DuckDuckBuntu?

Switching from Windows to Linux on my Framework laptop makes my battery last 2-3 times as long. They should just have a switch to Linux recommendation to reduce your carbon footprint.

Win11 also says that showing seconds in the taskbar "reduces battery life"/"increases power consumption"

when microsoft feels threatened by the recycling community being noticed, they add more technical constraints. Chromebooks are the gold standard for an intentionally non recyclable machine, neck and neck with apple.

Linux sounds good but I never see it discussed on this website. How am I suppose to use Arch if nobody else does?

And it's essential to have a always on network connection 24/7 if you turn it off we will delete all your data/j

I already did this 2 years ago and I still don't miss Windows. I want my OS to just work, and that means not having big companies intentionally blocking updates and bullying consumers just so they can profit from artificially induced OEM license sales. It's pretty wild how quickly Linux has fit the bill in recent years, and how Windows no longer does.

Only hurdle on Linux right now is the transition from X11 to Wayland. Proton doesn't have good support for it yet so I occasionally have to load an X11 session for some games to run. I can imagine that getting worked out eventually.

Microsoft could have simply dropped official support for older machines and then literally done nothing and that would have still been better than what they did. At least then those machines would still receive security updates beyond next year, provided they could still run the latest version of Windows.

For the record, if the arbitrary CPU block is bypassed, then it's possible to install Windows 11 23H2 on a Prescott era Pentium 4 or Athlon 64. The true requirements did change for 24H2, but even then you can install that on a 1st gen Intel or a Bulldozer era AMD system. Microsoft can go suck a dick.

they helped me learn how infuriating it is to try and go back in my browser history after visiting a microsoft help link

You mean running sfc /scannow isn't the solution to all life's problems?

"Promote" here masking what they are actually doing ...

Fixed it for you:

Company renders 60%+ of computers running current software incapable of running new software due to niche hardware requirement, abruptly ends support for current version next year, and tells users to throw away their computers and buy new ones.

Oh, and they're promoting their cloud storage option. Which may or may not have anything to do with their data harvesting? I don't really know on that one.

Secure boot and TPM are tools for (among other things) making sure nobody (E.G. a virus or worm) has tampered with your OS and bootloader. You can for instance use both on Linux, it's just by default they come preloaded with Microsofts configuration for loading Windows, and the technical knowledge for how to reconfigure it is a bit arcane.

It's an excellent security tool, it's just abused by Microsoft to discourage competition.