You can (at least the last time I ran an install) get both 10 and 11 installed without a Microsoft account, 11 just requires this process to do it. If you have an old ISO of 11 around it should allow a local account if you don’t connect to the internet, but they apparently patched that out now.

Yep, I didn’t convert either of my accounts over as well.

I would just try it and see what you think of it! It’s completely free. Minetest is the program you install on your computer, and then there are lots of different games that you can download and try inside of Minetest. There’s more besides Minecraft-likes that you can try, and there are definitely mods available. I never modded Minecraft though, so I’m not sure how they compare.

As to system requirements, it could run pretty well on a six year old Android phone the last I tried. It might be worth a shot on your laptop! Be aware that it’ll probably be a somewhat different experience than Minecraft, but not necessarily in a bad way!

Yes, it often is!

Exactly! Better all around for me. The player base isn’t as big, but I’m not really an online player.

Yes, it’s certainly changed for the worse since I’ve played it. I quit fairly soon after they announced that I would need to eventually migrate to a Microsoft account. Seeing some of the things they’ve done since then doesn’t make me miss it!

I haven’t had the urge to play it recently, so I haven’t tried it since the name change. I heard they were diverging a bit from being a Minecraft clone, are there many large changes?

I primarily prefer it because it does pretty much all the Minecraft stuff I want it to do, and it’s got other games available as well. Plus, completely Linux compatible and no Microsoft account!

What pushed me over the edge was how much worse the user experience became with 8 & 10.

I really disliked the lack of control over updates, settings and defaults being reverted after minor updates, and the constant pushing of Microsoft accounts and services. The data collection and privacy issues certainly didn’t help either. I switched from 7 to 10 for a period of time, but eventually started using Linux for everything except for games. I started realizing just how good Linux gaming was getting, and I eventually had one too many issues with my Windows partition and just quit using it entirely.

I don’t remember having a lot of the frustrations I hear some talk about when switching, but I think that was because early on I realized I just needed to start figuring out the Linux way of doing things rather than bringing my Windows experience over.

I enjoyed it overall! I would rank it behind BTAS and Batman Beyond, but still good. While I enjoy much of the Batman content I’ve seen, I especially enjoy the more grounded takes on the character. This definitely has some of that, along with a decent mix of more fantastical things too. I haven’t made up my mind yet on a few of the character changes, but it’s not a major thing. I did get a laugh out of all the callbacks in episode 8 though! There were some in the other episodes too, but that one especially stood out.

Interesting. I wonder if it’s an incompatible UEFI/BIOS? Both of the machines I put it on were fairly new, one was first boot on a server I built, the other was a recent laptop that I decided to run it on for a while.

It still works for installing the OS though, at least in the case of Nix. I’ve not tried Guix so far, but I’ve installed NixOS on two machines in the past year using Ventoy.

I know my use case isn’t the standard for everyone, but at this moment I have six different Linux distros in use. I keep my most commonly used ISOs on a Ventoy so I can easily install an OS on a machine I’m rehabilitating, or maybe just because I want a change of pace. I could write the ISO I want to the drive every time I want to change something, but it’s a waste of time when I can have 15 or 20 of them ready to go on one drive. It’s just my particular use case, I’m sure others have other reasons they prefer it.

Sounds like the regular way still works for you then! I’ve given away most of my smaller drives, I’m pretty sure I don’t have anything smaller than 32GB right now.

Glad to help!

I’ve definitely done that before! I’ll use a Ventoy as a portable OS to test things I don’t want to break my main system, then shut it down to reset to normal. It’s nice to not need a second stick to bring in or save other files while doing that.

I’m going to do that, I didn’t realize that was possible! Thanks!

It would definitely be worth checking out, I wiped all of my individual sticks after I started using it. Also, I don’t know if the speed would make much difference in your use case, but SanDisk 32GB USB3.0 drives are usually less than $8.

Check out Ventoy! Unless you need a single ISO on the drive, it’s just something you install to it and then copy and paste ISOs to the folder on it. No flashing needed, it runs them for you. I’ve got 128GB drives almost filled with every ISO I could possibly want.

I didn’t realize it could be installed already, I’ll give that a go. Thanks!

I like it! It was the first distro I used when I started using Linux full time. It just works most of the time, (other than the Pop Shop) and fixes most of the issues I have with Gnome. I’m looking forward to seeing how Cosmic works once it is ready to go, and I’m hoping their new shop I just read about works well!

When I first started using it I wanted something that was far away from the Windows look, and it does it well. Maybe it’s weird, but having it look wildly different from Windows put me in a different mindset and helped me learn the Linux way of doing things rather than trying to make Linux work like Windows.

I’m still running it on my main gaming rig, but I’ve been doing a lot of experimenting on my other computers. I’ve gotten to really like both Budgie and Plasma since then, and I’m using distros with those DEs on them on two of my other computers.