Nearly half of Steam's users are still using Windows 10, with end of life fast approaching
Microsoft has announced that Windows 10 support will end in a few months, meaning nearly half of Steam users will be forced to upgrade.
I wonder how I’d be considered. I use Steam on Linux on one computer, Windows 10 on another, and Mac on another. Maybe I get counted thrice.
pretty sure it's based off of which clients of yours got prompted to do the hardware survey
Win 11 is downgrade to Win 10, and I expect Win 12 to be a downgrade to Win 11. I still didnt decide whether Mint or Kubuntu will be the next OS on my pc. I'm pretty sure Windows 12 has no chance.
"Windows 10 will be the last Windows OS released!" - Microshaft
My LTSC still has time but yeah, the rest of us should be switching to Linux.
Every single edition of Windows introduces new forms of bloat and new ways for MS to overreach and attempt to play corporate nanny over a user's system; why the fuck would anyone willingly upgrade Windows when they have the chance not to?
I stayed with XP until 7. I stayed with 7 until 10. I'll probably stay with 10 until the next Windows. Assuming it actually is decent again, and not just even shittier than 11.
I only went to 11 for better HDR support. I'd definitely still be on 10.
Yeah well Windows 11 fucking sucks. What do they expect? Maybe if you have to do all kinds of shady shit to get people to accept the newest version of your shitty product you should take a good look at yourself and evaluate why that is.
Windows 11 is great with some tweaks and has by-far the best HDR implementation of any OS, bar none. I'm getting so sick and tired of people who don't even use it hating on it constantly. Y'all have done this with every new Windows release except 7 and 98SE. Win11 is a great companion to Arch. Get over yourselves already.
As if HDR makes all the anti consumer shit okay?
Ah yes, the only thing that matters for gaming is checks clipboard, oh that's right, HDR. Very well said.
I've tried both 10 and 11, though not much for gaming since I mostly only game on Linux these days. On my Windows machine, 11 has issues with my scanner, it has some stupid service that conflicts with my scanner, it's called something like "Windows image acquisition service", I need to stop that service every time I want to scan a document. It's so dumb.
Windows 10 was better than 11.
I’m getting so sick and tired of people who don’t even use it hating on it constantly
Linux users: First time?
Truly, it really isn't that bad after about 10 minutes of tweaking. For all complaining I see in the PCMR spaces, you'd think it needed much more. Should it have to be done? Probably not. Am I glad it can be and there's plenty of tools (really only 2 needed) to make it look feel and behave like Win10? Yes. Is the Win10 EoL the same as darling XP's? Also yes, which makes much of this even funnier to me.
I had to install Win 11 on my work computer and it is still total dogshit. One example - The search from the Start menu never works so you have to pin every app to start or go through the whole app list to find the one you want. Its been like this for a year at least. Things, like my speakers, just randomly stop working and I have to restart to get them to work again.
The context menu! The fucking context menu!
Not that you should have to, but there are a lot of ways to fix the most annoying issues. Usually reg edits, better drivers and Powershell scripts.
Openshell makes start at least usable: https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu
Am going through this on our corp PCs.
The other half is running linux, right?
Right?
MS can pry Windows 10 out of my cold, dead hands. I'll switch to Linux before Win11 and I don't particularly want to do that either.
Make the switch, even if it's on an old laptop first just to try it out. About 90% of my Steam library runs without any extra effort needed, a few games needed tweaks that I found in the steam message boards, and 5 or 10 just refused to work at all.
At this point I am not even sure Microsoft thinks it is better to run important windows software natively on windows rather than in a much more stable, reliable virtual environment inside of Linux or WINE.
Both are going to crash occasionally (we are talking about windows software after all) but when the part running Windows software in Linux crashes it isn't anywhere as likely to sink the whole boat and crash the rest of the operating system and potentially lose a bunch of stuff.
I think clearly what Microsoft is gunning for longterm is to eat their operating system with a bunch of cloud crap that doesn't even really run locally for the most part.
Which is why we need to burn this to the ground so there are consequences for Microsoft for betraying users this thoroughly and completely.
Do you part, give friendly helpful linux advice to newbies, share resources and have some fun with it!
I'm surprised 0Patch hasn't been mentioned in this thread. There's really no reason to stop using Windows 10 after EOL if you can still get security updates.
I won't upgrade til they let me use throttlestop with virtualization enabled.
With end of life the year of the Linux desktop fast approaching.
People, I've already mentioned that Windows 10 LTSC is out there until 2027. Additionally, Windows 11 non-TPM is available out in the 'bay.
What is non-TPM? My main resistance to 11 is just enshittification / advert bullshit plus whatever the screenshotting privacy nightmare garbage was as well.
