What the hell?!?!?! This is a server OS! It needs to be as light as possible and for the sake of server stability and security, admins carefully choose the installed apps. Microsoft can’t just install new applications on a whim.
This is fuged up.
People in this thread seem to be missing this point.
This is windows server, not windows 11. The consequences is not “I’ll have an annoying taskbar icon on my home computer”, this is enterprise level interference that could affect large systems and thousands of users.
Linux Mint isn’t an alternative to windows server.
You’re right ig, in that case grab Debian.
Yep. I no longer have to administer Windows servers (everything I do is serverless these days) but I did for many years.
Adding anything to a server without vetting it against policies is a huge no no. Back when I was doing it, a big part of our monthly update deployment was updating the test environment first so we knew we weren’t about to break a bunch of shit for us and our customers. Not just “does this brick Windows server”, but “do our applications still function” (usually yes, but the answer was no on several occasions over shit smaller than this).
I don’t know what adding copilot does. Is it going to accidentally break some custom application by accident because it’s tied directly into the system? Is it going to report shit that I’ve already opted out of due to our data policies and possibly fuck up our audit compliance because of government regulations (defense, medical, and energy sectors have huge responsibilities in that area, just don’t ask how I know)? How does it interact with our in-house developed software?
Fuck, I dunno. That sounds like a nightmare for infrastructure and ops, several managers, government regulators, and a payday for legal.
Almost any Unix can be an alternative for Windows Server. Never understood why it was used, other than tech illiteracy of lowly tech workers who only knew MS stack.
The usual answer to that is “active directory”. It’s not uncommon to have one windows server alongside other Linux servers because of AD.
In addition, with all Microsoft’s faults they had a hell of a small business package for years. In a lot of small businesses, the current CIO came up during those times and dictates policy.
Plus there are a lot of VARs and MSPs who push MS due to favorable terms and kickbacks. Small and medium sized businesses who outsource IT go with whatever they’re told because they don’t have the expertise, time, or desire to explore alternatives.
Plus there’s a load of self hosted software for certain industries that only works on Windows servers.
Stop resisting!!
Why does every mention or discussion of any annoyance in Windows immediately turn into a “install Linux” thread on here?
Sure, Linux might solve the immediate problem for the affected individual (and probably introduce a bunch of new ones as Linux isn’t always as easy to use as advocates try to convince people it is) but it doesn’t solve the larger issue - Microsoft needs to be held accountable for horrible design decisions and anti-consumerist practices.
Not everyone can, or will, switch to Linux. No matter how hard people champion that cause. And even if they do, it’s a process that will take time. In the immediate, lots of people stand to benefit from Microsoft not pulling this sort of bs, and it’s entirely justified to complain about it to make them walk back this decision.
I think it’s safe to say that the Lemmy user base trends a bit more “computer nerd” than the general public. So we generally have more people that already use Linux, and more people that could reasonably benefit from switching.
Plus of course moving off of windows is one of the most effective ways to show your displeasure with Microsoft.
In the spirit of these kinds of changes, I’d love to hear some honest Linux distribution recommendations. I’m leaning towards Ubuntu because it is the most widely advertised and UX focused from my perspective. But I’ve also heard good things about Arch. Any others I should be considering?
I’ll probably not go full Linux any time soon - I want at least one Windows OS to play games on - so whatever option it should be dual-boot friendly.
Linux Mint. That’s always the answer. It’s lightweight, it’s simple, it’s easy, it does what you need. Even gaming. SomeOrdinaryGamers did a vidso on YT about installing it, it’s pretty easy!
If not vanilla Ubuntu, I’d still suggest trying an Ubuntu derivative like Linux Mint or POP! OS. Ubuntu has a huge community, so in the event you run into issues it’ll be easier to find fixes for it.
What you’ll find is that Linux distros are roughly grouped by a “family” (my term for it anyway). Anyone can (theoretically, anyway) start from a given kernel and roll their own distro, but most distros are modified versions of a handful of base distros.
