Intel might have slipped that Windows 12 is indeed coming next year | Company CFO sees benefits of a coming “Windows Refresh”::undefined
new versions of windows just kind of feel like new phones now. It’s good but… who cares?
I can remember as a teen and upgrading from windows 98 to XP felt like jumping into the future.
Or, more recently, getting the first samsung galaxy after having a basic candybar phone.Just seems like more of the same all while charging an arm and a leg for it.
Then xp to vista happened and it looked pretty but was unusable. Then 7 came out and it solved all the BS and was a relief. Then 8 came out and it looked pretty but was unusable. Nobody is quite sure what happened with 9 but 10 was ok I guess, better than 8. Then I started using Linux because I was sick of the bullshit.
9 was skipped because there was concern with old/lazily coded programs running in compatibility mode for Windows 9x versions.
Basically, when the windows versions went from Win95/98/ME to 2000 and XP, some lazy programmers went “well by the time Windows 2090 rolls around I’ll be dead” and just had their programs check the windows version for a 9 when deciding whether or not to run in compatibility mode. If it detected a 9, then it would run in compatibility for 95/98/ME.
Microsoft wanted to avoid this potential issue, so they just skipped version 9 altogether and jumped straight to 10.
Unrelated but didn’t a lot of things about that time skip a few versions to land at 10? Like I don’t think there was an iPhone 9 and so on.
Marketing isn’t a joke, who said that
They also didn’t want to appear to be “behind” OS X.
Regarding why they just jumped to 10, I subscribe to the theory that enough software that required XP or greater checked for OS compatibility by looking for the string “Windows 9*” to catch both 95 and 98
Funny thing. The reputation of Vista is universal, so I don’t doubt it at all. However, I ran Vista starting from beta and never had a problem with it. I must have had the magic hardware combination that worked. My least favourite Windows release was 8.
As someone who was stuck on vista as a teen towards the end of its life is wasn’t a bad OS, but it did deserve the hate early on for being a buggy OS that was poorly optimised for the average hardware of the time. But then I moved to 7 and fell in love with it( or at least I thought it was great).
Then I upgraded to 10 and hated it. I switched to Mac for a couple of years and started liking unix but missed the hardware of PCs and didn’t like the 10.15+ direction of MacOS.
So I switched to Linux( which I had messed with on an old laptop on and off as a teen, but at the time liked all my proprietary crap I was used too) and have never looked back.
I was one of the few people who bought the original Surface and I actually loved Windows 8 on that thing. I even used Internet Explorer because the touch interface was fantastic. It all got taken away though.
Vista was more stable and usable for me than xp ever was.
I got a laptop with Vista when it was new and though I’m wasn’t really a Windows fan, I never really had a problem with it. I suppose I had never used XP though.
Vista became pretty good after tons of upgrades.
The stuff that made Vista shitty to most end users wasn’t truly fixed with W7. For the most part W7 was a marketing refresh after Vista had already been “fixed.” Not saying that it was a small update or anything like that, just that the broken stuff had been more or less fixed.
Vista’s issues at launch were almost universally a result of the change to the driver model. Hardware manufacturers, despite MS delaying things for them, still did not have good drivers ready at release. They took years after the fact to get good, stable, drivers out there. By the time that happened, Vista’s reputation as a pile of garbage was well cemented. W7 was a good chance to reset that reputation while also implementing other various major upgrades.
W7 was really just a vista service pack, but they had to rebrand it to make people want it.
I was running an it services business at the time, so got to see a broad number of machines and peoples complaints.
I think the massive jump in ram required was a huge problem, it went from most people having 128mb to 256mb, to a minimum of 512, but a reality of 2gb required.
Plus the indexer was relentless and just smashed HDDs.
Drivers were a problem too but people understood they would need to be have upgrades for their fancy new system.
