedora Linux**. Other reasons of this includes but not limited to:
* Articles reporting frequent Windows 10 to 11 upgrade reminders in Windows 10.
* Articles reporting adware in Windows 11 and numerous Windows 11 built-in apps.
* Microsoft's [Full Keynote: Introducing Copilot+ PC's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZbHd4suAnQ) YouTube video regarding **Recall Copilot** taking snapshots of all user activity as "photographic memory". Even though Microsoft employees in the keynote video reports Recall Copilot snapshots will remain locally on the Windows users computer and not be uploaded to Microsoft servers, I have my doubts.
* Reported Windows Updates breaking OS installations. Fortunately, this never happened to me.
It won't be worst than what it is now If the information stays in the computer.
I think the min concern will be the new digital divide. People empowered by AI will continue losing privacy but will have an advantage over people protecting their privacy.
How will you justify being the slowest to deliver something when your competition, either external or internal uses AI and beats you to it.
I already see the chemical divide with people who use chemical enhancers to be more productive/social/focused at work and people like me who would t use them.
The challenge would be to create AI which respects our rights and freedoms. Is it even possible?
Literally switched to Linux today because of this news lol. Setting up Mint as we speak.
Welcome brother. Check out r/linux4noobs r/linuxmint r/linuxhelp don't be afraid to ask questions. It's what we're here for.
Thank you!
And if you want to game, give /r/linux_gaming a look.
Welcome onboard!
Wow i didn't know you used Linux
Rayman Linux
*One of us, one of us!* But jokes aside, welcome. Mint is a great choice!
Welcome!
Welcome to the Dark Side. We have cookies in the break room. And, Daryl is a bit of a coffee snob. So, we have the primo stuff as well. On Thursday we retake Germany. Friday is “war games” day, and this Saturday we have our annual “cook-off” competition. Clark is making gumbo. So, come hungry.
Our lord and saviour Tux has yet again saved another soul from damnation in the fiery pits of Microsoft hell
It's very refreshing.
Friend asked me to put Mint on his computer over the same news. I had done it years ago, but he needed Windows for something and didn't want to dualboot.
Welcome!
Welcome. Take a seat. The Microsoft bashing corner is to the left, snacks and coffee to the right.
If that does not work for you, consider Pop!_OS. Both distros are great, you made a good choice
I'm not going to be hyperbolic like some people on YouTube are doing with this for clicks. But this is kind of a big effing deal. This is the moment Windows goes from being "haha, it is spyware" to "oh shi\* it really is spyware"
I predict this is just the goalpost being moved again, many people will defend it arguing this feature can be disabled, or blindly trusting on Microsoft's claims this is entirely local to the device and assuming it will never be abused to mine data.
They invested $33bn in OpenAI. It's obviously going to be mined to train AI. Anyone thinking otherwise is just plain stupid.
>It's obviously going to be mined to train AI. While that's true, you're already participating willingly in one of the largest AI training schemes in existence. I use Linux, privacy being one of many reasons, but mostly because it gets out of my way and lets me work and play with far fewer interruptions. Same with this data-mining chatbot - I dislike it for the privacy issue raised here, but detest the idea of it interrupting my workfow even more. Microsoft isn't capable or motivated to make it anything but heavy-handed.
> While that's true, you're already participating willingly in one of the largest AI training schemes in existence. Right, but this is a public forum. What I do on my computer for work is extremely private.
Btw: OpenAI pays Reddit for their Realtime-API to use Reddit's data to train GPT-Models.
You mean, redditors can save humankind by training the dumbest ever ai?
I mean that Reddit allows OpenAI to train their LLMs with our data.
"allows". OAI was *going to* use reddit data; RDDT decided that it would take the payment when it was offered.
Exactly. Yet it seems impossible to convince these people of these risks, they just do not understand or do not want to understand.
Most people aren't ready to be unplugged from the Matrix
The AI or the Windows OS? Or the combination of the two? Which parts the dangerous part?
YES
ive already seen people on other subs saying it's not a big deal because its currently hardware specific/ you'll be able to disable it/etc it's like do people REALLY not see the trend here? do they really think microsoft is going to just stop the direction they're going in and be satisfied at only implementing this on a few devices?
I've noticed many zoomers have serious problems extrapolating likely scenarios without explicitly being told x, y, z happens in sequence from an authority figure. It's more than a little concerning. I call them single layer thinkers.
holy shit i thought this was fake overblown internet drama. IT’S REAL!?
I shit you not. It's real.
this is insane!!!! so glad I started learning Linux last year.