TPM is the Trusted Platform Module, a security chip in computers that can be used to verify the integrity of the boot process. Windows 11 requires a TPM 2.0 chip, which many older computers do not have. Windows 11 non-TPM is a pirated version with this requirement hacked out.
I know it's still early but how do I grab LTSC? As far as I know my mobo has a home edition license and it defaults to it whenever I reinstall
Buddy, some of them still use windows 7😅
really? how can i use win 7 right now?, are there any issues using win 7 rn?
Well as long as you don't connect to the internet
I still use it on my living room PC to this day. No issues so far (steam still works fine as well).
Just like anything make sure you have backups and watch your accounts.
Thing is, there's people out there on windows 10 on a computer without the magic special chip windows 11 demands.
Lots of those people can't update and lots don't know about Linux or understand how to even use a USB drive to install it.
Yes it's easy for us semi tech people, but remember not everyone is into tech or understand how computers works.
People NEED computers to do stuff like applying for jobs, or searching online, or video games with friends.
Those people who don't have a tpm chip and can't upgrade will just not and continue using a insecure windows 10 because they don't know or understand what it is.
Remember Lemmy, just because you understand tech, doesn't mean everyone knows about it, or can grasp the concepts.
This is true not everyone out there has the capability to go out and have something like Linux, or the best version of windows 10 on their machines. But most people here are either knowledgeable enough, or have enough patience to try something like Linux out. If you know people that are in this position with their current machines from windows 10 to 11,and are not tech savvy, help them, and try not to be patronizing. Help them out by installing something like mint or Ubuntu and walk with them on the system, as many times as needed. If they cannot get used to it or find something that simply won't work, don't try to force Linux on them. Just find the best windows 10 version and install it. At some point if something doesn't work anymore on windows 10 and they want to keep the machine, they will reach out to try Linux again, or, they will try to sell the machine they cannot operate with anymore (or give away, depending on the situation). Either way, help people out but don't be abrasive if things do not work out the way you wanted.
I wish it was more straightfoward to make vm, customize settings and then transfer that to an external ssd to dual boot, I want to ease into linux but I get confused seeing all the differetn ways to do things and no consensus.
Also people talking about changing Distris all the time, do they retain their data? Is that what a home drive is for? Just asking here since you seem to know lol. Like can you redload your apps, ui, retain your data "easily." (once you do it once)
I went out of my way to get a TPM from my systems OEM. I'm a tech, I've built dozens of machines without issue. I personally use a Dell, because I can't be arsed to deal with it for my own kit.
Granted, the Dell I'm using can easily fit the HEDT description, but still.
I'm still using Windows 10 because fuck Windows 11. I am forced to use that shit for work and I hate it. I'm constantly in need of stuff from the settings/control panel to fix other people's shit, and every time I go to settings, shit is somewhere different, buttons are moved or entirely missing... It's a right fucking mess.
On any Windows 10 system, I go to control panel, find the appropriate item, such as programs and features, or network and sharing center, etc... And all the controls are there, working, and haven't changed in any meaningful way since XP.
The thing that Microsoft seems to have abandoned is sent semblance of consistency. They're so deep in the shit with their CD/CI with the settings panel that for every feature build of Windows 10/11, the settings menu will have options in dramatically different locations. The main difference between 10 and 11 here is that, in Windows 10, the control panel was still in one piece. In Windows 11, several control panel icons now take you to the settings menu "equivalents" to the cpl you're looking for.
This is particularly bad with printing. Omg. How tf do I check/change the fucking driver in use for a printer in the fucking Windows 11 settings menu? If I go through what's left of the control panel, and go to devices and printers, I get taken to the settings menu for devices which includes a section for printers, so I go into printers, and I have to hunt down a moving target for where tf they put the button to open the control panel printers and devices dialog, which seems to change weekly. Then I can open the printer settings dialog and see what driver is in use on the advanced tab, or what fucking port it's connected to.... Which, when you deal with network printers, is a pretty fucking important piece of information. Then, half the time the printer port is a fucking wsd, and I have to go spelunking into the registry to find it's fucking IP address.
Wsd ports are fine right up until they fuck up, which happens frequently, TCP/IP ports don't really have any problems at all. So why the fuck are we moving everyone to fucking wsd ports? Where is the benefit? Explain Microsoft! Explain!
It's so goddamned frustrating to use as a technician. A lot of this stuff doesn't really apply to steam users or home users in general, because these menus aren't really looked at a lot. So the TPM requirement is the usual suspect for people's frustrations with Windows 11.
I wouldn't give nearly as much of a shit if they would just leave things where they are. I would only need to learn where the buttons and knobs and dialogs are once, and that would be it. But they have a bug shoved so far up their ass about making "improvements" that I can't rely on anything staying where it is.
