I'm going to keep using Windows 10, updates or not, until I absolutely have no other choice, hoping against hope that the cracks in the Recall/AI monolith with have spread wide enough that a future Win 12 or 13 won't have them in it. I don't run a business. I don't keep sensitive information on any internet capable devices and my work uses the AS400 system.
I know Linux is a thing, and about a dozen years ago I spent a year using Ubuntu exclusively. While appreciating the OS, I got tired of chanting magic spells at computer every time I wanted to use software I liked on it, and so went back to Windows.
These days, despite being a reasonably tech savvy person approaching 60, I'm getting to the point where I'm just not up to learning/relearning an OS unless there is a critical need, and using Windows 10 there just isn't. At least not for me.
The days of "chanting magic spells at computer" being synonymous with the Linux experience are far gone. I recommend you just make a Fedora installer and take it for a spin on the live test system! You don't need to commit to it to just try it
If you've never downloaded drivers manually it's super easy these days. You'll get a tool from the device manufacturer that checks your hardware and system and automatically installs the correct driver with computer restarts at the correct places. You just press the go button.
That said most default drivers are open source and included in Linux, so you should be able to get by without downloading anything unless you need the latest manufacturer driver.
I have installed Linux on a dozen computers from crummy laptops to custom build with graphics card.
Most went fine. For the graphics card one, I installed popos to avoid learning about internals , but I could have spent time to solve it, I was lazy.
But I recommend having several distros on usb to do tests . That way things are easiest. Some installs have default settings that work best for random computers. So just spend a few minutes on each to test sound, WiFi and graphics. 5 minutes on each to test 10 flavors
No need to mess with any text settings at all these days.. I mean, you can
With the different distros of Linux, do different things support different distros? Like Zoom is support on Arch but not Mint, and Steam is supported in Mint but not Arch; or if an app supports Linux, it is on all distros? And if there is differences, do you have different partitions for different types of Linux?
When an app supports linux, it can do so by either:
packaging it for popular distro repositories,
giving instructions on how to build the app from the source code
or
package it on distro-agnostic, package management solutions like flatpak or appImage.
These last ones are sandboxed environments. That means they have their own dependencies isolated from your system, so they dont have to deal with every distros pecularities at the cost of using more storage space.
This is very useful for developers and in your case benefitial for the user because you can have both steam and zoom via flatpak on mint, arch or any obscure distro that has flatpak available, without any major problems.
My biggest worry for this is, there's probably dozens of black hats out there that have found some very large exploit for Windows 10, and are holding off on abusing it until the day Microsoft ends support.
Currently, my plan is to make a partition for Linux Mint, set up dual boot, see how much of my daily computer obsession I can execute through there, and then try to slowly transition while slowly moving stuff from Windows. (I am vaguely worried I'll run into that Windows issue where files accessed from outside the OS login are security-restricted. That has even screwed up my Windows reformat fixes)
Mint's sweet I switched from 10 a few months back. Biggest difference is getting use to the different file system, only 2 games have been unplayable (didn't try to make them work tbh).
Just keep regular full system images (as you should be anyways, as part of your 3-2-1 backup plan), and you'll be fine as you can just restore an image if everything gets broken.
NTFS file reading and writing is reasonably well supported under Linux, though exFAT or native filesystems are preferable. Actually finding software that will understand your files is one level removed, and getting equivalent or even the same software running is another level still. e.g. reading MS Office documents - LibreOffice is pretty good at that. For games, Steam and Proton have a lot of that covered.
If all you do is on websites, most if not all of the usual web browsers are available and work indistinguishably.
That said, I will leave you with these three words: Backups. Backups. Backups.
I'm not worried about interpreting the NTFS filesystem or individual files of given formats. Mainly, I'm worried about a Windows security-level problem I've had where Windows restricts access to whole directories based on user-level permissions, since the old "user" that owned them on a given operating system has been obliterated. It's an issue I've had even when reinstalling Windows to the same computer.
Hopefully instead of turning into a bunch of e-waste, a bunch of "useless" desktops flood refurbishers, and refurbished desktops become even cheaper. I wouldn't mind replacing my dying media server.
I'm really excited for when the health authority I'm working for that uses win10 needs to frantically switch every machine to win11... Going to be such a relaxing time
Recently decided to try Linux for gaming. It wasn’t without a hitch or two, but largely fine. A number of games I play don’t even need an emulation tool like Proton.