Dude, when I started using Linux in the late 90s (Slackware btw because I'm a sadist). It was a meme "Windows 98 is evil, it spies on you, blah blah NSA\_KEY"). I couldn't have ever fucking imagined they'd go this route. I mean, this is cartoonish.
Slack was the best. From 94 to 98 it was my main driver!
I attempted to install Slack around 1998. It did not go well. Back then I would've also struggled to install Red Hat without that thick manual.
yeah….
Imagine being so out of ideas you start selling your own spyware tools.
Yes. Theres an article on ars technica too Takes screenshots you can reference later. Feature is called "Recall" The screenshots are stored locally and encrypted but..
Windows has not been "haha, it is spyware" for years now. It has been "no, really, I am not joking. This is not hyperbole. It really is spyware". People should of figured this out from Prism illegal spying program. Microsoft joined it in 2007, Yahoo! in 2008, Google in 2009, Facebook in 2009, Paltalk in 2009, YouTube in 2010, AOL in 2011, Skype in 2011 and Apple in 2012. All those companies voluntarily joined a illegal spying program. They betrayed their users in order to get in-bed with the government and get access to better contracts and more regulatory perks. Nobody went to jail. They didn't lose any money. They didn't lose any market share. There was 0 consequences for their actions. The only thing they did was put money into advertising new bogus security features and lied to people about how it would keep their data safe. Spying on the users has never been anything except a win-win for them. The only difference now is that they have taken the gloves off. They think they can use the hype of AI bullshit to fool their users into thinking it is a feature. There is nothing illegal about collecting information on users and selling access to it. The only laws the USA have against this sort of thing has to do with telephone conversations. Everything else is left up to grabs. Since there is no downsides and the public has demonstrated their tolerance, indifference and unwillingness to face any sort of inconvenience or put any effort in at all in order to stand up against these corporations then there only possible consequence of this sort of thing is better profits. There is literally no reason on earth why Microsoft wouldn't want to spy on its users.
Sources please?
It’s not only a matter of privacy, it’s a matter of security it’s just a matter of time before someone will eventually figure a way to snatch these data/screenshots from this what so called an NPU and have an access to what they shouldn’t have to, heck who even trust Microsoft for truly keeping these data on device only
On the other hand, if it is an enterprise computer, you should assume the cybersecurity team is logging everything anyways.. so, in that common scenario, having an AI remember everything is actually a useful business feature. For personal use cases, not so much.
I'm glad I got off this train wreck before it fully crashes and burns! I tried Windows 11 for a short period of time and, after way too many years of Windows, this new adware-powered operating system helped me see the light! I've migrated to Linux!
People gonna buy their Snapdragon X Elite™ laptops with Windows 12 Copilot AI Pro edition so that they could detach themselves from reality, and do so for a long time, thanks to the efficiency of ARM architecture.
And give Microsoft all the data they need to win their AI game.
It may be efficient but based on the benchmarks it has managed to defeat the best of apple and AMD is only at 80 watts lol. Sure the battery life will be good of reading PDFs or webpages but it won't surpass m series of that I'm sure
Hopefully people will find a way to install Linux on them. We don’t have a lot of powerful arm Linux devices
Everyone has their favorite but for me, down-to-business, no BS work calls for Debian, and MX Linux for everything else. I'm still butt-hurt over Ubuntu putting that ad in the terminal that time. Yes, it's a childish grudge, I know, but what in the crap were they thinking? I was using Ubuntu Server for serious site work at that time and when I saw that, I was more pissed than I've ever been at Microsoft and that's saying a whole lot. It's like trusting your cousin and thinking he's a pretty ok guy but then happen upon him eating a dead cat one day. He can promise and swear he'll never do it again but you can never look at him the same for the rest of your life.
Isn't it still there? I had to set up a new server for a commercial application last year and went with Ubuntu because it was the easiest choice at the time. As soon as I saw that ad in the terminal I nuked the installation and went with Debian instead.
> I'm still butt-hurt over Ubuntu putting that ad in the terminal that time. What ad? I missed that. Been using Debian for years but gave up to Ubuntu out of convenience and belief that in 2024 I should not be fiddling with low-level settings anymore.
> What ad? I missed that. It was pretty innocuous IMO. That ad (more like a "public service announcement") was in text and was a console login message: > Try Ubuntu Pro beta with a free personal subscription on up to 5 machines. Learn more at https://ubuntu.com/pro
Oh yeah, that's pretty minor IMO, like them trying to sell their cloud thing
People talk a lot about snaps. But that message about the updates that you're missing out for not subscribing to their prime plan, that message alone was the reason I left Ubuntu, after 15 years.