Windows: Let me show you an Ad, endeuntured beta tester.
My dad has a bunch of old friends that elected me to be their tech support, which makes me have to explain the basics of the basics most of the time. Trust me when I say that a lot of people in these forums have no idea how tech illiterate some people are.
I had a situation years ago where an old guy asked me to reset his android phone. I - unfortunately - complied because I made the mistake of trusting that he knew what he was asking, so I just made sure everything was backed up on his cloud. Result: he lost access to his photos, numbers, etc because he had no idea that he had a gmail account associated to his phone. Fortunately, his daughter knew and remembered the password so he recovered them.
Another situation I had with another guy was having to explain why stremio wouldn’t work on his iphone while his friends (with androids) could use it. Without going into details, he didn’t know what an “OS” was.
Let me repeat it because it’s relevant to this post: the guy didn’t know what an Operative System was. And he’s hardly alone.
In these kind of tech forums, I found that a lot of users don’t truly grasp how tech illiterates can be (and sometimes confuse that for lack of intelligence, but that’s another discussion). It’s hard for them to understand how most people don’t care what OS they are running. A lot of people will continue to use Windows 10 and not care they don’t receive more updates, as far as they are concerned, it still works and lets them do their stuff.
In these kind of tech forums, I found that a lot of users don’t truly grasp how tech illiterates can be
And of course there is an XKCD about this: Average Familiarity (2501)
Title text:
How could anyone consider themselves a well-rounded adult without a basic understanding of silicate geochemistry? Silicates are everywhere! It's hard to throw a rock without throwing one!
Like seriously, if there was ever a time to do a concerted push for linux, it's now. Start the campaigns, start the tutorials start the memes and the warnings and get the process down to under an hour. It won't be a weird thing, it will be the lord and savior allowing your PC to continue even when windows says it can't.
Sounds nice and I wish it was like that, but people who are not into tech won't get those messages and wouldn't care as for them it's "it's turning on, I don't need to do all that". Remember there's people out there that do not understand computers in the slightest, and it's just not there thing, have to much going on, or some other reason.
Plus Linux is far from "I just turn it on and it works" kinda person friendly.
Sadly, it's the part of keeping it working for the periodic 5 minutes after that that is also a hurdle.
I’m a PC that’s not currently “compatible” with Windows 11, because I’m too lazy/refuse to enable TPM 2.0 in my BIOS.
Given how much of a pain in the ass my work machine is with Win 11 — I’d honestly rather switch to Linux than deal with it on my home system.
I’ve been tinkering with my Steam Deck for almost a year, and haven’t been able to accidentally brick it - it’s definitely come a long way from where it was back in my uni days (early 00s).
I did get TPM 2.0 enabled and the updater still thinks it isn't there. Linux is now my primary with Win10 as a fallback for the handfull of programs that won't run acceptably in Wine or Proton. My biggest problem so far is Civilization 6; Aspyr hasn't updated the Linux build in ages and doing multiplayer with the Windows version via Proton makes it lag with terrible frame rate. Single player is fine, and multi in Win10 is also fine, so I'm not sure what to do about it.
If you don't have a motherboard with a TPM in it by now, then you're way overdue for an upgrade anyway.
My I7 7700k is a good processor. It serves my needs from office work, to software dev, to gaming, to video production. I'll eventually retire this machine, but that's at least a year off, and even then, it'll be repurposed since it's an extremely capable machine.
I shouldn't have to upgrade because MS made an arbitrary decision to not support capable hardware after telling me Win10 was the last Windows OS. Nah, I'm switching everything over to Linux and using the hardware I have now instead of creating e-waste.
Eh I just installed 10 in a VM to do my taxes
Well I don't know... it will end in October. Time surely doesn't fly that fast...
I was able to upgrade to Windows 11 on my dinosaur desktop (at least 10 years old) without any issues. Been able to keep it updated, too, for at least the last 2 years.
There are ways to bypass certain hardware restrictions, and I'm sure plenty of how-tos are still available.
No need to sweat it.
Some people just don’t want to switch. I find windows 10 is still better than windows 11. I only updated on my gaming PC because it automatic updated.
Oh, I hear you. I resisted for a very long time, but once I started using Windows 11, I upgraded all my Windows computers to it. It's far more stable, in my opinion.
But... micro$oft has gone backwards as these iterations are pushed out. More ads, more spyware, more bloatware. Even if I want to keep using windows, they'll force me out of it once my limit has been reached.
i'll upgrade to some baby Linux distro once the end of life hits, i am lazy
(i'd also need to set up a dual boot as i'm cursed to need Adobe apps and those are famously allergic to Linux)
Don’t do dual boot. Windows will purposefully fuck up your MBR so Linux disappears every update and it’s a bitch to fix.
