As the Windows 10 EOL date is close I was wondering what fellow Linux users thoughts about it are.
Are you helping open minded people making the switch to Linux? If yes, which distro are you using? Are you using resources like endof10.org?
Or are you using the the opportunity to get your hands on some cheap hardware for your homelab? Are you keeping an eye on special websites or just ebay (or your local equivalent)? Are you talking with local companies to get the hardware directly from them?
Or are you just observing and enjoy your peace of mind because you switched already to Linux before?
Whatever it is, we are very interested to hear your stories concering this interesting time.
I hosted an endof10.org event at my local public library. Advertised like crazy, posting flyers around town, posting online, etc. I had over 30 USB installers ready to go with Debian 13. I was worried that I was advertising too much and wouldn’t have room for everyone.
Only 2 people showed up, and neither were prepared to go through with an install. In a town with well over 70k people and a major university, I expected more.
Now I’m thinking an event like this would only be viable in a major metropolitan area.
In my circle of friends and family, I only knew of one person who was faced with the Windows 10 dilemma, and he chose to purchase new hardware (granted he’s nearly 80 years old).
Yeah nobody in real life really cares about this. Anyone techie enough has already replaced their system and runs Win11, or has already switched to Linux themselves.
Anyone not techie enough doesn’t care and will continue using Win10 (or just follow the Windows nagging and buy a new PC from Best Buy).
Unfortunately the average person doesn’t care about this stuff. Good on you for putting on the time and effort though.
Why Debian? Why not Mint?
Debian is a stable operating system and as user friendly as mint once you get past the installation.
Mint also uses a Ubuntu base but Debian has better quality of packages and is less likely to break.
LMDE is also a good option in this case
Yeah Debian is stable, but it also doesn’t come with an easy to use app store or pre-installed codecs for multimedia.
The installation process isn’t exactly user friendly either. And if you plan to use BTRFS with Timeshift for easy snapshot creation, you have to do some pretty technical stuff.
And finally, there’s stable and stable. Linux Mint being Ubuntu based is already VERY stable, but you still get fairly recent packages. With Debian you have to wait much longer for the latest software.
Wdym not user friendly? I use Debian everyday and the stuff you were talking about dates back to the bullseye days.
Trixie is a lot more user friendly and even includes the calamares installer now which is a GUI installer that’s similar to mint’s one
It also comes with gnome software and you can enable flatpaks with 2 commands. I don’t see how that’s not user friendly in any way.
Of course nonfree software is a different case but you can always use snap or flatpak for it
I installed it recently in a VM to check the latest release and the instalation process is not as user friendly as Mint.
For everything else though I guess you’re right. But Mint has more quality of life stuff.
Just use the live installer, it includes the calamares installer which is as simple as installation in mint.
The crazy thing is that Windows 11 may feel more foreign than Linux Mint would have. It depends what he uses his computer for. My guess is the web and maybe printing.