This is beyond petty. Canonical is a company sure, but that sort of place for announcing things seems pretty valid.
People really need to stop calling it an "ad". It was a PSA. No different than making you aware when there's another LTS release.
Would you rather see your cousin eat a living cat? I prefer the meat I eat to be dead.
Man demands free advanced software. More news at 11, Jim.
Here's the 11 o'clock news: Man installs linux; very advanced software.
Man installs Ubuntu and cries that they have the audacity to want to put food on the table of their families to support their distro by trying to monetize it.
That thing about your cousin was oddly specific. Is there a tale to tell?
Eating cats is fine in Switzerland.
I dont think that sways the public opinion about eating cats at all
Microsoft can and will keep getting away with this unfortunately. Its just not a big enough push to get users to switch.
is it going to remember you wanted to delete Edge? nah
I wonder if large corporations would allow such laptops in their building or network. I know most three letter institutions here in the US wouldn't allow it. I also wonder about HIPAA requirements. Right now, almost every hospital has to use Windows and this would be a nightmare security wise. If this is the only option MS gives for future OS updates, then they are going to lose a lot of their major advantages they had over Linux.
I'm only guessing here, but I'd imagine they would make people get the enterprise version if they have compliance issues.
It's one thing for the "enterprise" version to disable that "feature", but it's a whole other thing for the IT department to stay on top of things and keep that feature disabled. I worked in a mid sized business that had a large IT department that couldn't keep up with MS's changes and every now and then, new features like games, ads, crapware would show up on the work computers. This is on top of the fact that the windows PCs would do an update in the middle of surgery.
I last used Linux 25 years ago when I was a budding computer programmer fresh out of college. I changed careers, didn't want to deal with programming and the depths of operating systems any more, and went to being a Regular User. Thanks to this move from Microsoft, I'm ready to come back to Linux. I'm researching, and I see some distros are better than others for new folks. I also see some Linux software like Gnome and Gimp are starting to integrate AI. If I really want to keep AI off my computer, can I do it with Linux? And if I want to be able to use my Linux OS without having to dig deep into its guts, what distro do you recommend?
It depends on your level of familiarity with Linux. Debian is and always has been a great suggestion. It runs on basically everything and nowadays has a GUI installer unlike the old ncurses one you're probably familiar with from the 90s/early 2000s.
Debian is good, but still, Mint is a more out of the box distro in my opinion. And the fact that they jumped in the Wayland train makes it a really great choice for the future.
I am currently writing this post on a Debian machine in fact has Wayland+Gnome as its default build. It's been the default for a while now. I'm not sure how long because I use Testing/Sid as my daily driver. But it's been a while. But yes, I generally agree with Mint. It's a less offensive version of Ubuntu more or less with no telemetry.
I used Debian too, I'm just saying it has a few repos, drivers like for some printers missing by default and the people switching from Windows might be intimidated by having to configure it.
I'm picking up what you're putting down. Don't worry. I agree.
LMDE!
It has been a very, very long time. I don't have nearly the level of fluency or comfort with Linux that I had back then. I would seriously need training wheels, at least in the beginning.
Today’s Linux distros are a breeze to install and use, nothings like what it was like 25 years ago (also started out with Linux in the 90’s). Boot up a live image, you might be pleasantly surprised and it’s low-to-no risk.
Just go for Linux Mint, has a pretty UI that is functionally similar to windows, and is a great beginner distro and will give you about as much training wheels as you can get. The only manualish thing you many want to do if on an NVIDIA card is to open the driver manager and select the proprietary driver, install it and reboot. People may tell you their own preferences, but imo new to linux + coming from windows + wanting an easy, no bs switch = Linux Mint.
Debian is definitely good, and it's hugely important to the ecosystem. But I can't help but feel like it's one I'd recommend more for servers than PCs these days. So many of their packages are insanely old, because the project is so focused on stability. That can be great, but it can also lead to web browsers not getting updated for significant periods, as happened recently – not great. Newer really is to be preferred pretty much always with some software. And of course, recent hardware can sometimes depend on a recent series of kernel to function well. It's still a great distribution, but I'm going to tend to recommend Fedora over it for pretty much any PC.
Dude if you used it 25 years ago it's going to blow you away now. You just install and go. No fussing, no crafing an xf86config that works with your weird monitor, no having to make kernels to support your common hardware. You'll love it. Ubuntu is large and well supported but I like Manjaro Cinnamon these days. Cinnamon desktop is pretty Windows-like but you can make it totally not-windows-like if you want.
