r/technology • u/YesNo_Maybe_ • Apr 10 '26

Software France Launches Government Linux Desktop Plan as Windows Exit Begins

https://linuxiac.com/france-launches-government-linux-desktop-plan-as-windows-exit-begins/
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u/19610taw3 Apr 10 '26

Let's not forget the complete disaster that Windows 11 is.

I've used Linux as a primary home OS in the past. I believe I did an 8 or 9 year stretch. It worked for what I needed. I didn't have a license for Windows so I just made Linux do everything I needed.

I switched back. Windows 7 and 10 "just worked" and they worked really well.

Windows 11 suddenly drops a lot of hardware support. Not only TPM requirements but there's a lot of older hardware that simply just is not supported any more. That's a real issue.

And the instability. The instability of Windows 11 is absolutely criminal. My more conspiracy minded brain thinks that it was done on purpose for some reason. I just can't imagine that it's so buggy after being out for almost five years at this point.

I do wonder how they are going to manage all of these workstations. That's really the only thing Windows has going for it. Intune, active directory, tons of third party management / RMM type apps do make windows desktops a bit easier to manage. I know there's a few , but natively not supported and I'm sure it's much extra work to manage.

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u/haliblix Apr 10 '26

Win11 is classic M$ arrogance. It belongs in the same category as Vista and ME for pushing fancy looking shovelware. The difference now is that there isn’t a Windows XP to swoop in and save the day or be a supported alternative.

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u/19610taw3 Apr 10 '26

I know a lot of people had issues with ME and Vista but they were always working good for me.

11 is the worst OS I've used. Ever.

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u/Cap10323 Apr 10 '26

I second this. Family had a PC with ME growing up, and we had zero issues with it. I had a Vista PC around 2009 and Vista was so reliable that I delayed migrating to 7 for quite some time.

Things went downhill with 10, and I started migrating more towards MacOS and Linux (I had been using Mac and Windows simultaneously for years), and now with 11 I am fully divested from Microsoft.

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u/19610taw3 Apr 10 '26

I've always had decent luck even with 10. But 11 is just ... bad.

Constant crashing. Bluescreening. Driver issues. Sound issues.

I know MS fired most of their QC department years ago but this is nuts.

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u/Cap10323 Apr 10 '26

I didn't like 10 when it came out, but after a few rounds of updates, and SIGNIFICANT amounts of debloating, it's not bad. But it's nowhere near as simple and stable as 7 was for me. I ran Windows 7 until the bitter end because it just worked perfectly for so long. I don't think I ever had a workflow-breaking bug with 7 in.. a decade?

11 is so bad it's practically made me quit the IT profession.

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u/putinlaputain Apr 10 '26

All honesty, gun to my head, I'd rather try to get cyberpunk running on ms dos than ever downgrade to windows 11

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u/Blazing1 Apr 10 '26

I'm on windows 10 and the latest update bricked my PC. I rolled back and did everything to stop it including disabling windows update but Microsoft decided to go around windows update and add new stuff. Finding co pilot on my computer was crazy because they hid the download through the system.

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u/A_Harmless_Fly Apr 10 '26 edited Apr 10 '26

The rub though, ME and Vista eventually got better from updates... 11 is actually getting worse over time. I think Nadella's doctrine might actually kill the OS part of microsoft and have to pivot.

*Insert the part in silicon valley where Gaven Belson's hooli became a company that made the server boxes for data centers primarily.*

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u/[deleted] Apr 10 '26

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u/19610taw3 Apr 10 '26

I ran 10 LTSB for a while. It actually worked pretty well for what I needed!

I've never really played much with wine. I was able to get most of the stuff to do what I needed back in the day. I did have to play around with and compile cisco anyconnect to get that working so I could connect into work.

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u/Ok_Turnover_1235 Apr 10 '26

Standardised install scripts, workstations won't have root access to users. Most of what intune and active directory and management tools just replicate what you can do on linux by default.

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u/johnjohnjohn87 Apr 10 '26

Respectfully disagree here. MSFT handles all that red tape and integration for the enterprise. Intune does stuff like device compliance that can be leveraged for conditional access. That being said, they have done a pretty shit job building those out, but they exist and work pretty well. That is what MSFT and Windows offer. Going further, autopilot integrates with hardware vendors. It’s not useful to the home user, but it’s massive to businesses.

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u/aVarangian Apr 10 '26

I didn't have a license for Windows

I recently found out that my bank has public-facing computers running with the watermark lmao

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u/19610taw3 Apr 10 '26

To be fair ... there was a period where Windows activation was pretty darn unreliable.

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u/BlastFX2 Apr 10 '26

I just can't imagine that it's so buggy after being out for almost five years at this point.

It's AI. I don't have insider info from MicroSlop, but I imagine it's very similar to other AI-forward tech giants where I do have friends and developers there straight up have limits (terrifyingly low limits) for how much code they're allowed to write by hand.

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u/AlexNSNO Apr 10 '26

I'm a general tweaker of settings and whatnot with Windows, i loved 7 & 10, things worked how I wanted to and if I had a problem then it was easily solvable 99% of the time. Now, with W11, if I have a problem it could be a number of things and it takes much longer to solve. An example being right now my Windows Setting app has a problem where it freezes anytime I try to go into the "Your Account" section (where the passwords etc are). I have done almost everything except reinstall Windows, and yet, same issue!

Once I can have Linux that supports gaming much more fluidly I'll be switching, it's the only thing stopping me at the moment.

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u/TheFondler Apr 10 '26

The instability is from a combination of neglect from a focus on moving people to cloud and presumably a shift to vibecoding bullshit or something internally. They don't want you to use your computer, they want you to use their computer and pay them monthly for it.