Run that shit in a VM. It’s 2025 you will get good performance.
nope, adobe apps are allergic to VMs too, less so but still. believe me i'm not hyped about having a whole dedicated OS just so i can run 4 programs, but dual boot is my only option
since i'll set all that up past end of life for win10 i won't be getting any security updates so i can safely just disable that option altogether, which will hopefully make the two OS coexist peacefully
Switch to GPT, makes Things easier. You can do that from inside Windows without Reinstall or anything. Also Install Linux in another Drive, then you got No issues.
I switched to endeavour-os last September.
I like the optimism of Linux users thinking there will be a massive flood towards their favourite Linux distro.
When the obvious path the majority of gamers will take is just ... not upgrade anything and stay on an unsecure OS until their next major PC upgrade.
Most users don't care about security as long as it allows them to do with their computer what they want.
If Microsoft didn't push people to a new version, you know too many would still be rocking Windows 8.
You mean 7, right? Most people skipped 8, and that's why Microsoft made the update to 10 free.
Microsoft making the upgrade free is them pushing people to a newer version.
They would also be on Windows 7, but too many would be on Windows 8 as well.
Yeah, I stayed on xp until I got a new pc during 7, then I stayed on 7 until I got a new pc during 10. I'll probably stay on 10 until whatever is after 11 comes out, even though I know better, because I just don't care enough.
Just like skipping Vista was the way to go. We need to skip Win11.
I know someone that is deathly afraid of tracking by Microsoft to upgrade their pc from Windows 8. They won't spend the time to learn linux, as they use a proprietary app specific to windows for what they use. I point out Win8 has the same kind of data collection and they dismiss it with a head-in-the-sand response.
Windows had to force updates because so many people just didn’t update
Anyone that is on 10 still isn’t going to go to Linux
I dual boot and still use Windows 10. And everything I've seen from Windows 11 just seems like trash to me. My mother got a new laptop about a year ago and I came along to help her set it up. With her previous laptop, I opted to not do the free update to Windows 10 because people were complaining about it at the time (and I was still on Windows 7), so she ended up stuck with Windows 8.1 for years. So this time I did opt for the free update to Windows 11 and it feels like a huge mistake so far.
Her machine is now slow and struggles to get things up and running. And every single fucking time she tries to use it, it decides to run virus scans and download and install updates all at the same time. And these updates often seem to take an entire day. The last update took two days where she could barely do anything on her laptop because it was slowing things up so much.
And that all makes the frustration add up when you come across the other fucking stupid things they've done. So now when you right click on the desktop there's a few seconds where Windows needs to get its shit together to show you the new useless menu that's been slapped on top of the old useful menu. Then you need to click 'show more options' for the actual useful menu. Then another few seconds for Windows to get its shit together to load that menu.
And I don't want to load a bunch of stuff like classic shell or winaero tweaker because she's old and just wants to play hidden object games and solitaire. So I'm going to have to come running every time something happens that she doesn't understand. So I prefer leaving it vanilla.
But fuck Windows 11. It's absolute fucking garbage based on my experience so far. I was going to hold out for the inevitable Windows 12 because Microsoft seem to love using their paying customers as beta testers with every second OS they release but now I'm not so sure. Hoping there will be some sort of hack to keep enterprise updates coming or something.
Still on 10 here, turned off the TPM chip, got kubuntu on a second drive, just hoping proton can get the other 70% of my vr library to recognise before EoL
Anyone that is on 10 still isn’t going to go to Linux
Eh, there's a few of us. I intend to at least give Linux a solid try before I swap to Win11.
My thoughts are that at that point I realistically have to swap anyways. It's just a question of whether I'm going to Win11- which I'll have to customize to my preferences and generally figure out, or Linux- which I'll have to customize to my preferences and generally figure out.
I'm on the tech savvy side of things, and I still find Linux intimidating so I don't think this will be a mass migration to Linux or anything.
I've considered Linux a couple times in the past, but generally stayed away because my PC is primarily used for gaming which didn't have the best support then. Things are kinda different now- support is generally better.
When I was young and dealing with Win 98 and XP before all the service packs updates had like 10% chance of bricking the OS and would give me anxiety so I'd avoid them. Even with Windows 7 had an update that made explorer.exe refuse to start. It hasn't happened in many years, maybe they got their shit together but I still have anxiety about updates even though I'm savvy enough to fix issues now. Just because I can doesn't mean I wanna.
I'm still on 10. I'm waffling between installing bazzite on my laptop, building a new computer and installing bazzite, or just using my steam deck as a daily driver. But none of the options include using windows.
