Windows 10 support “ends” today, but its just the first of many deaths
Posted by BendicantMias@reddit | anime_titties | View on Reddit | 96 comments
Posted by BendicantMias@reddit | anime_titties | View on Reddit | 96 comments
Willybrown93@reddit
Moved off of windows for the first time today, as a result of this (onto Debian 13 KDE) and I'm just stunned by how much easier linux is than I was told it'd be
AsoarDragonfly@reddit
Give Linux Mint, and Pop OS Cosmic Beta a try too. They are awesome as well
gungshpxre@reddit
Out-of-the-box linux distros developed for desktop make out-of-the-box things easy. They've gotten quite good at supporting users that do the normal stuff.
Those same distros will let you do damn near anything. They tend to be used by people who WANT to do damn near anything. And some (ok, many) of those things can be quite challenging.
Ask Windows to murder your neighbor and it will say no. End of story. People might bitch a bit about that function not being supported, but the internet will be largely silent.
Ask Linux to murder your neighbor and it just needs the right commands, the right libraries, the right hardware interfaces, the right chron job to set up an alibi, etc. There's a lot of discussion about getting it to work on a lot of forums, so the perception is that linux is hard. No, getting a computer to kill your neighbor is hard, linux just lets you figure out that hard work.
Different_Record3462@reddit
Linux is as hard and murderous as you want it to be.
TresMegisto@reddit
But can it also be cute and sexy?
absolem0527@reddit
WTF was that analogy?
mrenglish22@reddit
What analogy?
Gabe_Isko@reddit
Yeah, but most distros with KDE are even pretty painless compared to windows. Debian used to be a PITA to install and configure due to all sorts of reasons, but now with non-free firmware accessible for beginners and a KDE version and even one of the core linux-nerd non-beginner distro like debian is in great shape for regular people expecting a windows like experience to just work out of the box.
BendicantMias@reddit (OP)
How does that compare with Mint, Bazzite or Ubuntu?
Gabe_Isko@reddit
It's a complicated answer. I generally recommend people try to go upstream to about 1 of 5 distros that everything else is based on - Redhat (really fedora for personal use), Debian, Arch, Gentoo or Slackware.
If you want to use another distro, I would consider it a specialized version of one of the above five - most are Redhat or Debian variants. That makes it much easier to navigate what distro you need.
So, mint is Debian/Ubuntu based and is meant for completely new users who want to do no configuration. It is generally rlwhat I recommend to people that want to try Linux but aren't great with computers.
Ubuntu is a Debian variant that maintains some more updated packages, but I generally do not recommend it these days because of some technical reasons (snap related). It used to fill the easy to install role that mint currently fills much better.
Bazzite is an immutable desktop version of fedora meant for gaming. I haven't tried it, and probably wouldn't use an immutable desktop myself, but I do a lot of Linux admin for work and I would understand what is attractive about it for people with little Linux experience. Plus the OS on the steam deck takes the immutable Linux approach, and I am quite a big fan of it on that, so I would definitely seek to at least try bazzite if I were building a gaming pc and didn't want to administrate or configure it at all.
After that, you get very hair-splitty, and you really have to drive into why each distro exists, what the philosophy is behind it and stuff like that. I personally use Debian for my personal computers, and Redhat at work. I used to use arch in college as well. But installing Debian these days really isn't too bad, and I would encourage people who are somewhat inclined to consider at least settling on debian or fedora for their personal computer and leaning a bit about Linux to configure that last 3% that gets you to a comparable out of the box experience without compromising any of the benefits of Linux.
KDE I just recommend if you are coming over from windows and want things to look similar on your desktop.
TeutonJon78@reddit
Why does everyone ignore openSUSE?
Gabe_Isko@reddit
OpenSUSE would be the 6th one, and I don't include it because it essentially the same kind of thing as Redhat (Linux as an enterprise) plus it is weird/European.
But yeah, that would be my 6th one for - try it instead of fedora of you live in Belgium or something.
Okay, yes I know that it does good stuff on its own, plus I'm using rancher at work. But I sleep soundly at night knowing people who get skeeved out from Redhat will find it.