In the programming world, versions with a 9 as a major digit, or most significant minor digit, are considered bad luck. Windows 95 and 98 aren’t considered amongst that bad luck thing though, as they were actually versions 4.0 and 4.1, respectively. 95 and 98 were named after the year they were released, but their internal version numbers did not include a 9. Windows ME was a disaster though, and it’s version number was 4.9…
It’s kinda like how people are superstitious about the number 13, programmers are now superstitious about version numbers with a 9 in the version number now. Windows ME probably at least partly started that.
But hey, that’s just coming from many years of experience with technology starting from the mid 90’s and also a handful of articles I’ve read over about it, who really knows though?
I do believe that version numbers with a 9 in them lead the end users to think “Hey, this is a 0.9, 1.9, 9, whatever, when are they gonna fix all the bugs and release the 1.0, 2.0, 10.0, etc…”
Where are you located? I don’t know any programmer who is afraid of 9. Not even in releases.
We had a year of iterations of X.900, X.910, etc etc. None of us thought that was bad luck. And honestly we implemented some fun features to write.
Versioning is usually done with three numbers, often separated by a period. So Major.Minor.Patch/Hotfix. So we would have X.900 for the first minor version of X.9. If (when) there is a hotfix, that becomes X.901. For a lot of other software it would be X.9.1. Either way, skipping 9 would just cause confusion. I’ve never heard of this superstition and I’ve never seen a software company skip 9 in their versioning.
Was your software meant for internal or corporate use, or was it meant for the average everyday consumer? Internal use is one thing, but the supposed superstition regards the average end user.
It comes off as if there’s no good reason to go for a version 4.9 system, when you might as well wait for them to iron out all the bugs and ship a polished off version 5.
For the end user, this is especially important when you’ll have to pay for version 4.9, only to have to pay all over again for version 5. It’s like in hindsight you knew you were pissing money away on 4.9 in the first place.
This is exactly what happened with Windows ME and Windows 2000, people just pissed their money away on ME. This is also more or less what happened with MacOS 9, people weren’t all too pleased with that either.
Even in my own projects, if I’ve reached version numbering ending in a 9, that generally means I’m working on lots of internal changes, adding lots of features, and it is likely to have bugs. By the time I’m pretty damn sure most of the bugs are ironed out I’ll up the version number and might actually let other people use it.
Edit: If the version numbering is for some background library that end users aren’t necessarily going to have to directly interact with or inspect, then it hardly matters, just go ahead and go sequentially.
May not be more of the same this time around
The very start of that article:
October 6 Update: A newly published report has clarified that the discovered code bits are not related to Windows “12.” Also, the next-gen Windows version will not require a subscription.
Isn’t windows 11 still… unfinished?
Everything is unfinished in Microsoft world. Not even joking.
I’m not thinking about upgrading until W11 is 50-60% market share and they actually have to take bugs seriously
I bought a Dell XPS for work with a 12th gen Intel Evo CPU that came with Windows 11 and it ran like absolute dog shit. Slow, poor battery life, etc. I reinstalled 11 from scratch with an MS ISO to remove any Dell bloatware and it was actually worse. I ran the “old” Windows 10 Media Creation Tool and downgraded (through the upgrade option, ha) and it has been running great for months ever since. The Evo platform isn’t even supposed to work fully on 10, and definitely not run faster or with better battery life. That’s the inverse of what should have happened. Also, the bugs went away and I got a functional Windows Explorer back without having to pay for fucking third-party start menu software.
E: clarity
Is any piece of software ever truly finished?
Not when its from ms
As long as 10 is supported, I’m not updating. At least I’m not hammered with ads like on 11.
If 10 is sunset, I’ll probably switch back to Linux. I rarely game on my laptop anyway.
Out of like 1000 games I can play about 997 on linux, you’ll probably be fine on linux even gaming now
I don’t understand Linux, but gaming on my steam deck is amazing and occasionally runs games better than my much more powerful windows computer.