Yea, as someone who games on linux (ArchBTW), I don't know if its really there yet for mass adoption, I was helping a younger sibling troubleshoot their dying PC and they even suggested I install Linux on it for them. With a fresh Linux Mint iso on my Ventoy USB, the voices raged at me to convert another penguin. But sadly I knew, deep down, they are not ready to deal with the issues if something goes wrong, a software has no Linux support, or if they ever want to mod their games.
Those kinds of people probably wouldn't be able to deal with issues in Windows either. Just teach them how to install the OS and start firefox. If it completely breaks at some point tell them to install the OS again.
Gonna repeat something I said a little while ago.
If you're planning to try Linux but have no experience with it, the best piece of advice I was given is this. Learn how the filesystem is structured. It will make everything else you try to do easier.
You're also going to get a ton of conflicting advice on which distro to use. Pop OS or Mint are my suggestions. !linux_gaming@lemmy.world is a good resource to know about too
Been using Bazzite. Super simple install, been working really well.
You’re clearly wrong. The answer is Arch
OK, but seriously. There are two main general use families:
Debian based and redhat based
Pick something that has a DE out of the box. Use it. The big ones used to be GNOME and KDE. I dont know which one is more recommended now.
Find equivalent programs (ie. Notepad -> gedit, adobe pdf reader -> evince).
Figure out the windows start menu equivalent: how do I access my programs?
Maybe six months to a year later, learn how to use a terminal emulator.
Maybe a year later, switch to arch and find out why it’s superior
Thanks for this. I loathe the idea of being stuck on a platform that's hard to use and swarmed by too many angry idiots who only ever say that linux is perfect and everybody who doesn't think so is too dumb to read. Everything that makes linux approachable is a big win.
Gotta ditch Microsoft though. Ugh. Changing an OS is such a massive pain, regardless of how much of a requirement Microsoft Recall makes it.
Anyway, more stuff like this, everybody! Thank you again.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't do a little of that in my younger years, but I've calmed down a lot. These days I generally advise caution when someone tells me they want to switch to Linux.
I personally don't actually think any one variant of Linux is that much harder to use than Windows or Mac. I think the difficulty comes from two things:
One, I think people forget how much learning is involved in those OS's as well. If you've ever tried to teach an elderly grandparent how to use "the computer" then you know first hand how much of this specialised knowledge you can take for granted. Simple things like knowing where to look to change mouse sensitivity as an example, are really challenging to any new user of any OS.
Two, there isn't just one variant of Linux. It's biggest strength is also it's greatest weakness here. It's amazing that you have so many choices for your desktop environment, but that comes with the major drawback of users needing to understand what a desktop environment is, and why Googling "how to change mouse sensitivity in Linux" is probably not going to return anything useful. You have so much choice in Linux for every little thing. Down to a level of granularity that most Windows or Mac users wouldn't even realise they're not getting a choice in. Alsa vs pulseaudio, xorg vs wayland, not to mention the plethora of package managers. Hell even drivers for your video card: proprietary vs open source. And yes, some of those examples boil down to the old way vs the new way, but ALL of this is added complexity, which results in a steeper learning curve for a new user.
So yeah, Linux is hard to use. The learning curve is a cliff, and anyone who thinks it's perfect is kidding themselves! ESPECIALLY for the user who just wants to play a few games, and maybe do some browsing. We'll never get the year of the Linux desktop with this mentality!
I do also try to warn new users about this. It is a whole new ballgame, and it will take some effort to get up to the same level of comfort you have in Windows. It really is best to not just jump in to the deep end, and fully wipe your system on day 1.
Start with a VM, then dual boot, and once you've stopped booting into WIndows in frustration, then you're ready to commit.
One thing I promise though, it is 100% worth the effort
You can't get stuck on Linux any more than you can get stuck on Windows. Every OS is just one short install away. And if you switch to Linux, there will come a point, like there is with everyone who tries it, when you start experimenting with different distros and downloading new ones to try every week, before you probably end up settling back on the one you started with.
I'll second PopOs, I was sick & tired of windows, I'd wanted Linux for a while and tried a few, PopOs just clicked for me and I've not had one problem gaming (which is what I mainly do). 20 min install time and not one problem since, which is about 14 months.
Honestly, even if I don't like Snaps that much, Ubuntu/Kubuntu ain't so bad after all. I've been running it as a daily for months now on my Linux-only gaming PC and it's working quite well. There's good support for proprietary drivers and media codecs out of the box.
And personally, I'd advise on using the Kubuntu version because KDE is so much closer in terms of desktop paradigm than Gnome.
And Fedora ain't bad either.
