2-clicks to install Windows 11/10 without the third-party bloatware

Reaper is awesome. It's pro tools for non-millionaires.

Maybe Ardour can fit? You can pay $1 or more for the binary or compile it yourself.

http://ardour.org/

Does the interface that you have now work under Linux? Linux has pretty good support for a lot of things now, so you may be able to use what you have. Reaper also has a generous free trial, so potentially this is a free experiment. (I'm no expert and just tinker with this stuff, but I have Reaper and I find it similarly easy/difficult as every other DAW I've used) Several distributions have "live images" where you can run it from a flash drive without copying anything to the hard drive. I don't know if you could set up Reaper and your interface from a live image.

If you do decide to do an installation, consider buying a different hard drive and installing Linux on that. You can install both Windows and Linux on the same drive, and it's not difficult, but it is slightly easier to use a separate drive and they are not expensive.

I have used Linux and Windows a lot, but I have only used Reaper in Windows, so unfortunately I can't say whether it's a similar experience.

If you want to try Linux, try Ubuntu or mint. Those are the easiest to make an entry into.

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I get shit done on Linux, too.

Guess it depends on the industry. I'm a web developer so it doesn't matter what OS I use, and frankly it's far easier to install and configure the tools I need on Linux than it is on Windows. I can leave a Linux system online for weeks at a time, which in some cases is the entire length of a contract.

Windows is good, but it requires just as much training as any other system to become a real power user.

For most things, Linux just works. There are specialized apps like cad packages, graphic design and such that are very problematic on Linux but most of it is fine. Just look at how successful Chromebooks are. They're all Linux.

That's funny, that's the reason I ditched Windows completely. The workflow is just so bad on it.

Sure, and once you've clicked through the "finish setting up windows" pop up that inexplicably appears every few reboots, done the mandatory updates it keeps nagging you about and threatening to reboot if you happen to walk away for too long, and cleared out all the ads in your notifications, you can get right to it!

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Lemmy has a strong bias towards Linux. I wouldn't say Linux is a failed desktop OS (but hey look at the marketshare) but the transition to Linux is not easy for majority of less tech savvy users. I know you guys have setup Debian/Ubuntu for your grandma and it has been working great since, you don't have to repeat that.

As someone who's been trying to move over to Linux for years and fallback to Windows every time I tried, there's always issues I need to troubleshoot, the most recent one would be mixed refresh rate monitors ie. running at 60Hz instead of 144Hz until I made specific change to a config file. And as a gamer, it makes it even harder - I am aware Proton is a thing now and 'most' games work out of the box, I have Steam Deck for my portable needs. Pay attention to the keyword 'most', when it doesn't work, I ain't wanna spend my previous time to troubleshoot so that I can play the game.

As for my Windows 11 experience, it hasn't been that bad. There's no more active prompts for update and restart your computer now or the world will end. UI also looks better with minimal tweaks. Is privacy concern something I should care more? Absolutely, but at this stage of my life, I value more on the consistency and expected behaviour from my PC.

Server use case on the other hand, Linux > all.

a failed desktop OS

Windows still has over 60% of desktop market share. You may not like it, but it isn't a failed OS.

I was with you on the software compatibility point, but then you completely lost me with "failed desktop OS"...

Well yeah, because we don't have the marketing billions and monopoly that Microsoft/Apple enjoy. So we gotta do the promoting ourselves.

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I was just thinking about this recently, there’s a lot of talk about HDR and nit brightness specs and such recently, but I must be the only one that finds current panels too eye-searingly bright. My current IPS monitor is set at 2% brightness and it’s just comfortable enough for daily use. Even my OLED TVs don’t have brightness set over 10%.

I was honestly a little disappointed in how HDR looked. Maybe I didn't calibrate or set my colors properly. Dunno.

Why do any of that shit when you can walk into your local library/community college and grab the key off of that for free? And it wont suddenly shit out on you one day like those 5 dollar "OEM" OS keys.

Years ago I worked for a company that provided employees with an MSDN subscription. When I left I went in and activated all the product keys and put them in a spreadsheet. No one in my family has had to buy Windows in a long time