Windows 10 EOL

[The Catboy]

You should install Linux. What distro? Any, just find one that looks interesting and go, "I'll try that." Shit's free, it only costs your time

 

[tech3475]

You should install Linux. What distro? Any, just find one that looks interesting and go, "I'll try that." Shit's free, it only costs your time

If anyone is going to try Linux for the first time, I would do this in a VM or a half decent spare PC if you can, I knew someone who wiped a data drive installing Linux thanks to the default 'erase and install' option on the distro/version they were using.

Plus this allows you to F it up without any real consequence, especially with VM snapshots.

For distro shopping, I would also advise to come up with a bunch of tasks/software and try doing them on their respective distros, for example, I found on piece of software didn't work on Pop OS because of a kernel issue and a long time ago I had to use Cent OS because Mint didn't like Oracle (this was for Uni, so no choice).

 

[Vixi]

Or you could go 100% weeb and run Nyarch https://nyarchlinux.moe/

(@The Catboy will now download this distro after seeing the catgirl downloader button)

Tempted to try it on my Surface Pro.

On my desktop and the living room console I'm building, I've been using Garuda. It has good utilities for setting things up and recovering when something breaks. I just don't like how the only KDE options are heavily customized and a pain to revert to stock KDE or a "lite" option which you need to install a lot of the basics like system monitor and bluetooth yourself.

 

[Fatih120]

the only KDE options are heavily customized and a pain to revert to stock KDE

Why use Garuda specifically in the first place? It seemed like a very gimmicky distro and leaned too hard into its aesthetic for me. Would rather run Pop! or something.

 

[Vixi]

Why use Garuda specifically in the first place? It seemed like a very gimmicky distro and leaned too hard into its aesthetic for me. Would rather run Pop! or something.

I like the Garuda utilities.

 

[DragonMals]

What do you plan to do with your Windows 10 setup after end of life?

Just two days ago, I switched my father's OS from Windows 10 to Linux Mint Cinnamon. Only one left is my older brother, but he seems to be too used to Windows...

 

[Jayro]

I'll be using Massgrave to reactivate with an LTSC Enterprise license for extended support. Windows 11 is *still* a hot mess right now.

 

[SylverReZ]

I switched to Linux Mint Cinnamon when the release of Windows 11 came out, it still had issues and a lot of stuff I didn't really like, that I just don't know how to put it into words. I wanted to do a move for something that's free and not heavily bloated, so I went for Mint at the start of '22 and so far it was excellent for my needs.

 

[Earthshine]

I've tried Linux many times throughout the years & I've hated it & thought it sucked an equal amount every time. Guess I'm a Windows for lifer kind of guy. To each their own. I know some people would all but sacrifice their first born child for Linux over Windows. Well... maybe not that. But yeah. I know many people really enjoy Linux.

 

[Vixi]

I think Linux has been getting good. but there's no good OSK for surface devices. I've compiled Plasma Keyboard which is being worked on at KDE and it just takes up so much of the screen and is missing important keys. Unfortunately the discourse seems to be around making Plasma Mobile good, which shows how out of touch they are with the kinds of people who would move from Android to Linux (I would love an un-gimped keyboard on mobile!)

Have to stick with Windows 10 for coding on a Surface Pro for now.

Also, I can't get GPU acceleration working on Affinity Apps in Wine, despite instructions for doing so. So that's another thing forcing me to use Windows (I might just decompile and port them myself)

 

[Chary]

At this point it's long since overdue that I switch to Linux. Apathetic familiarity is what keeps me on W10 for now. But at some point we shouldn't be supporting these crappy companies and their garbage products crammed full of ads and telemetry just because laziness...

 

[Hippocampus_Hamster]

Switching to Linux was one of the better decisions I've made recently. I could go through a long list of problems I was having (crashes, "incompatible" old software, "incompatible" official printer drivers, intrusive bloatware, and so much more...), but to put it simply, Micro$oft decided for me that I didn't need Windows 10 anymore. And now they're strangling W10 at a time when progress in hardware is slowling to a crawl... Yeah, I just gave up and swapped to Linux Mint.

Took about a month to get used to, and now I'm more or less happy with it.
Maybe I can't play a few games or use a few apps that I used to, but there's more than enough to keep me busy for a long time.

Also used Linux Mint to revive an old laptop my aunt gave me (it was her husband's before he passed a few years ago). After formatting the drive Mint just scooched right on in and made itself at home more or less. And other than a battery issue that I have since solved, its been running great.

 

[Necron]

I installed kubuntu I kept my win10 installation as dual boot in case I needed it.
Like 3 weeks ago I switch to win10 and it ran some updates, which caused it to break my system on kubuntu (really, nothing worked besides booting into it).
So I moved win10 to another ssd and reinstalled kubuntu keeping the home partition, I was back up and running again very easy.
So yeah, dual boot main kubuntu, win10 for other stuff. Gaming is a delight

Edit: for my family's pcs I upgraded them to win11 cause they use a bunch of excel and word, so they can't really move past that, but at least I used Chris Titus' tool to do a more sane install and they run much better.

PS: oh tip for the rest. For years I had been modularizing my windows installations (have a separate ssd for downloads, documents, etc), which reached to a point where I had windows in one ssd and all of my data in separate hdds/ssd. This made the switch to linux a thousand times easier. So for everyone, try doing that, even with disk partitioning, it'll save you a headache in case you need to switch OSes or even upgrade.

 

[Darth Meteos]

seriously considering moving to linux
had a bad experience a very long time ago trying to use ubuntu, i figure linux is completely different now
just gotta find the will to make the jump

 

[Vixi]

https://discuss.kde.org/t/plasma-virtual-keyboard-feedback-needed/39008

Good news for Surface Pro owners.
KDE Plasma Keyboard is getting ctrl alt keys and floating mode.

 

[Jayro]

Rebecca Black OS, here I come.

 

[Hippocampus_Hamster]

seriously considering moving to linux
had a bad experience a very long time ago trying to use ubuntu, i figure linux is completely different now
just gotta find the will to make the jump

Depending on how long a "long time ago" was, there could be major changes. Linux has changed a lot in general over the past decade, and software support is beginning to catch up, especially with stuff like SteamOS/Proton for gaming, and many FOSS applications like LibreOffice bridging the gap more and more by the day. Personally, I've only had a few minor inconveniences trying to get some programs running, and a few flat-out would not work, even with Wine, but they all either had replacements already available or weren't necessary. And with NTFS reverse-engineered, Linux can now read those drives and even kinda format in NTFS as well (although there's still some compatibility issues now and then).

Perhaps most interesting is the customization allowed; you can keep your desktop looking fairly Windows-like, or go for a Mac look if you really want to - or go completely off the rails and make it into some future-tech cyberpunk interface, or go completely minimalist. Yes, the more elaborate the more time it takes to set up and tweak, but for those looking for that, its absolutely available.