My daughter was given a pretty nice laptop by her grandparents a few years ago. It came with Windows 10. I installed things like Gimp, Blender, FreeCAD... just to open her eyes on what she can do.

She has used in sparingly.

Recently, she comes up to me and says "Dad! I cannot run this program". I cannot remember what the message was but it was something about parents permissions. I did not set Windows up but she did not have this problem before. It looks like it had upgraded to Windows 11 and knows about that the main user is under a certain age. It must have installed things I have no agreed with, starting with Copilot.

Once I saw Windows 11 on the screen I started to second guess what installing Windows 11 must be like today. Honestly I cannot remember the last time I did a full install of Windows. Maybe.. maybe Windows 7. I would not be surprised if you have to sign in to a Microsoft account, now. LOL!

I told her that I would backup her work and install something else on there. I said it will look a little different but you should still be able to login to your homework, etc.. as it is all web based. Also.. I said that Gimp, Blender and FreeCAD can still be used.

I explained that, at School, you are likely to be using Windows 11 and MS Office. At home, you will have something similar enough, like LibreOffice.

With that I ended up installing Debian with GNOME and she really likes it. It has been 3 weeks, now -- and so far.. so good.

Honestly, the way Microsoft are going.. I am just waiting for businesses to start mocking the idea of an alternative. That would be a massive shock... not just average joes switching on home machines.

Yes, they force you to use a Microsoft account for W11. You can disable WiFi or disconmect the cable, and then it'll let you use a local account. Or you can use Rufus for "burning" the image, which creates an OOBE file for you disabling those (if you check the boxes).

What's your experience with FreeCAD? I've tried to use it multiple times for architectural stuff or 3D printing and never managed to put together anything usable.

I switched to Sweet Home 3D for the architectural stuff and DesignSpark Mechanical (sadly no Linux version) for 3D printing stuff.