Check again what I said, I said install not activation. with windows 11 you literally cant install the os without an internet connection and MS account.

Which is rich, when you consider that Mac OS is just a different bastard cousin of Unix often making choices which are antithetical to gaming.

Meanwhile, Linux can run the same version of Rogue from the 1970s with little to no changes needed.

Semantics. What's the point of being able to install an operating system if you can't actually use it without activation.
Like games on CD/DVD with Steam DRM; you can install them from disc without a Steam account - but that's it, you've filled your hard drive with unusable bits and bytes. Did you have a point about this?

AFAIK, Windows 11 Pro doesn't need an account for installation. I've read that they've changed that in a "beta" version, but (since then) I haven't heard about this being implemented in the "regular" version.

According to StatCounter, global fact in January 2020 windows enjoys 79.1 % of desktop operating system market share. Mac savors 14.37% and Linux stands at 3.31%.

Source - https://www.quickstart.com/blog/windows-vs-linux-vs-mac/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems

You can actually use Windows 10 without activating. As I posted previously, the penalties for non-activation are mostly cosmetic and far less severe than previous Windows versions. Likewise, you can also activate some versions of Windows 10 (Pro, Education & Enterprise) offline via local KMS server over a LAN. Some LTSC implementations spend their entire 10 year supported lifespan without seeing the Internet once. If you can't even install W11 Home / Pro though without any Internet, it instantly becomes the most hostile and locked down OS in history for consumers as every previous MS OS going back to MS-DOS never actually stopped you installing / using it without internet from day one of install.

I can't see why they'd do that only to remove it in the next version. If they put it in, then 99% guaranteed it will become the normal for the next annual W11 release. You only have to look at how MS gradually gimped W10 Pro to see which way the wind is blowing (W11 Home Users = will 100% end up online only by 2030, even if it didn't start that way in 2021).

Yes, I mentioned that before. Just read what I was originally reacting to - somebody claiming that Windows was without online activation DRM before Windows 11 (just ignore the installation/activation semantics). You can't use Windows XP - at all - without activation.

I've never had a KMS server. Can you set up one without online activation / some form of DRM?

If you can't install+use any version of W11 without online activation, that means that it's as bad as Windows XP. On the other hand: it's still possible to install W10, then update to W11 (AND use it) without ever being online.

Maybe, probably, who knows? You can write many books about visions of the future that were "a sure thing" at one point in time, but never happened. (I'm not arguing the probability of what we're talking about here.)

KMS is mostly for corporations, though emulation "tools" have long been a thing. The biggest takeaway is that Microsoft can remove any "install W11 without Internet" workaround or bypass at any point including suddenly deciding that the final version of W10 (21H2) is 'too outdated' to upgrade to W11 (2025) from once W10 is End of Life (same way you can't upgrade from W7 to W11). I definitely wouldn't rely on anything like that as a serious long-term strategy for a 100% offline rig vs just sticking to W10 and avoiding W11's BS in the first place. Bonus points if you get to keep a 7th Gen / Ryzen 1 or older "unsupported" hardware without adding it to a landfill...

They can't, as long as there are older version ISOs (of non-Home versions of W11) available online. We're talking about fresh install here, right?

Try installing W10 (1507) on new hardware today and see the "nVidia Turing needs W10 (1809) minimum" style incompatibility issues. Same will be true of W11 as time goes by with those W11 (2021) ISO's being the ones you don't want to install on post 2025 hardware. Even if you intend to immediately upgrade, since W10 already won't update online if an early build is detected, at best it means installing the entire OS twice over. At worst, W11 (2025) may do a check and just say "We are unable to do an in-place upgrade as your existing install is too old. Please reboot and perform a clean install" to deliberately block 'use an old ISO then in-place upgrade as a workaround for not needing the Internet' workarounds. They can very definitely do that in later builds and if it becomes a well known "hack" they will.

In windows 10 you can use it without an activation actually. Also the account is required for both the pro and home version of windows 11. this falls update(22h2) is when the requirement will be in, its not only for the beta.

My thoughts on "why doesn't gog support linux":

It is currently just not feasible to offer support for something like the galaxy 2.0 client. I mean, sure, There *might* be a way to offload the developing cost of a galaxy 2.0 client by open sourcing the client (much like moddb did back in 2011 with their Desura client), but there might just as well be reasons that prevent that from happening (like use of certain proprietary libraries that make open sourcing the client not possible, or a legal nightmare).

One thing I noticed, trying to run Galaxy 2.0 on linux was the really bad performance of the client. Might be, because I am really bad at the whole Proton/WINE spiel, but might also have something to do with the client itself, which would also be a hindrance to releasing the client.

But even assuming they release the Galaxy 2.0 client under linux, that wouldn't mean that you could run all your games on linux. They would have to make sure that every game on the platform runs on linux. There is, afaik, noreal way to automate that process, in other words you would have to use something like WINE to allow game xyz to run in linux. Unfortunately, making a game run using WINE is more often than not non-trivial. Even Steams much lauded Proton Wrapper for WINE isn't a surefire way to make all Windows games run on Linux (which is why things like glorious eggrolls builds have a need to exist).

However, this doesn't mean you can't *try* to get your favourite game run on LInux. There are quite a few platforms already existent on linux (with new ones popping up fairly regularly) that are supposed to take care of a lot of the headache of making games run on Linux, like Bottles, Lutris (Open gaming platform which supposedly offers direct access to your gog library among other things), Steam, Heroic Launcher (A GUI for the CLI tool Legendary, an open source EGS / GOG games launcher) just to name a few. In the end everything boils down to using WINE to run windows games on Linux.

Windows has been DRMed since XP, which required on line activation. Nothing new here.

Because Linux gamers are the ultra niche? No matter how vocal they may be, they're still a tiny fraction of people actually buying games. Hell, even the few Mac gamers out there tend to be a bigger number than them.