Ye, my dirty little secret is that I'm still running kubuntu on my main laptop (which I do a lot of gaming on as well fwiw.) It's what it shipped with, and it works just fine. I can't say I would have actively chosen it, but It's also not bad enough to make me want to go through the hassle of installing something else
Maybe because Windows 11 sucks
fuck Windows, I am done with M$
The only reason I'm still on windows 10 is because I'm dreading the weekend of head banging against table I'm going to have when I do the switch to Linux before October... Not looking forward to getting it all set up and working
Windows 10 isn't going to suddenly stop working the instant it's "EOL". If anything, I'm looking forward to no more random reboots at 3am following a mandatory update that didn't do anything useful.
Once you get it all setup and proud of your work, make a fucking backup image, because a single update that changes an obscure library in some forgettable package that was part of your install will break everything and you will be pulling your hair out kludging a CLI script to unfuck some other binary that was unimportant, but now has affected another thing that was crucial for a graphics card or network adapter to function.
i dont know what you are using but the general linux experience hasn't been like this in years. and even if there is a problem now and then a bit of googling generally is all it needs. the one thing you cannot get around is malware like kernel level anticheats. that's windows only.
having a backup is good advice no matter what system you use
This is why I really don't want to have to use Linux, but Microsuck just can't stop with the fucking greed and I'm absofucukinglutly not running anything with recall... :(
Steam runs pretty smooth on Linux. Am currently using OpenSuse. Steam runs smooth. Games run smooth with one or two exceptions. For those exceptions I have a dual boot Windows 10 that doesn't need Windows Update for anything I ask it to do.
Bazzite was a 15 minute experience for me, from first boot to playing X4 foundations and sea of thieves.
Take the leap.
Do you have a separate computer that you can use to do a “test run” of using Linux? If not, I would at least play around with Linux in a virtual machine before committing to the bit (and I say this as someone who has been using Linux laptop / Windows desktop for 6-7 ish years now)
When you make an installer USB stick, it also doubles as a live preview (for most? all? distros).
So you just boot into it and you can play with it before running the installation.
If you have a spare drive on your PC I'd recommend trialling Linux on that. With that setup, you will have it dual booted with your existing Windows installation. It should help with the transition since you can just boot into Windows if you still need it for anything. That will give you time to get accustomed to Linux while still having that Windows safety net for a while.
Also if you later find that Linux isn't for you then it's easy to undo that, since all you will need to do is boot into your Windows drive instead.
I went with that strategy when I made the jump 4 years ago, and later dropped Windows entirely when I built my new PC a few months later since I realised I didn't need it at all.
Just get another disk or partition and get it running on that. If it goes fucky, boot into Win and game, try again later.
If you're switching over with gaming in mind, then using Bazzite or Nobara will make it so you have no head banging. Bazzite has everything you need for gaming all ready to go, and since it's an immutable distro, it'll be difficult for a newbie to fuck up on accident.
I was dreading trying Linux as well and it was nowhere near as bad as I anticipated. Did full transition (I got new SSD for dual booting to try the waters) to it much faster than I ever anticipated.
I mostly just use the PC for gaming though so mileage may vary.
Honestly, just install Kubuntu 24.04. Install it and forget it. It's super stable and has great support. Whatever people argue about the Snap packaging system, that will be almost invisible to you as the end user.
Snaps would be fine if they worked but I don't know how that shit passed QA AND Ubuntus will install Snaps even when you apt install expecting the proper deb. I'll keep repeating: Mint Debian for noobs. Mint is what Ubuntu was before this snap crap and Debian base gets away from Canonical entirely.
I have to say, in general this doesn't happen too often. But if you are afraid of this scenario specifically, my advise is either use a separate partition for the home folder (this is where all user installed things go, as well downloads, documents and pictures by default) and make a backup in some other drive with something like timeshift, or use something a bit more advanced namely immutable distro. I will give a bit of advise here: immutable distros can be extremely unintuitive, so if you want to try and understand it, go for a VM and take a weekend playing around. For gaming, bazzite comes to mind for this specific case.
IF steam OS is ready for wide release by then, you'll see massive adoption.
Some people use their computers for actual work.
I use Linux and windows. Windows is so much simpler for 99% of ppl that grew up with it.
I love your optimism. But if even a single digit percentage of them migrates to Linux, that would be mind boggling.
Good point, I imagine Valve are keenly aware of that.
Microsoft is so powerful they'll be able to force many games to only work on Windows
Microsoft is so incompetent that they're buying IPs and doing fuckall with them.
Still plenty of other games to play. I'd be happy to not give them any money.
Windows 10 is still supported currently. When that changes I will update to windows 11, until then I have no reason to do so.
This is the boat I'm in. I still have 6 months left to not deal with it, so until then, as far as Windows is concerned there is no TPM chip and I can't upgrade! I'm so very particular about how I like my computers setup and I'm dreading when windows 11 inevitably breaks everything. I just don't want to deal with it until they REALLY make me. Besides the laziness, the settings menus in Win 10 are hot garbage enough, and I hear 11 is infinitely worse. Nah, I'm good until I have no other choice.
