Hello all, I know this isn't really Scratch related at all, but I think anyone who still uses Windows full time should read this and do the actions described.

“Windows is garbage and they hate you and they will do bad things to your computer” - Common Sense, 2019

Windows is Spyware, if you need it for gaming and drivers for peripherals, virtualize it.

I'd like to thank @MegaApuTurkUltra who enlightened me by saying Windows was bad enough times that I actually thought about what I was running and decided Start Menu ads are a no-no.

Anyway, if you are a Windows user in denial and thinks that this wouldn't work for you, read on:
1) If you have a gaming / “workstation” (gaming with extra steps) rig, you can do this really easily
2) It isn't hard. Virt-manager makes this really easy and pasting unknown commands off a 1 star GitHub repo is very easy too!
3) It works really well. It's much easier to clean any stank out of Linux (PUPs like Electron based apps and Chromium) than Windows (stank is part of the kernel, so more stank is like stank^2 or ^3 if it's that bad). Windows actually runs faster in my VM that it did on real hardware, just because it needs less software. Linux side is super quick and uses very little RAM (apart from Electron based apps :'()
4) If you have Ryzen you'll probably need another GPU for Linux (I'm assuming you, the reader, is already on Windows with thicc GPU), but if you're not going to do intensive (graphics) on Linux, just get a GT 1030 or something idk
5) Games work perfectly.

Anyway, I'm not going to link a tutorial, all you need to know is the steps for virt-manager are mostly universal, but vfio-pci can be hard depending on where your system loads modules from first (you need to load vfio and Co. before nvidia or nouveau if you're using a Nvidia card).

Trust me virtualising Windows and running Linux natively is so much better.

Manjaro boots super quick even with the stuff I've installed and Windows has nothing but Steam so it just works.

Benefits to Linux (for me):
- Everything worked immediately (Manjaro)
- My Behringer U-Phoria UM2 doesn't have drivers for Windows anymore but Linux decided it doesn't even need drivers and it just works.
- Linux is so much more stable
- Linux is so much more programmer friendly
- GNU 4 Lyfe
- You can use i3wm
- NO CORTANA
- Smol RAM usage.

Downsides to Windows (for me)
- Everything breaks every update (Windows 10)
- My Behringer UM2 doesn't have drivers so I needed to download stank from a Dropbox URL
- BSODs everywhere
- Sorry I don't think you can use anything but Visual Studio
- GNU not included
- You can't use i3wm
- HAS CORTANA
- Thick (with 1 c and 1 k) RAM usage.

Clearly Linux is superior how have I not done this before what on Earth was I thinking.

So dear AT members or readers who use Windows.
Consider getting help from a FOSS installer near you

Windows 10 may be Windows, but Windows =/= Windows 10.

SuperGames67 wrote:

Windows 10 may be Windows, but Windows =/= Windows 10.

Any version of Windows is bad.

Windows 7 was better but shares a lot of the telemetry with 10.

Isolate the stank and run Linux with a Windows 7 VM.

Also, Windows 10 is needed for newer games, so 7 wasn't an option for me (or people who want newest and flashiest cools like RTX) anyway.

im broke

LastContinue wrote:

SuperGames67 wrote:

Windows 10 may be Windows, but Windows =/= Windows 10.

Any version of Windows is bad.

Windows 7 was better but shares a lot of the telemetry with 10.

Isolate the stank and run Linux with a Windows 7 VM.

Also, Windows 10 is needed for newer games, so 7 wasn't an option for me (or people who want newest and flashiest cools like RTX) anyway.

You can't get the most out of your PC with virtualisation though. I'm surprised that you've managed to somehow get RTX working in a VM? Generally VMs are very limited in terms of stuff like that - but maybe things have changed over the years.

I don't see the point in running a Windows VM inside Linux. It's still Windows - therefore, it's still going to have telemetry,

SuperGames67 wrote:

LastContinue wrote:

SuperGames67 wrote:

Windows 10 may be Windows, but Windows =/= Windows 10.

