Posted on 07/19/2026 12:41:18 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
Desktop Linux has seen a massive surge in popularity in the past few years alone, which, ironically enough, is in no small part thanks to Microsoft. The recent string of Windows hiccups has forced folks to migrate to Linux, and the number seems to be ever-increasing.
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Microsoft has no one to blame but itself for this mess. Windows had all the advantages and the correct formula for success, and being bundled in almost all personal computers certainly helped.
Linux, in comparison, had always been a niche “alternative” operating system for hobbyists. Not anymore, though.
However, their recent track record of incorporating puzzling new features (that, more often than not, are half-baked) that no one asked for is making it hard for the average user to interact with it.
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You want an operating system that gets out of your way while you use your apps. Windows has a bad habit of tripping the user with nagware, and it’s only gotten worse over time.
(Excerpt) Read more at makeuseof.com ...
Micro$hit pushed me to Apple. Apple pushed me to want to go to Linux but I’m clueless.
I was Apple only, 1981-95, and then switched to Windows til present. But I take for granted that my next system will be a Linux box, and have been researching the transition.
Like I said. Saving a hundred bucks to avoid Windows and give up tech support ( not a single Imhave those clowns helped) is not worth the cost.
Tech support? For what? Never needed it. Doubt I ever will.
Well - don’t get me wrong. For work machines where on jobs where I wasn’t given a supervisor account I needed them to put their password in for me or install the odd piece of software on occasion.
Thanks to ShadowAce for the ping!
No commercial CAD CAM FEA software is ported outside windows. I use to use Unix but those days are long gone.
Not arbitrary. A 32-bit system is limited to to 2^^32 memory addresses; i.e., 4 gigabytes. 64 bits gets you up to 128 Gbytes.
That was another that I tried (thanks for reminding me!) and it didn’t work either.
Quibble/quabble…
64 bits is a nice “round” number in bit world….
Gimp has been working well for me over a number of years.
I never got beyond Win 7….
You must have paid for the extended service package.
If you didn’t support for Windows 10 ended last year.
Does anybody need more than 640k bytes of memory?
One option is to run Linux from a USB drive, external. There are YouTube videos on how to set that up, and all it takes is going into the bios and setti g the drive priority you wish, however, if you will be switching os’s a lot, it will be kind of a pain as everything you run windows it’ll rearrange the boot order. Dual boot is the way i go which hives me the option of having Linux as my main os, but gives me the choice at boot to pick windows (I have both 10 and 11 to choose from), and this doesn’t change the boot order, so if I run. Windows the next boot It goes automatically to Linux unless I choose windows again.
Not as convenient though as having 2 os’s running at o ce like with virtual box. But in my case, I rarely use windows now, so the occasional boot switch is fine for my case.
My current system only has W10 on it. But what I did with my older PC was to remove the internal drives, then install a hard drive tray and hooked it to the SATA0 port. I also have a DVD drive in it hooked up to SATA1. This allows me to swap out the SSD/HDD when I want to play around with Linux, but still keep the old W7/10 drive alive "just in case."
Doing this allowed me to play around with Mint 21.3 until I could get it running and up to speed. I need to purchase a newer video card though cuz the old GT 740 isn't supported well by Linux and could fritz out on me again. But once I get it running the way I want then I'll look at installing Virtualbox and seeing how well Windows 10 plays within it. I was told I could import my current W10 install so if I can make that work it'll open up more possibilities for me.
If you get it to import your current os win 10, I’d be interested in how it went. I’ll have to look into that. Didn’t realize it was possibility. Swapping out drives is another easy way to do things too. I kept the side off my system for awhile and would do that when I was trying a bunch of Linux flavors. Had a bunch of old drives I installed various Linux’s to. Didn’t want to mess with dual boot at that point. I finally,settled on mint cinnamon. Been my main os for years now. Still have to go into windows from time to time, so I keep 10 and 11 on separate second drive.
Wish i had gotten into computers at younger age though... so much. To them. I forget probably 80% of things I look up to do like dual booting. My next project I think will be winboat- if I can get that running and run my windows programs inside Linux, that’d be the better option I think.
Linus Torvalds who created Linux says that Linux would be more popular if it was bundled on a computer like Windows is.
Linux is the most popular OS around as it is on most cell phones and servers.
Texty was recommended here and I like it
“Torvalds who created Linux says that Linux would be more popular if it was bundled on a computer like Windows is.”
Well duh. The bundling is the reason everyone uses the inferior Microsoft Office Suite. For a few years at the outset, Word and Excel were bundled with new PCs.
People — businesses especially — realized that it was cheaper to buy that and not have to pay for WordPerfect and Lotus which were primary then, and were far better programs.
Gates has a nefarious gene that results in enriching him. It manipulates the public to make bad decisions for themselves.
Windows 10 and 11 work great for me. I also use Mint Linux on 2x laptops. All this complaining about Win 11 is due to co-pilot backlash. Which I never use and am never signed into because ..... I have only local accounts on all my Windows computers (go see Rufus!) ... I never sign into anything Microsoft
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