Windows 11 hardware requirements made a mockery of by an Intel Pentium 4 processor
As the screenshots below show, Microsoft considers the Intel Pentium 4 661 a supported processor. Intel released the Pentium 4 661 in early 2006, with a solitary core to its name. Apparently, Microsoft forgot to add any Intel Family 15 (Netburst) SKUs in its unsupported processors list for Windows 11.
Hence, the PC Health Check tool sees that the Pentium 4 661 has a 3.6 GHz boost clock, which satisfies one of Windows 11's requirements. Curiously, the tool states that the Pentium 4 661 has two or more cores, even though it lists it as having one.
@Carlos_SM1995 has even got Windows 11 (Build 22000.258) running on a Pentium 4 661. Supposedly, Windows Update still works too, highlighting the ridiculousness of Microsoft's overtures regarding Windows 11 compatibility.
Windows 11 final (Build 22000.258) running on Intel Pentium 4 (11m4s video)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19 2021, @04:12AM (3 children)
Windows 11 runs on space heaters, eh?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday October 19 2021, @09:11AM
Provided it has a TPM chip.
Otherwise just run it on a regular computer to turn it into a space heater.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 19 2021, @04:25PM (1 child)
I assume you mean it runs on the Digital Space Heaters. You know the ones where it clearly says it is a DIGITAL space heater on the front of the box. So much better than those old analog space heaters.
Just search Amazon for "Digital Heater"
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19 2021, @06:08PM
Planck said that energy was quantized, so they are all digital.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19 2021, @04:48AM (2 children)
Fuck You.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19 2021, @06:11AM (1 child)
Enough Microsofting Micro$erf propaganda on SN! Just, stop. No one here uses Windows, well, except Runaway on his virtual machines, or MartyB on his back-up machine, or khallow on his pro-capitalist richie supporting Mac Book Prong. Can we not have real news about real tech progress, and nothing more about an old and decrepit operating system from the '80's? I, for one, would appreciate more about the ARM architecture, and how Microsoft cannot deal with it.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 19 2021, @04:26PM
I use Windows at work, where I am not responsible for maintaining it or trying to keep it running.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 5, Informative) by RS3 on Tuesday October 19 2021, @04:53AM (2 children)
FTFS:
Again, software often sees hyperthreading as 2 "logical processors".
https://www.cpu-world.com/sspec/SL/SL94V.html [cpu-world.com]
(Score: 5, Funny) by driverless on Tuesday October 19 2021, @10:01AM
It's a Microsoft product, it's surprising it doesn't list it as a Motorola 68000 with 512 cores and 16 bytes of RAM.
(Score: 3, Informative) by toddestan on Wednesday October 20 2021, @03:14AM
If you look in Windows 10/11 task manager, it makes the distinction between "Cores" and "Logical Processors", so at least someone at Microsoft knows the difference.
The screenshot [notebookcheck.net] from the article shows exactly what the tool is reporting. "The processor has two or more cores.", followed by "Processor Cores: 1" and a green check mark. The only response I have to that is...."Huh?"
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday October 19 2021, @05:43AM (7 children)
Do they mean it works, or that it just boots? Can it even support enough ram to test?
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Informative) by MadTinfoilHatter on Tuesday October 19 2021, @06:41AM (6 children)
From the video it seems a tad sluggish, but actually perfectly usable.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday October 19 2021, @08:18AM (5 children)
is the conclusion of all the reviews of new major versions of Windows for the past 30 years (revision x.0). Then by the time revision x.1 comes out, you need a new computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19 2021, @07:29PM (4 children)
Intel gives and Microsoft takes away.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19 2021, @08:39PM (3 children)
Moore's Law: Every 18 months, the speed of hardware doubles.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19 2021, @10:54PM (1 child)
Moore's Law is slowing down... what about Gates' Law?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 20 2021, @12:15AM
Gates' law is slowing computers down, try to keep up.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday October 20 2021, @11:10AM
Every software will grow to fit the amount of memory available.
(kinda the OS version of Parkinson's law [wikipedia.org].)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Opportunist on Tuesday October 19 2021, @05:53AM (22 children)
The whole "it only runs on these processors" is purely artificial. There is no technical reason it shouldn't run on any mostly contemporary CPU, it's deliberate sabotage.
