How to stay on Windows 10 instead of installing Linux (by @lproven): Turns out that Microsoft will support Windows 10 until 2032 *if* you can live without their cloud and AI bullshit: just download/install an obscure version aimed at corporate clients who want long-term support:
https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/22/windows_10_ltsc/?td=rt-3a
(I'm a macOS/Linux guy, but if I had an old Win10 box and wanted to avoid Windows 11 and Recall this would be a great way forward)
@cstross @collectifission The average user wouldn't do all that though. Sure, you and I tweak our systems to work as optimally as possible. But your average user doesn't.
I have seen the exact opposite of going from RTFM to RTFSC though. I'm seeing "why don't you ask about it in our help forum?" I mean, even Arch does that... Heck, when I ran into a Debian issue I saw they still had an IRC channel. (Though they didn't have a Web IRC client, so +2/-1 I guess since it's asking someone to install a thing they may not fully understand.)
I haven't been told to read the manual in probably more than fifteen years and no one has ever told me to read the source code. (Closest I've had was someone telling me to learn to code and make my own contributions in a feature request on something.)
@cstross @collectifission
I am a Linux user since 2007. Never once have I read ANY source code. I don't compile my own kernel. I go an just install software that is provided by my current package manager.
Outside of some exotic or brand new hardware, or NVidia being Nvidia (moved to AMD soon after), I have never encountered any major problems that I couldn't solve with either a reinstall (which is pretty much the Windows way) it a quick search and a few commands in the terminal.
Additionally, the terminal is not needed that often any more. Pretty much every terminal tool has more then one GUI that can be use to configure it. Be it GRUB, CUPS, corn, X11...
> Additionally, the terminal is not needed that often any more.
How absolutely ghastly! I live in the terminal. Used to work in it exclusively until 1994-ish.
@cstross @MeiLin @collectifission I currently have 17 terminals open in various tiles and tabs on various workspaces on Debian. It's a life style choice at this point I guess!
To be fair, I usually have a bunch of tabs open in Windows Terminal at work too, so definitely a way of life.
@veronica @cstross @collectifission
As and i3 user I have it easy to get into a terminal, and I will use it for things and stuff.
But I am just a filthy casual when I comes to Linux, even after 18 years.
That has not been my experience.
But that doesn't mean that switching to a totally free OS that won't track your every move won't require some investment of your time.
No one is questioning your acumen or your pedigree.
There are many #linux distributions that are tailored for relative novices, such as #Mint and maybe #ubuntu These same distros often have tremendous help forums contibutors that are really helpful and polite should you have problems or questions.
Besides, if things are always so easy and clearcut with Windows OS, why are there so many Web resources dedicated to solving problems involving it?
@jrredho Mint is generally great and I generally love it.
A few months back, I turned a pile of very old Winbox-leftovers in to a nice Linux-for-modest-needs machine. Audio was required. Mint *COULD NOT* understand the on-motherboard audio. Didn't work. At all.
I burned hours of my life trying to make it work before giving up and plugging in a generic USB audio device instead.
And that's hours of "someone with a comp sci degree and a remarkably high tolerance for technical bother and nuisance" time. Someone who was expert at web searching to find answers in the years before Google existed at all.
So no, not even Mint is yet ready for me to suggest it to my Dad - who has genuinely asked me what to do about the impending Win10 "EOL".
Yeah, it's breakable. No doubt. It sounds like the BIOS firmware on the motherboard were incompatible with likely any flavor of linux.
I actually tried to include "if the hardware is compatible, which is possible to check" to my response, but I ran out of characters. :)
But, should you get a version installed on a compatible computer. Generally, non-techie people need a browser, a pdf reader, and an MS Office replacement. All of those are available. That ain't rocket science.
Pro or Home licenses are a different beast altogether. MS sells them to PC manufacturers for dirt cheap (under 10$ AFAIK), and while MS want those tied to a new computer and not resold, in some jurisdictions, they can not enforce this. This ends up being a 100% legit license for cheap.
Volume/Enterprise licenses OTOH are completely under the control of MS, and if you didn't get it from them directly, they may go away at any given time. I wouldn't waste money on those.
1. Read the article more closely, especially including the external links.
2. It's still cheaper than a new PC if you have a good high-end one and you're happy with it.
3. I am told there is considerable haggling and negotiation room here.
4. But mostly, read the external links _thoroughly._
I am not a spring chicken, I know about shady ways to a Windows license.