Any version of Windows is bad.

Windows 7 was better but shares a lot of the telemetry with 10.

Isolate the stank and run Linux with a Windows 7 VM.

Also, Windows 10 is needed for newer games, so 7 wasn't an option for me (or people who want newest and flashiest cools like RTX) anyway.

You can't get the most out of your PC with virtualisation though. I'm surprised that you've managed to somehow get RTX working in a VM? Generally VMs are very limited in terms of stuff like that - but maybe things have changed over the years.

I don't see the point in running a Windows VM inside Linux. It's still Windows - therefore, it's still going to have telemetry,

I don't have an RTX card. I haven't got RTX working, but if I did, it would have worked.

Virtualisation isn't limited. Even in my poorly-done config (not using hugepages or CPU isolation and pinning) I get quite nice performance with 8 cores from my Ryzen 7 2700x.

For the GPU side, that isn't virtualised. Rather I changed the drivers that the GTX 960 uses to be “vfio-pci” and then I use PCI Passthrough to add the GPU to the VM. The VM is “directly” connected to the virtual machine, no middleman (that does extra things). That's why performance is so nice, the GPU is a literal GPU and so the VM doesn't lose any GPU performance.

I can definitely improve the config, and make it a lot better, but I've had absolutely no issues whatsoever. It just works. Ask Todd Howard, he'll tell you the same.

In fact, even AntiCheats haven't got mad at me!

SuperGames67 wrote:

I don't see the point in running a Windows VM inside Linux. It's still Windows - therefore, it's still going to have telemetry,

That's true. That's why it's inside a VM. It's in an isolated little box where it can stay and think about what it's done. It will never touch my important files, and I'm going to buy some more drives to keep as much off of Windows (except games) as possible. It doesn't need to know anything I do, which is why I've put it in a nice little box.

The type of virtualization used is very important as well, it's using Qemu-KVM which offers huge speed increases over typical Virtual Machines and it works so well. It doesn't match native performance (mainly due to non-isolation and non-pinning of cores), but it works well enough to do anything I'd ask of it. Play games? Got ya! Need to run a Windows Only thing? Got that too!

I don't even need to have Windows always on a display, I use LookingGlass and some shared memory to copy the VRAM to the Linux side and display it.

ConfusedBiscuit wrote:

im broke

If you have Intel it's 100% free*

(if you have integrated graphics)

My browser / operating system: Linux, Chrome 78.0.3904.97, No Flash version detected

I switched to Linux around 10 years ago, initially dual boot with windows on a separate partition but I soon found I just wasn't using it so now I'm completely windows free! Whilst Linux isn't perfect, it is in my opinion 100000000000000000000000000000000000000 times better than the frustrating, soul destroying experience of using windows.

this is a great thread. i'm currently running a linux hypervisor on my desktop (using libvirt/qemu/kvm). Windows as a guest on top of that, with GPU passthrough (and i also pass through a dedicated USB card because windows likes to error when you use the normal USB passthrough mode). I'm currently working on faking BIOS info from the host machine for the windows guest in order to get it to shut up about activation

(yeah that's right, you can have a valid free windows key from your school and microsoft will be like haha y'know what this key is now i n v a l i d because you're running it on a “different computer”
…
microsoft…..)

I'm going to set up hugepages and CCX binding and whatnot to get that max performance eventually (though as it stands right now, beat saber at 120 fps works great )

anyway just wanted to post about virtio drivers
use them
there's virtio network, virtio disk (you have to install the windows initially with virtio disk, i don't believe it's possible to upgrade emulated sata to virtio because you know, windows. on the other hand you can totally do that with a linux guest), virtio mouse and keyboard input, virtio usb, and these make your VM I/O go blazingly fast
there's even virtio balloon, which is a driver that fills up all the VM's “free RAM” and then actually unmaps the RAM in the hypervisor so you can go use that RAM for other stuff, even other VMs, while the current VM doesn't need it. This means if you allocate like 8GB RAM to your windows VM and it's only using 4GB most of the time, you can avoid letting the other 4GB go to waste!
the usb stuff is also cool, i use it on my server and i can pass through usb literally over the general internet to virtually connect a usb device on my laptop to a VM on the server even like hundreds of miles away. it's awesome
you can find an ISO with all the windows virtio drivers on it from Red Hat

$(".box-head")[0].textContent = "committing AT crimes since $whenever"

LastContinue wrote:

cortana

we do not speak of that thing.