Certain things do run better on Linux. So if a game heavily relies on one of those things, it’ll run better. But there’s still a lot of game engine stuff that is experimental or just plain non-functional on Linux, so the games that utilize those are basically unplayable.
Until fairly recently, things like Ray tracing and DLSS were windows-only, because they almost universally used DirectX, which is a windows API.
Microsoft already announced Windows 10 will no longer be supported in Oct 2025
If you game via Steam, there’s a good chance you can use their Proton layer to play Windows games on Linux.
Ive played wow on linux without an issue as well
Lutris is great!
Installation was a bit tricky but following the guide… easy peasy.
My gaming rig is linux and it’s only sorta inconvenient
How dumb can a person be and still use Linux for gaming? I’m open to switching from Windows but am only marginally technical so I don’t wanna bite off more than I can chew
These days it’s more “which games don’t work on linux?” Rather than “which games work on linux?”
It’s even simpler then that.
It’s which games use EAC or BattleEYE and have dog shit devs that won’t just turn on proton support. It’s seriously just this at this point. I feel like every time I go looking though protonDB a majority of the garbage rated games are anticheat/drm related problems.
Fucking fromsoft games use EAC and they have worked out of the box day 1 on Linux.
Yeah I managed to solve that for some games by installing the proton EAC plugin. Squad works for instance.
But games introducing kernel-level DRM I wouldn’t install on my Windows machine anyway. I guess the person I replied to potentially doesn’t know how to deploy a new operating system. So they might not care about all that anywho.
But calling everyone else dumb because they don’t know how to do something is ridiculous.
Here is my attempt to answer this genuinely and in detail. To game on Linux, I think you should be able to, or willing to learn how to:
-
Install operating systems on your computer. There are folks that genuinely can’t handle this; they use the OS installed on their computer and if it breaks they either buy a new computer, or it’s a trip to the geek squad or the genius bar or their brother that “works in computers.” Installing Linux on a PC is practically the same skill as installing Windows on a PC; it asks you things like how you want to partition the drives and such, you have to deal with the BIOS at least a little bit. The main difference is Linux is installed by default on comparably few computers, and even then if you buy a System76, you’re going to get Pop!_OS, if you want Mint, you’re going to do it yourself. So.
-
Learn a bit about how to day-to-day administer a Linux system. How to update the system, how to install new software, how to uninstall software. Learn how the Linux file system works and how drives are mounted onto it, things like that. It is done differently than in Windows; some of the concepts transfer over, some don’t.
-
Not completely freak out when you encounter the terminal. I have seen people pitch a complete bitch fit at the very notion that us Linux users do occasionally use the terminal for things. Here’s one thing that the terminal is really great for: Your sound isn’t working, you ask about this on a forum. Would you rather have someone say “Oh yeah right click the Start button and click Preferences, go to the Devices tab, scroll down and click More Information then a window will pop up, scroll down until you see Sound Card, expand this, then for each entry in there right click, click Properties, go to the Status tab, and then type what it says in there” or “Open a terminal, type
lshw | grep -i audioand copy-paste what it spits out.” The terminal is just your computer, you run programs by typing their name instead of clicking on an icon, that’s all. Don’t have a cow, man. Unless it’s cowsay. -
Play the right games. I have long attributed my success with gaming on Linux in large part to my tastes happening to align with game availability on the platform. I like small studio/indie projects, I like nerdy creative/problem solving/building games, so I play stuff like Zachtronics games and Factorio, and wouldn’t you know it those folks tend to release Linux native builds, or their Windows-only games run great in Proton. I play practically no “AAA” games, I haven’t bought an EA game since the SNES, and I have never owned a Bethesda game.
-
When you first install and log into Steam, go to Steam > Settings > Compatibility and turn on the option “Enable Steam Play for all other titles.”
my tastes happening to align with game availability on the platform.
I wished more people phrased it this way, or acknowledged that some peoples’ tastes in games aren’t going to change to fit a new platform.
