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The end of Windows 10 is approaching, so it's time to consider Linux and LibreOffice (blog.documentfoundation.org)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/linux@programming.dev
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The countdown has begun. On 14 October 2025, Microsoft will end support for Windows 10. This will leave millions of users and organisations with a difficult choice: should they upgrade to Windows 11, or completely rethink their work environment?

The good news? You don’t have to follow Microsoft’s upgrade path. There is a better option that puts control back in the hands of users, institutions, and public bodies: Linux and LibreOffice. Together, these two programmes offer a powerful, privacy-friendly and future-proof alternative to the Windows + Microsoft 365 ecosystem.

The move to Windows 11 isn’t just about security updates. It increases dependence on Microsoft through aggressive cloud integration, forcing users to adopt Microsoft accounts and services. It also leads to higher costs due to subscription and licensing models, and reduces control over how your computer works and how your data is managed. Furthermore, new hardware requirements will render millions of perfectly good PCs obsolete.

This is a turning point. It is not just a milestone in a product’s life cycle. It is a crossroads.

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[–] 8 points 1 year ago (7 children)

You may be getting bored of the posts but this is a rare opportunity to mass drive Linux adoption and break many people’s dependence on Microsoft.

Even if it’s 0.1%, there’s 1.4 billion Windows 10 machines out there. A million+ new Linux users would be great progress.

If you’re exhausted, just scroll on by. But if you’re a fan and user of FOSS, you should be giving these posts a quick upvote and move on with your day rather than be negative and dissuading the popularisation on Linux.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago* (6 children)

    It is fricking not, though, that's my point.

    I have heard exactly zero normies talk about this. Nobody cares. Just like nobody cared when Windows 7 ended support. People just... kept using it. Today Windows 7 is as high up the Steam hardware survey as Linux Mint.

    Windows 10 doesn't shut down in October, it just... stops receiving security patches for free. Anybody clueless enough to not have migrated or stuck there for hardware reasons either already mitigated the issue or does not care. This is Linux's Y2K moment. Everybody is expecting this big shift to be a moment and it's really not going to be.

    So I'm getting exhausted for nothing, which just makes it more annoying. Not a single normie space is even thinking about this. This is 100% Linux users talking to other Linux users about this big game-changing moment that's never gonna happen. The EoL day will come, a couple of tech outlets will run a piece saying "hey, MS ends Windows 10 official support" and maybe a listicle of things to do ("1. Move to Win11, 2. Pay Windows for patches 3. Move to another OS")...

    ...and nothing will happen.

    We'll all be here and we'll all quietly stop talking about it and all this friction generated by this delusional hype will just fizzle out.

    At the start of the process I was mildly excited, not about the influx of Windows 10 users, which was obviously not going to be a thing, but about maybe the hype leading to Linux development spaces focusing on long overdue work to ease that transition in time for the deadline. That didn't really happen, so now we're all just advertising this weird narrative to each other multiple times a day.

    The quiet acknowledgement that... well, yeah, it won't happen, but don't break kayfabe just in case there's a Windows guy looking, just reinforces that point. I would much rather have spent all this energy addressing WHY it won't happen, or how to address the work that is needed to make it happen. I'd argue THAT is what a "fan and user of FOSS" should be pushing the community to do. In that, you know, it may actually work.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    I’ve helped two “normies” movie this week because they reached out after they saw the chatter on social (Instagram of all places).

    This topic seems to be causing you some stress for something that probably doesn’t have a big impact on you personally.

    This isn’t going to be a tidal wave as change is slow. People are hyping it because hype drives attention and being hopeful and positive drives change better than negativity and pessimism.

    Again, just scroll past the posts rather than engage if the content isn’t what you’re interested in.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    It doesn't have a big impact on anybody. Which is the point. The friction IS the impact.

    The hype drives attention if you're targeting the people that don't already know. That's not what's happening, regardless of your impromptu Instagram IT advice anecdotal experience.

    Hype driving attention also doesn't work if the product you're hyping doesn't do the thing it needs to do the way the people you're marketing it at need it to.

    Acknowledging either of those things is not negativity or pessimism. If we're talking about pushing for open source software as a community then denying or ignoring the practical issues is not helpful. OSS isn't a religion where you proselitize, facts be damned. It's meant to be a project for an alternative way of handling software development. That video I linked is not an attack, or a bummer, it's a hopeful sign that contributors and developers often have more clarity on the situation and the work left to do than the user-level advocates and activist forum posters.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Let people be excited about this if they want, I don't think it will matter that much tbh.

    Let other people suggest Linux to their friends as an alternative, maybe some of them stick to using it, while others just conclude it's crap and move on.

    You should really wonder why you get so upset from this though, it seems to cause you real harm that people might be wrong on the internet.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    I don't need to wonder. I get "so upset" because I hang out here a bunch and it's boring and repetitive to see the same posts every single day. Especially when they're kinda weird, wrong and self-defeating.

    I'm also not super inclined to letting the Linux/OSS community play the "you're mad at people being wrong on the Internet" card. Holy crap, is this place not the place to do that with any self-righteousness or moral high ground. In a conversation about lack of self-awareness that may be the biggest instance yet.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I've been using Linux since 98 and never have I ever seen it in so many conversations. 18,000 windows games now run. Distros like Bazzite and the Steam OS are getting kids into Linux. My son... Windows die hard that he was just told me he is not only running Linux but has canceled all streaming services and is hosting his own server. There's never been a better time to help people get into the fold.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    The time I point people at is the early Ubuntu drops when Linux was getting easy to intall, computers were simple to build and magazines would sometimes just pop up in stores with a Linux install CD in the cover. That's the time I remember more normies suddenly gaining awareness of Linux as an option.

    But yeah, I don't have a problem with any of the stuff you said.

    It's just all unrelated to Windows 10 end of support.

    Steam OS and Bazzite are way more relevant than it. Because they fix problems for a subset of users who are mainly focused on gaming.

    They don't do it fully, and not for all users, but yeah, that stuff will move Linux from 1.5% of the Steam survey to 3-5% eventually. That WILL move the needle to some extent.

    Now if you did that for Adobe users, video editors, graphic designers, people who HAVE to use Microsoft Office, people who only play Fortnite, people with zero capacity to troubleshoot, people who rely on commercial software with no Linux ports in general, people who have Nvidia cards and want to use Game Mode, people who use other specialized hardware that isn't currently well supported...

    ...those things will move the needle.

    "My ancient copy of Windows 10 I use as a Chromebook is no longer getting security patches" is, by itself, less of an event than any of those. That's my entire point.

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