Microsoft Announces Windows 11 - Benchmarks Against Linux To Begin Soon

[waxhead]

Can't wait to experience all the new SLOWDOWNS they've baked in!
Windows 10 was lightweight in 2015 and instantly turned into a hog.
I mean come on, even AmigaOS 3 on a 7Mhz 68000 feels much faster than Windows 10 on a 2.5GHz Core i5 laptop (on HDD). And that's on floppy!

There is actually a lot of truth to your statement. Imagine a C=64 where you just turn it on and everything is ready for you in a second or two. I wonder what is actually NEW in Win11, not that I care that much, but I have to use Windows at work. Is Win11 yet another shell on top of regular Windows so that settings, window borders and all that are built on top of the existing stuff? One would expect Microsoft to actually overhaul something instead of just adding layers on layers on top of things.

Since this is all a lot of fun you might as well watch the sketch "Monty Python Royal Society For Putting Things On Top of Other Things"

[user1]

So let me get this straight.. Windows 11 now requires TPM 2.0, but afaik, my motherboard (Asus Prime Z390-P) doesn't even have TPM. Does that mean Windows 11 will not even run on it?

[onlyLinuxLuvUBack]

I'm watching the "The 2021 Microsoft Windows Event" and 90% of what they're showing, has been in Linux desktops for years and years, and some of the things they're saying are downright lies. Like they have this "snap" or whatever they're calling it, which is basically tiling, and they're claiming that no other system does that with as many windows. Tiling VM's can definitely do more windows than that, and it takes a fraction of the time.
I like the fact that it's capable of repopulating a screen that is disconnected, then reconnected, but I assume that it wouldn't take tooooo much to mimic on Linux - if it doesn't already exist (although I could imagine that it might be challenging on Wayland).
Then there's teams, that'll be integrated into Windows... Great - more bloat. And they're talking about it as was it some magical software. I basically get the same, and more with Telegram.
Multiple desktops are being presented as something revolutionary... Firstly; *yawn* (I don't mean that as it's not a fantastic tool, just that it has been such a natural part of Linux desktop for decades), secondly; they were in Windows 10.
And then they're presenting "widgets" as a custom feed - more useless bloat, and a start menu that adapts - I prefer for my menus to be static. I prefer to navigate by muscle memory.
They're also presenting the ability to seamlessly work between devices, which mean more cloud, more data being sent from people's devices, more reliance on internet and MS cloud-services, and so on.
In all of it, they're promoting more annoying automation - and my experience with everything MS, is that it does all the things you don't want it to; so not only do you have to contend with annoying popups, and things stealing focus, no, you also basically have to undo everything Windows automatically does.
They also keep going on about how Windows adapts to you. I don't need their adaptions to me, because they're limited - I just want to be able to get rid of bloat, not have my OS install random cr#p, and have it do what I ask it to, and use simple functional tools, that isn't noisy, doesn't get in the way, and act as I expect them to. So I don't want your forced adaption. I'll adapt my system the way I want.

Do you see some of their screens during the forced wait to use the os ?

"Leave everything to us" ( // right , I am believer )
"All your settings are belong to us"( // right again, I am believer )
That win10 forever license is not looking so forever now.

[CommunityMember]

I don't understand why though, considering Microsoft is the compatibility company.
What is so special about TPM that Windows 11 needs it?

Bitlocker requires (well mostly, there are some workarounds) TPM 1.2 or higher, and TPM 2.0 requires UEFI, and Windows has required UEFI and secure boot to be enabled for quite some time if a manufacturer wants to install Windows (and most do, because that is where the volume, i.e. $$$$$$, is). Bitlocker is considered a fundamental security/privacy enhancement. It all sort of goes together in the Microsoft world.

There are already workarounds floating around the intertubes for installing on systems without TPM or UEFI. Whether Microsoft will relax the requirements for upgrades (rather than new installs) will be interesting to see.

[numacross]

So let me get this straight.. Windows 11 now requires TPM 2.0, but afaik, my motherboard (Asus Prime Z390-P) doesn't even have TPM. Does that mean Windows 11 will not even run on it?

This motherboard seems to support Intel Platform Trust Technology (PTT) which is a fTPM (firmware TPM) - from the manual on page 67. AFAIR this requires both TXT and SGX to be present and enabled so YMMV.

[CommunityMember]

I have just noticed this:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/wind...specifications


Also they are dropping support for Intel Kaby Lake 7th-gen and older CPUs:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...tel-processors

I am suspecting that the lack of previous gen CPUs in the list is that Intel has marked them "discontinued" rather than they may not work, so they technically cannot be claimed to be supported. The same is true for Windows 10 21H1 where the list of supported processors is for CPUs that had not yet been discontinued by Intel at the time of availability of 21H1, even though it certainly runs on processors where Windows 10 was installed on previous gen products.

Of course, when the Windows 11 builds are officially available to insiders I am sure some people will test things out.

[skeevy420]

So let me get this straight.. Windows 11 now requires TPM 2.0, but afaik, my motherboard (Asus Prime Z390-P) doesn't even have TPM. Does that mean Windows 11 will not even run on it?

