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Lots of PCs are poised to fall off the Windows 10 update cliff one year from today
(arstechnica.com)
this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2024
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Frankly, I don't care.
I'm going to keep using Windows 10, updates or not, until I absolutely have no other choice, hoping against hope that the cracks in the Recall/AI monolith with have spread wide enough that a future Win 12 or 13 won't have them in it. I don't run a business. I don't keep sensitive information on any internet capable devices and my work uses the AS400 system.
I know Linux is a thing, and about a dozen years ago I spent a year using Ubuntu exclusively. While appreciating the OS, I got tired of chanting magic spells at computer every time I wanted to use software I liked on it, and so went back to Windows.
These days, despite being a reasonably tech savvy person approaching 60, I'm getting to the point where I'm just not up to learning/relearning an OS unless there is a critical need, and using Windows 10 there just isn't. At least not for me.
The days of "chanting magic spells at computer" being synonymous with the Linux experience are far gone. I recommend you just make a Fedora installer and take it for a spin on the live test system! You don't need to commit to it to just try it
[Children of the Omnissiah plays]
Some questions:
What version of Linux does Fedora install? Is it directly compatible with Windows software such as games and OBS, or does it require modifications/compatibility installations such as WINE? Does it have documented support online or is it a matter of haunting forums and such for when problems occur? And no matter how solid an OS is, I will tend to break it, generally by doing stupid shit, but I will break it. Before putting it back together. Which is generally how I tend to learn software.
If you are going to play games you might as well go and try Bazzite instead! It's built on a Fedora base with some good additions:
It's atomic: this basically means that everytime yov boot your computer you'll have the choice of booting onto the newest version of your system, or the one before. If you fuck up anything it's as easy as reverting to the last version where things were alright!
It comes with a bunch of preloaded drivers and compatibility layers: makes compatibility with modern games and software as good as you can get it without having to tinker heaps. It's pretty seamless.
The installer includes many programs by default. Just tick a few boxes and you can choose to have Spotify, OBS, Discord or Darktable automatically installed in your computer
As for the documented support you can probably go a long way with the Arch, Gentoo and Fedora wikis. Other than that I'm afraid it's gonna be relying on forums and Reddit. I've never irreversably broken my Fedora system for what is worth, and I don't consider myself that tech savvy!
Game support is also really good these days. Anything that you can play via Steam will basically run. And performance is better for some games on Linux these days! Itch.io also has good support I think. You should be able to run most things that don't use shady anti-cheat, but forget about League of Legends, Valorant or Fortnite.
I'm not sure what you mean by Linux version! But Fedora (and Bazzite) belong to their own "branch" of Linux, apart from Debian and Arch. Their philosophy is a balance between rock-solid stability (Debian) vs bleeding-edge software (Arch) that many people, including me, think hits the sweet spot quite well!
If there's anything I missed or you are curious feel free to ask more questions :)
As of this writing, My install of Fedora Linux 40 KDE is running Linux kernel version 6.10.11.
If that's not what you were asking, Fedora is the distro. It's a fork of Red Hat, uses the rpm package format, they offer the GNOME desktop by default (the "Workstation" flavor) but several other popular UIs are available.
Linux is not directly compatible with Windows software. Either the developer/publisher of the software must ship a Linux version or a compatibility layer such as WINE muse be used. If you play games on Steam, Steam will pretty much just handle that. There is a setting in Steam's settings called Enable Steam Play for all other titles which at this point is the "just work" button.
OBS is open source and widely available on Linux. I just now installed it from Fedora's package manager.
It's documented and supported a hell of a lot better than Windows is. I don't know how people use that puddle of shit. I was converting a computer from an HDD + Dell Optane to a regular SSD. Apparently I didn't quite have the BIOS set up right for this so it gave me an "Install error 0xd2c77e2939a44aa7b5" Which I guess you're expected to write down on a piece of paper by hand because the Windows installer runs in an incomplete and useless environment. Trying to install Linux on this same machine, I got an error which said "Such and such BIOS setting is probably wrong. You can read more abut it here" and gave a hyperlink to a wiki, which was clickable because this was running in the full desktop LIVE environment, and it also included a QR code link to the same article so you could easily pull it up on a mobile device.
That said a lot of your "hey I'm having this weird issue" is going to take you to the distro's forums or to Reddit. As if that's not where most Windows tech support comes from anyway, Microsoft doesn't answer any questions.
You'll fit right in here. I once borked a Linux Mint install by uninstalling Python. A LOT of shit broke including the package manager, I couldn't get Python reinstalled. That was a reinstall of the OS, thankfully I had /home on a separate partition so I could just install the OS around it without touching that and I didn't even have to restore a backup. That kind of mistake tends not to be the "I just ruined my life" moment that borking Windows is because Linux is faster and easier to install. I've never killed a Linux install doing anything "normal" aka what you'd expect to do if you were used to Windows. All except once I was doing goofy things with the system files, and that once I was building a circuit on a Raspberry Pi while it was running, a jumper wire got away from me and touched something on the board and it froze. Had to power cycle it. Probably don't let random wires touch your motherboard while the computer is running. That's a Top Gear Top Tip.
