The end of Windows 10 is approaching, so it's time to consider Linux and LibreOffice
The end of Windows 10 is approaching, so it's time to consider Linux and LibreOffice - The Document Foundation Blog
I always find it odd that posts like this get any downvotes at all. Like, are people really that in love with Windows and or Microsoft?
It's because we've seen this post 1000 times
and yet you persist. why?
(sorry, this is totally a troll)
It's because LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX
GNU! GNU!
Because mass recommending Linux to people with absolutely no nuance whatsoever is exactly why Linux users are seen as obnoxious and annoying. Not only does the website make no attempt to properly explain Linux it doesn't clearly outline its usecase. Its the very definition of the Linux user stereotype, blasted right in front of your face, reposted everywhere, and with a simple INSTALL LINUX and EVEYONE CAN INSTALL LINUX.
The first paragraphs on https://endof10.org/ tell you why you should install Linux followed by telling you how to get in touch with someone who can explain things to you and even install it for you. Most of them do it free of charge. I'm not sure how you can improve on that.
Because the people that would or can switch would already switch after it's been posted for the 1000th time. It's not realistic because the vast majority of people simply don't care. People hate windows updates enough as it is, to most average people this is good news.
Not caring is why these corporations have the power they do.
I imagine the downvotes are backlash against all the people who convince themselves that Linux is the only viable solution regardless of use case or workflow. There are definitely loads of people in the Linux community and the open source community in general who will pick a piece of software and proselytize it with no consideration whatsoever whether it fits someone's actual needs. Like, personally, I like Linux but there are things I need to do that require me to have Windows. For some people this fact is absolutely unacceptable and they simply won't hear it.
I downvoted it.
For starters I've seen this exact post a few times over the past 3 months in this community.
Secondly, the comments go exactly the same in these threads:
Next, windows does everything I want it to do, I disabled and uninstalled everything I didn't want easily through settings & group policy, and it hasn't bothered me since.
It's getting downvoted because it's not realistic.
I thought so too, largely on the basis of some very bad experiences with ubuntu-based distributions (they seem to hate my bog-standard RTX3060 GPU for whatever reason), but in frustration I tried one last time to install a linux distro and went with something based on fedora and it has 95% just worked, it's been great. I haven't booted up windows in almost 3 weeks, all my games work (battle.net was a bit of a pain to get working), the proprietary windows software I use for work runs great in wine, etc. I'm at the point now where I'm transferring all my files off of NTFS partitions and reformatting them to btrfs and integrating them into the linux filesystem, cause I'm done with windows forever to the greatest possible extent that I can be.
Perhaps if you ran Linux you'd be less crankyyyyy
later edit : I hope this message was interpreted for the tongue in cheek that it was
That's not the flex you think it is.
Your preoccupation with image here hurts you more than it helps you.
Putting Bill Gates’ dick in my mouth is far too high of a licensing fee. I’ll just play Oregon Trail on an Apple IIe instead. But no judgment. You live your best life.
Honestly yes, this entire campaign is absolutely stupid.
I've had windows update disabled for years so the fact that it's "end of life" don't mean shit to me. It'll keep chugging along for years more.
That said, I installed Mint a week ago and love it!
EOL means no more security updates, which means attack vectors don't get patched.
If you keep using a Windows installation (or any OS for that matter) that isn't patched regularly you are very likely to be victim to some malicious actor eventually. It's not manual hacking anymore, it's bots scraping the whole internet exploiting known vulnerabilities completely automated.
The risk is much lower if you're in a home network with NAT, where your PCs IP is not publicly reachable, but if you communicate with any webservices you're still vulnerable.
As example. If you nowadays put a Windows XP machine live on the internet with a public IP, it will be compromised within minutes.
So yeah. Good call switching to Mint, but please don't use unpatched Windows.
Mint was my first Linux OS, and it's been really nice.
Not my first, but the one I landed on after years. It's just so good.
Installed Linux Mint a few months ago and have been dual booting. Hardly use Windows at all now.
Linux is exactly what an OS should be.
I've been a full time dev since 2012 and needed a Mac, I had barely used windows over that time but beforehand ran a PC service business.
Anyway, Ive been using Linux as a daily driver for the past 6 months for reasons.
... The other day I got a new cheap laptop I needed to setup for run a single application.
Holy fuck what a shitshow.
It took me 2 hours just to get to the desktop. Shit didn't work, bullshit login screens, ads everywhere.
It was a massive pile of dog shit.