But if you want something on the up and up, you're going to pay through the nose (because with one or a single digit number of licenses you are not a very interesting customer), all for the questionable privilege of using Win10 LTSC (which will come with software compatibility issues sooner rather than later) for another 7 years.
If you think that's worth it, go for it. I wouldn't.
@cstross @lproven
... AND you're willing to pay $30 per year.
Merely installing Windows 10 LTSC will get you just over a year extra mainstream (free) security updates. If you install Windows 10 IoT LTSC and you jump through the hoops of setting up ESU and also pay $30 for each year of support, sure, you'll continue to get security updates.
you might be able to keep running a LTSC version of Win 10 for a while (and get security support etc) But Microsoft will stop supporting Office on Win 10..
https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/15/24344209/microsoft-365-office-apps-windows-10-end-of-support
@kat @cstross @lproven Good. LibreOffice is 1000x better and free.
The real concern IMO is that a lot of other software will drop 10 like a hot potato the moment Microsoft says it's no longer supported. They did that with 7 and 8/8.1 as well. The problem is, even if you can get the 11 builds to work, issues start cropping up because of the system differences that they no longer test for and they will not support (or care) if you report them as bugs because they've dropped support and abandoned it.
But even more concerning, OEMs are going to drop it too. That means drivers will become a problem pretty fast. Especially with modern signing methods. (Signing never should have been allowed to be a thing. I get it, but it basically sets up a paid gatekeeping with Microsoft -- and this.)
@accipiter @kat @cstross @lproven Good answer. You decide when you buy new hardware. Not one company having this really weird fixation obsession over TPM modules their software doesn't actually need (which is just so freaking weird! 11 can run fine without TPM 2.0. Why are they so obsessed about this??? I have to know!!!)
WINE is pretty great. Look at Lutris or Heroic Games Launcher. I've been able to get most of my games working well enough in Linux that I'd still rather not boot Windows even for them.
I need to get moving on this. I bought my current Mac in 2019, & it's starting to have Issues.* (My previous 2009 Mac still going great guns, modulo the short in the option key & dead left side of the keyboard. Repair guy refused to replace the keyboard bc "cost as much to buy another refurbished." I'm now wishing I'd insisted.)
* Today's task: go buy some canned air to clean out the !$@#$ keyboard.
@nazokiyoubinbou @cstross @lproven
This sounds like excellent advice. I need to start keeping a notebook of this sort of thing. ::sigh::
What I •really• wanna do is throw some money at a local techie & say, "Here, do this for me." & then a retainer to have them explain what they did in Very Small Words.
At this point I am so utterly DONE with tech that the only reason I haven't heaved all my devices out the (closed) living room window is an ongoing need to, you know, eat.
@cavyherd @cstross @lproven You can technically buy systems with Linux preinstalled for whatever that's worth. If you want to do the absolute least effort thing possible you could throw in a new harddrive and just blind install to that drive so you don't have to deal with partitions and stuff. Linux can access Windows partitions directly (unlike the other way around which requires serious hoop jumping) so you can get to your data on the NTFS partition from the Linux drive if you don't want to deal with moving things around.
I do want to say that, for me, divesting in these corporate things like Windows, Google-owned Android ROMs, etc etc has brought back some of my love of tech and learning things. Learning how to get the most out of these alternatives is fun in its own way.
@saliaku I take it you don't do business with any corporations who require specific proprietary file formats (or you don't get paid). And you don't have a job where the best tools by a very long way only run on proprietary OS's.
Typical student thinking: alas, the grown-up world doesn't work like academia.
@cstross @saliaku WINE can run a lot of Windows software. Open source programs have a lot of dealings with proprietary formats. But it really depends on what sort of format you're even talking about. You left that as such a vague all-encompassing statement, but a surprising number of things don't use proprietary formats anymore. Even, somehow, Microsoft Office went to an open format. (Not sure how anyone got MS, the jack of proprietary, on board with that.) A lot of CAD/etc stuff that is proprietary has Linux builds too.
Of course some companies have things super specialized running in various forms that are super proprietary. Many of those are so specialized and so proprietary they may even be running on DOS or Windows 2000. That isn't applicable to this discussion however...
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