Thanks for dumbing it down for me. I just built a computer so I’m not a complete bust on knowing or figuring this stuff out, but I don’t want an OS where customizing and making sense of it becomes a second job, you know? I’m just a blue collar guy that likes gaming. Think it’s worth getting another hard drive and having a dual boot just so I could practice with Linux before going all in? Or is that a stupid idea because I don’t know what I’m talking about?
Having built your own computer says to me you’ve got the smarts, interest and patience to learn about your computer. The hardest part for building my computer was finding all the parts that would fit together, this CPU is compatible with this motherboard and this RAM, etc. Plus, building a computer yourself means you’ve done #1, you’ve installed an OS on it. You’re no stranger to the BIOS, partitioning a drive, etc.
I can really get wanting an OS that doesn’t take all your time tweaking. This is why I use Linux Mint; it comes pretty complete and usable out of the box. The “customizing” I’ve done to my Mint system included changing the wallpaper, installing a new theme from gnomelook.org, dragging a few things around, and such. What I’ve found over the time I’ve used Mint, it doesn’t change so drastically with each release the way Windows does, so I don’t have to spend time re-learning where they’ve hidden the Save button this time. I can learn new things.
I do strongly recommend keeping a Windows machine around while you learn and transition to Linux. I started using Linux on a Raspberry Pi back in 2014 or so because I was tinkering with electronics and ham radio, and wanted a little computer to attach to my radio to run FLDIGI that wasn’t my big expensive laptop. Then that laptop died, and I bought a new one that came with Windows 8.1, and I hated it, so I tried desktop Linux. That laptop still has Windows 8.1 on it to this day. That machine only had one hard drive bay so I was able to dual boot by partitioning the drive. If you have room in your case for a separate drive, I would recommend doing that, and keeping Linux on a separate drive to Windows. If you have an old computer you’re not using lying around, like your old machine or something, it can be worth using that to tinker with. Try out several versions of Linux on hardware you “don’t care” about. It can be freeing to not have to worry about borking your Windows install. Using a separate drive is a great idea and you definitely know what you’re talking about.
I really appreciate you making it sound so much more manageable than my first impression led me to believe. You’ve got me looking forward to trying Linux rather than just being full of trepidation about it since programming and the technical stuff isn’t my wheelhouse, so thanks for that!
Tell you a really easy way to get your feet wet in Linux, download a Linux ISO or two, and try them out in VirtualBox. Right from the comfort of your Windows machine without doing anything to your hardware you can try it out, see if you like the feel, follow some tutorials and learn some stuff, see if it’s a place you want to go.
-
Depends on the distro, times have really changed in the last 5 years and even more since the steam deck was released. I distro hop a lot and my recommendation for a newbie would be pop os! Or Ubuntu. I was really impressed with pop, everything just worked right on install. Same with Ubuntu for the most part. Any guide for the current release of Ubuntu will work on pop os.
I’ve been using EndeavorOS recently and enjoyed it but I wouldn’t recommend it to someone new to linux. It’s not as hard to use as other distros but might be a bit much for a newcomer.
It’s not nearly as hard as it seems, but you do have to be willing to search around Google for a bit and things might take a few tries to get working. Steam has an option in their compatibility settings to run windows games through Proton that has worked well for me, but I only really play smaller single player games. Can’t vouch for how well it works for multi-player stuff. Also I’m using Manjaro (based on Arch Linux) not sure if it works the same for all distributions.
I have nearly 1000 games on steam the only ones that don’t work on proton with zero fiddling at this point are either EAC/BattleEYE games that don’t support proton. Or old games from the early 00s with drm that also don’t really work on windows anymore either.
I am also on Manjaro.
Dunno if he’s dumb but you’re dumb based on your dumb comment.
You misread the comment
Yeah, the phrasing didn’t do it any favors.
deleted by creator
It is a healthy way to look at it, since by the time 10 isn’t supported, 11 will be relatively bug free.
windows 11 isnt even the majority of installs yet and they’re trying to push for windows 12? They tried doing “windows as a service” with Windows 10 but that never really manifested either.