(Score: 5, Funny) by pTamok on Tuesday October 19 2021, @06:50AM
So long as the processor's instruction set is Turing-complete, Windows 11 should run on anything, assuming the tape is long enough.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19 2021, @08:10AM (2 children)
Until you get a very technical unsupported instruction fault.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19 2021, @12:33PM
At which point it won't matter if it's supported or not, MS can't actually figure out why it happened in most cases. And if it was just that machine, it probably won't be fixed. MS used to at least pretend to care about quality, these days they don't even have the machines to do any meaningful QA.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Opportunist on Thursday October 21 2021, @07:00PM
That's not what we have here. It's not that Win11 doesn't run on old CPUs due to a crash or because Win11 makes use of instructions not present on those old CPUs. Since Intel made a point of being backwards compatible to the stone age, including even a couple of processor bugs in newer hardware to make sure the workarounds OSs made for them continue to work, what we have here is that Win11 deliberately checks for what CPU you are trying to run it on, and if it detects one MS doesn't like, it just flatly refuses to run, even though it obviously, technically, would.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19 2021, @10:56AM (5 children)
Is it even legal? Sure the code might be slow, but can a software vendor arbitrarily lock the product to specific hardware legally?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Opportunist on Tuesday October 19 2021, @12:05PM
We could ask Apple.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by RedGreen on Tuesday October 19 2021, @12:20PM
"Is it even legal? Sure the code might be slow, but can a software vendor arbitrarily lock the product to specific hardware legally?"
There is no law against it unless done to diminish competition violating anti-trust laws. But Apple has done the same forever when they upgrade their OS with artificial limitations on the hardware supported by the next version of the OS cutting off the old hardware that is still usable with the new OS. There is a whole cottage industry of sorts around finding the work a rounds to allow the continued use of the old hardware with the new OS. Apple took a little turn from their garbage hardware locks they used to do years back like special firmware on the hard drives and video cards to limit you to their expensive options. They were open for a tiny while now it is back to non-upgrade able everything with it all glued down or soldered to the logic boards. Ensuring even more expensive and environmentally damaging replacements when only a normal tiny part would need to be replaced in any other machine it is the whole board with them. They like to talk a good game but in practice their lies are many on those subjects, like their we use none of the slave labour in China hilarity they sell on a regular basis to their sheeple. Enough of that rant of the day this is about MS garbage which is piled even higher than Apples or at least equal heights. All them companies lie about this and the bribes paid to the politicians keep them raking in the profits without oversight, violating the people's everything they can to wring every last cent of it out us. Fucking parasites every good damn one of them there are no good corporations at all as far as I am concerned. They are the reason the planet is in the mess we are right now along with their collaborators the bought and paid for politicians.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19 2021, @12:22PM
It would be completely different if they were physically testing the software the way that they used to on real hardware. If they just listed the models that they had in a QA lab and blacklisted the rest of it, that would be somewhat understandable. But, these days, they basically don't do any testing of fixes and if something does happen, there's a very good chance that they don't have any of the necessary information to figure out what happened with any reliability.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Tuesday October 19 2021, @12:30PM
Hey, someone else who does not own a stupid smart phone!
Unfortunately the rule in this modern world is "If it isn't expressly illegal, companies will do it". It doesn't matter if something is unethical, abusive, or technically wrong, if there is no law expressly against it and it can make a company money somehow, they will do it.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 19 2021, @04:30PM
It is in your very most goodest interest if Microsoft locks Windows 11 to machines having the instructions that their compiler will generate.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by iWantToKeepAnon on Tuesday October 19 2021, @02:27PM (8 children)
Not all CPUs are created the same. Lot's of progress in the last 14 years. Why should M$ restrict their instruction set and not take advantage of those advancements? Especially if one of them would provide a speedup or otherwise enhanced experience? Checkout the specs below of a CPU on one of our work linux servers (not recommending this CPU in any way, just one that is handy at the moment). Do you think a CPU from 2006 has the same technical spec? Wouldn't you be upset if linux didn't take advantage of every bit of juice your CPU could provide?
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Tuesday October 19 2021, @04:19PM (1 child)
Software can be written to test for whether an instruction is implemented, and only then use routines that require the instruction.
(Score: 5, Informative) by DannyB on Tuesday October 19 2021, @04:44PM
Consider the configuration nightmare. How many different duplicate sets of routines do you want Windows to have? Consider just the Kernel for a second. How many different permutations of Kernel should Microsoft compile for? There are different dimensions of features that a processor may or may not have.
Now that said, let me digress a moment and point out where Java wins hands down on processor compatibility. See this journal article: It's fashionable to hate Java [soylentnews.org], where I explain about the C1 / C2 native compilers.
Summary:
Your JVM bytecode starts up being interpreted. As soon as a function is identified as using disproportionate CPU, it gets immediately compiled quickly by the C1 native compiler into much faster but not optimal code. It is also added to a list of functions to be recompiled by the native C2 compiler soon. When the C2 compiler comes around, it will spend significant time and effort compiling your function to native code. C2 can take advantage of things known only at runtime, which cannot be known ahead of time, such as a C compiler. For example, maybe this one method call does not actually need to be a virtual call going through a vtable. There is only one instance of a subclass ever, at all in the entire program. And many other optimizations an ahead of time compiler cannot know. In particular, and of specific relevance here is that the C2 compiler can compile your function to the exact instruction set of the hardware it is currently running on. Does your processor have this or that other set of vector extensions? Or this or that other coprocessor, or some other feature? The code is compiled to the exact processor you are running on. Whether it is Intel, AMD, or even a different architecture, ARM (many flavors), Power PC, even IBM mainframes, etc.