After battling to get the system setup for the rest of the day I gave up, chucked Fedora Kinoite On it... Took 30 minutes from creating boot media to getting a desktop going, chucked the app I needed to run in a Flatpack, chucked it on a USB, and it was up and running.
No bullshit.
Just works.
Truly the year of the Linux desktop.
I'm guessing the cheap laptop was running Windows? You didn't mention, it sounds at first like you're saying you were using Linux on it.
What ads were everywhere? Why did it "take 2 hours to get to the desktop" - you mean, that's how long it took to install or something?
People here so full of shit. I just reimaged my lenovo t570 with windows 11 took less then 10mins to install. Another 5 to remove all the bs built in software like solitaire Cortana etc and then another 10-15 to apply all windows updates. Bam done.
Sorry answered it elsewhere, yep windows 11.
The forced update took forever and failed and then it also fucked out with the Microsoft account. It was legit 2 hours from boot to seeing a desktop. I wanted to skip the updates and the Microsoft account.
The start menu is full of ads for software I don't want. If I buy software off you, stop trying to upsell me.
The end of windows 10 support is approaching. Windows 10 will go on for a while yet.
Yeah but my W10 shoved a giant full screen ad telling me to get rid of my PC and get a new one with W11 twice. Support might be ending but if it constantly nags you to upgrade, that's just BS.
I mean, if whole EU countries can do it, so can you.
I just rage-downgraded back to 10 a couple days ago. is there any reason why I shouldn't just keep using it after this year? are we ever going to see a risk for zero day exploits for it like happened for XP after it depreciated?
Just look up windows related cves. There's like 10 new exploits almost every month or so. Sure, not all of them will be super critical, but as time goes on they will stack up. I would not want to risk it, but you do you.
is there any reason why I shouldn’t just keep using it after this year?
You mean aside from all the reasons not to use Windows that applied even before deprecation? 'Cause there are a fuck-ton of those.
Unironically, yes. I was already aware of those and take them into account
Consider running the LTSC version. It gets extended support.
I've been migrating some of my clients (I do on site support for SMBs) to LTSC 2019, which gets updates until 2029. An added benefit is that it gets a lot less updates, essentially security updates, and comes with a lot less crap preinstalled.
If one were to run Win10 Enterprise LTSC IoT, "activated"... would it continue to automatically receive updates?
ESU also offers one year of support for non-enterprise users for $30.
Can't wait for the "The end of Windows 11 is approaching..." article in a few years. Keep me posted.
Windows 12, with AI even moreso integrated.
Nah, there'll be a new boogeyman by then.
Im seeing these posts twice a day at this point. So someone like myself who is totally ignorant on Linux, I have some questions if anyone can lend advice?
I’ve been on PC windows for over twenty years now. And I use it mostly for video software like davinci resolve. Adobe software workflow. Unreal engine. I use clients harddrives and often times my own for working off of. And often times will send those harddrives to other people and their computers to finish the work. I also occasional play games on steam and Xbox App.
With that said, is it even possible for me to switch over to Linux and keep using all the same software and workflow I have for high end video production workflow?
While I'm pretty sure you're correct on majority of cases, there's still some stuff, like non-steam games, which just won't work no matter what you do. So, on paper these things work but your mileage may vary.
Davinci, yes but it can be frustrating to set up.
Unreal, I'm pretty sure yes. I don't see why not. I think it takes effort to setup though.
Adobe, No.
You might unironically want to go for Mac. Either the laptop or desktop XD
Haha ya I assumed those things. I have a Mac that I use as well. But typically prefer a PC when worki by from home :/
It doesn't have to be one or the other. You can do most of your work in linux and boot windows as a 'secondary' OS for stuff like adobe? I do this, and share NTFS SSDs/hard drives between them.
You are hitting weak points of linux though. I do all media work on linux (a lot through vapoursynth or 'lower level' frameworks than resolve I suppose), but TBH do most of my gaming on Windows, not just for convenience but for performance reasons too.
OK, really good article and I like Libreoffice (although I prefer Only office) and Linux. I browse on it, game, watch videos, do pretty much everything. I am also a technical person, who can create a VM in 10 mins, add a required boot parameter, etc.
Now. I want to send this article to my colleague/friend who's not technical at all. In the blog post I read
Start by testing Linux and LibreOffice on a second partition of your PC (for individuals)
"Second partition" literally means nothing to most people. I know: just learn, just read. But most people will not bother, or they will simply not understand the tutorials. That's the unfortunate reality.
