It's an always-on AI that sits directly on your device inside a built-in Neural Processing Unit, or NPU, which takes screenshots every 5 seconds and scans the screenshots for information - including passwords, banking information, and other forms of PII. It then stores all of that information completely unencrypted, in a format that has been proven almost immediately after the beta preview to be able to be exfiltrated within seconds, easily, by a very simple piece of malware. The company claims that all the information is only stored locally, and after the backlash, that the AI would be opt-in only, but we've seen what Microsoft does with their "promises" before.
To be fair, the DOD uses a different version of Windows than you, me, or any average company, with a custom set of agreements with Microsoft, a bunch of debloating of Windows-specific apps and the addition of a bunch of military/government apps.
Really depends on your use case. Like @trougnouf said, casual users that use the OS as a browser and email client can use practically any distro. Users that do a bit more, like casual gaming on gold-rated Steam games, generally do fine with something like Pop!_OS or Linux Mint.
It's when you start going towards the more hardcore users, like really hardcore gamers that play obscure titles or have unsupported Windows-specific hardware, artists that need very specific unsupported programs for editing or recording, engineers who need to do CAD specifically in a Windows-specific proprietary software, or a tinkerer that's used to the Windows environment, that "become a sysadmin" starts being a reasonable complaint.
Hope all the other comments and suggestions are helping! Installation is honestly the only "hard" step for Mint. Once you're done with this, it should be smooth sailing - and if you ever need any help, just ask!
Have you tried Linux Mint? That's pretty user-friendly. As long as it's a .deb, you can double-click install through a GUI, no terminal needed. There's an "app store" with most of your standard apps, like Discord, Slack, Teams, Skype or VLC, and it has an office suite pre-installed along with an email client. The first time you start, there's a welcome screen that helps you through setting up the firewall, appearance (you can make it look like XP if you want), backups, NVIDIA drivers, and update manager you can ignore or manually update or automatically update. I don't know your system, but it's pretty intuitive for Windows users (I use a Windows 10 theme). I'd encourage you to give it one more try, if you're still open to it.
Good to hear! Let us know if you need any help with the install - some computers will try to fight the install, others are much more amenable to it. As long as you follow the instructions from the Linux Mint page, you should be fine.
The sha txt file should've been available alongside the iso file from the mirror you downloaded it from. Honestly, as long as you used one of the mirrors that the Linux Mint website provided, you should be perfectly fine.
And click the version of Linux Mint you downloaded - it's probably 21.3 - and then download both sha256sum.txt and sha256sum.txt.gpg by right-clicking -> "save link as..." to download the files themselves.
After that, verify the iso you had in your downloads folder by following the instructions here:
Again, as long as you downloaded from one of the mirrors linked on the Linux Mint download page, you should be absolutely fine. This step is a just-in-case, for your personal ease of mind. It will, however, need you to open cmd.exe and copy the code inside the green boxes into the terminal and press Enter. There's a pictoral guide if you're doing the verification on Windows still, right here:
No problem, and again - if you experience any confusion during the process, just let me know! I also had to get help with installing Linux Mint myself when I first got started.
Did you make sure that you opened the terminal inside the folder where your iso and txt files are, or at least navigated to that folder after opening the terminal? Basically, it'll say "file not found" if you run the CertUtil command while not "inside" the folder containing both the iso and the txt files. Same with running the gpg command.
Usually, if you just open cmd.exe by itself from the searchbar, you'll see something like this:
PS C:\Users\your_username>
If you instead opened the terminal inside the folder, you'll instead see this:
PS C:\Users\your_username\Downloads\ISO>
Or whichever folder your iso and txt files are located in.
CertUtil and gpg are pretty tunnel-visioned - they can only see stuff that's in the same folder as they're being run in, unless you give them specific directions to get to a different location. That's why it's easiest and best to have everything in a single folder and open the terminal "inside" that folder.
Again - all this verification stuff with the terminal is, in my opinion, optional as long as you downloaded from one of the mirrors on the website. But since you still want to do it, this is the easiest way to go about it.
It’s almost laughable that these two stories happened so close to one another. The Australian government has just announced a pilot program to test an online age verification system...
So why do locks exist, if society runs on how people should behave? Why do we have a court system, if we assume no crimes will ever be committed? Why do we have laws?
Was there even a mass exodus? I largely avoid Reddit now, but I do kind of doubt that they've been hurt in any meaningful way by all the protests and people leaving...
Windows 11 is now automatically enabling OneDrive folder backup without asking permission ( www.neowin.net )
Microsoft really wants Local accounts gone after it erases its guide on how to create them ( www.xda-developers.com )
Microsoft removes guide on converting Microsoft accounts to Local, pushing for Microsoft sign-ins....
Internet Archive forced to remove 500,000 books after publishers’ court win ( arstechnica.com )
Jeff Bezos revealed his secret to Amazon’s success 25 years ago: ‘I asked everyone around here to wake up terrified every morning, their sheets drenched in sweat’ ( fortune.com )
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/32365414...
Slovakia's prime minister injured in shooting ( apnews.com )
https://i.imgur.com/5mJe9WY.mp4...
"PSN isn't supported in my country. What do I do?" Arrowhead CEO: "I don't know" ( lemmy.world )
Hours After Aussie Gov’t Greenlights Online Age Verification Pilot, Breach Of Mandated Verification Database For Bars Is Revealed ( www.techdirt.com )
It’s almost laughable that these two stories happened so close to one another. The Australian government has just announced a pilot program to test an online age verification system...
30% of Children Ages 5-7 Are on TikTok ( www.honest-broker.com )
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek surprised by how much laying off 1,500 employees negatively affected the streaming giant’s operations ( fortune.com )
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/30272690...
Is there any evidence that Reddit has suffered at all from the exodus to Lemmy?
Was there even a mass exodus? I largely avoid Reddit now, but I do kind of doubt that they've been hurt in any meaningful way by all the protests and people leaving...
Twitter is now X as the little blue bird disappears ( www.theverge.com )