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Make Microsoft's CEO cry by installing Chrome's 'Microslop' extension
(www.pcworld.com)
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this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2026
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If you really want to freak Microsoft out, switch to Linux. Nothing terrifies them more than the moment you decide to leave.
This weekend. I’ve asked my significant other to check through and backup any files she may need but we’re switching off Microslops ecosystem this coming week. Got it down to Ubuntu or Mint for an ease of use while not jumping in the hole too deep. But we are in agreement at least to turn away.
:: EDIT 17/01/2026 ::
Thanks Everyone. We went with Mint Cinnamon Distro. The hardest part being how to get into the BIOS and turn on the USB boot. Everything that was installed windows wise is now installed mint wise and got the other halfs’ bookmarks up and running in a browser for her (Vivaldi if anyone’s interested). VPNs up and working and so far so good. Didn’t get spammed to death with subscriptions windows which is a major plus.
Avoid Ubuntu - it's made by the Microsoft of the Linux world. If you want an easy transition from Windows specifically, then you really ought to run KDE Plasma as your desktop environment, as that is by far the most similar to Windows in terms of look, layout and workflow, and it is very flexible in what can be changed and adjusted. GNOME is the other big one, but it feels more Mac-like or tablet-like.
It's preferable to pick one of those two, as they support the modern Wayland protocol, whereas other desktop environments still only support X11 or only partially support Wayland - I don't want to infodump on you right now, but suffice to say that Wayland is more secure, and is widely regarded as the future of Linux, while the old X11 has security issues, and is only in maintenance mode now.
Mint, for whatever reason, and unlike almost every other distro, doesn't come with KDE Plasma as an option. I would recommend Fedora - it's very solid and well developed, an all purposes workhorse that can do anything you need it to, and it's a first class citizen anywhere, since it is one of the most commonly used distros by far. My runner-up would be OpenSUSE. If you're dead set on something Ubuntu-based, then I would take a look at Tuxedo OS, or perhaps just going back to the roots, and install Debian.
Second vote for Fedora. I set up my wife's laptop with Fedora KDE, and she uses it with no issues. She gets easily frustrated by tech hiccups, and Fedora KDE just works for her.
Go with Mint, Pop!_Os, or Bazzite.
Ubuntu is only really a good choice if you want corporate/business level support. And even then there are other options.
Everybody always goes on and on about how great linux is for gaming pcs these days. I recently poked around online to see if my rtx5070ti would be supported and found a bunch of people facing issues, and that Mint and Ubuntu weren't recommended.
I dont want the AI nonsense, and Windows/Microslop blows, but I want my new gaming laptop to work correctly for several years given the money I spent on it. I can't see making the switch when the gpu support is so convoluted.
Ive had many Linux machines in the past, so that bums me out.
Edit: someone should make a webpage that automatically reads the hardware and specs of your windows machine and then creates a table of suggested distros. That table should also include "what you'll lose" that shows which features will become lost or finicky. And it should also include direct download links.
If the goal is to have morons like myself adopt it, it needs to be basically fool proof and easy. Linux is much better and easier than it was in 2003, but that doesn't mean it's two-click easy.
I tried looking it up myself just now, but I'm not really able to find anything that would indicate you'd have a bad time on Mint with your 5070 TI. There was one guy on the Nvidia forum that said he was having a bunch of problems, but turned out his BIOS was the culprit. Another person who reported a problem on the mint forums discovered that his card was outputting to his secondary monitor which happened to be off.
Support for the 5070ti was added in the 6.1 Linux kernel, while the latest version of Mint defaults to 6.12 now. You should be able to install it and then install the latest 580 Nvidia driver from the Driver Installer tool and be off to the races without any real trouble, at least from what I read.
System 76 (Linux laptop maker) now ships a laptop with a 5070 Ti, so I'd be quite surprised if you encountered significant issues.
No idea what you could have been reading, but by and large, there's very little difference between distros when it comes to GPU drivers.
However, if you want the smoothest experience, then just use a distro that comes with drivers that install with the OS. Best one I can recommend is Bazzite. You won't have to mess around with GPU drivers at all and it doesn't matter which Nvidia card you have, they all use the exact same drivers.