LibreOffice adds voice to 'ditch Windows for Linux' campaign The LibreOffice project is preparing to cut some Windows support – and encourages users to switch to Linux. The Document Foundation, the organization that backs and guides development of LibreOffice since Oracle dropped the ball, has a strong point of view about the future. Some of it is very visible, in a blog post about the …
@Jou (Mxyzptlk)
"I'm on 64 bit Windows since Vista SP1. Was faster than XP on the same hardware"
If it was on the same hardware you must have been one of the few running the XP 64bit version. The issue with vista was how terrible it was internally. You could see that on any software package which advertised a minimum spec for any operating system (XP or 7) and a separate spec for double the memory on vista. Large copies were broken on vista too where (I think it was) 3gig files would effectively stall the copy and change from a few minutes to an insane length of time.
7 was a serious upgrade to vista and what the OS should have been.
On a similar note I installed Ubuntu on the aged out XP machine owned by one of my family members (32bit) and she got the speed boost and none of the vista problems she had with her much superior spec laptop. Eventually we upgraded the laptop to linux as well.
Windows XP 64 bit was not wide spread, the hardware support was too thin. I am more a gamer, so at home XP 64 bit did not make much sense. For Vista I simply doubled my RAM to 8 GB, and the rest was already fast enough. Result, for example: LAN copy speed ~100 MByte/s (thanks to SMB2 and otherTCP/IP improvements which came with Vista), whereas XP never got beyond 60 MB/s. For companies only a few I worked with used XP 64 bit for a few special tasks, the hardware was too expensive for normal stuff.
So you are comparing XP 32-bit running on a full 64-bit motherboard, with Vista 64-bit on the same motherboard etc.
Your comment about the RAM. Would seem to imply you weren’t, with XP, fully benefiting from the dual memory channels plus the additional memory would have reduced
Agree about the hardware, I got a second hand Fujitsu “professional” workstation with dual Xeon’s, it got sidelined when it couldn’t be upgraded to Win10 x64 - I ignored Vista, finally getting scrapped in 2022, when it was replaced by a quiet Ryzen 5 system that out performed it and didn’t suffer from fan roar.
"must have been one of the few running the XP 64bit version"
Well that's because 64 bit XP didn't arrive until 2005 (officially anyway, it was in the MSDN Technet packs a year or so earlier which made having XP 64bit somewhat of an "underground" thing). From around 2005, 64 bit was quite common for XP deployments. It was quite a common upgrade for me at the time to get around the 4GB RAM limit. Hardly anything that ran on XP 64bit was 64bit though. Certainly Office wasn't. 64 bit Office only became the norm very recently...mostly because of Outlook. Outlook didn't have a 64bit build forever...I think it first slimed into existence somewhere around 2013.
Personally, I was running 64 bit Windows on the "desktop" a lot earlier than that...I had Windows 2000 Advanced Server on an Itanium CPU. The motherboard, CPU and RAM were rescued from a water damaged server and I used Windows 2000 Advanced Server (totally legit license, honest) as a desktop OS for quite a long time.
The basics are there I thought, although the questions about knowledge of Linux were perhaps a little subjective.
Each stage of the quiz could do with some factual information though, a few sentences describing the way a Linux system does things might help. Also more detail on use cases: e.g. do you use an office package most days &c. Also some explanation of libre/proprietary licencing issues might help.
I agree that the final presentation of results is a little overwhelming. Perhaps a sort of spreadsheet table where each cell is a link to distros ranked for the particular criteria that the person rated as important?
Icon: It is a start, and has the considerable merit of actually existing.
"I agree that the final presentation of results is a little overwhelming"
Or underwhelming!
I got it to list several distros that it then couldn't recommend due to various criteria in my answers. If they couldn't be recommended, exclude them from the list. Then prune the answers to the top 3 or so.
They need to PICK ONE and recommend that one distro, whichever their Linux guys believe would be the easiest to install for someone with zero Linux knowledge.
Yeah all the distro warriors will be up in arms complaining that the reason there are so many is because everyone's needs are different blah blah blah, or mad because they think their pet distro is the one that should have been chosen. To that I say, SHUT UP!
It has been proven many times that choice is paralyzing for people - too much choice makes people want to avoid the choice at all - which in this context would mean continuing to use Windows 10. Even the author's recommendation of three choices is too much choice for people who will be predisposed to want to find a way to not make any choice at all. How does someone with no Linux experience properly decide?