The major families at the moment are
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Debian: A classic all-rounder that prioritizes stability over all else. Ubuntu is descended from Debian.
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Fedora: Another classic all-rounder. I haven’t used it in a decade, so I won’t say much about it here.
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Arch: If Linux nerds were car people, Arch is for the hot rodders. You can tune and control pretty much any aspect of your system. … Not a good 1st distro if you want to just get something going.
There are many others, but these are the major desktop-PC distro families at the moment.
The importance of these families is that techniques that work in one (say) Debian-based distro will tend to work in other Debian-based distros… But not necessarily in distros from other families.
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I wouldn’t recommend arch as a first distro imo. I don’t see what the advantage would be for a newbie.
Personally I would recommend Fedora.
Most people recommended Mint so far. What sorts of things do you like about Fedora?
Like Ubuntu, I like that Fedora is backed by a big company. Fedora is quite good at pushing the Linux ecosystem forward and often adopts and pushes new technology before other distros (flatpaks, Wayland, pipewire, btrfs etc.) that all Linux distros eventually benefit from.
Ubuntu on the other hands seems to want to be the Microsoft of Linux… which is not a compliment. I’ve been put off by things like their pushing of snap packages.
I personally like the stock gnome (on a laptop) or kde (on a desktop) desktops over the cinnamon mint desktop (but mint is closer to windows). Fedora is pretty close to stock (gnome by default).
Fedora has great flatpak integration for installing apps (think App Store) which is my preferred way to do it. Mint has this as well.
Fedora also has semi rolling releases and constant updates, which I prefer over Linux Mint’s 2 year release cycles (this doesn’t matter for any software you install from flatpaks).
Install Steam’s Proton and just run whatever windows games you want*, no more need to dual boot.
*unless they have kernel-level anticheat and isn’t Linux compatible
Debian stable on servers. Debian testing on the daily driver.
Gives you a rock solid server, that will pull absolutly no suprises.
And your daily driver gives you a playground for what comes in the next upgrade.“Dual boot friendly” means installing Linux on its own hard drive, just so you know. If you don’t do that, it’s likely the next Windows update will screw up the Linux bootloader. Maybe that’s gotten better, but it’s what I’d recommended from past experience.
You’ve heard good things about arch solely because you’re on Lemmy. Using arch means you’ll be dedicating about 50% of your working time towards tinkering and making it fucking work, which is fun don’t get me wrong- unless you have actual work to do.
Ubuntu is solid but a little sluggish, I’m personally an advocate for Mint as far as something you can drop a windows users in and they’ll generally figure it out.
Seems like the general consensus in this section is Mint, so I’ll give that a look over for sure
I main Mint. Less annoying Ubuntu. Better user experience IMHO.
Mint is a good recommendation. I’ve used it for most of a decade because I just want my system to work.
I don’t get this. For each of my devices running arch, the only tinkering I’ve encountered were for nitpicky customizations I wanted, which I have to do on another distro. After the arch installation completes it’s given me a fully functional desktop
if you don’t install the wrong packages or skip a step in the installation lmao
🤦♂️ of course! I forgot to install it wrong lol
Given that this is in a thread about Microsoft Server, I’d recommend using Debian as the distribution to replace Microsoft Server.
If you want a desktop, I’d start with a LiveCD version and familiarise yourself with the various available distributions on offer.
The intent of a LiveCD is essentially to boot into Linux without modifying your hard-disk and keeping your existing OS unchanged.
I’ll note that many of these images are available for DVD or USB. Some will offer a mechanism to store data on your existing drive without wiping anything.
With USB drives being fast and cheap, you can also often use a LiveCD to install onto an external drive.
Finally, you can install a virtual machine on your computer and use it to run your Linux tests.
I would go with Linux Mint if you don’t want to tinker with it much, but Arch will allow you to be in the bleeding edge easily if you install things from the AUR but you could stay in the stable channels as well.