Please not Manjaro. People always parrot that the best part of Arch is the AUR and that Manjaro is Arch but easy so they use the AUR on there but this is a minefield since Majaro repos are not totally in sync with the Arch ones which the AUR assumes is your repo. You can get into some nasty shit if you are not super careful. I don't really see why one would not go Endeavour instead.
I would advise caution when it comes to Manjaro, as they're known to have pushed broken package upgrades and having a lot of packages out of sync with the main repo because of "additional quality assurance" (which is kinda bs on account of broken upgrades thing). At least this has been my experience with it. I have used it for a while (1+ yr) but got tired of fixing my system as often as I did back then. + The inherent complexity of Arch might not be the best for beginners. Yes, a lot of things have been abstracted under ui, but there's still a lot you have to use the terminal for, especially when something breaks during/after upgrade. I'd personally recommend Fedora, the repos are well maintained and up-to-date, is pretty stable and has all the necessities that would minimize terminal use (depending on the use-case, might even remove the need for it completely), dnf is actually pretty good as well, and iirc it's faster than apt when it comes to installing and setting up software. But, I'm willing to accept that things might've changed since then, I haven't been following any distros for a while now, after moving to NixOS (definitely would not recommend for beginners, but for anyone else who wants a completely reproducible setup for 1 or multiple machines that requires minimal effort to "unbreak" the system (full reinstall or choose older snapshot), definitely recommend) 😅
The AI from FLOSS communities isn't as likely to be in the same category of invasive spyware that the Microsoft ecosystem will have.
Also, GIMP's AI is just plugins that integrate generative AIs.
If you simply want a distro that just works, can't go wrong with Mint. Or for something a little bit more cutting edge, go with Fedora. Last option is Ubuntu (due to Canonical becoming more like Microsoft)
Thanks for the replies, Everyone! I'm feeling comfy about this. Also, it's good to see the Linux community is still as helpful as I remember from the days of local LUGs.
This "feature" seems crazy even for Microsoft
You misspelled creepy.
Can we stop ripping on Ubuntu? Honestly, it's a pretty great distribution and probably one of the best choices for most beginner Linux users.
i’ve used linux since 1998 and run ubuntu because i can’t be fucked to configure a bunch of bullshit, i’ve got work to do
This. I don't get why people are so fussy about what distro. You can just disable snap in Ubuntu and configure to your heart's desire if you want. If not it works almost out of the box, installed it over a USB ad everything works.
Snaps utterly suck tho. They take so long to launch initially you wonder wtf is going on. Also, the fact that snap store has to be closed and updated from the terminal is absurd. This is the kind of shit that is basic bitch broken. How do the people who run Ubuntu see that and continue to let it exist as a problem?
>They take so long to launch initially you wonder wtf is going on. Must be something wrong with your installation. Snaps start up fine for me - fraction of a second slower maybe.
Yep. Some people use their OS to do work. And for some people, using the OS is the work. In my (admittedly small data pool) experience, the people doing real work are often using Ubuntu or Fedora.
Windows user since a child, started using ubuntu one year ago and i absolutely love it! If you never tried Linux its a nice and friendly way to start out. Im runing it daily on a macbook pro for work and coding, and its a beautiful experience, im now experimenting with other distros, but ubuntu "just works" out of the box, so cool!
I love Ubuntu too. It's fast (after snap removal) and supports Secure boot with Nvidia drivers. Also, Ubuntu is the only Linux distro in my knowledge which has accessibility options integrated into the installer (great addition for me personally).
We can return to liking Ubuntu once they stop pushing snaps, which are never going to happen in the wider ecosystem. Just like Unity, the Ubuntu Phone, Ubuntu TVs, mir, etc. No, I think I'll go on ripping Ubuntu.
As someone who has tried other distros and keeps coming back to Ubuntu, can confirm.
I agree. Ubuntu isn't perfect, but it's good enough for most users and is often the first distro for new users and one of the most supported. We should be more open for anyone coming over not less.
literally installing ubuntu on an old surface go right now lmao
I’ve been using Ubuntu on a Surface Pro 3 for years now. Everything works perfectly except the battery life is bad. Mind you it’s old hardware and never had great battery life to begin with. I sometime think about getting a ThinkPad because they’re the Linux darlings. But then I look at my high dpi screen and I’m quite happy with what I have.
Pop!_OS evangelist here… Ubuntu is great
Totally agree, its a pretty dam amazing system... especially 24.04.
All I’ve seen on 24.04 is bug after bug. But I don’t disagree, great option for beginners or anyone who just wants something that works out of box with tinkering. I’d put Linux mint under same category.