Windows 11 ltsc is route I'll probably go when forced to upgrade. At least it won't have the sign in crap.
M$ ended win7 support in January 14, 2020. Steam did not end win7 support until January 1 2024. M$ ending support for their OS does not mean Steam will do so anytime soon. Considering how small number of their users has updated, there's a good chance Steam will keep supporting win10 for many more years. By that time I know I will no longer be using Windows.
And even then, the only reason Steam ended support for Windows 7 was because it's an Electron (Chromium) application. They decided to upgrade their version of Electron, probably to take advantage of newer security fixes in Chromium, which forced them to drop Win7 support because Chromium already had ended support for it.
You are not wrong here. However, this is a double edged sword. By running windows 10 after a good while (let's say, after 1 year of eol) you are risking for malware that is going to be non patched on windows 10. Of course, if you use the PC mostly for gaming and get stuff mostly from the usual places, I really doubt you get anything. If you work with documents however with macros and stuff, or you might have questionable internet hygiene or foreign external devices like usb on a frequent basis, do not get close to an out of date system
There's a decent chance M$ continues supporting Win10 after "End of Life," just like [ checks notes ] every single "mandatory" update they've ever attempted.
Yep, that was the only reason I finally pulled the trigger. What makes me laugh is it wasn't even about windows, it was because of fucking CHROME.
I'm not going to Windows 11 or Linux. I found a copy of Windows 10 LTSC with support til 2027+.
Any advice for those of us wanting the same?
massgrave.dev has .isos and instructions
IIRC, you can download the .iso from Microsoft themselves, then use a keygen program to create an auto-renewing key. WindowsKMS, I think it was?
I've been meaning to get a Linux VM spun up for testing games. I gather that I'll have some issues (i.e. blockers) with multi-player games and cheat-prevention, but I'd just as soon play single player games anyway.
I've been a Linux/Unix admin for 25+ years so I've no excuse other than convenience. But I'm done.
I'm sure you know this already, but for anyone who doesn't: If you want to know if a specific game will work under Linux, Proton DB is your friend!
Honestly I migrated to bazzite about a month ago and my entire library has just… worked. It was shockingly easy. I haven’t changed anything from defaults at all.
when do they roll out that pay for support instead of being forced to windows 11
Gaymers raise up!
This may precipitate a massive shift to Linux, especially for gamers.
I run it on the servers I administrate and recommend it to everyone, but I can’t switch until the get Adobe support. I NEED to use Adobe apps for work. At least macOS is UNIX and far better than Winblows.
The very same reason I use macOS for work. I know older versions work fine but when you’re collaborating with a bunch of people using the latest versions and all the cloud and AI stuff, macOS is the most reliable *nix host to run it on. Can’t wait for Wine to figure it out so I can throw my last Windows box and mac in the trash.
If they want to buy me a new laptop, go for it.
Steam should push po>!o!<p-up ads like [Windows support is ending, click here to install Linux.]
I moved my wife's computer to Windows 11 because it was using a 12th gen Intel, and from what I had understood, the scheduler was better for the P-core/E-core nonsense.
Over the last year I've seen numerous popups, copilot being injected everywhere, nonstop bullshit. And plenty of benchmarks showing that Windows 11 is actually slower than Windows 10 on my particular hardware. I'd just really rather move to something with healthy support for Proton/SteamOS ecosystem and be done with MS forever.
I mean, I already use Linux elsewhere in life. I've got Proxmox set up with a bunch of VMs, so Linux isn't a stranger to me - but I use a cough version of Solidworks and there's just simply nothing that comes even close to its capabilities. Additionally, one of the games I play has a hard enough time not crashing on the system it was designed for - trying to figure out if it's the game, or the system I'm playing on when it's crashing would drive me absolutely bonkers.
CAD is certainly the most difficult shortcoming of FOSS.
Freecad is fine fine a single part and it's actually stable unlike everything else, but doing assemblies requires an add-on. I don't recall if those work in simulation though. Its workflow also needs more time. It has come a long way in the least several years though. I suspect it will get to be competitive in the next few. Especially as dassault and Autodesk keep trying to inject AI BS and force you further into their cloud services.
Already begun the switch to linux on smaller pcs. Moving to some larger ones this summer to verify initial impressions... big gaming pcs going in fall.
Well... BYE Felicia
Can anyone speak to the VR experience on Linux? I mainly use my desktop PC for VR nowadays, steam deck for everything else. From what I've heard, however, VR is still steaming garbage on Linux.
I got some good answers here
Sounds like it's not perfect, but may be workable depending on what you're trying to do
I was curious about this too, particularly if and how well the Meta Quest 3 mirroring/tethering or whatever they call it works.