It's specialized tools also make it weird to talk about when half of everyone claims they are great and live them, and the other half complains they are broken. I haven't really used them.
d00lq@reddit
Weird=European? What's so weird about it? (I've never used it myself, though.)
Gabe_Isko@reddit
I'm joking about the weird being European part. It feels that way to me because I use Redhat at work, and typically a lot of European entities would prefer openSUSE but it isn't even that straightforward. The America/Europe split happens from time to time in B2B stuff. It was bought by Novell anyway, which is an American company, who was bought by another company, and it's all open source now anyway.
The more salient weird allegations for openSUSE is that SUSE's original strategy was to make special tools for doing simple stuff in Linux that made it a better commercial product, but what ended up happening is that there is a bunch of tools that are only made for openSUSE and a different weird way to do basic configuration that might be better, but I'll never know.
Random_Name532890@reddit
Its all the same but with a real Debian you get real Debian support and with Ubuntu you have to remove the crap that Canonical the company puts on it. Like vanilla Android vs one from a hardware manufacturer.
Memetron69000@reddit
Did I just read a confession to a crime?
BendicantMias@reddit (OP)
What about asking Linux if it can smoothly support gaming now, without any fuss?
MegaOoga@reddit
Its really the game devs and publishers now.
There are widely used anti-cheats that support linux but game devs can just decide to not check the 'run on linux' option and so the entire linux community of that game are out of luck.
https://areweanticheatyet.com/
BendicantMias@reddit (OP)
What about games that don't run anticheats?
flametex@reddit
A good chunk of them work through steam’s proton layer. In fact, a lot of of games that I’ve tried on linux run better than the Windows version. It’s still depends on how the game is optimized of course.
https://www.protondb.com <— a good list that the community has came together to create of things that work through proton
TeutonJon78@reddit
And give credit where it's due, proton runs on WINE.
WINE did all the heavy lifting and Valve's proton helped to smooth the millions of papercuts (oversimplifying).
chainbreaker1981@reddit
95-ish percent of the time it works, 90% of that works flawlessly.
GresSimJa@reddit
Blame the game devs. Most anticheat software can work on Linux now, but devs for games like Fortnite and Rainbow Six quite literally say "no, we don't want to support Linux". And that's that, unless they change their mind.
BendicantMias@reddit (OP)
What about games that don't run anticheats?
GresSimJa@reddit
If the game doesn't natively support Linux, you can use Proton (built into Steam) or Wine.
Cordura@reddit
Or CAD programs like Solidworks or Inventor
Willybrown93@reddit
I installed steam, installed and booted up my War Thunder, and it Just Worked Natively, though I had poor performance so I went and updated my drivers which was a... new experience for me on linux. Had to come to grips with using 'apt' and 'dpkmg' to download and install a open source driver package called Nouveau instead of just running a proprietary nvidia .exe out of my downloads folder as I was used to.
That process only took like half an hour and now I'm getting a tasty 120 fps -AND- I feel a bunch smarter
So like, there's fuss, but it's often one-time fuss that then Then Just Works And Never Fucks Up, and it should be noted I'm choosing to have a typing-heavier system here, there are linux distros there are just entirely UI operated afaik
Willybrown93@reddit
I hear specifically that Bazzite is the distro you want if you just want to slap some shit in and play games
MuddyMustache@reddit
Windows assumes you're an idiot and has multiple layers of guardrails surrounding everything.
Linux assumes you know what you're doing and if you decide to jump off a cliff it sure won't stand in your way.
mileslefttogo@reddit
I love your passion, but I fear for your neighbors.
gungshpxre@reddit
They don't use Arch. Fuck'em.
maxi2702@reddit
Sudo kill neighbor
Willybrown93@reddit
This incident will be reported
wq1119@reddit
I had been using Windows since 2001 since I was a small child, switched to Linux Mint on this April, I have loved it, but my only nitpicks are that I really miss some its Windows-exclusive art software like Clip Studio Paint and music-making software as well.
TeutonJon78@reddit
Professional creative software is sort of the last sticking point for Linux.
Outside of DiVinci Resolve for video, it'd pretty lacking in professional level music and graphic design. For home users, there is plenty of high quality for that (at least graphic design, don't do audio stuff).