Thus, Java programs start up slow, then seem to "warm up" and run fast. This is great for a program that will run for a long time and wants excellent performance. It is horrible for quick command line programs such as 'ls'.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Tuesday October 19 2021, @07:40PM (5 children)
Not at all, that would be logical. But obviously they didn't do that. As it has been demonstrated, the code does run on ancient hardware, and since Intel has been backwards compatible for as long as I can remember, to the point where newer CPUs had to include all the bugs the old CPUs came with and programmers programmed around, this would suggest that Windows should run on newer hardware, and it not running is only due to MS deliberately sabotaging it.
(Score: 2) by iWantToKeepAnon on Wednesday October 20 2021, @04:28PM (4 children)
I am not a M$ cheerleader, but ... showing screenshots or even a video doesn't prove that it runs for all software in all environments. It could easily throw unsupported instruction errors running on hardware at a level that is below the build process compile flags. CPUs may be backward compatible but they are not *forward* compatible. Apple has been breaking backwards compatibility for, well, since forever. I think M$ is well within their rights to require a modern CPU to run on, and it may even be overdue.
How many times must this happen [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/05/24/strategy-letter-ii-chicken-and-egg-problems/] :
Since I have to run Windows on work PCs, I'd be glad to get rid of all those old "special mode"s.
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 2) by iWantToKeepAnon on Wednesday October 20 2021, @04:44PM
Also of note to the backwards compatibility issue : https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost-the-api-war/ [joelonsoftware.com]
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday October 20 2021, @09:31PM (2 children)
Again: Nobody complains about them not "officially" supporting ancient hardware. You run it and it runs, fine, you run it and it barfs, too bad. No support.
What they did, though, is deliberately sabotaging the ability of the software to run on certain CPUs. It doesn't just simply crash because of an illegal instruction or unsupported function, it checks for the type of CPU you have and if it detects one that it does not want to run on, it refuses to.
Do you understand the difference?
(Score: 2) by iWantToKeepAnon on Sunday October 24 2021, @02:04AM (1 child)
> Do you understand the difference?
Yes of course, let's not get condescending. But M$ doesn't want hordes of tweets and ig's about how horrible the new OS is and how it crashes all the time; public opinion is still important. Nip it in the bud and just don't allow it.
But I agree, there should be a hack or a huge RED don't press this button to run on old hardware. There probably will be a hack, in time.
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Monday October 25 2021, @04:15AM
If information control and PR was the name of the game, that's easy to do. Make sure everyone and their dog knows the minimum specs and use your army of fanboys to mercilessly mock anyone who complains about performance on unsupported hardware.
Sorry, not buying it.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday October 20 2021, @01:58AM (2 children)
I suspect it's a bit of industry collusion (sell new hardware) based in a little bit of technical pain in the ass details on some of the blacklisted processors. Sure, they could solve those problems with the not-so-old chips, but that would cost development time and money - so why do it when you can make your industry partners happy by pushing the new hardware?
Windows 10 was just coming out when we were starting development on our new generation of a product originally launched in the 1980s. This is the fourth generation, previous generation is past 15 years on the market and getting hard to source parts for. When Windows 10 was selected for use in the product it was touted as the "forever Windows - last version there will be, just going to do rolling patches from here until the heat death of the Universe" or something along those lines. I told the Redmondites: "yeah, sure..." and here we are. I suspect 10 going end of life is going to happen before this generation of hardware expires. Hopefully our custom written .NET software ports to the next thing without too much pain.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday October 20 2021, @11:08AM (1 child)
I would have zero problem with them listing a bunch of processors as "deprecated" and unsupported. You run it on them, you're on your own, we don't patch for them. If it works, hey, good for you, if it doesn't, well, sucks to be you. That's all you get.
No problem with that.
What happens here is that they obviously check whether you try to run the software on certain hardware and explicitly do not allow you to do it. That's something VERY different than simply not supporting something, that's deliberately sabotaging it.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday October 20 2021, @03:56PM
Yes, deliberate sabotage, and posturing that forcing consumers to upgrade "for their own good" is acceptable. My answer to that has been a hard opt out whenever I have a choice, but in the end this is shaping our children's world and they need to be the ones who stand up and call out the B.S. as unacceptable.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19 2021, @06:15AM
Looks like Microsoft's criteria for processors is strangely close to SoylentNews criteria for banning aristarchus! Coincidence? Or malarkey?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MIRV888 on Tuesday October 19 2021, @06:55AM (25 children)
I've been dodging going full linux for years because of gaming.
