I think what many people really need to feel confident switching to linux is an expert who is willing to guide them through it and offer support.
The DIY install guide is a joke.
I mean, it is very "broad strokes" but correct. Ultimately though I don't think their goal is to get people to just do it themselves. It seems like their bigger goal is connecting people in the community to people that want to make the switch to help smooth out the transition.
Windows stopped at 7.
10 is perfectly freat, 7 was not bad at all.
I kinda wish I had the time and knowledge to volunteer at my local commu center and do a "Save your old computer from the Dump!" Free upgrade! ~to~ ~Linux~" drive.
I considered it, but I think the overwhelming, unexpected workload would be migrating data, training users, and working with them through migration to FOSS applications from Office and the like.
It’s definitely not just going to be “installed Linux on your computer, have a great day!”
Yeah I'd start with Ubuntu or mint. Standard apps like libreoffice scripted install and a desktop link to a YouTube learning series.
Not covering data. Clean wipe only. Hence the "save it from the dump" line.
I'd have the center drop off units with stickers to track owners and do the needful. No interaction to end users.
Follow up could be Linux training workshops in a classroom setting.
I’ve been through this before. If you simply don’t care for the user’s data, most of them will be angry afterward. It’ll hurt the cause.
I’ll add an anecdote that I hope gives everyone some hope though. I did migrate an elderly couple to Ubuntu years ago, and they actually really liked it. I think they found it simpler and faster than windows on their old laptop.
Doing it free means they won't take care of it or care. Don't dump that on yourself.
Remember when windows 10 was supposed to be the last version of windows? 🤣
It is the last - that a lot of us here will ever use willingly
Switched from W10 to EndeavourOS about two weeks ago. Happy so far. The full-screen W11 ads/W10 deprecation warnings were what pushed me over the edge.
Yeah, if the MS store and UWP apps worked out for Microsoft (they didn't lol).
Now win11 is "okay, now this really will be last version of windows, because you can't refuse installing our crap."
if the MS store and UWP apps worked out for Microsoft
Interestingly, that's exactly what prompted Valve to invest heavily into Linux compatibility. They saw a future where Windows became an iPhone-like OS where most users only obtained apps and games via Microsoft's store, and they absolutely did not like that idea.
That future never came, but later on the project would pay dividends by allowing the Steam Deck to exist.
Yep, and I'd argue thats one of the most fruitful things to come out of MS's blunders. It incentivized the other stakeholders to get win32/64 compatibility efforts into high gear for linux, and I couldn't be happier with what we ended up with today (on the linux side ofc)
Edit: Also, I mentioned the MS store and UWP because that was the reason behind that infamous quote - the team wanted to motivate developers to get on board with the platform, and announcing 10 as the last version of Windows was part of that campaign.
There are a significant number of Windows users that lack technical skills and rely on others for support. Many will also have hardware that does not support Windows 11.
They have 4 choices:
Many, probably most, of these users will be happy continuing to use an unsupported version of Windows. However not all of their support advisors will be happy with this. That includes me. I do not want to take responsibility for these users on an unsupported operating system.
For the same reasons, I am not going to recommend running Windows 11 without support.
So, the choice is buy new hardware or try Linux.
These people that are perfectly happy with their computers the way they are, why do they want to go buy new computers? This is not a very attractive option. I think it is the least attractive option.
Given the other choices, trying Linux, especially as a trial to see if new hardware purchases can be avoided, sounds attractive.
If you are relying on others for support, moving to Windows 11 or moving to Linux is the same amount of work. It is no more difficult and probably no less scary if somebody is helping you.
People would rather stay with what they have. Microsoft will not let them.
Just moved my mother from Windows 10 to LMDE.
Noice LMDE
It's been a hot minute since I've used a linux distro for personal use, but I've got a laptop that probably needs to move over. That being said, I would still LIKE to play some windows exclusive games on that machine. Is wine still the go to for fudging compatibility? How good is it? Will I be able to download windows only steam games with relatively low effort for such uses?
Proton / wine is modern day magic
Most Windows only steam games work out of the box (you do have to enable it in the right click menu > Compatibility options, per game)
Games that use Anti-cheat aren't likely to work (it depends on the Anti-cheat used and how it's configured)
ProtonDB is a good resource for checking if/which games work, or fixes and workarounds
You can use proton or wine on non steam games, but that requires additional setup that I'm not familiar with
My personal experience gaming solely on Linux for about two years is a 100% success rate running Windows games. Mind you I don't play anything that has anti-cheat. And maybe 85%-90% without needing to fiddle with anything.
I moved from windows to ubuntu a few months ago. My entire steam library works when I do this. The only games I've heard don't work are LoL and CoD. Maybe a few more?
Okay dank I had no awareness of proton, this is very encouraging! Thanks!
Linux gamer here. Can confirm: both Proton and ProtonDB are wonderful.
There's also Lutris, https://lutris.net/, which uses wine and other software underneath, but with a nice GUI and a lot of scripts to further make playing your games on Linux easier.
Honest question. Is there some particular reason why people are against 11? Except the usual reasons people are against windows?
Edit: shoving AI down your throat
And this all besides all the other already present points to shit on Microsoft like the data collection
Have you seen what microsoft is pushing on 11??
No. I once accidentally installed the update, but immediately returned to 10, when I saw how it looks. But I imagine, with some settings and add-ons I can make it look like 10.
The issue is not with the appearance. It's the fact that microsoft keeps pushing AI into everything. The settings app is still shit and missing control panel functionality. There is more to say but these are the main issues afaik.
