cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/15988326
Windows 10 will reach end of support on October 14, 2025. The current version, 22H2, will be the final version of Windows 10, and all editions will remain in support with monthly security update releases through that date. Existing LTSC releases will continue to receive updates beyond that date based on their specific lifecycles.
Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows-10-home-and-pro
You can recommend what you like. As soon as Windows 10 can’t play the latest games I’m off to Linux.
Eat my whole ass, Microsoft.
Come on over, the water is fine. I switched to Pop_OS a few months back for the gaming rig and Proton+Steam works almost flawlessly. Older titles sometimes have hiccups, but so far ive only been blocked on one title.
Yep it’s pretty easy and my computer runs so much faster than Windows on the same machine.
Windows running on a VM under linux runs faster than windows on bare metal …
I just switched from W10 to Pop_OS and have had lots of trouble. I’m trying to stick with it but from audio glitches to many games not running unless I find a random CLI arg that someone mentioned on Reddit, to my UI freezing, it’s not been an easy switch.
Any chance you have an nvidia card? Nvidia for a long time has been in a worse spot on Linux than AMD, which interestingly is the inverse of Windows. A lot of AMD users complain of driver issues on Windows and swap to Nvidia as a result, and the exact opposite happens on Linux.
Nvidia is getting much better on Linux though, and Wayland+explicit sync is coming down the pipeline. With NVK in a couple years it’s quite possible that nvidia/amd Linux experience will be very similar.
it’s not a drop in replacement and anyone looking for one will be disappointed by literally anything available.
You’re learning an entirely new operating system, don’t think of it as an upgrade, this is a time sink. You’ll be under the hood more than on the road for the foreseeable future, but what’s the alternative?
I’ve seen a lot of people recommending Pop_OS lately. Out of curiosity, what’s the benefit over something like Mint?
I’ll try to offer an answer to both you and @natedog526.
Pop came heavily recommended for a while because it’s relatively light-weight for a modern desktop, had some fresh UI ideas with its COSMIC plugins for Gnome, and ships with some nice bonuses for gamers like built in Steam and Nvidia setup scripts.
Unfortunately, it’s become pretty stale lately. I still use it daily on my main desktop, but lately it’s becoming harder and harder to keep from hopping to something new. A few pain points include Pop shipping older version of some important software like the Kernel, Wine, and Mesa, persistsant audio bugs like the other user mentioned, and basically no support for Wayland at the moment.
A lot of these are because System76 has been heavily focused working on its COSMIC desktop, which should function a full standalone desktop environment instead of Gnome with duct tape. It’s looking forward to seeing it which has so far kept me from switching, but with no release date and other distros offering what Pop offers, it’s harder and harder to stay put.
If iRacing and my other sim racing gear worked with Linux I’d make the switch asap. I already have popOS on another hard drive and everything other than iRacing has worked well
Yup, similar boat but with planes instead of cars. Most inputs Linux can support on a single usb device is 86 or so, my throttle alone has well over 150 buttons on it. Add in all the stuff for my sim cockpit (probably around 1000 buttons), my haptic feedback chair, and then VR… as much as I’d like to use Linux, I don’t think it’d be possible for the foreseeable future for me to switch.
We need a successful replacement to DirectX for this to happen.
Look how desperate they are now for their web browser, imagine when people start abandoning Windows because there are other options that work just as well. I can’t wait.
Honestly even the as-is directX with Wine is already quite good. With Vulkan, game over :-)
Wine doesn’t do DirectX. A wine environment set up for gaming uses DXVK or VKD3D to translate everything to Vulkan.
We already do?
DXVK and VKD3D have been translating DirectX 9-12 to Vulkan for a while now, allowing DirectX games and applications to run on hardware and/or operating systems that don’t support DirectX.
Intels ARC GPUs don’t even support DirectX on a hardware level, like it’s just straight up not there. Intels drivers instead just translate it to Vulkan, and their at times insane FPS boosts from driver updates was due to them improving that translation and getting closer to 1:1 performance.
