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…
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?
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.
Also 0patch, which will continue to provide security patches for Windows 10 indefinitely.
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.
Pretty sure the template would work fine with OnlyOffice.
I just rebuilt mine and can confirm that most of those resume template builders utilize a lot of word doc “hacks” to format everything, and loading and LibreOffice breaks it.
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.
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.
The end of windows 10 support is approaching. Windows 10 will go on for a while yet.
Call me when Libre doesn’t suck/feel like it’s stuck in 2003.
I won’t hold my breath.
Baby duck syndrome.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It’s possible to pass thru a single GPU. I followed this guide on my Fedora desktop
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.
Consider running the LTSC version. It gets extended support.
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
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.
I saw a YT video about XP being compromised. It was literally about 2-3 minutes, and it had been attacked.
Yeah, we managed to recreate that in a lab. Those old OS’s are super vulnerable.
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.