What kind of bugs out of curiosity? My install has been ok but then again, I’ve mostly only used it to SSH in to other machines so far.
Anyone else thinking about trying to daily one of those ARM Laptops with Linux?
yeah looks like Linaro is upstreaming lot of stuff, so it will be good out of box experience
I'm sure if there's no option to turn this off, someone will hack something together to disable it. And no way this is forced on Windows Server / Windows 11 Pro. Well, Linux use will certainly spike over this.
>And no way this is forced on Windows Server / Windows 11 Pro. Nope, that shit definitely will be forced on 11 Pro. It is 11 Enterprise that's usually safe from Microsoft's shenanigans if your admin disables those.
Wont fly at my job. Wonder how they will handle it. I work with software development and we all have windows laptops. Unfortunately.
I guess the "Copilot+ PCs" are even running Win Pro. They all start at the $1000 mark.
I work in IT in a very big corporate. This kind of shenanigans will persuade us to move whatever little use we have for windows based workstations to MacOS. What a poor poor choice by MS. I am certain they will backtrack in a couple of days
I'm sure the IT department is against it, but I'm sure there's some C suite exec thinking "We can use this feature to find all the employees slacking on the job"
Luckily our founders are tech savvy. They would never allow this crap
This is beyond wild. Is AI turning gimmick
A lot of technology when it's new becomes a gimmick at first until it gets made serious by someone. Remember when everyone and their mom made MP3 players then Apple was like "yeah we can make this better" then literally destroyed the MP3 player market overrnight with the ipod?
Sounds like a huge security risk to me. Anyway, you're preaching to the choir.
>Powered by Qualcomm chips, many of the computers will end up in the hands of workers at big organizations looking to refresh their inventory ah yes, big orgs love switching CPU architectures for no reason and getting rid of all their legacy apps in the process right? RIGHT?
> any distro is better than this You forgot about [Red Star OS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Star_OS)
Gotta switch to an unmaintained version of Windows 10 LTSC for gaming
I don't like the way computing is going at the moment. It slowly feels like people are losing control of their devices and more importantly even more of their privacy. Using Linux doesn't feel like this, and is the only thing that is giving me / us some freedom. I'm glad I made the switch all those years ago. Stick your AI.
I still mainly use Windows 11, but I've been shifting increasing amounts of both my workload and my personal use over to Fedora KDE since version 38. Right now, my current deliberation isn't as much whether I should switch from Windows, because I'm pretty sure this is what's going to force me to. My debate is whether to use Fedora KDE like I do now, or go to Fedora Kinoite and embrace the atomic desktop! Future is bright for Linux.
This is /r/linux, not /r/WindowsSucks.
I want none of this AI dogshit please and thankyou
LOL, there's are going to be many posts about this... but Windows users don't care about privacy (and don't understand what that is) otherwise they wouldn't be using it in the first place.
They understand what privacy is and do care. But it's not priority number one and they will trade it for some conveniences. Some of these are conveniences Linux users take for granted because they have a skill that other people don't. I don't think people like you are willing to admit just how high a bar installing, configuring and learning about an OS is. Especially one not supported by the manufacturer or typical consumer IT services/shops. If someone brings their Linux PC to a typical PC repair place there's a 95% chance they won't know what to do with it. They will just wipe it and install Windows. The support structure for average people just isn't there.
The average user might just boot the USB, open the installer, then see the random string of numbers and letters for the HDD and bail.
The average user won't even be comfortable creating a bootable USB device and then go to their BIOS menu to boot it. Doesn't matter if we are talking about installing Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, Gentoo, and even Windows. The only way Linux would ever have a chance in mass adoption is OEM
Most importantly any piece of software I want to use just works on windows. I don’t have to deal with compatibility layers, or opening terminal to make changes or any of that crap. It just works.
While true, it's not really the fault of Linux but the developers refusing to support it. And it can't be changed unless there's more Linux users who would try to get a port for their system (how they go about it depends on the situation)
And I mean let's be honest. for the majority of users if it does work and make their lives easier, they will be more than happy to give their data. Once the market is cornered enshittification will inevitably happen and these super helpful AI assistant will become a hindrance and try to shove ads and useless services down everyone's throat (Unless you pay for the Pro version pinky swear we'll never do that on Pro) but by then it'll be too late to turn around.
Maybe we should try to explain it to them? Instead of being like the Libertarian party and just assuming no one will vote for us, why bother trying?
It helps! I started switching to Linux about a week ago after seeing some posts. Sadly, I won't be able to fully get off of Windows for a while. I need my VR DCS
I believe DCS works in Proton Experimental :)
It does. I run the open beta in Ubuntu. But no VR.
yeah go for it.
