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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: 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 anti vax hysteria didn't stop, it just died down.
(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?