PersnickityPenguin@reddit
Autodesk, Adobe are the two biggest sticking points for me right now.
Plus VR lol
lrostan@reddit
It really depends on the professional domain and specific user-case. For example Blender is used by a huge number of pros, and a lot of those who dont use it is more because of issues with clients rather than the software and what it can do. Same with a lot of freewares replacing some obscure Adobe software, a lot of my graphist friend dont touch Illustrator anymore. But then you have Photoshop and you're kind of screwed if you can't use it, becouse it's been 10 years that all the technical innovations and software investissement of Adobe goes into it and the freewares can't keep up. Without Photoshop the Adobe Suite woulnt exist, and I'm pretty sure that 80% of users have a licence only because of Photoshop and could easilly find alternatives for the rest.
TeutonJon78@reddit
I forgot about Blender. That's pro level and only getting better.
BendicantMias@reddit (OP)
What about Gimp? Audacity?
TeutonJon78@reddit
GIMP is fine for home users. It lacks a lot of features pro users would want.
Same for Audacity.
anders_hansson@reddit
Moved off over a decade ago. Still happy about that decision, never looked back. Installed Ubuntu 25.10 yesterday, and I have a mix with a few Linux Mints on laptops. I have also mainly been using Linux at work during the last decade.
PersnickityPenguin@reddit
I wish. I've tried - my first install was in 1998. I don't even think it had a GUI back then, but I used it to run a Quake server and as my home router for a few years.
I have too much work software that unfortunately won't run on Linux. And a few games as well.
But, I do like it a lot, particularly impressed by Linux mint!
yoruneko@reddit
Debian is super robust you picked a good one
Not-reallyanonymous@reddit
Just wait until an update bugs your audio drivers or something, and then when you try to report the issue, it gets blamed on something other than the drivers, you bring it to them, they tell you no, it's the drivers' fault, you take it back to them, they have a huge meltdown, cuss you out, then when pushed back, tell you to fix it yourself and that Linux is great because you have that right.
And things will just randomly break and then when you go to support you end up getting told "if you don't understand what you're doing why did you do it?" and it's like "dude, I was in the middle of a battle of wesnoth game when it crashed" and then they just go on a rant about clueless users and how Windows trained you to be technology illiterate and then blocks you. No one else responds to help. I was like 13.
Like usual, in Linux, the low hanging fruit is common, and well tended to. But once you get a more obscure issue you're on your own. Which will probably eventually happen to you because you bought a laptop in August of 2024 which used Revision 217 of the RealTek USB interface that was being sold in laptops for that two month period and are like one of 50 total Linux installs using that exact USB interface and 17 of those are some dude's homelab.
Then there's the problem of "technically correct" mentality. For a long time, I don't know if it's still true, but Linux had worse latency for video games, audio, etc. than Windows because the people who wrote the CPU schedulers refused to implement priorities for things like user input, frame draws, or audio processing, because technically you could do everything faster if you did it the other way, even if it resulted in more overall latency as relevant to a video gamer or audio producer.
Then so much of Linux is oriented towards corporations. They're the #1 user of Linux, and they're the ones paying for its continued development.
Willybrown93@reddit
Oh hey, Battle For Wesnoth, I haven't heard that name in a long time. Goated taste
machado34@reddit
I'd love to use Linux, but working in the film industry there's just too many tools that are not available or not fully compatible. For many professions the only real options are windows and Mac
BendicantMias@reddit (OP)
Which tools?
machado34@reddit
DaVinci Resolve, Filmbox, most Adobe software, among others
EdgiiLord@reddit
DaVinci Resolve is actually available for Linux, natively, and is pretty awesome, however Adobe is a whole different story.
machado34@reddit
Resolve is native, but it still doesn't have the same support and functionality as windows and mac. Some audio codecs can't be encoded/decoded for example. When you're dealing with an established workflow and a big crew around you, bumps like that are not tolerated
EdgiiLord@reddit
Oh, I didn't know about specific features. It's a shame, really.
Btw, don't get me wrong, I'd say to switch to Linux on the personal device. Work devices are a whole another consumption.