I'm currently installing Ubuntu on my ~8 year old Windows computer because Windows is just… no. lol
Windows 10 is nice, but it, like so many operating systems these days are too phone-like, and are just slow and buggy… Once I learned about how amazing Linux is, and how easy getting Ubuntu is, I was like “I don't use that computer anymore, but omgd Ubuntu looks like my dream os”
now only if my dvd drive would work properly… i think Windows knows what i'm doing. :P

MegaApuTurkUltra wrote:

(yeah that's right, you can have a valid free windows key from your school and microsoft will be like haha y'know what this key is now i n v a l i d because you're running it on a “different computer”
…
microsoft…..)

I “borrowed” my dads Windows 7 Pro key just like I “borrowed” his GTX 960

VMs are not suitable for gaming. Also disagree with some of the user stuff in there and i just kinda don't really like bash.

I did hear that eventually windows will become a monthly subscription. If that does happen, maybe I will use linux.

Computer_Fizz wrote:

…
I did hear that eventually windows will become a monthly subscription. If that does happen, maybe I will use linux.

I would rather not have my operating system use the same business method that Netflix uses.

Also doesn't nouveau kinda suck, or has it improved since 2014?

Computer_Fizz wrote:

VMs are not suitable for gaming. Also disagree with some of the user stuff in there and i just kinda don't really like bash.

VMs are perfectly suitable for gaming. All you need is a dedicated GPU and a decent vCPU and you're done.
User stuff?
Also you don't have to use bash. I hate bash. I use zsh with Oh-My-Zsh.

CatsUnited wrote:

Also doesn't nouveau kinda suck, or has it improved since 2014?

As far as I'm aware, yes it still does. I'm running the official drivers because I'm not too worried about proprietary / non-proprietery and also it's GeForce Experience on Windows that does all the naughty-naughty telemetry not the drivers themselves, but that's the only way to do the drivers well on Windows…

Im too dumb to do this (I built a PC, so in actuality, i just dont wanna)

It was hard enough for me to switch from MacOS to Windows I dont wanna switch again

Computer_Fizz wrote:

VMs are not suitable for gaming

i run beat saber which is a VR game inside a windows vm right now
that's two 1440p renders and a 1080p render all at 144 frames per second
it's very suitable for gaming

$(".box-head")[0].textContent = "committing AT crimes since $whenever"

MegaApuTurkUltra wrote:

Computer_Fizz wrote:

VMs are not suitable for gaming

i run beat saber which is a VR game inside a windows vm right now
that's two 1440p renders and a 1080p render all at 144 frames per second
it's very suitable for gaming

Do you have a Rift or a Vive and if the former how do I get mine to work

The sensors forward fine, but the Rift's USBs appear as 3 different USBs in the USB Forwarding thing and it's refusing to start the VM with all 3 forwarded, and then the Oculus Software doesn't work to work.

With the age old problem of “my parents refuse to get me my own laptop for some godforsaken reason and they'd probably think linux was a virus”, would letting the computer stick with windows for the rare times they use it and running linux through a VM be a valid solution?

modedii wrote:

With the age old problem of “my parents refuse to get me my own laptop for some godforsaken reason and they'd probably think linux was a virus”, would letting the computer stick with windows for the rare times they use it and running linux through a VM be a valid solution?

Windows would still be the host operating system in that case, along with all the telemetry and other stuff that they have in it.
I believe LastContinue's goal was to contain Windows inside a VM to keep all that stuff contained, and the only difference between just running Windows and running Windows with a VM of Linux is that you can use Linux inside Windows.