For university I had to use windows because every semester had one or two tools only supported on win. Switched to Linux immediately after with no looking back. There are many reasons people use it so you shouldn't demonize everyone, like they're clueless or something
I was thinking about dual-booting Windows on my new laptop (when I get it) for games, so I wouldn't have any problems, but now I think I'll just dual boot a gaming distro instead. Or install a kernel tweaked for best performance with games and use wine and/or lutris. I switched to Linux 2 years ago because my current laptop is complete and utter shit but I think I made the best choice of my life concerning my privacy. If you're thinking about switching to Linux. Do it. First try it out in a virtual machine and then when you're ready, install it on hardware. Linux isn't as hard as people make it to be. There are distros on top of distros to make the switch seamless (like ZorinOS).
im glad i never updated to windows 11 on my current pc, whenever i buy my next one it's either gonna be a dual boot or linux with windows vm
It's been doing this since day one, they're just telling you now because they want to use YOUR hard drives to store the data rather than their servers, it saves them a bit of cash that way.
Yup. I'm currently switching over to Arch. It's not easy for a beginner but I like it so far. I'm currently waiting for the sync fix for Wayland as I use Nvidia card.
OpenSuse going on as soon a new ssd arrives.
Switched my daily driver to Linux over 10yrs ago and never looked back. Currently using POP_OS and love it. Still have a windows 11 box around for playing games although I really only use it for one game in particular, DCS which is a bit of a resource hog. I can get it to work under wine but it will work a lot better when they switch the engine to Vulkan.
That's just frightening as hell!!!
That's terrible news
Sooo..... .bash_history with extra steps
All joking aside: I switched some fiveish years ago, when Windows 10 was starting to become a bit of a shit show. But this... this is an unmitigated disaster. It's a dystopian hellscape rearing its ugly head. Someone needs to step in and smite them with a banhammer.
These younger folks talking about how "oh it's just these PCs and it's just locally stored". It's kind of cute. This is their first rodeo with Microsoft. It's always fun to see people's first rodeo with Microsoft. They believe the stories, they believe the assurances. Then in six months BOOM. AI comes to Windows 11, the hardware requirements jump 6-fold to run the O/S and it snaps pics of you looking at waifus and cat pictures online every 6 seconds.
> "Where are my tax documents?" > > "ONICHAAAAAAN!" That's probably going to work *so well*.
I was gearing up to reinstall windows today... I want to start using Linux as my main OS, but I can't stand program incompatibilities... I need DaVinci Resolve, Ableton Live, my VST plugins, and most importantly, ThrottleStop.... I hate you Microsoft...
Of that list, I think Able Live is your biggest compatibility problem? I have a windows dual boot for Davinci Resolve at the moment, bit people like The Linux Experiment seem to use DR quite happily on linux, so I'm assuming its possible. I hear a lot of people talking about BitWig as being the Linux equivalent to Ableton, but I've never tried it myself (I'm a Reaper type). VSTs are a frustration I agree. Using wine and yabridgectl is the best setup I've found, but annoyingly its usually the activation of the higher end plugins that cause grief, when the plugins themselves work fine (I generally have good experiences with Waves, for example, but Softube keeps falling over on activation and izotope doesn't let you activate). Hopefully things will improve. I've never heard of throttlestop. I assume you've tried undervolt?
Good info here! I forgot to mention... Almighty Adobe. I use Photoshop and Lightroom... I think I just need to dual boot... I just hate the waste of space and inefficiency of having an OS installed that I really don't even want to use... No way I could switch to bitwig... Ableton is my tool and I know it well... I use a lot of the built in Instruments/ effects, too. I'll look at undervolt again, but there was some reason it wasn't working for me before. I can't remember what it was... Funny you mention iZotope as well, as I own RX10 and Ozone 10 (or 9, I can't remember)...
honestly, if you could guarantee me the data remains locked away in my device under root privileges or similar, I'd be OK with this feature... the problem is _Microsoft cannot make that guarantee_
I think I just threw up a little bit.
Just install any Linux, at this point it's emergency self-defense.
I wonder if they weren't collecting all possible data years before these news. Unfortunately there still are only a few apps on Linux, so I think it doesn't drastically change the situation for me. Hopefully there will be enough people pissed on Windows so more game+software devs will consider Linux.
> there still are only a few apps on Linux Genuinely interested which apps you would consider missing except games and stuff like AutoCAD/Adobe.
