cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/30792652
Support for Windows 10 ends on October 14, 2025. Microsoft wants you to buy a new computer. But what if you could make your current one fast and secure again?
If you bought your computer after 2010, there’s most likely no reason to throw it out. By just installing an up-to-date Linux operating system you can keep using it for years to come.
Installing an operating system may sound difficult, but you don’t have to do it alone. With any luck, there are people in your area ready to help!
5 Reasons to upgrade your old computer to Linux:
- No New Hardware, No Licensing Costs
- Enhanced Privacy
- Good For The Planet
- Community & Professional Support
- Better User Control
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You don’t need to buy a new computer. You just need to upgrade your old computer.
To Linux.
Which then makes it run like a new computer. So Linux basically gives you a free new computer.
10 still has over 50% market share (source)
im not a big fan of linux, mainly cause of multiplayer game and photoshop compatibility, but i would honestly would help out some old folks with a linuxmint install or a free ltsc for few bucks. any way to get on this list?
I’m stuck with Windows for the same reasons. I do use Linux on my laptop though and would not be opposed to switching my office machine to it as well if I can get the company I work for to make a few key software changes. I’ve had older generations of my family running Linux Mint for nearly a decade. They don’t know the difference because it’s all they’ve ever used. I have less phone calls about problem from these people than any Windows users I’ve had to deal with.
What does it mean in practice for windows 10 to reach end of life? There are no more security updates? My vm will stop working? They are preventing you from using your computer?
No more security updates, so it will gradually become unsafe to use online.
I kept my Win7 install until like 2023 and it wasn’t security that drove me away but a huge amount of software no longer working on it.
I still think they’re going to push the date back.
no more security updates
The other nice thing about Linux is that there are several Live versions you can try out on your computer without making any changes to your Windows installation.
This also lets you see if check and see if Linux fully supports your hardware (just in case you have a weird network or audio card). If the Live version of Linux works, the installed version will, as well.
Most installers let you set up a dual boot on the same hard drive, too.
I love this. I recently set up a “Linux flight” with various distros on a bunch of thumb drives to test drive the latest. I decided to stay Kubuntu but it made experimenting so quick and easy.
I have some friends and family that cant upgrade from Windows 10, so I’m going to keep the flight and walk them through trying out some personally selected distros.
Using Steam, Heroic, and Bottles you can even run Windows software almost perfectly, too. There’s never been a better time for regular folks to make the switch.
There are tools for enabling one to save a bunch of ISOs on a single USB thumb drive so that you don’t need a whole fleet of thumb drives. One such tool is called Ventoy, and there’s another one out there, although its name escapes me atm.
Oh, I will check that out. Thanks for the tip!
Even if your audio or WiFi card doesn’t work automatically in the live environment, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you are out of luck either. My WiFi card manufacturer doesn’t support Linux (Last thing I buy from them), but I was able to find a driver that was built by the community for a very similar product that works flawlessly.
This may be more complex than some people are willing/able to solve, just wanted to put that out there for people who can so they aren’t discouraged by a bad experience with a live distro.
Hmm Windows 10 LTSC and IOT will still be supported until 2027.
Debian Trixie, now is the time to shine, release soon please.
You can already switch to it though. Why wait?
Maybe he made a typo and meant Debian 13
Yeah, Trixie is Debian 13, that said, Debian 12 is perfectly capable, and Arch is already better on a Gaming PC anyway.
Arch is already better on a Gaming PC anyway.
I may agree because it’s easy to get gaming packages on Arch(i use a arch based distro cachyos with chaotic aur repos)
Not that I’m against doing this, but just so people are aware, running LTSC or IoT is essentially a violation of EULA unless your license of Windows is Enterprise or Education. Home and Pro aren’t valid for this. Yes, there are activation scripts available online, but personally, if Microsoft doesn’t want me to run Windows, it’s their loss, not mine.