At times, yes. But at most times, no. Certain games can capitalize on ARC and I was just as enthusiastic as everyone else when it first started making the rounds. But theres a reason the cards haven’t caught on and most people seem to rely on them more for offloading things like streaming and AV1 encoding/decoding
Switched to arch linux last november, didn’t had to launch my backup VM Win10 at all. I even managed to play at StarCitizen with better performance than under Win 10…
Just wow the progress of Linux, Wine & co since my last linux try (Ubuntu, around 2010).
I just need now to find a linux way for my music stack and all the VST (my steinberg usb card is recognized and play properly oO) and Windows will be history at home…
Yeah ive also had s Star Citizen running in Arch. My setup didnt support game updates though so every update needed a complete redownload of the entire game which got old real fast.
Also had Microsoft Flight Simulator running very well too which is peak irony. At first there was issues with satellite terrain and imagary as the networking was broken but a Proton update actually fixed that.
Im incredibly impressed on the type of heavy duty window games ive got working in linux, some working very well others with slight occasional issues.
Linux gaming isnt perfect but windows has never been either. Ive had plenty of experience over the years with some games just not running properly or at all in windows even though they should.
Ive found many older games generally run better in Linux now in respect to modern windows, despite the compatibility layers.
It’s funny seeing this every couple of years. People get up in arms about something with Windows, some switch to Linux because they outgrew Windows and the time was right. By now I think you guys could be primary source of Linux users.
Yeah, I’m guilty of this tbh. It’s just the massive unknown of leaving something you’ve been so close to for literally the majority of my life.
It’s scary!
It’s little grievances that eventually pile up and one day you’ll just have had enough and switch.
Linux can play most games nowadays. You can check if your games are compatible and to what extend they are not here https://www.protondb.com/
Uncertainty, really.
What distro works with my setup: 3700x and rtx 4090?
Folks will say arch.
But honestly any modern Linux system with 3rd party drivers will work. Mint pop_os arch Manjaro Debian Ubuntu etc
I’m running a 1660 and an i5 64xx on kubuntu 24.04 Granted that stuff is older but you’ll have the same experience.
Unless you’re running the absolute bleeding edge… You’ll not have a lot of problems.
*Ymmv of course but majority of folks won’t have issues.
That was my choice too. I made the jump to Mint earlier this year and couldn’t be happier. It took a little effort to get updated GPU drivers, and my games sometimes need an extra CLI argument added, but those things have been pretty quickly and easily found on the Mint forums, Ubuntu forums, or ProtonDB comments.
If you had any real intention of making the shift, you’d have done so already. Protip: You know I’m right!
The ‘as soon as Windows 10 can’t x I’m off to Linux!’ refrain is so routine in our circles it’s practically a meme. All someone says when they pontificate like this is that their true priority is can kicking rather than action.
I really want to see the EU force Microsoft to release a stripped down version that continues to support older hardware.
Shouldn’t they just support Linux more? Maybe fund some driver development but otherwise - win?
I’m not too familiar with that side of things but I do believe they do. My understanding is that some organizations are set up as nonprofits and they contribute to the development of Linux.
Some European governments also use foss software for things like email and office.
But it’s easier to throw darts at a big company than lots of small things that add up to something big.
Because a bunch of government and business uses 10 and they really don’t want “Recall AI” in there for a plethora of reasons.
A devastating amount of computer hardware is about to be e-wasted because they decided to drop support for anything older than roughly 2017/2018.
It’s an arbitrary limitation as people have succeeded in forcing it to work on much older hardware that still works well enough for your avg person.
Additionally, windows used to be a tool now it’s a platform for them to essentially market any number of things and user privacy appears to be the least important thing on the table.
The only reason we don’t see mass adoption of Linux has been 4 decades of software development and marketing that let’s them continue to wear their crown.
A regulatory party needs to humble them and return windows to being a tool.
Imagine if the gasoline companies one day announced that they will be changing gas so only cars bought in the last 5 years or so could refuel.
Now imagine if to buy a car you had to tolerate cameras and other forms of tracking your telemetry just to get to work and feed yourself.
Lunacy yes? They took the “my” out of my computer.
Why should they have to support Windows 10 when Linux would run fine on your ‘old’ machine? That really puts the ‘yours’ back in your computer, no need for a company to do it for you.