I think Linux and Libreoffice can become mainstream if a regular Joe/Jane can buy a laptop from Walmart with a distro and office apps pre-installed and use them like Microsoft Office. Before that time all this Linux and FLOSS stuff is limited to technical, or at least curious people willing to put some effort.
P.S. My relatives are on Linux and Onlyoffice, because I installed it for them. And it's so much easier and more rare for me to manage and troubleshoot than Windows. But I cannot see them installing it by themselves.
Yeah I’ve been considering switching to Linux but I’m not a tech person. I know enough to play some games and install some Minecraft mods and that’s it. Since I was thinking about getting a new lightweight laptop I was gonna get one with Linux instead of windows to give it a try but every time I found one that said Linux I’d look at the specs and it says the operating system is actually windows. I’d be willing to learn how to get Linux myself but I’m worried about ruining my computer because I don’t understand even half of the technical stuff. If anyone has any up to date very beginner friendly guides, I’d appreciate the recommendation
I don't understand how can critical buisness machines which work perfectly fine be switched to windows 11?
We have a machine at work which is beefy and works as a server and backups for many many years on windows 10. Why the hell should I upgrade my buisness critical system ?? Why would I take my risk breaking stuff. I am sure there are millions of critical systems running gon windows 10 which should not be distribed at any means, what would Microsoft do about them.
Your business critical system will no longer be supported with security updates which will leave it vulnerable to attack.
I guess, if it's not connected to any sort of outside network, and has no way of accepting data from media like discs or thumb drives then it's perfectly safe, but if that's the case, and it works in isolation, how "business critical" is it?
You would be amazed in the industrial world. There are tons of large and incredibly expensive special purpose machines that are operated by super antiquated PC architecture computers running geriatric operating systems, sometimes still even DOS or Windows 3.x.
Think industrial CNC mills and lathes, presses, pick-and-place machines, specialty lab testing equipment, electron microscopes, etc.
Process control, i.e. production line automation, is usually driven by dedicated PLCs. But the user interfaces connected to them are almost invariantly some old ruggedized panel mounted PC running Windows. An absurd number of them in my experience are still on 2000 or XP. NT4 is pretty easy to find, too.
Granted often these are not networked, and in cases where they are they're not connected to the internet, or may even talk to other workstations via RS-485 serial (!) or some other gimcrack method that is unlikely to be a vector for modern malware.
Hahahahahaha, I still periodically see win2k/2k3 on the network at some clients, with SMBv1 enabled across the domain to make the CISO's eye twitch
If you are running business critical applications on Windows 10 that is a problem. Windows 10 is only meant for end user machines. Other services should be running on OS's that are meant for the application such as Windows Server or server versions of Linux distros running LTS kernels.
Not to mention, near every piece of software I've been involved with at work has required specific versions of Windows Server and whatever database it uses, if you want to upgrade the software you use, then upgrading the OS is part of the task.
What Microsoft probably expects you to do is get your management to buy new computers that support Windows 11 and/or whatever the hell their current server OS is, and in the process give them and their hardware vendor partners a lot of money.
What you can do instead is switch to Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC which is what I did at my workplace recently. It's supported until 2032 with security updates. Not feature updates, but I suspect that business users probably don't care about those much. In fact, most people would probably treat that as a benefit. It also comes with basically no bloatware (except goddamned Edge), which is surprising. No Copilot, no Cortana, no Recall. None of that shit.
We have a fleet of machines that "can't" be upgraded to Win11 because of hardware shortcomings, at least without overriding the requirements with Rufus or similar. Unfortunately we also rely on a small but important spread of proprietary Windows-only applications which have no open source or Linux replacements, and at least two of them absolutely will not run in Wine. Believe me, I tried.
The only wrinkle with this is that you cannot upgrade or license swap in place. You have to do a full reinstall, which for us is not a problem because we have a modest number of computers and I have physical access to all of them. None are bricked up behind a wall or anything.
We have a machine at work which is beefy and works as a server and backups for many many years on windows 10. Why the hell should I upgrade my buisness critical system ??
Because you should be using a server grade os instead of janking things together with desktop OS installs that just make everything so much harder (and aren't supported for as long).
Sorry, I have to clean up installs like this at least once a year when we take on clients from internal IT that just made things work instead of making something that works right, so I've got opinions.
For that use Windows 10 IOT LTSC
The obvious conclusion is that Windows 10 is not fit for purpose in your business environment and the person in charge of IT procurement dun goofed picking it in the first place.
