No, it doesn't make Windows behave like Linux.
It are just a collection of apps made by the engineers behind Windows with features that never made it into the official build because of all kinds of reasons.
this post was submitted on 26 May 2025
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Powertoys on windows are a boon, but there's absolutely no word you can say they make windows "behave like linux". Not even close.
What's the second one? PowerToys and?
It's WSL, I think the logo is relatively new though or maybe not official idk
Interesting, didn't know WSL had a logo. Thank you!
The fact that Microsoft refers to the application suite that makes Windows marginally useful as "toys" should tell you everything you need to know about their OS philosophy. I prefer an OS that takes my use cases seriously.
Holy shit powertotys run is the one of the only reasons i can tolerate windows 11 on a works laptop.
Local admin to go digging through group policy settings, just so i don't have to scroll past 2 pages of ads and internet results in the start menu to open fucking "settings"?
They can absolutely fuck right off with that.
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wait til you hear about WSL
until you realise it's just a Microsoft-flavored VM
only the second version. wsl1 is pure black magic. the communication layer is 9P, which means that windows is currently the only mainstream OS capable of talking to a Plan9 network out of the box.
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Proud victim of the Powertoys to Linux pipeline reporting in
Holy shit! It's real
Windows - > Powertoys - > Winget - > Win Debloater - > Minimal Windows - > Bazite - > Debian
It's so beautiful!
That's my journey too, except a few of those didn't exist yet, when I first walked it.
Portable Windows apps and Ubuntu live Boot CDs awkwardly bridges some of the (previous) gaps, for me.
Pretty much my desktop experience, with popos rather than bazzite.
I completely forgot that I went to PopOS before Bazzite.
I still like it but I was tinkering too much with it before I knew how to stay out of trouble.
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Oh, yes all the tools that should already exist in their crappy, uninnovated OS.
They still havenβt figured out how to do updates without installing during a reboot.
Something Linux has been doing since the 90βs
Sometimes those updates only apply when you reboot.
yes. And then it's literally just a... reboot.
You don't sit there waiting for it to install. It's just restarting the kernel so the newly-installed version takes over. (and generally it only applies to the kernel updates.)
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No true. I use it only for FancyZones. A feature not native to Linux. In gnome I also have to install a plugin to get this functionality.
I'm thankful for both.
The plugin install on Gnome is quicker and less invasive (doesn't require escalated permissions) than installing PowerToys.
I also like that Gnome plugins let me choose only the plugins I want. PowerToys leaves me with many installed features I'm not using. I think they at least all default to turned off. Gnome does save me a few moments of configuration, too, as the plugin can default to "on" since each plugin is separate.
And Gnome's tiling has good defaults. PowerToys still uses "these are power users" as an excuse to ignore usability feedback.
Gnome plugin are great. I've seen complaints about them breaking when gnome is upgraded, but I haven't experienced any problems myself.
My only complaint is discoverability. I was rawdogging gnome in fedora for a while before i discovered the extension manager app in the Store. This should be built in!
All fun and games but I'm still missing the "paste without format" keybind.
Powertoys is a great addition and while there probably are addons for all of these in linux I kinda wish they would come in one package together too.
Maybe it's just me but I feel like I'm not helping my system by tagging on add on after add on just to get back some basic functionality from Window like a clipboard and status indicators for some apps in my taskbar
Does ctrl-shift-v not work for you? Or do you want to rebind it?
I did not know that was a think until now but yes I want to rebind it π I will need to look into this for gnome
KDE plasma has like 90% of the feadures.
I think I will need to go over to KDE anyways soon
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I miss the window tiling one. Its ability to span multiple "areas" with a window by holding a modifier key is something I sorely wish KDE's tiling had.
Edit: FancyZones! Finally remembered the name.
Thought KDE did have one? Unless I installed an extension and forgot about it.
Super + T to configure
And works with Super + left click to move windows (no more hunting that pesky titlebar up top)
Edit: I'm on KDE 5 so things may be different, but I found it under Workspace Behaviour>Desktop Effects>Window Management
Yeah this is inbuilt (not an extension) and very similar to Windows fancy zones.
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Meh... switch to linux, already
Power toys is so bad now. Almost all the features are completely useless and it hogs a ton of system resources.
I remember using it way more in 98/XP. Group Policy manager is what I have to use for most of the shit I wanna do with 10. Which is only available with a Pro license.
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Have been using PowerToys for years, can't imagine using Windows without it.
Itβs for average users to make Windows easier to use. Though thatβs the same as making it more Linux like
view more: next βΊ