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.

Stop resisting!!

oh god, win10's dying next year?

i really need to transition the rest of my shit to Linux soon

Man... Anybody remember "Back Orifice"? The late nineties were weird.

The icon itself is probably more than 8kb. It's either incorrect or literally just a desktop URL shortcut

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.

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!

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.

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).

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.

"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.

For a distro that just works, Linux Mint.

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?

Depends on your needs and preferences. If you want an easy Linux distribution Linux Mint is a good choice. Arch Linux is indeed good but default Arch is not that suitable for new Linux users unless you're willing to read documentation. You can go for Garuda or EndeavourOS to have Arch with easy installers and GUI.

Can't see this going wrong.

"Hey Copilot, make me a domain admin"

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

This is a ridiculous statement. Copilot should be opt-in, not opt-out and the setting is new.

Perfectly reasonable by the sysadmin to not have that already set.

There are 5 million ways to configure windows and each have an absurd and almost by-design level of convolution. You can't possibly expect people to know about a new GPO immediately

Let me see if I understand your logic. Microshit decides to push something sneakily on servers, and the OP mentions that he just found out about it, and never once does he mention that he doesn't know what to do about it, but and you assume he doesn't know, but and choose to blast him over your assumption.

Did I miss something?