That ship has sailed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19 2021, @08:20AM (1 child)
I went full linux years ago. Haven't regretted it. If you need to, have a standalone system for gaming.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 20 2021, @11:10PM
Full Linux? Is that like the Full Monty, but you have the body of a manatee?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday October 19 2021, @08:48AM (5 children)
Valve Launches "Steam Deck Verified" Program For Games That Run Well On The Steam Deck [phoronix.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 19 2021, @07:27PM (4 children)
I wish they'd put on their website whether a game would work well on linux or not instead of having to always go to protondb.com to find out.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Marand on Wednesday October 20 2021, @12:35AM (2 children)
Yeah, it would be nice if they had some kind of visible rating system, especially with the Steam Deck coming. Maybe have three rankings: "Supported" if a game works well with the Deck's hardware configuration, "Playable" if it runs fine (natively or via Proton) but needs workarounds for things like the lack of a keyboard, and "Unsupported" if it doesn't work. You could call it something like Deck Verified [steamdeck.com].
In case it's not obvious, I'm saying that that's precisely what Valve is doing. Takyon linked to reporting on it in the comment you replied to, even. You might still want to check protondb to double-check unsupported/unknown titles, but supported/playable identifiers should be a good indication that it's a safe buy without checking. Also, there are browser extensions that integrate protondb rating to the Steam site, so you could do that as well.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday October 20 2021, @01:02AM (1 child)
On steampowered.com, there is no protondb rating for games (least not last time i checked): steamdeck is not a site i've gone to, really and only works for the steamdeck, not really linux in general that i know of.
As per browser extensions, i did not know that, thanks, but also don't like extensions when i can help it.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Marand on Wednesday October 20 2021, @01:41AM
Of course not, they announced the Deck Verified thing a day ago and it takes time to roll out changes like this. Especially since this isn't just them pulling data from protondb, they're instead introducing their own validation process where they review games for compatibility. When it goes live it's going to be a way to check general compatibility without going to protondb, though you'll likely still want to refer to it occasionally for more nuanced information, like when a game shows up as unsupported in case there's a workaround such as using a Glorious Eggroll build of Proton.
You really should have read the link in the comment you responded to, because Valve just announced that they're doing precisely what you wanted, which is what the short article was about. Just have to give it some time to roll out :)
Though personally, I rarely bother checking protondb anyway. If it doesn't offer Linux native I just prefer not to buy, period; in the rare cases where I get something for use with Proton, I try it and it either works or it doesn't and I'll either run it in a VM (if it's a gift I can't easily return) or make use of that 2hr no-questions-asked return window. Returning a game because it doesn't work sends a stronger "I want support" message than not trying it at all.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Wednesday October 20 2021, @01:18PM
Their are extensions for that.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/protondb-for-steam/ [mozilla.org]
Dont expect Steam to complicate their UI jus for 1 percent of users.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19 2021, @10:43AM
Proton (the version of WINE that comes with Steam) works really well. You can look up your Steam games in ProtonDB [protondb.com] to confirm they work, but I haven't run into many problems.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Tuesday October 19 2021, @01:57PM (11 children)
I went "full linux" in 2008.
Gaming was rough back then. WINE was around, but many new titles did not work for months after release; not until someone learned how to tweak the WINE settings for a specific game and/or a code workaround was created.
When Humble Bundle first started back then, it was a godsend to linux users. Almost every single title in all the early bundles ran on native linux. Back then if your title did not run on linux, the HB devs would work with you to port it.
Then Valve released Steam for Linux, and literally overnight being a gamer on linux was easy. Over 1,000 titles for linux were released in the first year (far past 10,000 now) and most worked fine with a easy install through steam. Many high quality titles now run on native linux.
Recently Valve released Proton which is a tweaked form of WINE. And that has helped or hurt depending on your point of view. It allows the vast majority of windows games to run on linux, but at the same time it has slowed the number of games being ported to linux as some devs claim linux support with proton despite never even testing it once. Similar to WINE a decade ago, the biggest reasons why a game will not run with WINE/Proton is DRM and anti-cheat. (Though unlike a decade ago, most publishers are content with valve's DRM which works with WINE and is not nearly as draconian as other DRM options.)
With the recent announcement of SteamDeck, that will only help linux gaming. It will literally sell a native linux machine to the masses. (While installing windows will be possible, I doubt that many will do so other than a few fanatical types due to non-optimized hardware drivers and the extra space requirements on hardware with a limited hard drive that will not be easy to upgrade.) Also, Valve is working with the anti-cheat devs to support linux through proton which will rliminate what is now the largest issue with proton compatibility.
While it was different a few years ago, games should not hold a person back from going to linux.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Tuesday October 19 2021, @02:08PM
https://youtu.be/Dxnr2FAADAs [youtu.be]
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday October 19 2021, @04:04PM (8 children)
There are other things holding me back. Lately, it's PDF forms. None of the free PDF readers, except Google Chrome, can quite swing forms, they all have bugs or missing features. Okular will not show or print the choices made in check boxes and radio buttons. Ditto Evince, and I think it's because they're both based on Poppler. Okular also can't insert an image in a standard way. Even Firefox hasn't quite covered all the pieces. LibreOffice won't put a custom font in a text entry box when exporting to PDF. LibreOffice Draw more often than not butchers a PDF by substituting fonts that aren't quite the same size, so that columns end up crooked, and text ends up being run past the margin, and even lost from being run past the page edge. One of the points of PDF is that the fonts are included, so I don't understand why LibreOffice Draw doesn't use them, instead insisting on getting the matching font through the OS, and, if not present, substituting. And the command line tools? Apt to degrade a PDF form to a plain text PDF. So I must have Adobe Acrobat DC, not just the free reader, and that is available only on, yeah, commercial platforms such as Windows.