I know people whine that Linux users always harp on about Linux, but there’s a better alternative to having a £100 tax on every new laptop you buy, or having to buy a new license every time you upgrade a PC a little too much in one go. Or being locked out of security updates because you dont want to subject your system to adware.
And with the Steam Deck entering the picture, we have a huge company like valve making it even easier to jump ship now. Its the ship jump I used
I love how it’s not even Valve directly, they just threw a huge pile of cash at the Wine team and said “go nuts”, and it’s been a boon for the entirely community.
Microsoft might be leaning into an old reputation. Windows 95 was crap, Windows 98 fixes it. Windows ME was crap, Windows XP fixes it. Windows Vista was crap, Windows 7 fixes it.
They might be expecting that people think Windows 11 was crap in the same way Windows ME or Vista was crap, and they’ll flock to Windows 12. But it’s not like Windows 11 is horribly broken like that. The actual problem is that Windows 11 doesn’t give many compelling reasons to upgrade over 10, and it has a bunch of useless bloat.
As a developer, having WSL2 open up X11 apps without having to jump through hoops of running an X server on Windows is quite nice. Other than that, I don’t know why I’d bother.
I don’t think Microsoft charges OEMs remotely close to full price for OEM licenses, so it’s more like a $10 tax, but I agree with everything else here
Its lower. Businesses basically pay a subscription for the ability to generate keys. So of course if you have a large business, the subscription is trivial in the grand scale of things.
Its similar to how game companies work with pc cafes in asia. They dont pay for all the games they host, some they pay a sub to generate accounts for people who pay for the cafe rental times. Its a vital feature for paid games with a focus on multiplayer (e.g Overwatch 1 worked like that in China)
Yeah pretty weird, considering 11 still feels kinda half baked.
Didn’t the same happen with Windows 7 and 8.1?
Most were still using 7 when 10 was released.
Microsoft and the consumers will be fine.
And no, it still isn’t the year of Linux. Back in 2016 it had somewhat of a chance, but not anymore. And neither with the Windows 12 launch, sorry.
The steam deck got me used to Linux, I personally am never going back to Windows
I haven’t even bothered “upgrading” to windows 11 because it still looks terrible.
My work computers have it installed so I use it all the time it’s not bad, it just doesn’t bring anything good to the table. It’s basically a visual update.
Yeah, but I dislike the visual update.
Yep. Hate the curved edges.
There a way to set it back to angled edges without the use of a 3rd party app?
I think you can change it in themes, but I can’t check it because work computers are so locked down.
The one thing I love is the new snapping options of you hover over the maximize button.
So with zero first hand experience then? You’re refusing to upgrade based on memes and conjecture alone.
Sure, you’re well within your right to do so, but it’s not a great system to live life by. People are far more vocal about bad experiences than good ones. Windows 11 has been awesome for me, and as a developer and gamer, I’m on my PC and Mac far longer than the average user. I’ve not had any issues with windows 11 since it came out; the issues with the start menu and whatnot. It feels like it’s cool nowadays to moan about Microsoft products when the reality just doesn’t reflect those complaints.
Try it out for yourself. It’s actually a really good OS: I prefer it over MacOS Sonoma anyday. My dad, who is ‘afraid’ to touch computers in fear of breaking them, told me just last night how much easier Win11 is to use than Win10.
If after all that you still hate it, well, at least then you’ve made an informed decision!
I have it on my work PC, I was talking about not installing it on my home PC.
That’s great, but there are valid concerns about other people’s use cases
I can’t install it on my laptop because it has a hard drive. Immediately not something you can use - it scans files out of the box, making the system unusable. It doesn’t let you just disable it without taking drastic steps, but disabling some features requires group policy. If you use some hacks to disable things, randomly other things break. For example, disabling the firewall breaks Windows Update (?!)