Because either way you’re taking a risk.
Security flaws and aging hardware are two obvious problems.
I’d very much question why you’d use windows 10 over something better supported— maybe not Linux but at least Windows Server OS.
I don't know what kind of software that particular machine runs, but for server and backup Linux appears to be the go to tool. I'm not saying that you have to migrate everything to Linux. I just say that for servers and the like the transition is probably easier than for desktop.
Their answer would probably be to run Windows Server 2022, which is supported until 2031.
Why should the financial sector ever switch away from their amazing COBOL code base? Why should anyone switch away from VGA, works just fine? No need for USB, PS2 etc. work just fine.
The problem is that Microsoft is ending Win10 support so you won't be able to get updates and such (especially security updates) for the OS anymore which will ultimately lead to things breaking or being vulnerable anyway, plus if that business-critical software ever gets updated to the point where it also doesn't support win10 anymore (I've run into this in the past with XP/Vista) then you're going to have to change anyway. But you don't have to change to win11. Companies and governments all over Europe are switching their mission-critical systems to linux and FOSS, yeah it's a pain, but it's going to save you pain down the road.
What?! I'm still working on my spreadsheet comparing 7 and 8!
I might be a little behind on Windows releases, because this is the first time I've heard of a version 40320
If you find yourself not wanting to switch, there are third party options for patching. I'm going to try zero patch, but I have no experience with them to date.
What is the highest spec pc I am likely to find for sale when people realise it cant go to windows 11?
Unless the requirements have changed, you’re looking at 2016-2017 era. Intel 7000-series, AMD Ryzen 1000-series. Newer may be available if there’s no TPM installed.
TMP 2.0 released in October 2014, so I don't think that you can find particularly powerful systems up for grabs.
I had a look and it looks like you will not get anything special. The cutoff is around 2015. So for example Lenovo T440s will support Win11 but T440p will not. Looking at backmarket T440s is cheaper than T440p. So looks like you will only be able to get something ancient and the price will be pretty standard.
GF recently wanted to buy Ms office because she had a nice looking CV template for it that would not work well in LibreOffice. So I spent some hours making a good one without Ms crap, just so they would not get anymore money.
It's not all quite as rosy.
Yes, Linux is much more capable now than it was 10 years ago and it's much more capable of being used as a main system. I myself have been using Linux as my main system for a few years now.
But it's also a fact that a lot of stuff might not work (even if it works for someone else) and that some things are still more difficult than they should be.
For example, on my laptop cannot wake from sleep since kernel 6.11. I have manually sourced a 6.10 from an older version of my distro and keep holding it back, so that I can use my laptop as a laptop. For someone without technical skill, this would mean that their laptop just can't sleep any more. Hibernate also doesn't work.
Another example is that LibreOffice still makes a lot of formatting mistakes when it has to open word documents. And sure, everyone could just switch to odf, but it's not quite as easy to make everyone else switch to odf. It makes it really hard to use LibreOffice in any kind of professional environment. Wouldn't want to make a powerpoint presentation that then looks like shit when it's played on a different PC.
Lastly, Nvidia sucks, but it's also close to the only option for laptops with dGPUs. When I look for laptops with dGPUs available in my area on a price comparison platform, I find 760 laptops with Nvidia GPUs and only 3 with AMD, all of which are priced at least €500 more than comparable Nvidia devices. So if you want to go for a gaming laptop, Nvidia is pretty much the only option, and under Linux it really sucks. Steam games generally work ok for me, but trying to use Heroic Launcher to play anything from my gigantic library of free Epic/Amazon/GoG games, about 10% of the games I tried actually work. And even with those that work, my laptop sometimes just decides that a slide show with 3 FPS is good enough. That stays even after reboots and resets, and after a few days it returns to normal. Only to go back to slideshow mode a few days later.
If you just use your laptop to run a browser, I can recommend Linux 100%.
If you want to do anything else and don't have any technical skills and/or don't want to spend hours fixing things that should just work, I can't fully recommend it.
I am a developer and Linux is my native environment in production systems. I wanted to use Linux on my laptop but sleeping / waking up never worked well enough. It could not switch from integrated video card to a discrete one ending up always using the discrete one which drained the battery in 30 minutes. All in all, it was usable but the details didn't work so I gave up. That was years ago and eversince no customer really allows Linux...
Sleep/hibernate has been a pretty big problem for a while. As for the gpu, have you checked out NixOS? There's ways to enforce your integrated card to handle everything and change states for certain apps to the discreet card.