I've been running dual boot systems for a quarter century now, and find inconvenient all the rebooting and shuffling about of files. So I am wondering if the latest PC hardware can now support virtualization well enough that i could run a graphics intensive game in Windows 11 installed on a virtual machine, with Linux as the host.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 19 2021, @06:26PM
Install adobe acrobat on linux if that is the problem...
adobe-reader-11
on arch/manjaro
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 19 2021, @06:29PM
https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-adobe-acrobat-reader-dc-wine-on-ubuntu-20-04-focal-fossa-linux [linuxconfig.org]
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Tuesday October 19 2021, @06:57PM (4 children)
Google Chrome runs on Linux, so, if you're happy with its form support, I think you should be good there, right?
My personal method of dealing with PDF forms is flpsed. It just takes the PDF as a background image and draws on top of it. It works great whether the PDF is an actual fillable form or is intended to be printed out and filled in with a pen. I highly recommend it.
I wouldn't recommend taking this approach. I do run Heroes 3 in a VM, and it works okay, but that's a pretty old game. I would not expect newer ones to work very well. If you're going to switch, do your best to get the games running in WINE. Performance will be excellent in WINE, and games are usually pretty easy to get working. If Acrobat doesn't run in WINE after you try it, then use virtualization to run your Acrobat. Modern PC virtualization will give you more than enough performance for desktop publishing.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19 2021, @07:00PM (1 child)
Anyone who actually deals with PDFs programmatically, like me, who maintained a PDF editor, hates you deeply, with all the fiery, burning hatred of Mordor.
Please don't draw over form fields. The usual not-to-spec crap is awful. Adobe doesn't even meet their own spec.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19 2021, @10:04PM
How well does SumatraPDF do--relative to your criteria? It seems to do most things I want, but I'm not doing any pdf programming.
Sumatra does one thing that I use--it has a Postscript interpreter in it and I have an old MS-DOS word-processor that runs nicely in DosBox...which spits out clean, tight .ps files. I can open the Postscript (ascii files) directly in Sumatra and then print. Mostly my ancient Xmas card list (print directly on envelopes), but also random old manuals for engineering software we used to sell.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Wednesday October 20 2021, @01:23PM (1 child)
You are probably better off going the other way. Their are Linux distros optimized for VMs that claim bare metal adjacent efficiency.
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Wednesday October 20 2021, @05:32PM
The technology that allows that for gaming purposes is GPU passthrough. It's awkward and wasteful in that you need at least two GPUs in your machine, and you also need either two monitors or an HDMI switcher box.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 20 2021, @12:14PM
Yes, this has been possible for years. It runs every game except for three : Tarkov, Valorant, and Rainbow 6 Siege.
It's not particularly convenient to set up, but don't listen to the FUD about performance. It's within 5% of native. WINE usually matches native performance, sometimes even running faster, but WINE has a lot of bugs and it frequently doesn't work. Proton makes it easier, but lots of games still don't work.
The biggest problem with VM gaming is that you will be better off having two GPUs (one for the host and one for the VM), because while I have done it with a single GPU, it is much more useful with two. But only one of them has to actually be high performance, the other one just has to be able to drive your monitors. If you only have one monitor, an integrated GPU is good enough.
Check out r/VFIO for more information.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 19 2021, @04:49PM
WINE also runs on Windows Subsystem for Linux. Yes, really. [soylentnews.org]
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday October 19 2021, @02:32PM (3 children)
The Steam Deck is helping to push through support for anti-cheat software as well. Linux is looking better and better for gaming. Also for, just not getting screwed by the software giants. You can essentially avoid all things Google/Microsoft/Apple/Facebook/Amazon, if you go full in on Linux. Dump your current OS, buy hardware direct from Newegg, install MX Linux, use Firefox, use DuckDuckGo, and be happy. There's also the option of just buying a Steam Deck. I'm assuming it will have the ability to pipe to a big display, have access to a full fledged desktop environment like with current SteamOS, and is in a nice portable form factor.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Funny) by Freeman on Tuesday October 19 2021, @02:55PM (1 child)
The best thing is that you generally get to decide when you want/need to upgrade your PC. All you really need from your current pile of scrap metal is your personal data. Bookmarks, photos, documents, saved game files (assuming, not already in the cloud), etc. Get yourself a nice and fast USB 3.0 external SSD and dump all of your personal stuff on that drive. Now, you're free to do whatever you want.
