this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2026
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I've been forced to use windows for some propriety software during uni. I got a laptop from IT with higher specs than my old one and:
So yeah I'm not using Windows 11 ever again
Yeah i have to use W11 for work and the brand new Dell XPS, upper mid range, they gave me compared to my 2017 i3 with linux and all this is true.
About the half the time i boot it and the network just doesn't connect. Wired or WiFi. Have to unplug the dock and reconnect it. DNS will drop for 10s at random.
There's times my laptop shows it age like i was bulk processing a load of photos, just resizing, and it took several minutes when the newer cpu was probably several seconds but that's the hardware, not the software.
I use windows 11 at work. I run solidworks, which is a 3D CAD/modeling program so my work computer is reasonably powerful with a decent chunk of RAM.
My laptop from 2020 uses mint. It's faster, although I havent tried to use solidworks on it because I'd have no idea where to start on getting that to run.
Only way I've found to get solidworks to run on Linux is to run a windows 11 VM using virtual machine manager (VMM). Ideally with GPU passthrough, among other optimizations. Kind of runs like shit on my Thinkpad T580 though, which is to be expected for an 8th gen quad core i5 laptop from 2018...
I've tried FreeCAD recently, and it isn't that bad. The latest updates (v1.0 and beyond) have made it much better than it used to be. It helps to watch video guides, as the workflows are a little different. I found this one to be helpful: https://youtube.com/watch?v=9cqs3oTzpac
Every time I've tried to use freecad its been basically useless due to nothing working the way it does in pretty much every other CAD program. Every once in a while I give it a shot because someone swears that its been fixed.
Oh FreeCAD definitely works in strange ways, mainly in the UX department, where it still needs work (kinda like GIMP does). Building a model in a broad sense is similar to solidworks (sketches extruded to 3d, cutting off material from there, etc), but understanding which workbench does what and navigating things is kind of a pain, even now.
Then again, it was similarly frustrating when I had to use fusion 360 instead of solidworks for a project. CAD programs are generally complex pieces of software, so it isn't surprising that switching to one you aren't familiar with really slows you down.