[ufmace]

I'm in the exact same boat. I was a little unhappy with the ads etc in Windows, but perfectly willing to give Windows 11 a try. But Microsoft decreed that my admittedly a bit old but perfectly workable CPU was incompatible, due to not having a feature I wasn't interested in. I'd need to replace most of my existing hardware to switch. So why not try Linux? It certainly seems reasonable when Windows apparently needs more command-line hackery to maybe work for a while than Linux.

So to Fedora I went! So far, I've been pleasantly surprised. All of the software I want to use installed easily and works, via Flatpak. All of my hardware works fine, and there are actually fewer weird hardware quirks than under Windows. I also appreciate that there are options to turn off behaviors I found annoying in Windows.

It's a bit sad to have to switch due to Microsoft trashing their own OS rather than Linux becoming superlatively awesome, but what can you do.

[Gud]

Linux is superlatively awesome

and I say that as a FreeBSD user.

[glenstein]

And I say it as a Linux user. My story is breathing life into old hardware back in the 2010s without having to spend any money, and just enjoying the No Man's Sky style freedom of exploring a whole new world of how a desktop operating system could look in feel and work, unmoored from the background sickness of thinking everything I do is channeled into Microsoft telemetry.

If you're the type of person who's capable of falling in love with software and software ecosystems, there's nothing like a first jump into Linux and understanding it as a world ready and waiting for you.

[wolvoleo]

FreeBSD user here too <3 Mainly because I think Linux is way too aligned (and developed by) big tech these days.

We have Netflix and Sun influence but the former is not really putting its stamp on it and the latter no longer exists (and evil Oracle has zero interest of course)

I prefer the OS aligned with users like me not the big cloud boys.

[eterm]

I'm in a similar but more ridiculous reason. My reasonably modern hardware should support windows 11, but I get "disk not supported" because apparently I once picked the "wrong" bootloader?

I can't be arsed, if I'm going to have to fiddle around getting that working I might as well move to linux.

[neocron]

Iike that you both started with Fedora. Same for me but almost 20 yrs ago

Haven't touched it in a long time ever since debian8 was the point in time where it was fine to run on desktop and laptop for me, not only on server. Ever since then I have it on all my 20something machines

[swat535]

I know you've already switched but bid you try using FlyOOBE to bypass it?

https://github.com/builtbybel/FlyOOBE/

[chaostheory]

Prior to a lot of apps transitioning to be web apps, this would be more important, but there’s less value now that almost everything is non-native. Even MS Office is online now

[jama211]

You can bypass the warning really easily, I googled it the moment I saw it and it was very easy. A keyboard shortcut to open the command window during the install and one cheeky command. I agree though that it’s silly they don’t offer it officially.

But I get the feeling you were on the edge of transitioning anyway, which is fine! Sounds more like the straw that broke the camels back.

[matja]

If you bypass the installer minimum hardware checks then you're making a gamble that the official statement from Microsoft won't affect you:

> If Windows 11 is installed on ineligible hardware, your device won't receive support from Microsoft, and you should be comfortable assuming the risk of running into compatibility issues.

> Devices that don't meet these system requirements might malfunction due to compatibility or other issues. Additionally, these devices aren't guaranteed to receive updates, including but not limited to security updates.

[mort96]

There's a ton of outdated guides out there because Microsoft has been patching out workaround after workaround. It's likely that the simple solution you used doesn't work anymore.

[ufmace]

There's a little bit of considering it already yeah. Plus what the sibling comments say of it being clearly against what Microsoft wants, so no guarantee they won't disable it or make it even harder in the future. And also, the factor of, doing any of these check-disabling hacks also seems to require a full OS reinstall instead of an in-place update. If I need to do a full reinstall anyways, why not do it with an OS I don't need to hack up to get it to install on a system the OS maintainer doesn't want it to be installed on.

Apparently, fundamentally, Microsoft does not want me as a user. Hacking around their checks won't change that. I'd rather comply with their wishes and use an OS that actually wants me as a user.

[sdoering]

I have two laptops that - even being 8 years and 4 years old fit the specs MS decided to set.

I still kicked itin the can. Am a happy Arch User & Ubuntu (will probably migrate that one to an Arch derivate as well, though) nowadays. I still use WIN11 in my day job. And it is an okay OS. I had worse. I had better.

What I find interesting is, that I gained on average 30 - 50% more battery time from the laptops I switched to Linux. It is quite unexpected and to me quite frankly amazing. I am writing this on my day job quite expensive Surface machine. I pulled it from the power connection to sit on the sofa about 20 minutes ago. My battery? At 73%. And I am running Firefox and PowerPoint at the moment (plus whatever corp crapware is installed underneath).

Except for exactly one set of tools (older Affinity progs) I have no need for WIN anymore. And as my day job provides a WIN machine...

[avgDev]

I can confirm this.

Honestly, I am really surprised this is a top comment here. This was an extremely easy work around. We are all mostly curious nerds here.

All this work because one couldn't google a easy work around?

Last time I tried Linux it sucked for gaming and I've spent hours trying to install a printer.

Not to excuse Microsoft in this situation, Linux is obviously more open.