Regarding games, I’m mostly a Single Player kind of guy and basically everything I have tried so far just works if it’s installed from Steam, for others you can use Lutris or Heroic Launcher but tinkering might be needed.
All of this just to say: I use Arch btw. It’s been practically 2 years already since I haven’t boot into Windows for gaming.
Are you looking for a Windows, server, replacement or desktop replacement? Your experience will differ depending on which one you’re trying to replace.
For instance, if you’re trying to replace Windows active directory services with a single Linux server, might have a bad time. I’m in the process of migrating from AD to FreeIPA, PowerDNS, and isc-dhcp (or something similar for DHCP).
Sorry, forgot to specify in the post. But I’m looking for a desktop replacement. We thankfully don’t use Windows Server anywhere at the moment.
Linux Server Distros:
- Ubuntu Server = easier but with more bullshit out of the box (eg. snaps)
- Debian Stable = a tad bit harder because it’s cleaner out of the box.
- Fedora Server = clean and easy, documentation may be a bit harder to follow, less community tutorials.
- Arch & others = Just no. You don’t want a rolling release for a server. You want older and thus stable, tested, software and drivers.
If you want a distro for general use:
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Linux Mint = easiest of the bunch, but it has old packages that may not offer the best environment for gaming.
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Fedora Based distros = middle ground between ubuntu based distros like Mint, and rolling release distros like Arch.
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Arch based distros = bleeding edge drivers and packages (for better or worse), best for gaming. Manjaro could work for you, as it is not fully Arch.
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Bazzite OS = It’s an immutable Fedora based distro but with Arch customized to make it work like Steam OS all inside a container. It’s unbreakable, easy to use, and game-ready. Has AMD & NVIDIA images ready to go.
My recommendation is to flash Ventoy on a thumbdrive load it up with all the recommended distros, and proceed to test drive the ones you think might work for you, and only time will tell which one is the best for your specific needs.
That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.
No enterprise is going to want to deal with that and realistically they’re the only ones with the pockets to fight that battle. Hope I’m wrong though. Microsoft needs a swift kick in the ass.
If introducing Copilot to server degrades service enough to trigger an SLA downstream, you can absolutely bet lawyers will get involved.
Or if CoPilot starts exfiltrating data to Microsoft so their server farms can ‘analyze’ it.
I’m not heavily involved in the space, but I’m given to understand that MS isn’t very clear about what happens to your data or how it gets used or shared.
Perhaps Microsoft will be smart enough not to allow the general public to query trade secrets or government data that’s been pulled via unwanted copilot integration.
But maybe the ongoing Russian hack of Microsoft will make it irrelevant, because the servers can be accessed directly.
Or perhaps at some distant time, Microsoft will roll out features or technologies developed using an internal version of CoPilot that has access to all data - including proprietary information from competitors.And that’s not even counting what ISP’s will do if they find a way to analyze copilot traffic, or what state actors will do if they can set up MitM attacks for Copilot.
Honestly, I sort of fear the repercussions, but I look forward to the lawsuits.
I thought the Microsoft technologies designed to allow anyone to access your servers were called Exchange and Active Directory.
Please explain more.
I’m not confident they are authoritative on the matter.
Don’t consider me to be, either, but I have more details in my response to them.
I read their message as a joke that AD was an easy vector for an adversary
There’s no need to degrade performance to get a lawsuit, the simple fact of extrading data can get you in a tribunal, especially from customers with high privacy requirements, or with European sovereign clouds certifications
ok sure, most servers are already running linux for a good reason.
That is fucked.
I’m already starting to transition to full Linux on my devices with the arrival of Windows 11 and Windows 10 reaching end of life in October next year. I never thought I’d see the day of this happening.
oh god, win10’s dying next year?
i really need to transition the rest of my shit to Linux soon
win10’s dying next year?
Windows 10 reaches End of Support on October 14, 2025, unless you opt for the paid Extended Security Updates (ESU) program (prices not released, that I saw), which some businesses with “legacy” apps do.
