6 ms·
I've also used Server 2019 on a desktop and it's pretty solid. A couple of pointers: - If you're considered a "student" by any means, you probably have access
by snazz 5y ago
I've also used Server 2019 on a desktop and it's pretty solid. A couple of pointers:
- If you're considered a "student" by any means, you probably have access to an institutional email address that gives you access to Azure for Students. Through the Azure site, you can download an ISO for any LTSC edition of Windows Server (including Datacenter) and get a valid license key. This is a great way of saving money and avoiding sketchy key resellers.
- Driver support is basic out of the box. The PC I used for Windows Server has an AMD graphics card, which normally comes with GPU drivers as soon as you install a consumer version of Windows. This doesn't happen automatically with Windows Server. When you download the GPU drivers from AMD, the installer will detect that you're running Server and error out, but you can tell Device Manager to install drivers from your C:\AMD folder and it will work fine (minus the fancy GUI control panel, which is arguably bloatware itself). Something similar should work for Nvidia cards.
- Normal Win32 applications work great (I used Chrome, Office, IntelliJ, and a number of other everyday apps and they worked perfectly). However, you don't have access to the Windows Store, so installing UWP applications that aren't part of the base system (i.e., anything other than Settings, pretty much) is a pain.
- geofft 5y agoThere's a fairly active community of folks gaming on the major public cloud providers, which only provide images for Windows Server, but games work just fine. In fact, NVIDIA provides an official gaming AMI based on Windows Server: https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/prodview-xrrke4dwueqv6 https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/prodview-xrrke4dwueqv6
- kreeben 5y agoWay back in the day I played Max Payne on a Win2k server and it worked great. Couldn't make the OS crash even if I tried. Best MS OS ever.
- devoutsalsa 5y agoBetter than Windows ME?!
- hulitu 5y agoWin Me was créme de la créme. I wonder of they could run it emulated longer that on bare metal.
- R0b0t1 5y agoDriver support isn't a given. There's lots of normal hardware which may never be server qualified. You can make a desktop that will run server fine, but it's kind of a Linux situation; you can't pick random parts and assume they'll work.
- chronogram 5y agoI have yet to run into this problem, do you have any examples? I don’t have any exotic hardware outside of the ThinkPad X220 dock which nowadays only works with Linux.
- rbanffy 5y agoThinkpads are a good bet for Linux compatibility because they are very popular with Red Hat and Ubuntu kernel developers. They’ll do whatever it takes to make Linux run well on their machines.
- chronogram 5y agoIn a sense yes, but like my current Latitude 7xxx and those original Thinkpad Xxx it’s just paying for a premium product and getting premium hardware and premium chips inside so I get hardware that staffs a development team that makes good drivers and that has manufacturers that staffs a development team good enough to put it on fwupd.
- formerly_proven 5y agono tux no bux
- spijdar 5y agoNot a problem with drivers per se, but Bluetooth is totally unavailable on Server SKUs, outside installing a proprietary Bluetooth stack outside the windows one. Another issue I've run into was Server 2016 not having trackpad drivers for a Dell laptop's I2C bus/trackpad.
- 5y ago