AI is being driven by LLMs hosted on the cloud, so why would anyone in their right mind buy a Laptop with “AI” “inside” it?
Even the most technophobic consumer understands this - you can Google something today with a PC from 2014 and it’ll spit out AI slop for you to slurp on. AI chatbots are embedded into every website you can think of – you already have AI shit in your device, it’s just being outsourced to data centers.
AI accelerators should’ve always been an add-on card like GPUs, or at least embedded into GPUs (like some are) but this whole embedded-into-every-chip-imaginable AI bollocks is a waste of silicon and largely a marketing gimmick to uplift CPU prices.
CPU vendors are struggling to keep justifying new generations and they’re getting desperate. For 90% of people (conservative guess) a CPU needs no more raw processing power than something from 2010-2014 and 4-6 cores; The kicker is, that this requirement hasn’t been touched for years - the host OS has just artificially bloated itself to push sales.
I’m switching to Linux before I ever touch win11
Just got a W11 laptop new from work, (replacing a dead W10 machine). It is such a mess. It is trying hard to be a modern desktop like KDE Plasma or GNOME, but without a cohesive setup. And bluescreened twice already, had a WebApp failure error, and locked up completely another time at login. This is brand-new Out of the Box.
That sounds like a faulty install or machine. Win11 has issues but that’s not a regular experience that you’re describing
Hmmm. I don’t really like Windows myself and haven’t setup a machine without for me in one a decade. But neither my work “development” laptop (in quotation marks because I’m not a developer) nor a mini PC I installed for my dad ever had bluescreens. They can still happen, of course… but it almost seems to require effort with really bad drivers or broken hardware.
The obvious Windows issues nowadays are a different category from 20 years ago in my opinion.
Lmao epic, thanks windows
I don’t think that the people still on windows 10 are in a hurry to upgrade. I suspect that either they don’t want to or are not aware of the risk of outdated security updates. So in the end it probably will come down to whether those people need an actual hardware upgrade or not.
Yeah this is captured by the “need” with a bunch of up votes in this thread… The average person just doesn’t “get it.”
“Need”
These rich scumbags have artificially created a demand for themselves, but they hoped for more with pushing the AI scam. You know, sales must only go up etc.
Linux is the way.
local AI is cool and all, but neither the hardware nor the models are really ready for your average consumer
Who actually uses “local AI” beyond developers and a handful of end users? These NPUs are wasted silicon - akin to sticking a gaming GPU in your CPU that only works for games that are either in development or 99% of people don’t give a shit about
The only real advantage of local AI is privacy and that it’s much cheaper if you use it a lot.
The only consumer use case I see in the wild with some real momentum behind it is role play.
All the local AI communities I browse are 50% people trying to find usecases for it at their job (like me; unsuccessfully I might add) and 50% people interested in role play.
People will apparently spend thousands to jerk off to a soulless machine demon simulacrum shell of a human.
To be fair, I can see the appeal of local AI for video games, like RPGs. There is this really fun game called “Suck Up”, where you are a vampire trying to convince AI to let you inside their house. That is the one real “killer” application I see atm.
I personally see a lot of other useful usecases for local AI, but from my experience at work, I would estimste it will take another 5 years until any of it is anywhere near consumer ready.
Every person I know either already has a Windows 11 ready device, or doesn’t know what an OS is. In the later case, I doubt they would trust themselves to buy a new laptop, rightfully tho. Luckily we have a bunch of old laptops from work, Win 11 compatible. Nobody will buy a new Laptop in my village!
And for those tech-savvy, or with tech-savvy family members, you can put Win11 on basically any PC. It may run like shit, but all the requirements can be disabled.
It depends. Microsoft has recently enabled compilation options for their binaries that will make them incompatible with older CPUs: https://www.guru3d.com/story/windows-11-24h2-new-cpu-instruction-requirements-impact-compatibility-on-older-hardware/
Granted, these are quite old nowadays, but they could enforce newer instructions as well, like AVX-512.
Wouldn’t it be possible to emulate these new instructions? It would definitely hinder the performance, tho.
From my understanding, what you’re suggesting requires emulation, so you’d probably need another operating system underneath; there are translation layers for other architectures, like Apple has with Rosetta and what WINE did for Arm, but it sounds very challenging to implement something like this for executables of the actual operating system which can operate at a very low level. So I guess this is in the theoretical realm. Maybe someone is mad enough to do this, but I wouldn’t expect it.
This is my plan since I couldn’t make my lan (vpn) work in linux for the emulators and games I use
Hi there. Nice to meet you. I am a person. My desktop computer’s motherboard is from 2009ish and only has BIOS, no UEFI. I cannot upgrade it to Windows 11 because of this. I know what an OS is.
-> Exit here
Anyone who is just starting out with Linux and doesn’t want to put in a lot of effort should definitely choose Mint over Arch. If you really want to learn the ins and outs, Arch is great. If you just want a usable computer, Mint is your daddy.
Anyone who suggests Arch as the starter Linux distro is absolutely delusional and has probably never spoken to or interacted with the average person.
They’re the kind of people who write “Git gud, n00b!” in Linux forums.
I also won’t recommend someone to use Arch as their first Distros. You will not have a great time. You need to learn how to use the terminal first.
Even Ubuntu is fine as a gateway drug. Or Pop Os! Don’t be afraid to recommend easy solutions to Linux beginners who otherwise might not be interested in learning the internals.
i have zero issues with ubuntu and have distrohopped alot
Thats fair, i also did it for the memes.
On Lemmy it does feel like preaching to the choir but thats no excuse to not have included both.
You can’t seriously be suggesting Arch for new Linux users.
I wasn’t really. Read the rest of the comments.
But on another note i went straight from windows to Arch as a complete linux noob and never looked back.
I did the same with Endeavour and ended up on fedora. I can monitor and merge pacnew files…… but why the hell should I when fedora runs like a champ with software almost as fresh off the presses as arch and basically zero maintenance.
An arch based system was an excellent learning tool but it isn’t viable for the majority of users.
This concludes my sectarian rant. Btw.
why not ubuntu?
Debian > Ubuntu. Less extra stuff shoveled in and while not bleeding edge it’s not a dinosaur.
lol no.
Canonical has left a bad taste in my mouth far too many times. Snaps are generally awful, collecting analytics without user knowledge at one point. If I was going to use something Ubuntu based it would be mint, but I prefer a native vanilla gnome experience.
Do you use Fedora Workstation or Silverblue? Is the KDE version fine to use? I’m pretty tempted to switch, I just want a reasonably up to date system that doesn’t get in my way.
I run workstation with Gnome. KDE is fine, and fedora implements it in vanilla fashion without any tweaks, which is good. I personally stopped using KDE because it doesn’t always work the way I want it to, and Gnome does. Games can easily be swapped between monitors if it opens on the wrong one initially. Gnome took some getting used to but it’s fantastic. Give it a shot.
I’m really happy with KDE, I love how customizable it is and I also mostly prefer KDE software. Gnome is cool, but it’s not for me.
But I’ll give Fedora Workstation a shot, thanks!
the expected increase in prices next year is hastening that timeline in the u.s.