Cautious Linux Switcher:
#1 Copy all of your personal data to a nice, fast USB 3.0 external SSD.
#2 Try out a LiveCD/LiveUSB of the OS you want to switch to.
a) Tinker with it and get a bit used to what Linux looks like.
b) Don't be afraid to try multiple versions, before you find one you like. See the page hit ranking list for a decent listing of different Linux options: https://distrowatch.com/ [distrowatch.com]
#3 Buy a new SSD to house your new Linux OS.
#4 Swap out your old drive for the new SSD.
#5 Install Linux
#6 Win!
Full In Linux Switcher:
Essentially the same steps as the cautious Linux switcher, but isn't afraid to nuke their existing drive. No going back! (Well, I mean, you probably still could, but it would be a little more time consuming.)
Just make sure you have all your personal data backed up!
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Funny) by Reziac on Wednesday October 20 2021, @02:49AM
Complete effin' paranoid switcher: all of Cautious, plus quarantine the eventual linux install on a different PC entirely until it earns some trust. Treat it like a different species, never allowed to miscegenate with Windows. Observe that eventually it becomes invasive, and starts taking over newer PCs. :P
[Tho the choppy video on this Fedora install I'm using til I get around to replacing a tired HD is reminding me why I settled on PCLinuxOS.]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19 2021, @08:04PM
we hope it has a microphone and a REAL android ASOP emulator (*) (ala wine) show up and we're golden :)
(*).for some crazy ass reason, android emulators on (host) linux cannot run the whole gamut of candy from the shitty candy store (you know candy, as in marshesmellow, tiktak, noughtgood, lemonoid, puymore, obsoltesoon, etc etc). seems ASOP is opensource so it's prolly downloadable somewhere. there's still the option to vbox the official latest x86 port of candroid and this "understands" regular jar ... errr ... apk files.
maybe there's even a SIM-card reader radio thingy we can plug into a usb port?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19 2021, @11:59AM (12 children)
And when done as clumsily as this, it is a clear-cut abuse of the monopoly, isn't it?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mcgrew on Tuesday October 19 2021, @01:38PM (11 children)
When haven't they abused their monopoly? Clinton's DOJ filed suit, Bush's DOJ let them go.
When I checked for updates on my little Dell laptop it informed me it won't run W11. I just bought that damned thing two years ago!
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Freeman on Tuesday October 19 2021, @03:13PM (5 children)
Don't worry, my new hotness (just over a year old) shows Windows 11 incompatibilities as well:
ASUS AM4 TUF Gaming X570-Plus
AMD Ryzen 5 3rd Gen - RYZEN 5 3600 Matisse (Zen 2) 6-Core 3.6 GHz
G.SKILL Trident Z Neo (For AMD Ryzen) Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin RGB DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3600 (PC4 28800) Desktop Memory
Silicon Power 1TB NVMe PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 2280 TLC SSD (SP001TBP34A60M28)
GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1650 OC 4G Graphics Card
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
I run VR games on that thing and it works well. There is literally no reason my machine shouldn't work with the new OS. Except, Microsoft is greedy.
I wanted to upgrade to a bit nicer GPU, but haven't been able to due to the really screwed up pricing for newer GPUs. Also was thinking about upgrading to a 5000 series CPU, but money, money, money. Also, I don't have a need for anything better, thus the money aspect keeps winning.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 19 2021, @06:35PM (3 children)
Holy shite: it won't run on THAT?
Why do people give MS their money?
Seriously. Dump dat shit. Just refuse. Get a new job or whatever.
Just. Refuse.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Marand on Wednesday October 20 2021, @12:52AM (2 children)
Probably TPM- or SecureBoot-related. Maybe doesn't have SB enabled or the motherboard needs a hardware TPM.
Mine's even funnier:
* Ryzen 7 1700 (8c/16t) OC'd to all-core 3.7ghz
* 64GB (4x 16GB sticks) RAM
* Nvidia GTX 1070 Ti (8GB)
* Nvidia GTX 1060 (6GB)
* 1TB nvme + 512GB SSD + multiple TB of traditional storage.
* I also have the necessary TPM support because my motherboard happens to support it, though I never knew/cared.
Should be more than enough to run Windows 11, right? Nope, because none of that matters; Microsoft arbitrarily decided that the first-gen Ryzen chips aren't supported, regardless of hardware capability. I can (and do) run Windows 10 in a VM and even there, with only a fraction of the my system's full resources, Windows has higher specs than many PCs in use: I give it 6c/12t, 24GB of RAM, and pass through the GTX 1070 Ti. Yet I still couldn't install Windows 11 if I wanted because I failed to meet some arbitrary cut-off point.