No, just give them one. Maybe it isn't the "ideal" choice for their needs but being directed to the "wrong" distro isn't going to be what sinks or swims someone's potential attempt at ditching Windows. It will be the fact that they've been used to Windows for years, and what they're using won't be Windows. Even if some small fraction of people find that one distro unsuitable and would have liked another more and possibly stuck with Linux that number will be greatly outweighed by the people whose eyes glaze over when presented with too many choices about something they know nothing about and respond by making the choice not to try Linux at all.
The number of times I have quoted that in meetings.
My biggest bugbear - and a systemic failure of a businesses I have ever worked in over 35 years - is the inability to record non-decisions.
Now that sounds a little weird. but if it does, then maybe you aren't cut out for grown up management.
For the rest of us it means that when you *decide* you are sticking with MS, you capture the reasons. And you do this so that next year, when the question gets asked, you can show what has changed and therefore why the previous decision can change.
Otherwise you are doomed to do next year what you did last year because you don't think anything has changed.
"My biggest bugbear - and a systemic failure of a businesses I have ever worked in over 35 years - is the inability to record non-decisions.
Now that sounds a little weird. but if it does, then maybe you aren't cut out for grown up management."
I think it describes a lot of managers.
If a casual punter needs a new computer, the Pi 500 may be worth a look. The kit at £115 appears good value - except the couple of official 32GB μSD cards I have tested appear to have significantly slower write speeds than their 64GB alternatives (measure at 74 MB/s write 90 MB/s read - Command Queueing on).
The matching 15.6" monitor looks neat, but locally, a standard 24" FHD 100Hz 1ms Monitor with built in speakers is only about 2/3rds the price. People are complaining about the lack of an NVMe M.2 interface, but with desktop Pi5s we have noticed little practical difference for web and light office tasks.
I've got a Pi500 as my second PC, I use it with a 15" FHD screen I bought for about £80 in Aldi's middle aisle, it's an almost perfect computer for light office tasks and web use.
My only problem is I seem to have one of the models where only half the spacebar works reliably, so I have to hit space with my left thumb, not my prefered right thumb...
" ... People are complaining about the lack of an NVMe M.2 interface ... "
Then they don't know how to google: (Note: RPi 5 items)
At any rate, I have an RPi4 running Plex Media Server for my DVD Movies/TV series rips. For father's day, just got an RPi5 with dual NVMe hat so I can now put both of my NVMe 2T drives onto one device.
The RPi 4 had power issues when trying to connect 2 separate USB plugs with NVMe drives, so ended up having 1 connected to the RPi4 and the other one in my desktop with an NFS mount to the RPi4.
The complaints are that you can't use that with the keyboard-shaped 500. You can do it with the 5B, but when the 500 was designed, they didn't put an M.2 connector on the board and they didn't expose the connections to attach such a hat.
My solution to this would be to not buy a 500, buy a 5B instead, and plug in a keyboard. But then, I still don't understand why people like the keyboard units more than the SBCs, so there may be a reason why that's not their chosen solution. To anyone who has that preference, I'm still curious why and would appreciate hearing your reasons.
"But then, I still don't understand why people like the keyboard units more than the SBCs, so there may be a reason why that's not their chosen solution."
8/16 bit retro users? Some people just like the format of the computer being in the keyboard rather than in the screen for a near-all-in-one solution :-)
I don't understand why you've got a downvote for a genuine question.
I bought the Pi500 because it's the computer in the keyboard, it's ideally packaged to pop in a bag with a mouse and a Micro-HMDI cable and work anywhere there's a screen.
I also like how it's reminiscent of the home computers of my distant youth.
I think you've kind of proven the point by comparing apples and oranges.
With Windows you have one version and that's it - whether you're a home web surfer, gamer, office worker.
because if you're going to compare Linux with car varieties then you're only going to alienate new users further.
"They need to PICK ONE and recommend that one distro, whichever their Linux guys believe would be the easiest to install for someone with zero Linux knowledge."
If you work through it you will see that it caters for various levels of knowledge. Some options will lead to producing Zorin or Mint as top choices others to Devuan. In that respect it sort of works. It does need to weed out its habit of offering distros and then telling you it wouldn't recommend them and then, yes, prune it to the top three or so.
