[BigMackCam]

My Windows laptop came with Win 10 but barely runs it and doesn't meet the minimum specs for Win 11 so I'll run Win 10 on it until support ends in three years and if it's still functioning, it'll live out the rest of its days running Linux Mint.

My Dell Latitude 3180 "beater" laptop runs a rather wimpy N4200 CPU, with fixed 4GB RAM. 99% of the time, I use it on battery power. It came with Windows 10 which ran OK, but always felt sluggish. About six months ago I installed Ubuntu MATE 20.04 LTS, with TLP for power / battery optimisation. It's much more responsive, and battery life has extended somewhat too. I've no regrets in switching it to linux...

[Dartmoor Dave]

You can tell a lot about a person just by seeing how many icons they have on their desktop, and how many unread emails they have. There's a guy who works for me that has every square millimeter of his Windows desktop full of random icons, and Outlook has 13,488 unread emails. Explains a lot...

Yep, a clean desktop is a sign of a rational and organised mind. And here's a screen grab of mine:




(As you can see, I'm happy with ancient software. Photoshop CS2 and Word 2000!)

[BigMackCam]

As you can see, I'm happy with ancient software. Photoshop CS2 and Word 2000!)

Software can be a bit like cameras and lenses. I have a friend who always buys the latest complete version of Microsoft Office, but so far as I can tell he doesn't need or benefit especially from most of the new features. In fact, his use-cases are mostly the same as mine with LibreOffice - writing letters and simple documentation, and building the occasional spreadsheet with, at most, a couple of graphs. Having said that, he clearly enjoys getting his new software and playing around with the new features for a while...

[GUB]

Yep, a clean desktop is a sign of a rational and organised mind. And here's a screen grab of mine:




(As you can see, I'm happy with ancient software. Photoshop CS2 and Word 2000!)

Gnome3 on Linux is by default a clean desktop and is not a reflection of my irrational and addled mind

Attached Images

 

[GUB]

I have a friend who always buys the latest complete version of Microsoft Office, but so far as I can tell he doesn't need or benefit especially from most of the new features. In fact, his use-cases are mostly the same as mine with LibreOffice - writing letters and simple documentation, and building the occasional spreadsheet with, at most, a couple of graphs. Having said that, he clearly enjoys getting his new software and playing around with the new features for a while...

And I convinced the committee of my club to save a bit of dosh and use LibreOffice on a new laptop. But because of the main user being utterly determined to use .docx the resulting instability is going to be proof that it is inferior.

[Dartmoor Dave]

Gnome3 on Linux is by default a clean desktop and is not a reflection of my irrational and addled mind

I have to confess that I gave up on Gnome3 after a few days and went back to the Gnome2 style MATE. Somehow I just couldn't get my head around the Gnome3 inerface. But then, I'm still using Xfce on one of my Linux machines so maybe I'm just not suited to any sort of up-to-date software at all.

Oops, I'm drifting off topic again so back to Windows 11. Nope. Not going there. Never installing that one.

[GUB]

I have to confess that I gave up on Gnome3 after a few days and went back to the Gnome2 style MATE. Somehow I just couldn't get my head around the Gnome3 inerface. But then, I'm still using Xfce on one of my Linux machines so maybe I'm just not suited to any sort of up-to-date software at all.

Oops, I'm drifting off topic again so back to Windows 11. Nope. Not going there. Never installing that one.

What I like in Gnome3 is that the dock autohides when a program is opened - maximising real estate. But I would imagine that you can do that now in Mate can't you?.
The applications page in 3 is uncompartmentalised and alphabetical and that is how I like it. I could never remember whether things were under "system" or elsewhere in the old desktops.

[ThorSanchez]

Software can be a bit like cameras and lenses. I have a friend who always buys the latest complete version of Microsoft Office, but so far as I can tell he doesn't need or benefit especially from most of the new features. In fact, his use-cases are mostly the same as mine with LibreOffice - writing letters and simple documentation, and building the occasional spreadsheet with, at most, a couple of graphs. Having said that, he clearly enjoys getting his new software and playing around with the new features for a while...

About 10 years ago I helped my Dad upgrade his computer, and he was 99% convinced that he needed to go buy a full copy of Microsoft Office for $300, $400, something like that. I told him that for the few letters and spreadsheets that he uses it for he could certainly use LibreOffice. He countered that at work, before he retired, they all went to MS Office because everything else messed up all the formatting and wouldn't read the files and it was a disaster. After a while I just told him that he can go spend $400 if he wants, but at least he should try LibreOffice.

10 years later he's still using LibreOffice.

---------- Post added 01-28-22 at 07:56 AM ----------

I have to confess that I gave up on Gnome3 after a few days and went back to the Gnome2 style MATE. Somehow I just couldn't get my head around the Gnome3 inerface. But then, I'm still using Xfce on one of my Linux machines so maybe I'm just not suited to any sort of up-to-date software at all.

Oops, I'm drifting off topic again so back to Windows 11. Nope. Not going there. Never installing that one.

I use the Spartan and bare-bones Xubuntu and Xfce on my 12-core machine with 32Gb of memory and gaming-optimized SSD because I can't abide inefficiency. Why would I use 50 clock cycles of my 10 billion on user interface tasks when instead I could use 20?