The last good version was Windows 7 where you could actually do 99% of things you wanted with Home edition without any issue.
just because you like it doesn’t mean I have to enjoy using the spyware and windows 11 has been way worse for gaming then 10
So with zero first hand experience then You’re refusing to upgrade based on memes and conjecture alone.
Sure, you’re well within your right to do so, but it’s not a great system to live life by. People are far more vocal about bad experiences than good ones. RedStar OS has been awesome for me, and as a developer and gamer, I’m on my PC and Mac far longer than the average user. I’ve not had any issues with RedStar OS since it came out; the issues with the start menu and whatnot. It feels like it’s cool nowadays to moan about North Korea products when the reality just doesn’t reflect those complaints.
Try it out for yourself. It’s actually a really good OS: I prefer it over Windows anyday. My dad, who is ‘afraid’ to touch computers in fear of breaking them, told me just last night how much easier RedStar 11 is to use than RedStar 10.
If after all that you still hate it, well, at least then you’ve made an informed decision!
Thank you, ChatGPT.
My computer is 11 and I hate it more than any previous windows. Each newer version of windows removes features that previous ones had and makes customizing more and more annoying to do. Now that the Steam Deck has got me used to Linux, I wont be coming back to Windows whenever I upgrade my desktop
I see no compelling reason to accept this “upgrade.”
That’s why it’ll end up beig forced on people. Just like what’s happened with 11. And 10 before it. Didn’t happen to everyone, but there were lots of complaints about it happening.
If it’s forced and also needs a subscription, quite a lot of people will leave for the alternatives.
There are more sinister ways to force people to do something than just outright requiring. People seem to have forgotten, or never knew, that time when new DirectX was supported only on Win7 and didn’t work on previous versions mysteriously, but all new games required it. WIndows 7 didn’t see such a huge adoption naturally. Same thing when new Office is released file format changes just enough so that old Office doesn’t support new files, but new Office supports all the formats, so people would end up upgrading. Otherwise majority of people don’t need more than configuring margins, fond sizes and bold.
But will they though? They should, but will they? I predict only very very very few will.
Time for Linux 2.0
Linux kernel version 2.0 was released in 1996.
It can only mean one thing…
Time for Linux 3.0
I have some good news for you
I agree with what Plopp said. The logical response is “fuck that” and move on to something, ANYTHING, else. But we should know by now that most people will just suck it up because it’s too much effort to learn something new.
And 7 before it. And XP before it… Moot point really.
I don’t remember XP or 7 being installed automatically on anyone’s PCs. That was what I was referring to in my previous comment. The “upgrade” to 10 and I think 11 happened automatically, without consent, on some people’s PCs.
I don’t remember 11 being installed on my pc automatically. I’ve waited for over a year before i had to click multiple times to get the upgrade to 11.
I don’t remember 10 being installed automatically over my 7.Read the first few paragraphs of your source. Nothing was forced.
Thanks for agreeing with me.You stopped too early
For a time, clicking the “X” in the upper right corner of the Windows 10 upgrade prompt window was interpreted as consent to upgrade to the new operating system. The typical expectation for all users is that clicking the “X” ends the program, and in fact, doing so was the only way to reject the free upgrade offer for most of the pop-ups notification’s existence. The same prompt could upgrade your system to Windows 10 without explicit consent if you left you computer on for an extended period, as well. PCWorld received hundreds of reader complaints about “forced” Windows 10 after Microsoft began using those tactics.
The quotes are there because there was always technically a way available to avoid the upgrade, but there are two distinct instances listed of users being upgraded without consent.
A new version of windows coming next year isn’t really shocking news.
But Windows 10 was supposed to be the last version, they said so. 🙄
It was for me.
I use Arch btw.
Love Arch Linux! Been running it for over a decade now.