I am just going to keep using 10 regardless of whether it has support or not. Yes its missing features yes there is some potential for security issues but I think the chances that my computer on my lan could be remotely compromised to be relatively slim. Other security threats would require that I visit some kind of malicious website or application which I think would be unlikely. I don’t even think running win XP or win 7 on a secure lan would be a significant concern since it is behind a firewall anyway. I do intend to switch to Linux at some point but the lack of support from Microsoft is not enough to convince me to upgrade to 11 or make the switch.
The only thing keeping me on Windows is Teamcraft for FFXIV. It has packet capturing on Windows, but not on Linux because of the way they’re doing packet capturing. There have been people who claim to get it working, but it’s still not 100%. I could even use plugins to get ACT (DPS meter) working, but sadly no plugins for Teamcraft…
use wine or proton
The game uses wine, but the packet capturing just doesn’t work.
I worked on this myself: there’s no way to get it working no matter what anyone says they managed to get working
You can force team craft to run on the same wine prefix (XIV launcher makes that ezpz) and everything fancy related to that and it just doesn’t work
VM+GPU pass through
What do you use it for?
My main game: final fantasy XIV. It takes packets so I don’t have to put in the items I have each time when I want to craft and lets me know what inventory they’re in.
Don’t let this hold you back.
Legitimately it’s this and COD that keep Win10 LTSC on one of my drives it’s that useful for the game
That’s interesting because pcapping is definitely not some windows exclusive feature, and the means are pretty transferable. I wonder what the hold up is.
Yea, that’s very weird. It’s open source so anyone could make changes to it, but still.
Why 2010, is it cause of 64bit processors?
I assume it was a generalization, just few weeks ago I installed 32-bit Linux Mint to two laptops from 2007 or 2008, now my kids have their very own and fully functional computers. They do lag a bit sometimes, but learning patience is just good for the kids.
I believe it’s TMP 2.0 support
Had the same idea last month. Feels great to get away from MS and to learn about Linux, re-igniting my interest in computers after years or just double clicking everything with no understanding of what processes are going on behind the scenes.
Excel is the most important tool I need for my work. :/
did you try running excel on wine?
I have not and I’ve heard it works, but it seems to defeat the purpose of switching. :(
Look, what everyone is saying here, including me, are suggestions. Feel free to listen to some people and not some people.
it doesn’t.
you’re free from Windows and you can still use Excel which is necessary for your work.
LibreOffice?
LibreOffice is good as a standalone software, if you’re not looking for MS Office compability. I use LibreOffice, and my sister suddenly ask me to help edit their MS Office document. It was nightmare. There are a lot of hidden gotchas that rarely reported. It’s absolutely not recommended to constantly changing software if you’re editing your document.
Also, at the moment, Excel has more advance feature than LibreOffice Calc.
LibreOffice has LibreCalc. It’s free and there’s a Windows version you can try.
IIRC there is browser support for excel
Yeah but it sucks and has nowhere near the same level of festurs
There is web support, but it lacks most actually useful functions. Libreoffice is great, but is not 1:1 compatible with excel. Then there’s Onlyoffice, which is very compatible, but also lacks many functions.
Bottom line is, if you’re an excel power user, you’ll need to learn Libreoffice Calc, or you’re out of luck. If not, Onlyoffice should suffice.
if you’re an excel power user, you’ll need to learn Libreoffice Calc
Let’s be honest…most people who are Excel power users probably need to interact with other users. Sending and receiving documents and templates, etc. Simply learning Calc yourself isn’t going to suffice, you’d have to convince your entire business to switch.
Your logic is spot on, and it does apply to most power users, but not to all.
Everyone has a different use case and experience, I think we speak based on our own experiences.
I believe OnlyOffice may be problematic from an ethical perspective if I remember correctly because of Russia or something. But it’s FOSS, has a linux desktop version, and its compatibility with Excel has been absolutely rock solid for me.
As you said, it’s FOSS, so why would its country of origin cause ethical problems?
I don’t know much about OpenOffice, but virtually all open source apps are developed by specific individuals who ask for donations or get paid for enterprise use. If you just download and use the app quietly, there’s probably no problem, however, if you talk about it to anyone, you’re promoting it and that may lead to others donating, generating more visibility, leading to more contracts, and so on.
