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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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…
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.
Don’t let this hold you back.
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.
use wine or proton
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
I am so ready to abandon Windows on my laptop. The only software I need that doesn’t run on Linux or have an equivalent Linux option is Serato DJ Pro. Literally the only thing keeping Windows in the house.
I’m stuck on Fusion 360. So annoying to have that one doorstop from freedom.
Excel is the most important tool I need for my 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.
Librecalc isn’t that great and has some compatibility issues. Excel is the industry standard.
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
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.
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.
IIRC there is browser support for excel
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 has LibreCalc. It’s free and there’s a Windows version you can try.
Why 2010, is it cause of 64bit processors?
I believe it’s TMP 2.0 support
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.
Alright, what do people like for gaming? And can I play helldivers on it?
For gaming you can just use steam. You can see which game works and the corresponding distributions/configurations on ProtonDB; Helldivers 2 get’s a GOLD status (https://www.protondb.com/app/553850).
https://remedybg.itch.io/remedybg
I’m currently using this software, what kind of replacements do I have for it on Linux, that have an actual GUI, and not just command line?
There are probably loads of debugging software on Linux, also probably the one you are using will run just fine through wine.
What if I want to develop for Linux?
If anyone is interested to try out Linux distros, you can do it in your web browser at https://distrosea.com/
If you bought your computer after 2010, there’s most likely no reason to throw it out.
Frist of all, how dare yo u
The average retail store where I live is still selling computers with 6+ years old CPUs as “gamer edition”.
I just toss it in a lake so the fish can have internet.
Coral habitat
Corel draw joke in there somewhere
Ain’t no coral in lakes!
Technicalities
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.
Came to Lemmy while my disk manager is processing my new partition.
If it goes well, I’m switching today.
So, probably some time early tomorrow morning. Because I’m not great with reading instructions.
Edit: it’s still processing. It feels like it shouldn’t take this long to partition…
if you are shrinking or modifying an existing partition to make room, it will take quite a while
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 still think they’re going to push the date back.
no more security updates
For those which need to use Windows, here three mandatorio FOSS apps (the best IMHO)
- hellzerg Optimizer to eliminate bloat- and spyware
- WindHawk for those which don’t like this terrible childish Fisher Price UI of Windows 11
- Portmaster to monitor and if needed blocking unwanted traffic and telemetries (optional paid SPN service)
With these you can use Windows 11, showing the middlefinger to M$
What distro would be good for an old (coming up to ten years) Windows 10 under-TV box with a GTX870? Its job is basically to boot straight into big picture mode with no login screen and be operated by a PS4 controller, but I figure I can’t just keep it on Win10 without security patches.
if your using to watch tv try kodi or osmc or another media OS i have a ras pi running osmc and i never had a issue and im sure you could get a ps4 controller to work an if its for games i dont know any maybe bazzite
Oh sorry I edited out the word Steam by mistake.
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.
My PC had been running like shit for a while and I was already weighing up options for replacing it, when I got the popup message from MS about Windows 10 expiring, and how my only option was to dump the PC. So I installed Linux out of pure spite. Runs like a dream now. Thanks MS!
