Windows 10's demise nears, but Linux is forever

The Register ^ | 28 January 2025 | Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

[Da Coyote]

I will gladly celebrate the end of Microsoft and would love to participate in commanding a squadron to bomb and totally destroy all vestages of that loathsome company. Die, Microsoft, die, and take that toad Gates with you.

[Myrddin]

I ship packages regularly in my business and UPS is windows only

Many of the specialized embedding system programming tools are Windows only. That was the case with the PIC micro-controller compilers. I used many of them for CAN bus projects.

[dagunk]

I buy refurbs from Amazon, usually less that $150. Had to replace the hard drive in one out of five, they’re cheap. They all get the windows wiped anyway.

Loaded Linux Mint on one for wife after having to fix windows one-more-time. Did a backup of her home directory/folder tree to an external drive, uploaded it to the Linux Mint.

To back up the Firefox I did a backup from the bookmarks manager and an import from the bookmarks manager to the replacement machine. Everything transferred, no problems.

Showed her how to get to Firefox and her recipes/pictures/etc files. No further problems with her machine, although she forgets to turn on the printer sometimes (she’s getting better).

Wife is very happy with the performance and trouble-free operation.

I’m on FreeBSD. I like it better and I’m an old command-line dinosaur. I run X so I can have a batch of terminals open. If “command line” makes your eyeballs cage you probably don’t want to go here.

Also have FreeDOS and Borland Turbo C loaded on an ancient laptop.

And I still have my MSDOS 3.3 on 5 1/4” and 3.5” diskettes.

Raspberry Pi4 floating around here too. It’s more a Science Project / toy but it runs fine.

No windows machine here.

[doorgunner69]

I have more than a few expensive old programs like Autocad that will not run on win 10+. Since retireing, will not be paying to upgrade, all of which are really software leases these days.

Can they run on Linux?

[Myrddin]

I had to dump a motherboard that was BIOS boot only. Old hardware. Incapable of the secure boot introduced by Fedora. As a stopgap, I put Ubuntu on the box because it still had BIOS boot capability. That motherboard also failed early under Linux when the onboard Ethernet hardware support was dropped by Linux distros. A USB Ethernet adapter rescued the hardware for a couple years.

[linMcHlp]

Avoid the many Linux OS variations that will stump you.

In order to do that, visit many websites of the many applications that you will use and might use. Study their installation guides for Linux OS.

Example: Brave Browser: https://brave.com/linux/

Compile a list of the Linux OS versions that are the most compatible, in your view, for all such applications.

AVOID FlatPak and Snap.

Study the following guide: Linux Directory Structure and Important Files Paths Explained:
https://www.tecmint.com/linux-directory-structure-and-important-files-paths-explained/

[ShadowAce]

Ignorance doesn't look nice when pretending expertise.

That line jumped at me, too.

However, when looking at the various products, they are for the server. clamAV is for mail servers--not desktops.

At work we run TrendMicro (sucks), but only on our datacenter servers.

I could not find a desktop, consumer-oriented, product.

[Openurmind]

Do you let people you cannot trust access your physical box? If not an antivirus is not really needed. Only a very small number of exploits over the years did not require actual physical hands on and root credentials to install. It has to be rooted.

I have tried Clam AV several times hoping it would get better but it hasn’t. It breaks my machine every time I have installed it.

[MayflowerMadam]

“I buy refurbs from Amazon, usually less that $150.”

I’ve bought many of those, too. They’ve been more dependable than me ones overall.

I think that when someone refurbishes a machine he’s more diligent about quality control than the q.c. of ones popping off a production line.

[doorgunner69]

Same here, 7 on this laptop and the home desktop.

Too many favorite old CAD programs will not run on the new crap.

Dealing with the wife’s 10 and 11 is already a pain I do not need.

[linMcHlp]

Also: the WINE project: https://www.winehq.org/

[Openurmind]

They now have many Linux alternatives to autocad.

https://alternativeto.net/software/autocad/?platform=linux

[roving]

I had no problem with Windows 11.

[Openurmind]

Here is where Microsoft has actually been kind to me. MS breaks MS and then folks just go buy a new computer and give me the almost new old one... lol

First thing Wipe and Linux, good to go...

[ducttape45]

My machines don’t have the resources to do that. They’re all pretty much low end, Gen 6 or older. But that’s ok, I prefer it this way.

[ducttape45]

Or from eBay, if you’re careful

[ducttape45]

Vista was not a bad O/S once they fixed a few of the bugs. It ran just as well as W7.

[eyeamok]

I did that before, too many problems getting all the printers properly recognized in Virtual Box

[Adder]

Today, anyone smart enough to use Windows, a very low bar indeed, can use desktop Linux.

Is that true? I mean a simple Windows user...not some power one...

[Openurmind]

“Is that true? I mean a simple Windows user...not some power one...”

Absolutely, it is as simple as using Windows 7. Especially Linux Mint “Cinnamon”. All the same functions and menus in the same places. It is hard to tell the difference. Same as Win 7, just point and click, drag and drop...