I don't run Windows on bare metal and don't intend to start doing so, so I don't actually care that it "fails", but I think it's hilarious that I'd have to throw all this hardware out if I wanted to install Windows 11.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Reziac on Wednesday October 20 2021, @02:54AM
It's a little bizarre considering it's not that different from Win10, which runs perfectly well on my 13 year old AMD that was never much to start with. So, yeah, it ain't the CPU.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday October 20 2021, @01:32PM
My wife's computer:
MSI B350 TOMAHAWK AM4
AMD Ryzen 7 1st Gen - RYZEN 7 1700 Summit Ridge (Zen) 8-Core 3.0 GHz
Mushkin Enhanced Reactor 2.5" 1TB SATA III MLC
G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2400
Some version of a Radeon RX 480 4GB/8GB.
Win 10 Pro 64-bit
Supposedly, it would support the Ryzen 5 3600, which is supported by Win11. Not sure, if the MB would be supported or not, it probably would just squeak in, if I upgrade my computer to a 5000 and drop my 3600 CPU into this thing. Still, I'm much more likely to burn the Microsoft bridge, because they're not getting better.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday October 20 2021, @01:47PM
That whole setup cost me about $1,250 with everything, PSU (Platinum 750 Watt 10yr warranty), Case, Fans, etc. (Ryzen 5 3rd gen setup, 6-core CPU)
While my wife's setup cost me about $1,670 with everything. (Ryzen 7 1st gen setup, 8-core CPU)
There was no real difference between the Ryzen 7 and the Ryzen 5 performance wise. They both ran all my VR experience stuff and things like Space Engineers just fine. The Ryzen 5 probably stays a bit cooler overall and doesn't use as much of the CPU, though. For a while I was running a VR game for kiddo to play (VR Zoo is the favorite) and a game for me to play at the same time. I think I still can, but I have to launch the desktop game first, otherwise it wants to launch the desktop game in VR.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday October 20 2021, @02:08AM (4 children)
That's bordering on an iOS experience. Did you pay a premium for it?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday October 22 2021, @05:39PM (3 children)
No, a cheap Dell notebook I bought from Amazon.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday October 22 2021, @06:14PM (2 children)
Mmmmm... then you're not getting the full ego stroke of the fruity product purchasers, not only do they get to always show the latest bling, they know that everybody who sees them with that bling knows that they pay dearly for it. According to this: https://www.statista.com/statistics/236031/market-share-of-ios-in-global-smartphone-os-shipments/ [statista.com] about 14% of the world really gets off on that kind of thing.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday October 25 2021, @06:35PM (1 child)
I never was impressed with bling, and considering borrowing money to look rich to be very stupid. That's probably those who ate in the lowest 14th percentile of IQ range.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday October 25 2021, @08:45PM
There's all kinds of intelligence, and in some ways posturing with bling gains acceptance with certain people, which can be valuable in all kinds of ways. I worked for one of those, once for about a year - we didn't part on the best of terms.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday October 19 2021, @12:23PM (1 child)
A mockery of requirements. Well perhaps not. I'm fairly sure, without even trying or watching the youtube clip, that it's not exactly going to be fun or pleasant (not counting it's Windows) running W11 on a P4. So all their requirements are not about technical aspects in that regard but also to enhance the user experience etc. It has always been a thing, or well used to be with previous versions to strip down so much and many things that it could be fit on smaller storage spaces or run with a lot less requirements. Then MS caught on and starting to release their own slimmed down versions etc.
A lot of their requirements are apparently tho things they like to have or so and not things that are actually technically required. That said this P4 is clearly some fringe case at best, silly of them not to block it, and finding one to run this isn't going to be easy and as I previously stated I doubt it will be a very fun and snappy experience.
So what was the boot time for this monstrosity? I hope it wasn't 11 minutes, perhaps it was talked about in the clip I didn't watch so if someone did please do share.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday October 20 2021, @11:18AM
The point is that they deliberately sabotage the software's ability to run on certain CPUs. It obviously could run on them, but they don't allow you to use that hardware to run it.
If they just refused to support it, nobody could complain. You're running the software in an unsupported configuration, no support for you. We won't patch to fix a bug you encounter, we won't change to accommodate you, it takes forever to do anything and the results are not good? Too bad. We told you that you'll need better hardware to run it properly.
But what we are dealing here is that the software deliberately checks what you want to run it on and does not allow you to run it. Not because the hardware couldn't, but because MS decided you shouldn't.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Tuesday October 19 2021, @12:23PM (11 children)
Really. Why should Windows not run on a single core system? Underneath the hood, applications don't care as long as the OS can schedule and run its thread/process somewhere. Yes, it may be sluggish. (Heck, it used to be some virus scanners would bring your computer to a halt unless you had multi-core) But that should be my decision.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday October 19 2021, @01:02PM (6 children)
The minimum requirement is supposedly 2 cores, 1 GHz. So 1 core, 3.6 GHz (base frequency!) would appear to be within the realm of possibility and the video shows that.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19 2021, @02:42PM (5 children)
Why do I need to have a Microsoft account and Internet access.