I use a Quest 1, and Beat Saber and VRChat work fine with Proton, streamed to the headset via ALVR. Since a recent update also wired instead of wireless-only. All running on Tumbleweed with an AMD GPU. No special setup required.
Damn, that sucks for them. Glad I gave up that nonsense years ago.
Valve later this year:
I just came across this incredibly detailed guide yesterday. It’s my new go to for those looking to switch. It’s a pick-what-you-want guide. Do as much of it or as little as you want. But I was in preparation to write basically this and this guy did a much better version in 2 months:
It always feels like Windows users hate moving to the new version every time. Maybe for valid reasons, but they drag their feet kicking and screaming. Then they eventually move to it.
I prefer stability, so I only swap to an new OS when I have a fresh machine. Plus, MS is a bully and just plain suspicious. My PC, my rules.
This time it's an issue with hardware requirements though. Many people will have to upgrade to even install win11
I switched my desktop to mint a few weeks ago. Kept win10 on a separate drive, but I haven't booted it since.
For whatever reason, Windows 11 won’t let me upgrade. And I still have decent hardware. So when support runs out, I’m switching to Pop!_OS.
There seems to be an understanding that the average user is going to switch from windows 10 at EOL. I'm quite confident most personal devices will run it until it stops working flat out. Your average PC user has no concern about security vulnerabilities until they're exploited in a way that actually breaks the functionality of the thing.
A migration to to Linux will be very delayed. Like months or years. In lots of cases probably long enough that people will be shopping for new hardware anyways by the time they have to decide on a new OS.
There are two things that hold me to Windows (10) as my daily driver: MS Office, and support for a virtual file synchronization a la Nextcloud (which I presume piggybacks off of what MS built for OneDrive.)
My secondary laptop, my 4 year old's laptop, my gaming device (Steam deck), homelab, are all on Linux. It has been fun to learn Linux and it's what I intend for my kid to grow up on.
Eventually, when I get a new laptop (current is 8 years old and I'm really hoping Framework gen 2 has a touchscreen) it'll be Linux first... And I hope Nextcloud gets that virtual file sync going by then because a network share/WebDAV connection will make me sad.
and support for a virtual file synchronization a la Nextcloud (which I presume piggybacks off of what MS built for OneDrive.)
What's a virtual file synchronization?
I may be pulling out the wrong term, but:
The Nextcloud application on Windows shows the entire contents of your Nextcloud account in Windows Explorer, as if they were on your hard drive. They are indexed in search. When you access a file, it dynamically downloads that to your hard drive where it stays and is kept in sync with any changes on the server and the server is updated with any changes to the local file.
Maybe on demand file sync is a better term.
Only reason my new rig has windows is for some specific peripherals that just dont seem to have good solutions for linux (logitech g600 MMO mouse, and an NZXT kraken cpu cooler display). The mouse gets completely jacked up and has all the side buttons rebound to numpad by just using it in my experience. Had to reload the mouse firmware on windows to restore basic functionality.
The user experience was honestly vastly superior on Fedora KDE, and my next GPU will be AMD so i can give it another shot on linux
One fewer next week, my SSD is in transit and I'll be installing bazzite on it
Is this in anyway meaningful? Like will their computers stop working or will it force an update when they are least suspecting?
Just curious and am hoping to grab popcorn in the meantime
Windows has a pattern. Every other release blows. Just wait til 12
hmm not sure about that,, if we see how everythings change, AI, Ads, and stealing data...
Wine likely just runs your personal programs without issue. And you can swap them to a native compile at some point in the future if you feel motivated.
11's been fine for me. I know this is a hot take around here but if any readers are dreading it because of things you've read, just try it out.
It's not the usability that's the issue, it's the spyware.
Windows 10 has had more or less all of the same spyware backported to it.
People said the same shit with windows 10 vs 7/8. I swear every other update is the same cope over and over again.
I'm not worried about functionality, I'm worried about ads, AI, and privacy. Win11 is actively hostile on all three points
Also, "end of life" doesn't mean your computer bursts into flames, it just means you stop getting patches.
People around here are super excited about it being this momentous occasion, I guarantee the people that have lived with the "Activate Windows" watermark for a decade don't care about the "patches are over" pop-up, either.
I mean, Windows 7 has more users than Linux Mint in the Steam survey.
Tried it on my laptop and work computer. Absolutely hate it. I refuse to upgrade my gaming PC to it. I'm planning on swapping to Linux Mint whenever I feel motivated.
Install SimpleWall. Turn it on. See how many connections MS tries to establish. Block them all and realize your CPU's been running pretty hard at idle when your fans spool down and your PC is finally quiet.
Then ask why.