In addition to the front facing AI features, these days Windows 11 is less an operating system and more a 'suck as much data about this person to train our AI models as we can get away with'.
Windows Recall is one of their AI solutions they're pushing onto people which would screenshot everything on your system in order to assist users in searching through previous desktop interactions and whatnot.
Security researchers are highly against the rollout of this 'feature' as it uses AI and the previous betas have shown that Microsoft is incapable of ensuring the prevention of abuse from malicious users.
Ex: a user entering in their credit card information for an online transaction would have that information stored as an indexable/searchable piece of information by a malicious outsider.
Microsoft has yet to show competance in their abilities to prevent the creation of such a wide attack surface.
Lots more data harvesting. Lots more AI. Lots more malware.
My partner isn't tech savvy. I asked them to type "CPU-Z" into the task bar and instead of it opening the installed CPU-Z on their computer, the first suggested result was a download link for CPU-Z. They clicked it to download CPU-Z and got full-on AI-suggested malware that forced us to nuke their PC
I actually wouldn't mind upgrading to Windows 11, but I ran Microsoft's compatibility tool and it told me I couldn't. I only built my computer in late 2018, and have upgraded storage space since then. But it's nowhere near old enough to need replacing the motherboard or processor.
Microsoft is just requiring an arbitrary hardware specification as an olive branch to their hardware manufacturer partners.
The big one is W11 now requires a TPM chip, so tons of computers will stop getting updates soon, with no way to upgrade.
And they keep getting worse with a bunch of annoyances, like more ads, trying to force ai, making it harder to avoid a microsoft account, and getting rid of ways to customize the desktop layout.
With the steam deck proving that Linux gaming was not only possible but easy, I could remove gaming as a reason to keep windows, which meant the only thing I actually wanted windows for was an Adobe subscription that I hadn't used in over a year. With windows fighting me the whole time, Linux got out of my way and let me use my own device how I wanted to. Which by the way sounds like I'm using it for something complicated or specialized but I'm not, I need it for web browsing, gaming, and light photo editing, that's about it.
So that's the positive case to move away from windows. The other side is that Windows is actively hostile to me as a user. I don't want or need copilot. For starters I don't have the hardware to really take advantage of it, and I don't want it using power unnecessarily. I don't want office 365, I don't want OneDrive, I don't want another UI on top of the 5 other UI frameworks that exist in windows which only serve to make it harder to change things to what I want. I don't want to sign in using a Hotmail account I made when I was 12 and haven't touched in years. I don't want windows telling Microsoft how I use my own device. There's some cool stuff in windows 11 like WSL which is awesome for me as a dev in my day job, but it's not enough to keep me in a system that, by design and direction, is trying to lock me into it.
Xbox app is another example, where my game controllers sometimes work and most of the time don't. Sometimes there's cross play with steam, sometimes not. Sometimes even installing the game doesn't work and I have to re-download the entire game again. Just bafflingly bad and costs me more than steam ever has. Ridiculous.
As far as I can tell it's mostly the TPM requirement and pushing more ads / AI nonsense.
You can easily avoid the latter by using the LTSC IoT version. I just bought a new (second hand) computer for TPM (my old one was very due for an upgrade).
With the IoT version it's absolutely fine. Definitely an improvement over Windows 10. The only issue I've noticed is it doesn't come with Windows Game bar or some nonsense so after you run games you'll get a random dialog about there not being an app available to handle ms-gamelink URLs or something. You can just ignore it. I might fix it one day.
Many can't upgrade to 11 and don't want to buy a new device. They'll believe it's their only option unless told otherwise. It's not necessarily a "Win11 is bad" or "Linux/BSD is better" scenario, just a "to keep using your current device which you paid for less than a decade ago, do the following".
Times are hard and people shouldn't be forced to buy new hardware because of the current monopolistic software companies's latest money making scheme, especially when their old one works perfectly fine and the environment is going to suffer.
Anti-privacy by default, pushing AI slop that takes all your data, more than one improperly checked update rolled out that bricked many computers, shoving Ads everywhere...
Of course you could say these to not be strictly new, but it is a new level of enshittification way beyond what we used to know.
You can't install it on just any machine, rendering millions obsolete.
hey i'm trying to get my parents moved over to mint :)
Moved my mother a few days ago (LMDE). Printer too. Took about an hour.
Most of it was getting apps setup, moving pictures over, and making sure she was already logged into things like Facebook so she did not have to remember the passwords after I left.
Her biggest complaint has been that her friends email addresses do mot automatically pop-up in Thunderbird. They will once she has sent or received email from them. So this will pass.
I moved mine over about 2 years ago.
Only issue was getting the printer to work.... Took a few hours.
Just started the switch to fedora. It's actually really good. I played minecraft with my spouse and after turning off mouse acceleration, it felt great. My favorite games are all on steam. Only things that are rough is professional software. Also, my $250 elgato capture card doesn't support Linux. Windows is definitely going to need to stick around for me.
Also, my $250 elgato capture card doesn't support Linux.
Which one? We use a few Elgato capture cards with OBS on Linux at work and all of them are bog-standard UVC video devices.
I played minecraft with my spouse
Check out Prism Launcher if you play Java Minecraft. It allows you to easily manage multiple Minecraft versions. Modded, unmodded, different versions, etc..
I tried switching a few days ago but the performance was so awful for some reason, ended up having to switch back (linux mint)
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