The only reason windows was lying around was for gaming.
Looks like it’ll only get used for flight simulation.
This is going to have a much bigger impact on the third would countries.
Most people here are not going to buy a new computer there are tons of people who buy second hand laptops that are old to be able to afford them.
Additionally people are not tech savvy and don’t understand the implication of this. When they see an ad that says to buy a new computer, they are going to dismiss it the same way they dismiss all the other ads online telling them to buy stuff.
I'm probably one of the last people who use Win 8.1. The only thing I use there is Smart Switch to back up my phone. For everything else, there is Mint. I'll keep up with that setup until my hardware fails.
So, could users just ignore that and just buy an anti-virus product or use 0patch? If it's like Widows 8, most apps will still be updated for a few years.
The most important thing to get updates in the browser tbh. That's the source of nearly everything bad these days, and the main reason somebody would bother to update their PC.
I reckon they'll continue providing updates for those for as long as there's enough people using it. It's not like Google are going to willing turn round and go "whelp, no more adverts and spying for these millions of users!"
As a heavy user of Playit Live, Excel with macros and Google Drive, I'm stuck in a Windows World for a while yet. The first two could maybe run in Boxes if I send the audio to a USB device.
I’m using Linux mint all day at work, while I have a couple of rarely-used Windows machines at home. I think the swap to Linux on those home machines is going to be a winter project this year.
It might be more accurate to say the project will be setting up the Linux version of a few key pieces of software. The actual installation of Linux Mint is the easiest part!
I keep trying but I can't make Xlink Kai work with Dolphin, nor play using Zerotier for some lan games (tModloader, mostly)... Managed to make my DRG and Gunfire Reborn run, so I got that going for me.
Until I can make those 2 networks work, I'll have to stay on Windows.
Pretty telling when the only way you can get your users to "upgrade" is by stealth. I wonder what the % of involuntarily upgraded win11 users is vs people who knowingly and willingly did so.
Similar to yourself, I switched to Mint about 9 months ago - initially on dual boot before ditching Windows altogether (the Windows updates kept fucking everything up). For the one piece of software that I missed on Windows 10 (Fugawi Digital Maps) I simply created a Windows 7 VM, that doesn't connect to the internet, and installed it on there. In fact, it has made me realise just how crap 10 was in comparison to 7. Linux has been a pleasure. Not only has it made computers interesting to me again, but I've learned a shitload along the way. It's nice to have a computer do what I want it to, rather than the other way around.
All of the random BS it requires is a bit of a turn off but the 10ish percent drop in gaming performance is a no go. Linux with proton should outperform the os the games are designed to run on but here we are.
I'll switch my windows drive to the LTSC IoT version, when this happens. The only reason I have dual boot is for a fallback, if some games make trouble. For example for whatever reason BG3 multiplayer freezes randomly on linux. Single player is fine though. So until I got that sorted out I can fall back to windows. But when even the LTSC support runs out, then that's it completely for me.
Yep. Dual booting LTSC and Linux here.
I need to get a bootloader working though. I've just been defaulting to Windows for a few months. But I want to spend more time on Linux.
Pirating it is a bad idea if you're downloading it from a non-Microsoft source, since malware would be a big risk. That would defeat the purpose of installing a supported OS in the first place. If you download it from Microsoft and use a pirated key maybe that would work, but would you get the security updates?
What's the point of staying with Windows 10? You're just pushing the problem further ahead in time.
You might as well start leaning Linux now, instead of waiting til you have no other choice.
I can only speak for myself, but I have always had bad luck with Linux on desktop. Something always breaks, isn't compatible, or requires a lengthy installation process involving compiling multiple libraries because no .deb or .rpm is available.
On servers, it's fantastic. If you count VMs, I have far more Linux installations than Windows. In general, I use Win10 LTSC for anything that requires a GUI and Ubuntu Server for anything that only needs CLI or hosts a web interface.
So, if you have a WMR VR Set, you're going to be stuck with Windows 10 (or an even lesser supported Version of windows 11 - v 23H2).
It really sucks, given the price point I've throughly enjoying my Odyssey+. I've had it for 4 years, but now I'd need to decide if I dual boot (which sucks) or see if another VR headset reaches my price point (which is also dumb, because I don't find the O+ to be "that bad").