Whatever resides in its repositories for the specific release of Fedora. What exactly do you need the specific version for? I'm sorry, but this question sounds as if you were trying to imitate some kind of savvyness.
Linux doesn't present Windows NT ABI, if that is your question. It's a different operating system, and it would be a very weird expectation of it to do that.
Wine is a userland implementation of Windows subsystem for NT, only for Unix-likes.
So yes, if you want to run Windows applications, you are going to use Wine.
Good documentation is present, unlike with Windows. Haunting forums is generally not our way of doing things. However, that will yield better results than Windows, too.
I'm not sure you're an adult. I'm also not sure you've written a single line of code in your life.
I'm 58, and the only "code" I've ever written is hexadecimal for the Apple ][+ we had back in high school. Which isn't even remotely close to what actual code is. Thanks for the attempt at insult, but it's my reality, so fuck you too.
It wasn't an attempt at an insult. It was an attempt to inform you that the whole comment seemed strange.
That kind of pretense is even more stupid when
it turns out you've seen some parts of real computing many people haven't.
Also sorry for making you feel whatever way, my comment was basically intended to prevent more of that in future.
So, about using it - the advice would be to try something convenient in dualboot (shrink the NTFS, shrink the partition it's on, install Linux on the freed up space) and see for yourself.
I upgraded to 11 and honestly it's about the same. Very familiar and fast. I've had no problems with it in the 3 years I've been using it. If I had the preference I'd use 10 but only by a very slim margin as they are virtually identical in day to day usage. I do think it's faster.
Despite what the fanboys say, linux still isn’t completely ready for primetime. I’ve been a casual linux user for twenty-odd years, and it has come a LONG way from assembling Lego bricks into a usable OS to a mostly plug-‘n-play setup.
There’s plenty of stuff that doesn’t work. Compared to Windows the software isn’t all available. Sound and video can still present difficulties. I moved my Steam library to linux and many of the games work well, but forget it if you’re into AAA online play, anti-cheat software still doesn’t play nice on linux.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a much more polished and easy to use setup than it’s ever been. But it still doesn’t beat Windows for the amount of mainstream software available and still needs to be irritatingly fiddled with if you want to do anything off the beaten path with it.
What’s the “plenty of stuff that doesn’t work”? And what audio/video issues are you having? Pipewire is miles better than anything Windows can conjure up in latency, quality, and customization. Video is literally just rendering pixels, which works with web browsers, and local video players (mpv and vlc). The only valid complaint is [Windows] software availability.
Audio cracking and popping, sound not working at all, flickering at certain resolutions, not rendering faces properly, some software won't load at all, some linux apps don't work correctly, USB ports not working, wireless dongles not working, etc. I'm not going to bore anyone with the full list. I mean, I can tell you're waiting to pin the blame on me or say something along the lines of "all you have to do is..." and that's really disingenuous. Either Linux "just works" or it doesn't. And even as a fan and long-time user...it doesn't. Not like Windows, anyway.
Not trying to blame you or anything, just stating the facts. It does sound like you don’t want to hear the other side though, and are completely convinced that these issues you’re having are normal to the average Linux system.
Installing a recent version of a normal Linux distribution (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Mint) will come by default with the following: Pipewire server (most likely wireplumber), Wayland, network drivers (except Debian) for most adapters, stable graphics drivers (unless you’re an NVIDIA victim), a DE of your choice (KDE, GNOME, Cosmic, etc). This setup will not have any audio cracking or popping, no flickering at certain resolutions, working USB ports. However, if you’re the type who refuses to update from the unmaintainable Xorg, old pulseaudio/alsa drivers, uses some obscure distribution, uses an NVIDIA GPU, or uses hardware from 2 decades ago, then you’ll have a horrible experience and it will only get worse with time, not better (unless you have an NVIDIA GPU, which will get not-garbage drivers eventually).
What’s there to hear? I already said I’ve been a linux user for 20 years, so it’s not like you're going to convince me to change or tell me something I don’t already know, yet here you are trying to sell me a product I already use without acknowledging any of the issues that can happen with Linux…and there you go accusing me of some kind of user failing when I already stated I downloaded a current popular distro to get thing working. Why should I have to explain my regular upgrades and updates? I really don’t have time to listen to soft accusations after I stated real issues with the OS. If you’re happy with linux, great, but don’t shove your rose tinted glasses on everyone else’s face.
For my own curiousity, is this a recent thing? When I was researching before making the jump to linux, it was implied that audio on linux wasn't in the best state comparative to windows.
Technically it has been a thing since like 2015, but Pipewire 1.0 was only released 10 months ago , even though many distributions were already using it by default since 2021 (Fedora) and 2022 (Ubuntu, Pop! OS), given how much of an improvement it was over pulseaudio.
Ah, its very possible I was seeing some years old info then. Thanks!
Me too. I will be glad to get no updates and not have to worry any more that Microsoft is going to ruin my computer.