Whoa, dial it back a bit. I said curious, not that I was going to hump my case.

I am more likely to change over to some Linux distro, than to upgrade to Windows 11.

This is now my position.

I'd prefer to dual boot though.

Download a liveCD, you can try without installing the OS. Depending on the distro you can save changes either to your drive, to a thumbdrive, or remaster the module packages (at least for software).
Considering you could have vastly more space than a 32bit int could hold if it's any 32bit installers/drivers that may be the case (though the system probably checked number of clusters making probably (4k assumed)12+31=2^43 so 8 Terabyte drives?). For 64bit i don't see that being an issue...

I thought that Microsoft said that Windows 10 is the final release of Windows.

I do not plan on upgrading to Windows 11 until I'm forced to do so.

I am responding from a PC, where:

userp@tiger > ls -1 /bin
sh

This just kills your whole post. Have a nice day.

I'm not really sure if I will update.
The first thing I will do is to try it on a virtual machine to see if every program on my pc works like in windows 10. And if I don't like something I will try to revert it with a thrird party app.
After that I will wait a few months for bug fixes.
If everything was ok I will update if not I will try it again.

If it create it still got problems I will stay on windows 10, if not I will update.

The main things that I know I'm not fine with are
Windows home edition that require internet and Microsoft account to set up (but I got the education that is a pro version so I should be fine).
The fact that file explorer is still missing tabs but the same is true on windows 10.

I don't really like the center Taskbar but there is an option to fix that.
I like the new file explorer design but only if it does not miss advanced functions like photo presentations that only appear on the old file explorer if I select a photo in a new ribbon.

May I say that I'm not a fan of fixing what is not broken? Windows 10 works great and I really think it should have been the final system.
On the other hand if everything works as expected I will not stay behind. I don't really like to avoid updates and find myself forced to update at the last minute with a system that I still don't like and that I don't know. So I will try to update at least a few times before giving up.
Some small things can be usually fixed or I can find a few workaround to still be able to use it the way I like it...

I will see if it's like windows 8 that was unfixable shit, windows 8.1 that was ok with a lot of configurations or like windows 10 that is still good for me.

I think that if they will ask a modern pc to run it, it will not spread a lot so stay on windows 10 until a good version will be easier. If they push it like 10 it will be difficult to stay behind even if I don't like it this time.

I'm only sure of one thing. This time it will be hard to update.
Windows 10 was so good that I updated as soon as possible and I was really pleased of what I found, I'm not sure it will be the same for 11.

About linux it will alwa be my backup plan but I still need windows for a lot of stuff.

Ps. It is only the leaked version but the control panel is still there. That's why I think Microsoft will transfer all the functionality from one version to the other.
I can live with a bad UI, but if something is really missing it will be more difficult (like see the password wifi, you can do that in the control panel but you still cannot do that in the settings... Yes you can also do that with powershell but for a basic thing like that I prefer a user interface).
That's just an example, the same can be said about every function that i use. If it's still there I don't really care if the ui is not that great

From that article:

"“Any step you can take to harden your security is a positive one, including making TPM 2.0 a requirement.”"

Well, no. There is a reason none of us are using 256 character passwords or 50-factor-authentication to log into gog.com, even if they would certainly be more secure than current shorter passwords and 2-factor-authentication.

If you only have a hammer in your hand, every problem looks like a nail, or how the saying goes...

Well, dual-boot is always a good idea. Then you get the idea over a longer period of time how well (or not) Linux fulfills your needs.

I never quite understand these "That's it, I'll completely switch from A to B!", if you have the option to use both side by side, and making educated decisions based on that. It allows you to migrate slowly if you feel like it, like for years I did all my gaming on Windows and only some other stuff on Linux, and only recently I've migrated more and more (but not all) of my gaming to Linux, when I felt more comfortable with the idea...

Anyway, I am still sure my future PC (laptop) will have Windows 11, and it will be its main OS for a long time. I have lots of other Linux machines to play with.

See for me, Linux is still fresh and new and exciting. I was going to convert to it a couple of years ago and never did it, because I got into the twitch scene for a while. Nowadays, at most, I do occasional youtube videos, but I do not do it for anything other than as a hobby.

What turns me off about going pure Linux is how unfriendly it is to get everything to run on it, at least with the distro I tried, which was Linux Mint a while back. I hear ZorinOS is pretty user friendly, or at least it used to be.

Windows 11 is an inevitability for me, but in the meantime since this machine won't run it, why not start dual booting? I might have to buy a larger boot disk first, though.

Hmmm... For basic OS and software i didn't have issues. WINE and related programs, some issues but not too many; probably more if i was trying to do more games. Older games with dependencies on library verisons that i can't find? Yep that was a pain. I think of the Linux versions of some games i have to download, Fez was one of the only ones to run flawlessly (along with games relying on DosBox).

Generally for those type of things you compile the libraries and code into the executable so it doesn't look/rely on a shared library. But then you bloat your executable quite a bit.

I'll join the choir and say "Not if I can help it!"
I'll stick with Win10 until it is officially unsupported.

Once that happens, I'll check whether Valve pumped enough cash into developing ways to circumvent Windows through Linux, or switch to Win 11 like a good boy.

Thanks for the info! I'm still deciding if I want to dual boot, and if so, whether I should get a larger boot drive to make it easier. I'd prefer to dual boot with Linux on my 7,200 rpm drive, though. Right now it's just used for youtube video backups I don't need.

For normal use, Linux is the same as windows, even better and user friendly after some weeks, i tried linux mint for a little more than a year now and i didn't get any problem running games, and i can say that i'm lost when i switch back to windows. With steam and it's proton to run games on linux and wine you can run almost all games (didn't get problem myself but apparently some games not working) i see no reason to not at least trying and maybe forget about Windows.
Let's hope this misake by Microsoft will make people move to Linux and gave us more support for gaming.

I woun't be able to. I have a i7-4790 (4th Gen) which seems highly unlikely they will support it (despite it only really failing on the TPM 2.0 requirement, as it has 1.2) And i'm not going to get a new processor just because Microsoft decides that I need BitLocker (which I don't like or use anyway.)

So I shall stick with Windows 10 until EOL then most likely force myself to use Linux.