It takes a bit to learn, but nixlang is pretty simple. I've heard it referred to as "JSON with functions". It also has the largest package repository of any OS and is atomic, so its hard as hell to break. You can even make separate, containerized dev environments with flakes.
I read posts just like yours ten years ago.
I guess you aren't wrong. There are a lot of advances but stability and small but really annoying bugs remain a huge pain point.
Somehow, windows 11 is even MORE spyware than 10!
Now with AI! So Windows can use your processing power to record and analyze every use of your computer, and report back useful findings to MS. What data is sent back? Who knows? You certainly won't be told what 'core telemetry' is required at any point in time.
You certainly won't be told what 'core telemetry' is required at any point in time.
Except the Diagnostics Data Viewer has been a thing for a long time and tells you exactly what data is sent back as telemetry. Now if you don't believe it that another topic.
at least I haven't seen anyone prove it sends all data of your machine
these articles offer ms office alternatives acting like most people write their shopping lists in excel or something. i remember my friend asking for a cheap key for office, and i asked him when was the last time he opened a file in office. after a few seconds of waiting he told me that he opened up an rtf manual for an ancient tomb raider game...told him that almost anything can open an rtf. he lives an officeless life since.
Also 0patch, which will continue to provide security patches for Windows 10 indefinitely.
I got a cheap mini pc. It had W11 on it which I promptly broke (I think it was when it insisted on me putting in a PIN but I closed the window). It also ran at 100% for no reason trying to do updates, but then refused to do any updates.
So I put the latest Ubuntu Linux on it. Seems OK, but I can't get anything to recognise the video codex stuff in the N150 CPU. It seems to know it's there, but Firefox and MPV won't use it...
I know when you install Mint there is a 'install codecs' checkbox during the installer, not sure if the same exists for Ubuntu.
For Ubuntu, you could try this and see if it solves your problem.
You need to install the codecs, there's a way to do it on ubuntu, just google search it (and there's an option during installation to do it too). The N150 cpu and its integrated gpu is not a problem for your codec problem, it's a matter of installing the right software.
Yeah, I thought I'd ticked something similar during setup, but maybe it wasn't for that. I installed them and it hasn't really changed anything in either mpv or Firefox.
The compositing in Firefox is webrender (software) and appears to be using llvmpipe as the GPU. There's a 2nd "GPU" listed, but doesn't seem to use it All the codecs say hardware is disabled...
Installed VLC and that seems to use the hardware renderer. MPV and Firefox are both installed with Snap. I'm seeing a pattern that might not be there, but I'm already hating Snap. This is day two of my rebooted Linux experience...
The only time I use Windows is for Fusion 360
I wish I could make parts in FreeCAD anywhere close to as good as I can in Fusion 360... I REALLY miss it since the move to Linux. I'm not anywhere near as excited about my 3D printer anymore since designing parts is a slog and the end result I am generally un-proud of. :( I feel like my only option (which sucks) is buy a second GPU for pass through and install windows 10 in a VM that only touches the internet once every 2 weeks to keep Fusion happy.
I'm likely going to because windows update is embarrassingly bad if you have 32gb as your goddamn boot drive.
Bruh...I'm still running windows 7 in one of my VMs hosted by Debian 😏😏😏
OnlyOffice is way better than LibreOffice.
wishful thinking. i mean i get where the sentiment is coming from, but normal users are going to have a lot of problems if they make that switch. especially if they need particular types of software.
For a lot of people that say of thinking doesn’t work, they explicitly don’t want to/wont go without, people enjoy luxury and convenience and aren’t going to skate by on only things they strictly need
No, no its not. I get it lemmy has a hard on for Linux and libreoffice. But unfortunately its just not gonna happen windows is king. If you like or not its the main dog on the market and enterprises are not going to switch.
With a couple of governments making the switch I honestly think that things are changing to some degree. Will windows die and be forgotten by everyone overnight? Of course not. But I think there’s a real chance their piece of the pie will start to shrink noticeably. Chrome OS is dominating in schools for a few years now and Microsoft is seemingly trying hard to alienate the current windows users.
What the hell are you on about. This is not a "everyone or no one" thing. You can consider it. I have, I switched. I still use mac at work but I absolutely can switch at the homefront. Some companies use Linux, most use Windows. And they absolutely can consider switching.
Microsoft already lost enterprise servers to Linux, and has lost significant ground over the years in consumer PCs to ChromeOS, MacOS, and Linux. Hell, the top PC gaming handheld is a Linux offering. That was an unheard of idea just five years ago.
