What the hell?!?!?! This is a server OS! It needs to be as light as possible and for the sake of server stability and security, admins carefully choose the installed apps. Microsoft can't just install new applications on a whim.
This is fuged up.
People in this thread seem to be missing this point.
This is windows server, not windows 11. The consequences is not "I'll have an annoying taskbar icon on my home computer", this is enterprise level interference that could affect large systems and thousands of users.
Linux Mint isn't an alternative to windows server.
You're right ig, in that case grab Debian.
I only SysAdmin on raspbian thank you very much.
Yeah but Fedora and Debian sure as shit are.
Yep. I no longer have to administer Windows servers (everything I do is serverless these days) but I did for many years.
Adding anything to a server without vetting it against policies is a huge no no. Back when I was doing it, a big part of our monthly update deployment was updating the test environment first so we knew we weren't about to break a bunch of shit for us and our customers. Not just "does this brick Windows server", but "do our applications still function" (usually yes, but the answer was no on several occasions over shit smaller than this).
I don't know what adding copilot does. Is it going to accidentally break some custom application by accident because it's tied directly into the system? Is it going to report shit that I've already opted out of due to our data policies and possibly fuck up our audit compliance because of government regulations (defense, medical, and energy sectors have huge responsibilities in that area, just don't ask how I know)? How does it interact with our in-house developed software?
Fuck, I dunno. That sounds like a nightmare for infrastructure and ops, several managers, government regulators, and a payday for legal.
For sure, if you need paid support (which if you aren't a tech giant, a fledgling startup, or a system with no need for uptime metrics, you probally do) the you have:
if don't need paid support then Debian, OpenSuse, Rocky, or Fedora are all good picks.
Stop resisting!!
Oh they can, as we see
That's a lawsuit waiting to happen.
No enterprise is going to want to deal with that and realistically they’re the only ones with the pockets to fight that battle.
If introducing Copilot to server degrades service enough to trigger an SLA downstream, you can absolutely bet lawyers will get involved.
Or if CoPilot starts exfiltrating data to Microsoft so their server farms can ‘analyze’ it.
I’m not heavily involved in the space, but I’m given to understand that MS isn’t very clear about what happens to your data or how it gets used or shared.
Perhaps Microsoft will be smart enough not to allow the general public to query trade secrets or government data that’s been pulled via unwanted copilot integration.
But maybe the ongoing Russian hack of Microsoft will make it irrelevant, because the servers can be accessed directly.
Or perhaps at some distant time, Microsoft will roll out features or technologies developed using an internal version of CoPilot that has access to all data - including proprietary information from competitors.
And that’s not even counting what ISP’s will do if they find a way to analyze copilot traffic, or what state actors will do if they can set up MitM attacks for Copilot.
Honestly, I sort of fear the repercussions, but I look forward to the lawsuits.
That is fucked.
I'm already starting to transition to full Linux on my devices with the arrival of Windows 11 and Windows 10 reaching end of life in October next year. I never thought I'd see the day of this happening.
oh god, win10's dying next year?
i really need to transition the rest of my shit to Linux soon
Microsoft has been telegraphing these moves for years now tbh.
That doesn't make it right.
And not everyone can dump Windows for Linux. We run a lot of software that requires Windows. Changing is impractical if not impossible.
ok sure, most servers are already running linux for a good reason.
Is "copilot" the new slang for "back door"?
Man... Anybody remember "Back Orifice"? The late nineties were weird.
The install size is just 8KB. Could it just be a link to open Edge?
The icon itself is probably more than 8kb. It's either incorrect or literally just a desktop URL shortcut
In the spirit of these kinds of changes, I'd love to hear some honest Linux distribution recommendations. I'm leaning towards Ubuntu because it is the most widely advertised and UX focused from my perspective. But I've also heard good things about Arch. Any others I should be considering?
I'll probably not go full Linux any time soon - I want at least one Windows OS to play games on - so whatever option it should be dual-boot friendly.