RougeCrown@reddit
It’s good for now but wait until you run into a rare bug or something, and get gaslit by the entire Linux user base about how they don’t get that bug on their computer at all.
FibroBitch97@reddit
I switched to Debian 13 and had tons of issues with it, moved to Debian 12 and all my issues were fixed. Just as a heads up. Deb13 changed/broke a lot of things in the backend compared to 12, so some software won’t install properly.
ShadowOfSomething@reddit
It really both is and isn't. Windows benefits from being the "default" OS, so sometimes if you have more niche needs it's a problem and sometimes things don't work out of the box and you have to figure it out. I don't know if it's still the case, but for example when I tried Linux Mint a few years ago on my laptop, my Nvidia GPU drivers were a problem, and I remember the Wi-Fi card not working and having to find drivers for it on some guy's GitHub.
BendicantMias@reddit (OP)
This would be a dealbreaker for anyone even casually into gaming...
x_lincoln_x@reddit
It's fixed now.
dark_dark_dark_not@reddit
Yep, it's been like that a while.
Unless you need professional level access to specific software that is only supported on windows, you can probably manage to do whatever you need to do in a Linux distro.
shnarpy@reddit
same, and I'm really enjoying that there's no barriers to tinkering with stuff
DudeTookMyUser@reddit
Might be tempting to upgrade if every new version of Windows wasn't worse than the last. Same for Office.
Microsoft needs to focus on software quality and providing actual value, if they want me to keep sending them money.
Saint--Jiub@reddit
Not true, they almost always have a shit one followed by a great one
Windows 98 - Good / Windows 2000 - Bad
Windows XP - Great / Windows Vista - Dumpster fire
Windows 7 - Good / Windows 8 - Bad (8.1 was decent)
Windows 10 - Good / Windows 11 - Bad
DudeTookMyUser@reddit
That's a really old formula that the internet still keeps trying to apply.
The best you can say about 8.1 and 10 is that they're not quite as bad as 8. They're both still absolutely terrible.
Everything since 7 has been downhill.
BluudLust@reddit
That's just nostalgia. 7 really wasn't better. 10, after some tweaks is by far the best windows version in history.
TresMegisto@reddit
It can be personal preference, too. I like(d) XP, 7, 8.1, 10 and 11 but 7 has a special place in my heart. It was the first Windows that was actually beautiful. Everything worked and it felt so good to have a new OS that was on par with the past favorite XP. I have definitely never enjoyed using a Windows OS as much as I enjoyed using Win7.
BluudLust@reddit
That's very fair. It has a special place in my heart too for being the first of the era. It felt new and exciting and I loved it.
Professional-Syrup-0@reddit
10 is a Security and privacy mess, I don’t want my OS indexing my hard drives content to send to some US company, just like I don’t want my OS to secretly change related settings through updates.
The whole MS approach of trying to sell users data, instead of selling a OS, is cancer.
BluudLust@reddit
Those tweaks I mentioned were for privacy and changing windows update policy to delay non critical updates. It takes 5 minutes to do.
stringlesskite@reddit
also I would go on a limb and say Windows XP was pretty bad as well, Windows XP SP2 was the bees knees though
pythonic_dude@reddit
Yes, and 98 was fucking atrocious until SE (second edition). I'd also die on the hill that vista and 11 are the same in that they aren't nearly as bad as perceived, but the issues are exaggerated by a sharp increase in hardware reqs (just compute for Vista, tpm2 for 11) - overall Vista is barely worse than release xp, and 11 isn't that much shittier than 10.
chainbreaker1981@reddit
The only one of the "good" examples you mention that people didn't hate for the first year or two after release was 7 and that's just because it might as well have been a new coat of paint on Vista SP2, by which point what bugs were actually in it were fixed and driver writers got their act together.
EdgiiLord@reddit
8 was only bad because of the UI, however it didn't have the issues 10 and 11 have, since the QA team got fired from MS in 2015.
