Windows 11 killed my laptop, so I killed Windows… and switched to Mint

I have a laptop from 2019, it was pretty high end at the time. It worked wonderfully for 5 years until I upgraded to windows 11 a few months ago. It took multiple minutes to log in, and 10-20 mins for my startup apps to actually start. In the meantime my fans would spin up like crazy, (on battery mind you, with wall power my laptop sounded more like a 747). I came to the logical conclusion of resetting the PC to see if it would help.

I spent an hour or so resetting my computer and giving it a total clean install of Windows 11. It made no difference at all.

I know my laptop is old, but it is not awful, it only has 8GB of RAM and the processor is old and slow by todays standards but I believe an OS should still function at a basic level with that. So long story short I decided to go for Linux. More specifically, Linux Mint XFCE. It was my last shot before I said goodbye to my binary buddy.

I am pleased to share that my laptop now is it’s old self again. No fan throttling, no annoying Windows AI slop, no bloatware. I am fully embracing linux, making my own custom scripts, navigating with the terminal and enjoying the new life that linux gave my PC. All this to say, if you have an old computer, don’t be too quick to get rid of it. Linux might just bring it back, like it did mine.