[gatorguy]

... so far, everything's working just fine. Tested:

Lightroom 6 stand-alone
RawTherapee 5.8
Darktable 3.8.0
GIMP 2.10.30
Pentax DCU 5.9.3
... and a bunch of other photography-related apps...

All working as expected

Boot-up time on my Lenovo Legion 5 17IMH05H seems just ever-so-slightly longer than with Windows 10, but once logged in the OS feels a bit snappier than 10. Web browsing, in particular, feels more responsive... I don't think I'm imagining it; I was fully prepared to dislike it and revert to Win10 if necessary.

My laptop is set up for dual boot with Windows and Ubuntu MATE 20.04 LTS, and I still prefer using the latter much of the time... but so far, Windows 11 seems very nice, and very logical to use. I rather like it

My sole toe-dip into Win 11 did not go as smoothly as yours and on a relatively new Dell Alienware desktop. I completely lost my wifi adapter, and my network was mangled as well. I sent MS the report. Back to Win 10 obviously, but MS is still aggressively trying to update that machine to Win11 anyway despite my editing of the registry to prevent it. At home its newer Alienware desktop version is trying a bit of trickery to get me to update, which is definitely not appreciated.

[pschlute]

so far, everything's working just fine

Glad it is working well for you Mike. There was someone on another forum who had issues with his calibrated screen profile not being read correctly and he was getting a yellow cast when editing raw files. He had done the "upgrade from 10" route. In the end he re-formatted his computer and did a clean Win11 install and it fixed the issue.

My screen manufacturer Eizo is also suggesting not upgrading at present as there are issues with the Eizo calibration software not working correctly with Win11. I am sure it will all be fixed soon.

[mholford]

Interesting read of everyone's experiences upgrading.
Neither of my laptops said they were eligible for the Win 11 upgrade. Despite being relatively new (2017/2018) and meeting all the processor etc. specs.
One of course is a microsoft surface (why wouldn't a microsoft tablet be eligible? I guess they want everyone to buy a new one) The other is a Dell inspiron 15.

In both cases a detailed analysis shows they meet all the actual specs, just the processors aren't on the approved list. So I followed the instructions for upgrading a non-approved PC (on the actual microsoft web site).
Both work like a charm. I also like some of the new tweaks. I don't think this is a major rev., it's more of a big service pack update, but designed to leave people behind so they feel the need to upgrade their hardware as microsoft won't support it in a few years.
So if your laptop appears to meet all the specs for the upgrade, but your processor isn't on microsoft's approved list, it might be worth a try. I recently upgraded the memory and added a new SSD and replaced the other hard drive in my main laptop (Dell), so I have no intention of letting it become obsolete because microsoft says so.

[BigMackCam]

My sole toe-dip into Win 11 did not go as smoothly as yours and on a relatively new Dell Alienware desktop. I completely lost my wifi adapter, and my network was mangled as well. I sent MS the report. Back to Win 10 obviously, but MS is still aggressively trying to update that machine to Win11 anyway despite my editing of the registry to prevent it. At home its newer Alienware desktop version is trying a bit of trickery to get me to update, which is definitely not appreciated.

Glad it is working well for you Mike. There was someone on another forum who had issues with his calibrated screen profile not being read correctly and he was getting a yellow cast when editing raw files. He had done the "upgrade from 10" route. In the end he re-formatted his computer and did a clean Win11 install and it fixed the issue.

My screen manufacturer Eizo is also suggesting not upgrading at present as there are issues with the Eizo calibration software not working correctly with Win11. I am sure it will all be fixed soon.

Sounds like there are still significant issues, and the general feeling seems to be Win 11 won't be truly "business ready" for some months yet. As I said, I was quite ready to revert back to Win 10 if necessary - but I guess I struck lucky that my Lenovo install has been largely problem-free.

Interesting read of everyone's experiences upgrading.
Neither of my laptops said they were eligible for the Win 11 upgrade. Despite being relatively new (2017/2018) and meeting all the processor etc. specs.
One of course is a microsoft surface (why wouldn't a microsoft tablet be eligible? I guess they want everyone to buy a new one) The other is a Dell inspiron 15.

In both cases a detailed analysis shows they meet all the actual specs, just the processors aren't on the approved list. So I followed the instructions for upgrading a non-approved PC (on the actual microsoft web site).
Both work like a charm. I also like some of the new tweaks. I don't think this is a major rev., it's more of a big service pack update, but designed to leave people behind so they feel the need to upgrade their hardware as microsoft won't support it in a few years.
So if your laptop appears to meet all the specs for the upgrade, but your processor isn't on microsoft's approved list, it might be worth a try. I recently upgraded the memory and added a new SSD and replaced the other hard drive in my main laptop (Dell), so I have no intention of letting it become obsolete because microsoft says so.

I have a couple of older Lenovo m72e Tiny desktop PCs currently setup to dual boot Windows 10 Pro and Ubuntu MATE 20.04 LTS. Those machines don't have TPM 2.0 (or even the earlier implementation), and no hardware upgrade module is available. Plus, even though I upgraded the CPUs, they're still just 3rd gen i5 (the best I can go to on the motherboards) - so there's no way these machines will ever be Win 11 compatible. Since Win 10 won't receive security updates after October 2025, on that date I'll disable internet access on the Windows installs and only go online from Ubuntu. That suits me fine... I'll still have the ability to run Windows apps when needed, but will do most of my work from Ubuntu - which is pretty much how I operate already