I don’t use Arch, I only said that because “I use Fedora on my laptop and Pop!_OS on my desktop btw” doesn’t really roll off the tongue
Fedora is a great distro! I’m a web developer and I run it on my work laptop. I do run Arch on my personal laptop though because I like to learn and tinker with Linux and Arch is my perfect balance of just works and DIY, though I have been eyeing void a bit recently
No worries, always get excited when I see someone mention Arch. Been running it so long, it’s always fun to run into others using it outside the Arch community
I use NixOS FWIW
Promise?
No
Fair enough.
Promise.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Microsoft’s marketing department be like “no fucking way you’re getting rid of major version numbers. I don’t care if you’re just tacking shit onto Windows 10, people spend money when there is a big splashy number or release name.”
I dont find it shocking but I do find it odd they’d release a new one so soon. Hasn’t W11 only been out for a year or so?
October 2021, so two years
… pretty much proof positive that win 12 will be subscription-based IMO
I wonder if they will provide a “Windows 13” after that.
And another thing in Windows I am waiting for is the moment when they encrypt all your data “for security”, then blackmail you into a subscription service where you can only access your files while you pay your monthly dues. And how long it will take for this being hacked in a way that hackers, microsoft, and the relevant government agencies can all read your data, and you can not.
That won’t happen, or they will get banned in the entire EU.
That would be nice, but it won’t happen. Too many things are sadly hanging on “runs on windows”.
But why.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they dropped the TPM requirement to increase adoption
rumored to be an enterprise tier “windows in the cloud” solution . But that doesn’t mean there won’t be an offline solition personal OS where u have basic functionality with ads on the desktop. If you know win11 and xbox new startmenus, expect more of those unmovable ad spots…sorry recommendations
Any bets on this Refresh not supporting 8th-gen and below Intel chips except the Surface Studio for “reasons”?
Still peeved my 5930K isn’t supported, despite still being petty capable.
If not 12, an incremental patch release to 11 as a “revamp” version they’ve done with all the others, but no significant changes. Meh.
Fucking fix your bloated background service’s, every update they add more and more services and background applications that serve little purpose, like the touch screen service that’s running on my fucking desktop that only has a mouse and keyboard
another thing that annoyed me was the useless setting page, when control panel worked fine.
especially since you end up needing to get to control panel to do anything anyway
Don’t worry! Control panel is being slowly phased out in favor of the settings.
“slowly”
Just like that one Windows setting with UI elements from Windows 3.1 . Control panel will probably be phased out in 20-30 years
Pop! OS is great.
I like Manjaro
I like Gentoo, but Opensuse Thumbleweed is good alternative
Thank god my PC doesn’t have a TPM.
Otherwise, I am just waiting for some industrial software to be usable on Linux (they’re migrating now!) so I can finally drop Windows for good.
Why would you thank God your PC doesn’t have a useful hardware feature?
What advantage does a TPM chip hold for me as a user? In most cases it seems to be used to take control away from me.
They’re a weird case, but they’re able to basically improve boot validation, they can store keys, and they can act as an improved secure random number generator.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Trusted_Platform_Module#Using_TPM_2.0
A TPM is just a piece of hardware, just because you don’t like how Microsoft used it … doesn’t mean it’s some technology for oppression or something. At worst, you can just not use it.
That said, TPMs are supposed to have manufacturer signed keys. TPMs could conceivably be used to properly block someone cheating in an online game from returning (i.e. a “hardware ban”) since the crypto can’t be spoofed (like an IP, MAC address, or serial numbers).
A TPM is just a piece of hardware, just because you don’t like how Microsoft used it … doesn’t mean it’s some technology for oppression or something. At worst, you can just not use it.
That’s pretty terrible argumentation. All DRM measures are just “a piece of hardware” in the end, yet I’m forced by Microsoft to install a TPM2 module to use their latest software. How long until I no longer have the choice not to use it, even on a free OS?
That said, TPMs are supposed to have manufacturer signed keys.
