Powertoys on windows are a boon, but there's absolutely no word you can say they make windows "behave like linux". Not even close.
this post was submitted on 26 May 2025
598 points (93.0% liked)
linuxmemes
25167 readers
1141 users here now
Hint: :q!
Sister communities:
Community rules (click to expand)
1. Follow the site-wide rules
- Instance-wide TOS: https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
- Lemmy code of conduct: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/code_of_conduct.html
2. Be civil
- Understand the difference between a joke and an insult.
- Do not harrass or attack users for any reason. This includes using blanket terms, like "every user of thing".
- Don't get baited into back-and-forth insults. We are not animals.
- Leave remarks of "peasantry" to the PCMR community. If you dislike an OS/service/application, attack the thing you dislike, not the individuals who use it. Some people may not have a choice.
- Bigotry will not be tolerated.
3. Post Linux-related content
- Including Unix and BSD.
- Non-Linux content is acceptable as long as it makes a reference to Linux. For example, the poorly made mockery of
sudoin Windows. - No porn, no politics, no trolling or ragebaiting.
4. No recent reposts
- Everybody uses Arch btw, can't quit Vim, <loves/tolerates/hates> systemd, and wants to interject for a moment. You can stop now.
5. π¬π§ Language/ΡΠ·ΡΠΊ/Sprache
- This is primarily an English-speaking community. π¬π§π¦πΊπΊπΈ
- Comments written in other languages are allowed.
- The substance of a post should be comprehensible for people who only speak English.
- Titles and post bodies written in other languages will be allowed, but only as long as the above rule is observed.
6. (NEW!) Regarding public figures
We all have our opinions, and certain public figures can be divisive. Keep in mind that this is a community for memes and light-hearted fun, not for airing grievances or leveling accusations. - Keep discussions polite and free of disparagement.
- We are never in possession of all of the facts. Defamatory comments will not be tolerated.
- Discussions that get too heated will be locked and offending comments removed. Β
Please report posts and comments that break these rules!
Important: never execute code or follow advice that you don't understand or can't verify, especially here. The word of the day is credibility. This is a meme community -- even the most helpful comments might just be shitposts that can damage your system. Be aware, be smart, don't remove France.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Holy shit powertotys run is the one of the only reasons i can tolerate windows 11 on a works laptop.
Local admin to go digging through group policy settings, just so i don't have to scroll past 2 pages of ads and internet results in the start menu to open fucking "settings"?
They can absolutely fuck right off with that.
What does it do?
it's an alt-space launcher.
you press alt+space, a little box pops up in the centre of the screen and works the way the search box in the start menu is supposed to work.
No ads, no internet search results, just application and file search, perhaps some cheeky addition or multiplication.
Thanks, that sounds like something that should definitely be a default option in an OS.
I remember I used rocketdock way back in the day. It gave windows sort of a mac style dock. At some point I also used something called launchy I think.
The fact that Microsoft refers to the application suite that makes Windows marginally useful as "toys" should tell you everything you need to know about their OS philosophy. I prefer an OS that takes my use cases seriously.
What's the second one? PowerToys and?
It's WSL, I think the logo is relatively new though or maybe not official idk
load more comments
(3 replies)
No, it doesn't make Windows behave like Linux.
It are just a collection of apps made by the engineers behind Windows with features that never made it into the official build because of all kinds of reasons.
wait til you hear about WSL
until you realise it's just a Microsoft-flavored VM
only the second version. wsl1 is pure black magic. the communication layer is 9P, which means that windows is currently the only mainstream OS capable of talking to a Plan9 network out of the box.
load more comments
(5 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
Oh, yes all the tools that should already exist in their crappy, uninnovated OS.
load more comments
(5 replies)
Proud victim of the Powertoys to Linux pipeline reporting in
Holy shit! It's real
Windows - > Powertoys - > Winget - > Win Debloater - > Minimal Windows - > Bazite - > Debian
It's so beautiful!
That's my journey too, except a few of those didn't exist yet, when I first walked it.
Portable Windows apps and Ubuntu live Boot CDs awkwardly bridges some of the (previous) gaps, for me.
Pretty much my desktop experience, with popos rather than bazzite.
I completely forgot that I went to PopOS before Bazzite.
I still like it but I was tinkering too much with it before I knew how to stay out of trouble.
You forgot the arch/Gentoo phase before Debian.
I miss the window tiling one. Its ability to span multiple "areas" with a window by holding a modifier key is something I sorely wish KDE's tiling had.
Edit: FancyZones! Finally remembered the name.
load more comments
(18 replies)
All fun and games but I'm still missing the "paste without format" keybind.
Powertoys is a great addition and while there probably are addons for all of these in linux I kinda wish they would come in one package together too.
Maybe it's just me but I feel like I'm not helping my system by tagging on add on after add on just to get back some basic functionality from Window like a clipboard and status indicators for some apps in my taskbar
KDE plasma has like 90% of the feadures.
I think I will need to go over to KDE anyways soon
I kinda wish they would come in one package together too.
You may be able to find themed meta packages (single packages that install a suite of related features) for this, depending what you're looking for.
Lately, I have been confused because I was looking for Gnome add-ons for features that vwere already included but just toggled off.
I now find that most of what I want, as a power user, is a quick settings search and then a toggle button.
The general dividng line, lately, in Gnome, is that plugins may still have bugs, while built-in features tend to be very reliable. Most of what PowerToys contains (that I care about) is just a settings toggle in Gnome. A notable exception is Window tiling, which I use a plugin for.
I will go through the list of power tools and see what I can get from Gnome settings π€
You are not a Plasma user it seems.
Nope Gome 48 on Fedora 42
Well, you fell on the sad trap of the "default flavour" of many distros.
I think GNOME only has that presence because... It's american. Otherwise... No one can beat the possibilities and features of KDE Plasma. Truly a complete desktop, so good you could downgrade it to work like GNOME if you wanted.
Gnome at this point is just as bad as Microsoft and Apple.
It's there way, or so help them God they WILL make you do it their way.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Meh... switch to linux, already
No true. I use it only for FancyZones. A feature not native to Linux. In gnome I also have to install a plugin to get this functionality.
I'm thankful for both.
The plugin install on Gnome is quicker and less invasive (doesn't require escalated permissions) than installing PowerToys.
I also like that Gnome plugins let me choose only the plugins I want. PowerToys leaves me with many installed features I'm not using. I think they at least all default to turned off. Gnome does save me a few moments of configuration, too, as the plugin can default to "on" since each plugin is separate.
And Gnome's tiling has good defaults. PowerToys still uses "these are power users" as an excuse to ignore usability feedback.
Gnome plugin are great. I've seen complaints about them breaking when gnome is upgraded, but I haven't experienced any problems myself.
My only complaint is discoverability. I was rawdogging gnome in fedora for a while before i discovered the extension manager app in the Store. This should be built in!
Power toys is so bad now. Almost all the features are completely useless and it hogs a ton of system resources.
view more: next βΊ