"Internet connection and Microsoft account Windows 11 Home edition requires internet connectivity and a Microsoft account.
Switching a device out of Windows 11 Home in S mode also requires internet connectivity. Learn more about S mode here.
For all Windows 11 editions, internet access is required to perform updates and to download and take advantage of some features. A Microsoft account is required for some features."
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifications [microsoft.com]
Maybe not everyone has Internet access. This is stupid and arbitrary. I hate how Windows tries to get me to make a Microsoft account. When Microsoft forgets my password or whatever they want to brick my machine and put me through a huge hassle to get it back up while deleting my settings.
Sometimes things that require online accounts forget the password and claim that my password is wrong even when I have the password saved to a spreadsheet. Then they give you a hard time about resetting it and they have a million excuses why the reset isn't working the way it's supposed to when you call them. It's often because they ultimately want you to buy a new device or whatever. Don't tie my device to an online account unnecessarily because I know why they do it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Tuesday October 19 2021, @02:54PM (4 children)
If you haven't quit Windows, now's a great time to do it. Or wait until Windows 10 EOL in 2025 and then do it.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday October 19 2021, @03:17PM (2 children)
It is looking like I am going to be at the least doing the Win10 EOL switch to Linux.
Maybe sooner than that, if I get around to messing with it.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 19 2021, @06:48PM (1 child)
?buntu's are, of course, easy to install and use and have lots of support, but realize that it is slow compared to something like Manjaro. Haven't tried MX (ah! Just found MX is arch based!)
Try ?buntus if beginner, sure but realize it is slower than it should be. Distrohop like crazy and use distrowatch.com as a guide.
And of course you'll get lots of support here.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday October 20 2021, @01:26PM
Ubuntu has been the bloated Linux option for "newbs" for ages. It's user friendly enough that so long as you're not technophobic, you should be able to get it working.
MX Linux is the most recent distribution I've used to breathe new life into an old Laptop and it worked very well. That's probably going to be my go to, if I get around to messing with. Generally my time is limited though. So, I'm getting kid to school, working, then I'm back at home helping with kiddo and/or supper, spending time with kiddo, and then I have a couple hours or so of free time every night. Which usually goes right to X entertaining thing or extra rest. Lather, rinse, repeat. If it ain't broke, I'm not going to break it even further.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday October 20 2021, @02:11AM
I'm so borderline on taking the house Windows free, but it's always better to have diversity: ability to run that one Windows only cr-app that you "need" for whatever. Those "needs" have been getting fewer and farther between, maybe only two things in the last 5 years, but... so much cleaner to just fire it up on real Windows instead of trying to dual-boot or whatever. 95%+ of our home usage (outside my work stuff) is on Chrome. Chrome on Ubuntu will do just about everything these days.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday October 19 2021, @01:41PM (2 children)
Because their "engineers" are incompetent.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 19 2021, @06:50PM
Yup...looks like MS screws up everything they touch. All they have now is momentum in business and peoples minds. Unfortunately, people are sheeple.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday October 20 2021, @02:16AM
They have competent engineers, not that they use them well. These kinds of decisions don't come from engineering, they come from marketing and industry collaboration (read: collusion.)
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Wednesday October 20 2021, @02:59AM
Back in Days of Yore, Win2K required a Pentium and 64mb of RAM or it wouldn't install.
However, I can tell you from accidentally hooking the Win2K HD to my then test-rig that it runs adequately well on a 486DX4-100 with 8mb RAM. Took about 5 minutes to boot, but was tolerably usable after that.
No wonder this Win11 experience seems familiar!!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 20 2021, @07:41AM (1 child)
We'd be an all Linux household except I'm in law school and they require that exams use this POS...
https://web.respondus.com/he/lockdownbrowser/ [respondus.com]
I've tried everything I could to convince the school's server that I am in fact using respondus, or I need an alternative, all to no avail.
It won't even launch in an emulated environment either.
If anyone knows of a way to get that thing going under Linux or some way to convince the server I'm using it when I'm actually within Linux, I'd be much obliged.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 20 2021, @12:23PM
Yuck, I'm sorry.
You should be able to set your VM to prevent detection of the VM by running applications. This isn't really foolproof - programs can always use a means similar to a timing attack to detect the VM - but you can block the "polite" forms of detection. This is often necessary to get video drivers to work in the guest OS. It might be enough.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Wednesday October 20 2021, @12:55PM
First off, just because their PC Health Check says it will run as they made a mistake in the configuration, does not mean that a single core decade old processor can actually run it usably. Also, most of these requirements are aimed OEM makers. Windows is not allowing businesses to make Windows 11 PCs that are years out of date and unable to run modern software at a modern level. If you are custom computer builder or upgrading your own windows, you can try to install it on just about anything.
Also can this processor even support the other hardware necessary to pass the PC Health Check? If not, then it still worked in the end.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 21 2021, @12:30PM
It likely sees hyperthreading is the second core