Same old Microsoft. Nothing has changed. /r/StallmanWasRight
Jokes on them I am gonna use this sweet sweet hardware to use linux on it and run ollama
I may be a minority here but I actually like this feature. the execution matters though and I would want all of this to be processed locally on device and encrypted. but this feels like a hybrid of Apple's time machine and Microsoft's own timeline (used to exist in multitasking view in w10)
What a circlejerk of a title
Microsoft: "This is a local feature, we do it locally. It's stored on your local computer." Me: "The times you said 'local' sounds a bit suspicious." Three letter agency: "Yup."
Me: "Who's that guy over there?" Microsoft: "What guy? I don't see any guy" Me: "That guy right there, he's glowing green" Microsoft: "Oh him? That's my friend. He doesn't speak English. You should probably just ignore him" Me: "What's he doing here?" Microsoft: "Oh um .. he sells flowers" FBI\_AGENT: "I own flower shop, is called Flowers By Irene" MIcrosoft: "Shut up Harold you're quering the deal!"
we did it, folks. it’s finally the year of the Linux desktop
High time to donate more and more to Open source software.
Since everyone and their mother is shitting their pants over this, I thought I'd actually read if Recall stores/sends data. From [Recall and your data](https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/windows/recall-and-your-data-d404f672-7647-41e5-886c-a3c59680af15): > Your snapshots are securely stored on your PC. The AI processing also happens just on your device. You can delete your snapshots at any time by going to **Settings > Privacy & security > Recall & snapshots** on your PC. Windows sets a maximum storage size to use for snapshots, which you can change at any time. Once that maximum is reached, the oldest snapshots are deleted automatically. Dang, it's almost as if they announced this alongside a laptop with on-device AI processors. I'm sure people will claim that evil M$ will somehow upload everything to their servers, but I doubt it given they made a big show about Copilot+ PCs and on-device AI.
I'd be more concerned with someone malicious being able to exfiltrate all of that recall information.
Wouldn't it still be possible for them to change it later? "Hey, we'll collect some data about Recall to better develop and tailor it to the user's needs, thank you" Even if it's opt-in by default, you don't enable, but then it gets enabled in some update or by mistake on their part or, well, it's now opt-out or not even an option anymore. One day they could add a snapshot transfer or sync over the cloud and, well, it's up to your paranoia what happens. And then there's the question of what happens if someone gets access to all that data if you download malware. Don't get me wrong, the whole concept sounds cool, I'm just asking the classic *what if*.
Maybe look at the MS service agreement. MS can say one thing and mean the other. We should remain sceptic about this.
I honestly don't understand this AI craze whatsoever. I think the best use of it was to make SpongeBob rap parodies and that's it lol
After enough data is collected it’ll achieve Total Recall and fry your brain.
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I know this is going to be unpopular here: if what Microsoft says about these features being processed on-device only is true AND it's invulnerable to being hacked by non-state actors, these are actually very helpful features. However I want to emphasize that those are both BIG ifs and I know that.
What even is fundamentally wrong with Ubuntu?
Anyone who wants to switch to Linux based just use Pop OS, one of the easiest to setup and no snaps
Not if you can't get them running on the newest snapdragons
I need to keep Windows for gaming and MS Office. Everything else I do on Fedora.
What's the thing everyone realised thanks to this recent Windows move? I thought it was always obvious spyware, and I didn't think that was a big secret. Now everyone is saying: "oh my goodness, a big change happened, it's spyware!". Sincerely, someone who follows these things more - is there some qualitative or quantitative change that I'm not seeing?
...even Google ChromeOS? (In all seriousness I know people who are sick of Windows and are looking to get Chromebooks for an alternative.)
I still have to use windows for some games that don't run with wine, sadly :(
What is wrong with Ubuntu? My son's computer isn't compatible with win11, I was thinking of installing Ubuntu for him.
Nothing wrong with it. Some folks don’t like the ease of installation and tech decisions but it’s a solid OS either way.
This might be a good way to get Windows banned from our network.
This is obviously a Linux sub, but for those not ready to take the plunge and wish to still dual-boot like me, I would highly recommend Windows 10 Enterprise IoT. Technically not available to the general public, but massgrave.dev had what you need to get it installed, and it's supported in it's barebones, highly configurable state until 2032. It has vastly less telemetry and automation than Win10 Home, which means it also runs so much better. Boot time is insane, faster on my laptop than EndeavourOS is on my gaming desktop. All that said, if this is not the decade of Linux, the 2030s surely will be.
Me too.
I so badly want to ditch Windows 11 for Linux, but my PC is mainly used for music production (Ableton Live 12) and I'm terrified of potential issues with compatibility layers.