Why not a single choice? Well, the user might then go to find somebody to help and say it recommended Zorin and find the expert says they usually suggest Mint. If it's offered Mint as well that's fine, there's no conflict between chooser and expert, otherwise it makes confusion worse.
OK Donald
Another fine simple solution to a complex problem. The whole problem with modern IT is the "winner-takes-all" inherent property of the way our tech works. Choice, and sensible standards are the way to go to create a diverse eco-system of tech with real competition and choice.
Mussolini-boistering like your post just leads to ever more stupidity which leads to the strengthening of the tech-bros, monopolistic stranglehold we have today.
I can see dropping 32-bit support. That's a significant effort to maintain.
However, Windows 7 is not that different, and the reason several folks I know use Windows 7 is a) they want to get off the MSFT treadmill which IS THE SAME REASON THEY'RE USING LibreOffice and b) they need Windows and not Linux
Personally I need a Windows 7 lappie because Yamaha Diagnostics Tools 3 is VERY picky about what it runs on. It will not install on Windows 10/11, for instance, and as far as I know, there's no v4 that does.
Is Windows 7 THAT different in the APIs??? I guess it must be, if YDT3 requires it that hard...
The problem is newer versions of Windows constantly mess with the boot process, destroying your dual boot, and unless you know what you're doing, you're not going to get it back.
I just wouldn't use that laptop or PC for anything else - treat it as a dedicated, air-gapped box, never to be online again.
No, but there's a lot of badly written Windows code that in some ways fires in its own feet usually doing something silly. There's a lot of old software that runs flawlessly on Windows 11.
Raimond Chen blog is full of stories about Microsoft having to ensure badly written software by Fortune x00 companies still works regardless how silly were its developers.
Anyway having to interface with hardware may need specific drivers - the driver stack may evolve in ways that make older drivers no lomger working - especially if written "somehow" - and now Windows also flags and blocks a lot of drivers that have known security issues, since they can be used to attack the system.
No. Nobody ever has or ever will. It's that OS that everyone, hopefully including Microsoft, is content to not think about. If something is supported under 7 and 10, then 8 should probably run it, and if it doesn't, too bad. If something is supported on only one of those, then 8 might run it, you find out. It has the benefit of being out of support too, meaning we have even more reason to not think about it.
UI changes meant that almost all businesses decided to skip Windows 8, and it only stuck around for a couple years before 10 replaced it, so it's also one of the versions that had the least market share. Another reason for that is that Vista was unsuccessful, so many people who were buying new hardware had bought it when Windows 7 was new, meaning they didn't need to replace their hardware for something with 8 included. Unlike with Windows 11, there wasn't as much time between 7's release and 8's, so there was less replacement due to attrition.
I've got a W7 laptop, also kept for "software reasons", which had no Office suite - so I've just downloaded LibreOffice for that purpose!
Incidentally, a lot of Core2Duo machines have 4 DIMM slots, so will go up to 8 GB with 2G sticks. I don't think I've ever seen a 4G DDR2 stick, and I expect it would be worth more than the rest of the PC put together to someone who really needed it.
> Incidentally, a lot of Core2Duo machines have 4 DIMM slots, so will go up to 8 GB with 2G sticks.
Desktops, though.
I have a Core 2 Extreme, a quad-core, and yes, it maxes out at 8GB meaning it's still marginally useful... but not given the noise it makes, sadly.
Still, it was free, and I was very very grateful at the time. It made a fine Hackintosh.
But I have less use for a C2D desktop than I do for a C2D laptop, of which I have several, with lovely keyboards and lots of ports. One is even a convertible, and that's the DDR2 one.
*Very* few laptops have 4 *SO*-DIMM slots. I own a quad-core Thinkpad W520 which does, but it takes DDR3 and has 24GB in it already.
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It isn't like your existing version of Libreoffice will quit working on that Windows 7 laptop. Why do you care if Libreoffice isn't upgraded to the latest and greatest version when you've already accepted having an OS that hasn't been updated for half a decade?
Besides, "end of support" just means they won't test on Windows 7 or fix bugs that are found to affect only Windows 7 but not later versions. You can probably still update, though probably the automatic updates in the app will stop functioning to avoid the chance they break people's working installs.