D-S-S-R@reddit
Windows 2000 bad? That one was the NT one for professionals (workstations, businesses with large networks, multiprocessor stuff). Do you think of windows me? That one was the one for the home users which couldn’t do all that stuff and also broke compatibility with windows 98 drivers and dos programs
Saint--Jiub@reddit
Yeah, I was thinking of ME, but I also didn't use 2000 for very long between 98 and XP
hurrrrrmione@reddit
You don't need to upgrade immediately but over the next few years more and more programs you use will drop support for the OS because Microsoft did.
mrenglish22@reddit
Jokes on you I still use 95 MS word and Photoshop
But for real, I'll switch back to Linux and frustrate myself for 6 hours over some minute thing before I deal with the bullshit apple and M$ft are pulling nowadays.
PersnickityPenguin@reddit
I use Windows 11 at work for the past year, and it's not that bad. Some weird hi quirks with windows explorer which are annoying but not a huge deal. It's still windows.
Pdiddydondidit@reddit
i find the ui unusable. seriously it so bad i had to install a program that reverts the ui back to windows 10
DudeTookMyUser@reddit
I've been using it too. I find it's just a very clunky interface without many new features that most users would consider exciting.
Saint--Jiub@reddit
I signed up for the extra year of security updates, mostly because I'm not in the mood for a change right now. Will probably end up with a Linux/W11 dual boot
PersnickityPenguin@reddit
My new system I'm building this weekend is win11/Linux mint, and the 2 old systems are moving to Linux mint.
BendicantMias@reddit (OP)
Signed up how tho? By backing up to OneDrive or purchasing it? If the latter, then did you pay with cash or Microsoft points? If the latter, then how did you earn the 1000 Microsoft points needed?
Saint--Jiub@reddit
I didn't have to sign up or pay, I got a notification that some accounts were eligible, clicked the button and it said I was set for a year of security updates.
It was somewhere on the Windows 10 update page in the settings
BendicantMias@reddit (OP)
That means you must've already been backing up your system with Onedrive.
mastnapajsa@reddit
No, you just need a windows account, which you can later deactivate and use local. I'm in the EU though, but not sure how much that matters now since it seems it's enabled elsewhere too.
The option to enable it is in the windows update tab in the settings menu.
Faintfury@reddit
He probably is European. In Europe it's free.
xXsayomiXx@reddit
I'm in the US and got the extra year free too. Home account and no one drive set up.
itsachickenwingthing@reddit
From the Windows Update menu I had an option to enroll in extended security updates.
pheremonal@reddit
Check out the megathread at r/WindowsLTSC
EternalAngst23@reddit
I could’ve sworn Windows 10 just came out yesterday.
cptjeff@reddit
It was supposed to be the last version of Windows, with continual upgrades, remember?
Then they decided we needed fewer features, less control, and more spyware.
PersnickityPenguin@reddit
Let's add AI to everything!
MuddyMustache@reddit
Hey, your friendly IT pro here! I've been supporting Windows, both PCs and servers for over 20 years and they honestly peaked with Windows 2000.
The last couple of years I've been running Fedora linux on my laptops and it's great, I highly recommend it. Does everything I need it to do, including managing a shit ton of aging Windows servers at work.
RhesusFactor@reddit
I used Kubuntu for the past two years at work. For the most part it was fine until I had to use libre office and client who used Ms office for project documents. Also Google Docs is not great for dealing with governments.
MuddyMustache@reddit
We use Office 365 at work, so I just use the browser based versions with zero issues.
football_collector@reddit
How much apps are accessible on Linux? Photoshop, Yandex Browser for example, FL Studio, SketchUp, 3ds Max? Can be anything cracked of it on Linux? Probably not, but for some casual work its good to be on Linux, I would agree
MuddyMustache@reddit
Photoshop is the unicorn locking a lot of people into Windows & MacOS (and some insane subscriptions) but there are [some interesting things](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Imnf8yd01fM) happening. For my work I only need a browser (Xen, my beloved), a text editor (VS Codium ftw) and a RDP client (Remmina). There are very nice electron wrappers for stuff like MS Teams making those apps look and behave completly like native apps. Game support has seen some amazing progress thanks to Valve, now you can run pretty much anything except those kernel-level anti-cheat systems - and even they are seeing progress now.
didthathurtalot@reddit
So the EU imposes that they hold off for another year, so they decided that they would make everyone pay for the privilege since they need to do it anyway.
Fuck Microsoft and fuck their system requirements for windows 11.