It’s pretty bad at anything with large amounts of both data and formulas.
As an example, if you try to make a spreadsheet for managing resources of any basic Colony Sim game (something with a list of items and recipes to turn them into other items and keep track of quantities), then you’re already beyond the computing capacity of the browser based excel.
To be fair, if you’re using large amounts of data and formulas as a power user, you should probably be instead writing some python or something to handle CSVs.
As for your particular example, LibreCalc would work just fine.
Or run it on Win10 VM. I don’t think MS will drop support for Office apps on Win10 for some time at least.
Definitely another option.
It’ll probably work for a good decade or two before it goes out of date. They still need to support the enterprise LTS version, which I think includes excel.
Yes, but it’s considerably slower and extremely frustrating to use for a power user.
Not FOSS but maybe this might work for you: https://www.freeoffice.com/en/
Interesting! Thanks.
No problem! FOSS alternatives are really good as an office suite on their own but when it comes to Excel, things might go tricky. I hope they’re as compatible as they claim.
I’m seriously considering trying to become a contributor.
Well, they appreciate any kind of contributions. Thanks for considering this.
I’m so used to libreoffice that I don’t understand excel that well anymore. But there was a pretty steep learning curve to get there, months.
I use it too and it’s fully sufficient for my amateur tasks (functions to calculate things, conditional highlighting, etc), but the people who say there may be compatibility issues have a point. I remember files saved in the MS apps or vice versa not having the same like breaks, margins, or whatever it was that caused some content to not be on the same page as on the origin system.
Yeah, for MSO compatibility, OnlyOffice is a much better option, with some caveats.
Librecalc isn’t that great and has some compatibility issues. Excel is the industry standard.
What exactly are you doing on Excel that Calc does significantly worse?
Graphs.
Both softwares have graphs. You’ll need to be more specific than that, to help us understand.
Yes, the graphs I make are extremely specific and their look and feel is very relevant. The possibilities for graph customization on both google sheets and libreoffice are both more limited.
Excel is proprietary software made by a company that achieved monopoly status by intentionally designing “compatibility issues” into its products. If you’re telling me you have a business need to use the Microsoft Windows desktop version of Excel specifically and nothing else will do, then throw your PC in the garbage and pay whatever tithe Microsoft tells you to pay. Or more specifically, have your employer do that if it’s their decision anyway.
Thanks for your useful advice.
happy to help
I’ve been dry-running a Linux only world for a few months now, dual booting and running everything on the Linux partition, only using windows when necessary. So far basically all my games run well under proton and the few non-free programs I care about work well enough under wine. I think tomorrow is the day I blow away the windows partition.
I’ve been on Linux for 10 months or so, but I still have Windows installed on a separate disk. I guess if I needed the space I’d worry about deleting it, but I’m good for now. I have booted into Windows only a handful of times over those 10 months, and the stretches get longer and longer.
Same here. Games and general office tasks work flawlessly on Linux. I currently only launch into windows for the Adobe suite and some other image editing apps (by Topaz Labs) that I already have licenses for but that won’t run on Linux.
So far the alternatives I’ve found aren’t nearly as powerful. However I’m determined to uninstall windows by the time my licenses run out 9 or so months from now.
So far I think I can live without Topaz, Photoshop and some other image stuff long term, but to be honest if that turns out to be wrong, I’m inclined to buy a cheap Mac Mini specifically for photo stuff rather than keep Windows around anymore.
Hm. That’s worth considering, yeah. But I want to get away from Adobe. I dislike just about every single change they made to any of their programs in the last 5 years… And any change their made to their business model in the last 15 years or so.
If you can’t switch to Linux for whatever reason, 0patch does security updates for windows versions all the way back to 7 for just $25 or so a year.
I already shifted to Linux Zorin OS. It’s the best option for ex-Windows users like me. Sleek and modern with low learning curve.
You can still install a 32 bit distro on your pc but it’s not that common (For example: LMDE)