And since I can’t change those keys and can’t look into the module, it can literally be used for oppression.
TPMs could conceivably be used to properly block someone cheating in an online game from returning (i.e. a “hardware ban”) since the crypto can’t be spoofed (like an IP, MAC address, or serial numbers).
Great example. Now imagine a centralized block list by the government for all major web services, for which the infrastructure is literally there now.
That’s pretty terrible argumentation. All DRM measures are just “a piece of hardware” in the end, yet I’m forced by Microsoft to install a TPM2 module to use their latest software. How long until I no longer have the choice not to use it, even on a free OS?
Your tinfoil hat is showing…
And since I can’t change those keys and can’t look into the module, it can literally be used for oppression.
IIRC you can store new keys in the TPM, they’re just not going to be signed by the manufacturer.
Great example. Now imagine a centralized block list by the government for all major web services, for which the infrastructure is literally there now.
That wouldn’t work… and isn’t how that works… That would require browser vendors to actually implement some kind of “here’s my TPM” handshake and websites to care enough to refuse service if you fail that validation.
If someone wanted to do that, they could do that already without a TPM. Error: “You must have a valid license from Microsoft or Apple DRM to use the internet.”
The reason it could work for games is they could tie their game anticheat into the TPM … and that’s something that has to happen as an agreement between vendors for specific games, anti-cheats, or stores. This could (and I am talking out of my ass a bit here as I don’t know the full details of how TPM boot validation works – though TPM passthrough, like GPU passthrough is a thing in QEMU) potentially open the door for VMs that can play games as well if someone wanted to invest the time, as in theory the TPM could validate the Windows 11 VM boot hasn’t been tampered with.
Also, a TPM is not DRM, it’s a cryptography coprocessor with verifiably secured keys… that’s just a unique hardware function that’s desirable (particularly for certain corporate environments, militaries, etc), that want to verify their devices haven’t been hacked) can’t be done any other way.
Fearing a TPM is like the folks foreshadowing that secure boot was going to be the end of Linux; it wasn’t and it isn’t. That’s true of this particular piece of hardware as well (and, it can be used for other things).
Your tinfoil hat is showing…
Do you have an actual argument? Because again, I’m literally forced to have a TPM module to use the current version of Windows. You can’t say “that’s crazy conspiracy talk” WHILE IT’S HAPPENING.
IIRC you can store new keys in the TPM, they’re just not going to be signed by the manufacturer.
Yes, which is the problem.
That wouldn’t work… and isn’t how that works… That would require browser vendors to actually implement some kind of “here’s my TPM” handshake and websites to care enough to refuse service if you fail that validation.
Yes, in a hypothetical scenario where browser vendors are forced to implement a TPM handshake, they’d have to implement a TPM handshake. Since the hypothetical situation isn’t reality as of right now, it’s not how that works. Are you playing dumb?
If someone wanted to do that, they could do that already without a TPM. Error: “You must have a valid license from Microsoft or Apple DRM to use the internet.”
Yes, but I can currently create a new account or otherwise circumvent these issues. There is no way to block my device in a centralised manner, except that now the hardware is in place to force such a thing by regulatory bodies.
Also, a TPM is not DRM, it’s a cryptography coprocessor with verifiably secured keys… that’s just a unique hardware function that’s desirable (particularly for certain corporate environments, militaries, etc), that want to verify their devices haven’t been hacked) can’t be done any other way.
I never said a TPM is DRM. Could you try to stay on point?
Fearing a TPM is like the folks foreshadowing that secure boot was going to be the end of Linux; it wasn’t and it isn’t. That’s true of this particular piece of hardware as well (and, it can be used for other things).
No, it’s not.
Whatever, do or don’t freak out about it. It’s happening with or without your support, and it will be just fine.
All the bad things that could happen could happen with or without a TPM.
if you have a decent cpu it probably has a tpm, which is pretty useful in both windows and linux. like secure passwordless (or data-at-rest) drive encryption