While I agree that business laptops will continue to be dominated by Windows for awhile, the market shifts we see everywhere have downstream effects on business laptops too. When you find yourself having to train more and more people on how to use Windows than you did in the past, the value argument for Windows on your employee's laptops quickly comes into question.
I think at this point Android is the king of operating systems in terms of what the majority of consumer devices run. Perhaps the path forward is people plugging their phone into a dock and being presented with a more productive interface.
I'd actually argue enterprise is more likely for people to switch, there's a lot of Linux sysadmins out there, and there's a lot of Linux in enterprise environments, and of course especially servers.
Unless you have specific requirements for specific software that runs only on Windows, getting away from Microsoft can be a pretty tempting prospect. Even if there are people who fear change and the idea of change like the plague.
I haven't used Windows at work in years for anything, not for cloud hosting, not for on-prem, not for employee machines etc etc. until the cost-cutters came in and forced Teams and other Microsoft crap to squeeze the market during inflation. The company is just waiting to be killed off now.
No thanks, I value my time.
Ironic
LOL no. There are many good reasons choose Linux on the desktop/laptop, but the so-called Win10 apocalypse isn't in the top 10.
Whilst that's true, it's a good opportunity to push Linux as a potential alternative in a few different ways - reduction of e-waste, free and private oriented alternative, simple (in some situations/distro) for certain basic users, or even someone who wants to get a little more technical. It's good to promote the idea that there is more to computers than a monolithic monopoly called Microsoft.
Two of my friends switched recently precisely because Win 10 was going end of life. 'I have to change the OS anyway' was the final motivator.
Call me when Libre doesn't suck/feel like it's stuck in 2003.
I won't hold my breath.
Call me when Windows doesn't suck and it's not getting worse year by year. I will laugh every time they add more ads and more tracking.
If you don't like it, try OnlyOffice.
Baby duck syndrome.
Look like you're already stuck in 2003
I really need to stop putting it off and install Linux on my PC and laptops
Yes, exactly.
(Kinda unrelated side note: Nobody around me is getting that all these apps are STUPID and MAKES YOU THE PRODUCT. Just why are they critisizing without even trying them?)
I'm between living locations and can't carry my desktop around.
So I grabbed an old laptop and put Linux mint on it. It's been near perfect. Extremely smooth experience.
It detected my printer and auto installed. I installed steam and played Terraria without issue. Small performance problem but I don't have a GPU. Even works good with my docking station.
My only complaint is the audio device doesn't switch automatically when I dock/undock.
I'd recommend making a USB and boot into it for a test drive.
Awesome, thanks for the insight. I was actually looking at Linux Mint myself. I need around 4Gb on a USB to boot it, correct?
Haven't booted windows in over a month now. If I want to play pubg or bf1, thats about the only reason I need windows. And I do a lot of gaming, just not aaa multi-player. But I am enjoying computing again just like when I was younger and computers were interesting and fun and not corpo ad stations on your machine.
I dual booth Win11 and Fedora Desk 42. It feels gross starting windows but there are 2, TWO! Apps that don't have Linux version that I still need.
When Linux wizards figure out a way to use win apps without the intimidating complexity of installing Wine or virtualization, more people will switch.
I would give that a shot. The full guide is install 'wine' and 'winetricks' the same way you install any other software you use. Then in winetricks, select 'default prefix', then 'run arbitrary executable', and point it to your .exe installer. After that, you just open the program like any other program on your system.
You generally don't need to do more than that and might let you forgo ever dual booting again.
Linux Mint would like a word. Best choice tech wise I ever made. Shit just works and it's dead simple, polished, easy to learn and read programs. Fuck Windows. I will never go back. Make the jump!
That's good to know. Mint was going to be my distro of choice
I recently jumped on pure Mint after buying a new desktop PC with no OS pre-installed. Within a week I was dual booting it on my laptop too. It's so much faster and efficient. Battery feels like it lasts 50% longer.
And the control is amazing.
I was very skeptical of Linux, as I had a shitty experience previously with OpenSUSE where nothing worked. Mint is the way to go tho, been so smooth.
How many laptops do you own lol?
Families exist. I'm the "IT guy" for 3 people using laptops
I end up with all the "broken" laptops my family replaces after they buy new ones.
I've got like 9 laptops. Active ones are my Linux one, work one (windows 11) and my wife's school one (windows 11). We both have win 10 desktops still.
2, though they are both quite old