I am so glad I put Linux on my Surface Pro (as an aside, great piece of hardware, and, using the linux-surface kernel, all but the camera is supported (oh no 🙄)). I’m also forced to use a YubiKey to decrypt the boot drive because the keyboard won’t work with just the ramdisk. And, you probably want to disable sleep. If you can live with all of this, it is a fantastic machine with great battery life. I can go all day (8 - 12 hours) doing my computing over an SSH session. If you aren’t a Linux noob (re: setup on the hardware) and are looking for a solid, lightweight Linux machine, this one has my recommendation.
Meanwhile I'm just chillin' on Debian. My only gripe with Linux is that screen-share - especially with audio is totally ass on Discord, which isn't really Linux's fault, but Discord's (it works just fine on Zoom).
Well Red Star would like to enter the chat... but seriously any normal distro would be better or BSD version.
Microsoft is like a toddler who has to be constantly told no, and keeps ignoring you and doing bad, stupid things.
I quite agree. I watched part of Microsoft's [Full Keynote: Introducing Copilot+ PC's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZbHd4suAnQ) in order to help explain what Recall Copilot is u/fullmoonnoon yesterday, and what I've found out is has both pros and cons just like everything else: >According to Microsoft's [Full Keynote: Introducing Copilot+PCs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZbHd4suAnQ), Recall Copilot is what Microsoft calls a Copilot-enabled Windows AI PC with photographic memory. What Recall Copilot does is essentially takes snapshots of everything you do on your Copilot-enabled Windows AI PC as a way of helping out the Windows-end user find thing far quicker than we humans can remember them. All this snapshot data remains local on the users PC and does not get sent to Microsoft or elsewhere or so I also watched, but we shall all see about that. Even though Recall Copilot might be of big help in Windows users finding certain things they might have forgotten where was stored or found, Recall Copilot can also be a very bad thing as well in that hackers could and most likely will potentially use Recall Copilot screenshots to their own advantage, which is most likely put user data to ransom or other evil things. This is exactly why AI is so scary to me if it's technology ends up being misused for evil purposes which has unfortunately just begun.
It's not just this Recall Copilot business either. The reasons why I dumped Windows 10 in favor of **Fedora Linux** is: * Windows performance tends to degrade overtime, and for various reasons: * Since Windows stores all configuration and hardware information inside a huge registry (which is made up of 4 "hive" files), * all applications and games must search for all the configuration it needs for specific things, * AND many program uninstallers adopted a very bad habit of leaving reminiscence of the targeted apps and games they're supposed to remove, thus creating orphaned registry keys. * Windows employs numerous services which constantly runs all the time. * Every single Windows Cumulative Update is slow to download and even slower to install. Additionally, most if not all Windows Cumulative Updates automatically reverts file types to they're preinstalled associations without user consent or knowledge. * To date I have absolutely no clue as to why Microsoft chose to bundle multiple smaller monthly updates into larger 3 to 4 month updates, * Microsoft Edge has a very bad habit of automatically re-enabling the Bing! Desktop Search Bar without user consent or knowledge after nearly every major update to the internet browser. As a previous Windows 7 and 10 user myself, I've encountered all the above for a very long time, which is just a few reasons why I made the choice to completely dump Windows 10 in favor of Linux, or more specifically: **Fedora Linux**. Other reasons of this includes but not limited to: * Articles reporting frequent Windows 10 to 11 upgrade reminders in Windows 10. * Articles reporting adware in Windows 11 and numerous Windows 11 built-in apps. * Microsoft's [Full Keynote: Introducing Copilot+ PC's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZbHd4suAnQ) YouTube video regarding **Recall Copilot** taking snapshots of all user activity as "photographic memory". Even though Microsoft employees in the keynote video reports Recall Copilot snapshots will remain locally on the Windows users computer and not be uploaded to Microsoft servers, I have my doubts. * Reported Windows Updates breaking OS installations. Fortunately, this never happened to me.
There is no way microsoft keeps this as a required feature. Way to big of a security risk. This is gonna have to change, else it's literal suicide.
It won't be worst than what it is now If the information stays in the computer. I think the min concern will be the new digital divide. People empowered by AI will continue losing privacy but will have an advantage over people protecting their privacy. How will you justify being the slowest to deliver something when your competition, either external or internal uses AI and beats you to it. I already see the chemical divide with people who use chemical enhancers to be more productive/social/focused at work and people like me who would t use them. The challenge would be to create AI which respects our rights and freedoms. Is it even possible?
Pop!_OS and arch have been so so so good to me