If you're in my position you might think have to buy some bullshit like this that is out of stock pretty much everywhere. Asus has one too.

Damn, I looked at your motherboard schematic and it doesn't look like it has a TPM header. That sucks more ass than Cardi B. FWIW, there's already a dll to get around not having TPM 2.0.

Fortunately I have a Ryzen so all I had to do was enable fTPM in my UEFI and everything is all good. Thankfully I don't have to have a special chip on my TPM header (yet). Enabling fTPM was all that was necessary for me to be able to reenter the Beta Channel and I'll be able to update to 11 as soon as it's available. If anyone else has a Ryzen and was wondering why they got kicked off the Dev or Beta Channel in Windows 10, try to enable fTPM (or not if you want to stay on 10 ).

[fkelava]

I prefer viewing it as a rolling release of the latest 10 base with a fancy new sticker, and my expectations are tempered accordingly. I do not lend any credence to theories that TPM 2.0 will be a hard requirement or that only post-Kaby Lake machines will be supported. 21H1 technically doesn't support Haswell-generation processors, yet runs eminently fine on the old Nehalem machine in the lab. The MS account requirement will also definitely be void for the Pro and above SKUs, and there will probably be piss-easy bypasses for Home. This should also not come as a surprise, since MS publicly offer the workaround to disabling MS account authentication in 10. Besides, you can already tell that enterprises will clearly not be subject to such restrictions, and you can extrapolate from that.

The initial launch of 10, in retrospect, was pretty horrifying and way too early out of the gate in many respects, but since about mid-2018, most of these quirks have been ironed away. MS were certainly late and unwilling, but to their credit, they did eventually release enough information for one to reasonably have awareness and oversight over what the OS phones back (e.g. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...20h2-endpoints et al.), not to mention that people and governments did their research on the matter, (e.g. https://troopers.de/downloads/troope..._Telemetry.pdf). Most of the early-era 10 "optimizing" or "shut-up-Windows" scripts have been superseded to the point I view them as ineffectual or actively harmful. Learn some PowerShell and you can do a better job in five minutes flat.

The bloat was unwelcome, but ridding oneself of it been a reasonably unobtrusive process since day one- I think the PS cmdlets have remained unchanged through every update. In general, I take the same amount of time to nuke and reconfigure my Windows systems today as I do my Linux/BSD systems; this was previously a landslide in Linux's favor. Compare a modern Windows cumulative versus the absolute torture of sequentially applying years of updates long since superseded only years ago. It's no pacman, but it's become better.

As for the stability, I can certainly not speak for everyone, but I've experienced no issues since RTM. I've changed from more esoteric (first-gen AMD "Llano" APU laptop with dual graphics, early Threadripper and its NUMANUMAyey) to less esoteric (plain vanilla T460 and a Comet Lake desktop) configurations and all have been eminently stable. Recently, I've taken to dailying the Dev Channel Insider builds and those work just as well, although I expect them to. No different than running testing builds of any Linux distribution.

Really, the only issues I haven't shaken is the ones that are intrinsic to Windows being a closed-source operating system. As these will never be resolved, I see no point in crying over spilled milk; Windows and Ubuntu make a fine pair and rebooting barely registers as a hassle anymore. Live and let live has been a firm standpoint of mine for ages. I eagerly await benchmarks, although expect no change, as Windows' adamant refusal to part ways with the well-since-rusted away parts of the system has become a feature by now.

[user1]

If you're in my position you might think have to buy some bullshit like this that is out of stock pretty much everywhere. Asus has one too.

Damn, I looked at your motherboard schematic and it doesn't look like it has a TPM header. That sucks more ass than Cardi B. FWIW, there's already a dll to get around not having TPM 2.0.

Fortunately I have a Ryzen so all I had to do was enable fTPM in my UEFI and everything is all good. Thankfully I don't have to have a special chip on my TPM header (yet). Enabling fTPM was all that was necessary for me to be able to reenter the Beta Channel and I'll be able to update to 11 as soon as it's available. If anyone else has a Ryzen and was wondering why they got kicked off the Dev or Beta Channel in Windows 10, try to enable fTPM (or not if you want to stay on 10 ).

After some research I found out that I have Intel Platform Trust Technology, which is the Intel equivalent of AMD's fTPM. There are also reports that TPM 2.0 will not be a hard requirement (TPM 1.2 will also work). I do wonder though what's the point of having a TPM header on mobo's like yours, if the mobo already has a firmware TPM functionality?

[Henk717]

Not having a physical TPM chip is normal these days. TPM as a chip is obsolete technology. These days the secure parts of the CPU can emulate one so check your bios for this feature. On my first gen Ryzen it was disabled by default but the fTPM was supported and allows me to use bitlocker.

I'm more worried about the secureboot requirement screwing up custom kernels. That has always been unnessesary hassle for me so i always leave it off.

As for the reasoning, modern machines automatically enable harddrive encryption and certain hypervisor based security mitigations. Its clear those will formally no longer be optional.