Microsoft has been telegraphing these moves for years now tbh.
That doesn’t make it right.
And not everyone can dump Windows for Linux. We run a lot of software that requires Windows. Changing is impractical if not impossible.
it’s becoming much much easier every year to switch to OSS alternatives or at least Linux compatible software. There’s basically nothing categorical that can’t run on Linux, even gaming is making tremendous strides.
There’s basically nothing categorical that can’t run on Linux…
From a desktop standpoint, I agree. From a business server infrastructure standpoint, I disagree completely. We run tons of software that doesn’t run on Linux. Maybe there are alternatives, but there are other aspects in play (integrations with other services, vendor pricing, etc).
It’s not just desktops that people worry about.
ITS THE YEAR OF THE LINUX DESKTOP! 🥂
I doubt it. Regular folks are ignorant about those issues and what the technology involved implies. AI sounds cool until you realize every single action you take on your computer, every single word you say, everything you look at, is collected and sent to some machine which does god knows what with it.
That plus the ads. The fucking ads. I’m so god damn tl saturated of seeing ads everywhere. But apparently most folks have grown some kind of immunity to it??
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Some ads I really enjoy though. They’re not ALL bad. But it’s the quantity and how they’ve just become omnipresent. Especially with these god damn smart phones. Constantly trying to get our attention.
My highly non-technical SO cursed Microsoft when they pushed that shit into her computer. She didn’t need to understand what AI means, it took space on her task bar and showed useless notifications. Making her annoyed by the space taken, disturb her focus and slow her computer.
She is stuck on Windows due to a tool she is dependent upon. Already asked me to install Linux on her computer once she have a replacement that will work on Linux.
tl;dr: non technical people are too pissed at MS.
Is “copilot” the new slang for “back door”?
Man… Anybody remember “Back Orifice”? The late nineties were weird.
As a student and programmer, I just installed debian few years ago and never thought about why I did that and why I haven’t returned to windows. For advance and light users linux is amazing with all these web based applications.
gotta use a superior os https://devuan.org
SystemD-less Debian lol what year is this.
Went to their site to see the pitch. “avoiding unnecessary entanglements” lmao this fuckin distro is trying to prevent WWI
^ Calls on someone for not using the superior OS // Proceeds to point people to a pointless, barely maintained and buggy fork of Debian. lol
bruh, idk why i’m getting downvoted to hell but it’s the exact opposite of a pointless unmaintained buggy fork lol.
yeah it’s superior since systemd is inferior if you don’t exactly need it
I was about to tell you that when I made the post I was more joking about it than actually being serious… but then after your systemd comment…
Use BSD/Linux/Ironclad/SmartOS etc etc Open source Operating systems for
Anyone who cares about this and doesn’t require a Windows server is already using BSD/Linux/etc
This is exactly what I needed in my servers. An AI assistant to help me… do what exactly?
Data-mine the information you intentionally did not put on the cloud.
To configure your active directories and stuff. Wouldn’t it be great to automatize everything to the point that when something breaks you have no idea what to do because you have no idea what is done and where
My winows 11 work laptop , fully managed by IT the department also has Xbox stuff installed…
But it’s only 8KB.
I can’t believe people use this shit.
Its cloud based, great
If you have to use Windows Server (or other Windows), install the hellzerg Optimizer
Unfortunately these services also open up security issues
Who exactly is the target audience for this? Home users running Windows server? This would get flagged for sure in an enterprise environment and no self respecting admin would ever install something like that.
When the switch to run it on a server is “/unsafe” I think I’ll pass 🤣
Anyway on Windows the Optimizer is an must have app. It is the best to cut M$'s bad habits
Yeeeeah, no enterprise admin would run that… GPOs would do the same with more transparency and no privacy concerns (besides running Windows of course)
AI assistance for server maintenance? Uh-oh.
Can’t see this going wrong.
“Hey Copilot, make me a domain admin”