My steam deck has taught me that I'll be completely OK running linuxn(probably arch) as my daily driver with a win 11 dual boot (maybe just a vm?) for things that simply won't work on proton.
SteamOS is not the same as its base Arch Linux. If you want something slightly easier but still Arch-based, try EndeavourOS (but please not Manjaro).
If you have the time, try switching on your own terms within the next year. It's almost guaranteed you'll run into issues, but trying to dual-boot now rather than later gives you all the time you need to figure it out before MS forces you on Windows 11.
Genuine question, what are your criticisms of Manjaro? I've been on it since about 2019, and haven't had any major complaints.
For me, it feels like the best mix of features I've found so far. Pacman, AUR, very up-to-date repos, and Archwiki, without a lot of the major PITA manual labor I experienced with Arch. No shade on Arch, I just don't have time in my life to constantly be tinkering and fixing basic stuff I want to just work.
Curious why some people recommend against Manjaro now.
Fortunately this won't be my first dance with dual booting Linux, I've tried it a half dozen times since the late 90s, going as far back as multibooting booting slackware, nt4 and win98. I'm sure I'll go through a few distros before settling on one that works for me. I've also got 6 drives in my pc (2 nvme, 2 sata ssd and 2 HDD) so I have lots of room to play. One major thing for me is HDR support which is pretty new in Linux so I'm not sure where we stand on that.
I’ve been daily driving Endeavour OS for a few months now and it’s great. It’s Arch based so there is a learning curve but it’s worth getting over the hump.
I'm in a similar boat. There have been some setbacks, but I've been planning a desktop build to replace my gaming laptop from 2015 for a long while now. SteamOS has given me the confidence to commit to an AMD build with a Linux OS. I've been on the fence between a few distro options though. Maybe mint, maybe Nobara, there have been a few others.
I'm serious, I'm getting burnout not just from Windows, but even from Linux.
And saying that every GUI is easier to use than every TUI or every config file format is wrong.
GUIs can be hard and easy to use. Config file formats can be hard and easy to use.
The fallacy is that GUIs can theoretically be navigated "intuitively" without looking for documentation for setting up stuff, but in fact I dare you try it.
OpenBSD was the easiest system to maintain on desktop I've had.
I have an old pc running windows 10, it would be cool if it stops getting updates. Makes for a nice offline pc to get some old apps and games running in the future.
Windows 10 will have been around for 10 years at that point. That’s a pretty good run. You know another OS that is stopping support after 10 years? Ubuntu 14 LTS, but no one complains about that. People freaked out when Windows 7 went EOL, and XP before that.
Ubuntu isn't as paid as Windows. Also, newer Ubuntu versions don't need the user to throw their machine away because TPM 2.0 or NPUs are missing. Maybe these are two of the main reasons why nobody is complaining about its EOL.
I just find it fucking hilarious that people expect software to be supported in excess of 10 years, paid or not, when that’s never really been the case over the past 40 years of software. Sure someone will probably come up with an edge case somewhere, but if you developed software, and continually released versions and updates, would you want to maintain a version you released that long ago?
XP was kind of a F up for MS, they gave us a really decent OS that raised our expectations. People ran that for almost 2 decades because no one wanted the new OS's MS was putting out like ME and Vista. Win 8 was out when XP support fully ended and many people chose to go with the older Win 7 because it was less intrusive and more like a PC OS instead of trying to become like a Apple/phone/tablet interface. XP>Win 7>Win 10>Win 11 imo and all the unmentioned weren't worth upgrading for, but I don't use my phone for the internet and I've been using a PC for over 40 years. We like what's familiar and we can use without having to think too much about the tool used to achieve what we're doing. I have Win 11 on a laptop and I have to jump through a lot more hoops to control my desktop, who can pull my info, what can install, what can run in the background. And every update I have to do it again because they add shit back in again along with new stuff I don't want or need. Win 10 professional at least minimized how often they'd add new stuff or change my existing settings. Win 11 Pro doesn't seem nearly as friendly.
Here in my southeast European shithole I'm not worrying about my tax money, the upgrade is going to be pretty cheap, they're just going to switch from unlicensed XP to unlicensed Win7.