Imagine if the gasoline companies one day announced that they will be changing gas so only cars bought in the last 5 years or so could refuel.
They’ve already effectively did this, and by they I mean the US government mandated it. 5% ethanol has been mandated since 2006, and 10% since 2012. If your car is too old (lots of 90s cars) you’ll have to find a gas station that has ethanol free fuel.
The real thing stopping mass adoption of Linux is that few people want to fiddle around with their machines to that degree. For the vast majority of users, it just needs to run and be able to run whatever programs are needed, and the easier it is to do so, the better.
Now imagine if to buy a car you had to tolerate cameras and other forms of tracking your telemetry just to get to work and feed yourself.
Sorry to be the bearer of depressing news, but that’s basically already happening in new cars.
https://jacobin.com/2024/03/car-spying-insurance-surveillance-data/
It already exists. Most of the requirements that break with current W10 machines are artificial and can be removed at install time with rufus (memory requirement, secure boot, TPM2, microsoft account).
Still not a solution; you should not have to fight against your OS design choices that much.
I have been running Linux for some time now, still had a Windows partition for gaming. Then I switched the motherboard and windows decided I no longer had a key for it… I stopped playing most of the windows exclusive games. Since last week I can’t even boot anymore, something about missing drivers. Spent a day trying to fix it. Today I decided fuck it and I’m just leaving it behind! It makes no sense wasting so much energy on a vastly inferior OS that actively tries to fight me.
Then I switched the motherboard and windows decided I no longer had a key for it
The reason for this is that Windows builds an identifier based on the hardware of the machine on which it is installed. When that identifier doesn’t match, it throws a flag that says “Hey now …” I think that you still get a couple of “honor system passes” before the installed OS enforces anything.
Once that gets enforced, you can call Microsoft Clearinghouse, “I upgraded my hardware,” and they’ll give you a new key to enter.
Whereas on Linux I recently upgraded the motherboard on my machine from a B350 to a B550, stripping it down to it’s parts and rebuilding. Different network chip, audio chip, WiFi and Bluetooth, etc, etc. 6 SSDs plugged back in in a shuffled order.
Linux booted and worked first time, adjusting which drivers it used automatically, mounting all the drives in their original locations. Similar thing when I upgraded my GPU. Admittedly the old one was AMD, same as the new one, but there was about 4 or 5 generations between them. CPU upgrades too.
I’ve got a real machine of Theseus here. I think my case and my heatsink is all that’s left from the original.
…oh…and the OS.
Windows will do the exact same thing. It’ll even boot and run just fine, only telling you that Windows isn’t activated. And you can get vendor support if you need it. I had a Windows system that started as XP and got upgraded and passed around among newer and newer hardware up to Windows 11 with nary a problem.
Apparently there is 2 types of Windows licences. The ones that are bound to the hardware and ones that aren’t. If you bought a PC with preinstalled Windows, it’s probably the first and you wont get any new keys.
I think you’re right that OEM licenses are more strict on certain hardware changes, as in they wouldn’t give you a pass on a single mainboard change - but you would still get a key from clearinghouse. As far as I’m aware, all retail and OEM keys are hardware bound. KMS/MAK are not.
Steam (use Proton Experimental for compatibility, some games you have to force compatibility in settings but that’s just ticking a box)
Lutris for non-Steam games
Wine for Windows apps
You’ll never need Windows again (unless you want to do music production/DJing)
Why to you need Windows for music production? Reaper works fine on Linux, so does Bandlab.
No Traktor compatibility for DJs. Good luck getting professional midi controllers to work right. No FL compatibility. I’m talking professional grade shit here, not your foss hobbyist apps that your bedroom producer uses to make shitty beats. Hell, even LMMS, which is MADE for Linux can’t even get plug-ins to work. Linux needs to step up their game on the music front.
I installed Linux Mint for the first time the other day and I’m thoroughly enjoying myself.
Thanks M$ for getting me to enjoy my pc again, as a Linux.
But I don’t want to buy all new hardware! Thought MS was sustainable. Instead MS is BS.