You’ve heard good things about arch solely because you’re on Lemmy. Using arch means you’ll be dedicating about 50% of your working time towards tinkering and making it fucking work, which is fun don’t get me wrong- unless you have actual work to do.
Ubuntu is solid but a little sluggish, I’m personally an advocate for Mint as far as something you can drop a windows users in and they’ll generally figure it out.
Seems like the general consensus in this section is Mint, so I'll give that a look over for sure
I don’t get this. For each of my devices running arch, the only tinkering I’ve encountered were for nitpicky customizations I wanted, which I have to do on another distro. After the arch installation completes it’s given me a fully functional desktop
Linux Mint. That's always the answer. It's lightweight, it's simple, it's easy, it does what you need. Even gaming. SomeOrdinaryGamers did a vidso on YT about installing it, it's pretty easy!
PopOS too. Extremely easy to set up, ready to go.
Given that this is in a thread about Microsoft Server, I'd recommend using Debian as the distribution to replace Microsoft Server.
If you want a desktop, I'd start with a LiveCD version and familiarise yourself with the various available distributions on offer.
The intent of a LiveCD is essentially to boot into Linux without modifying your hard-disk and keeping your existing OS unchanged.
I'll note that many of these images are available for DVD or USB. Some will offer a mechanism to store data on your existing drive without wiping anything.
With USB drives being fast and cheap, you can also often use a LiveCD to install onto an external drive.
Finally, you can install a virtual machine on your computer and use it to run your Linux tests.
Are you looking for a Windows, server, replacement or desktop replacement? Your experience will differ depending on which one you're trying to replace.
For instance, if you're trying to replace Windows active directory services with a single Linux server, might have a bad time. I'm in the process of migrating from AD to FreeIPA, PowerDNS, and isc-dhcp (or something similar for DHCP).
I wouldn’t recommend arch as a first distro imo. I don’t see what the advantage would be for a newbie.
Personally I would recommend Fedora.
For a distro that just works, Linux Mint.
AI assistance for server maintenance? Uh-oh.
Install Linux on your desktops. If you have windows servers then what the hell are you doing anyway? Dump Microsoft
This is exactly what I needed in my servers. An AI assistant to help me.. do what exactly?
Data-mine the information you intentionally did not put on the cloud.
To configure your active directories and stuff. Wouldn't it be great to automatize everything to the point that when something breaks you have no idea what to do because you have no idea what is done and where
Why does every mention or discussion of any annoyance in Windows immediately turn into a "install Linux" thread on here?
Sure, Linux might solve the immediate problem for the affected individual (and probably introduce a bunch of new ones as Linux isn't always as easy to use as advocates try to convince people it is) but it doesn't solve the larger issue - Microsoft needs to be held accountable for horrible design decisions and anti-consumerist practices.
Not everyone can, or will, switch to Linux. No matter how hard people champion that cause. And even if they do, it's a process that will take time. In the immediate, lots of people stand to benefit from Microsoft not pulling this sort of bs, and it's entirely justified to complain about it to make them walk back this decision.
Get rid of that crap, I and I'm not talking about Copilot.
If you have to use Windows Server (or other Windows), install the hellzerg Optimizer
This stuff always makes me laugh. Firstly, yes absolutely, Microsoft shouldn’t do this sort of crap. But more importantly, the person complaining about it here is shouting out for the world to hear “I don’t know how to manage Windows servers properly!”. There is one single group policy setting that stops this from happening. A single, set-and-forget GPO. Anyone managing Windows environments that isn’t aware of this, shouldn’t be managing Windows environments.
This is a ridiculous statement. Copilot should be opt-in, not opt-out and the setting is new.
Perfectly reasonable by the sysadmin to not have that already set.
There are 5 million ways to configure windows and each have an absurd and almost by-design level of convolution. You can't possibly expect people to know about a new GPO immediately
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In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
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