The installer will check for OS version and refuse if it's too old. I just checked on a W2K virtual box so presumably they'll just move that up from Vista or wherever the limit currently is. But there's always https://downloadarchive.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/old/
Such as the Danish government's department for digital affairs. I am wondering if it's just coincidence that Libre Office's blog post came out 2 days after that Danish department announced their intention to deMSify themselves. There's no problem with that of course - well timed / coordinated publicity is good publicity.
Libre Office itself is perfectly capable. I use it. I even deploy it using Windows Group Policy (though their MSI's have been a bit broken in that regard of late). It even ticks the box for "not mucking around with the user interface too much and making user's life hard". The biggest challenge to its wider adoption isn't what Libre Office itself can do. It's that for those intent on running it on Linux in anything like a corporate environment for those users not thoroughly attuned to using and maintaining Linux (i.e. the majority), life can get hard, fast. And that if your org rolls Windows machines to solve those problems, MS Office is a very natural add-on.
In the Linux world, the app stack and OS are separately governed (and probably never talk). MS's advantage is that they're doing both the OS and the app stack. The difference shows up in adoption rates.
"In the Linux world, the app stack and OS are separately governed (and probably never talk)."
Opening Synaptic, the application I use to install programs and anything else on Devuan, the status bar tells me that there are 656546 packages available. Now that's not all applications because it includes libraries - e.g. the QGiS application brings in a whole load of its own libraries and even more if you install its map server. But the point is that this is a curated collection of applications put together to work together by the distro. I'm not sure that Windows has that level of integration.
For something not from the distro there are other solutions for combining the executable together with whatever underpinnings it needs, much as happens in the Windows world.
The timing in relation to the Danish announcement will be more a reflection of this being very much a concern in Europe at present as people are finally realising that being dependent on the whim of the USG is not a secure IT policy, even if it has taken a particularly whimsical POTUS to make them realise this. Denmark is, of course, more at risk from his whims than most although less so than the International Criminal Court.
600k+ application isn't the problem. Linux adoption and dominance has not happened despite a vast library of software, curated or otherwise.
One aspect of the problem is the very fact that the packages have to be curated in the first place. Linux suffers dreadfully from there being far too many ways to distribute software for it, hence the need for curation. "Stray off that curated reservation at your peril" is the message for the lay user. Most other OSes - including other major free ones - get software installation right.
Also I don't think you quite appreciate the level of integration between apps, Windows and AD. All of Edge, Chrome and Firefox can be controlled by GPOs in Active Directory, provided they're running on Windows. Linux, not so much. Linux achieves no such level of integration, neither with AD or a OSS equivalent, even if the component parts might theoretically be lying around the place. In fact at least two of these try to make the admin's life hard by offering things like DNS over https.
It is this kind of missing functionality plus all the other hoary well known problems in the Linux world that discourages Linux adoption on the desktop / laptop in a corporate environment. That is why few choose to use it at home, so few go on to pick Libre Office. Libre Office itself on Windows makes an awful lot of sense. Unfortunately, so too does MS Office.
You do realize that the "curated" software is just builds for the the distro's collection of software, that most of the distros use the same definitions for apt or RPM production of the builds, regardless of whether they're "mainstream" or downstream distros?
It isn't that the distros do massive changes to the software, with the exception of software that the distro's management consider core to their mission - that might have specific enhancements and custom code that other distros don't have. But something like the GNU Image Manipulation Program is all but identical for all Debian/Ubuntu distros, and again virtually identical for all distros branching off RedHat. The packaging rules for the different package managers change, but that is about all.
The main real difference in distro repositories and support lists has more to do with the philosophy and "morals" of the distribution, not the way the packages are maintained at source.
Of course I realise all that. I'm simply pointing out that none of that serves to make Libre Office (specifically, the whole end-user experience of using Libre Office on a Linux) desirable to the majority average computer use. And it's not the fault of Libre Office.
Libre Office can become more popular on Windows and Mac through publicity. It's not going to get substantially increased numbers of Linux users via publicity. It's already got 100% share of the Linux market (effectively - anyone using abiword?), so it needs Linux's user base to expand. But that seems most unlikely.
Having managed a fleet of around 4500 linux systems (VMs, Standalone HW, Clusters, gateways, dev/test/qa/prod, infrastructure storage etc) Umm, guess what mah frien? There be most excellent OPEN SOURCE solutions for fleet management that make that disaster from redmond look like utter crap.
The end users of those systems are most like day-to-day "grunt" employees of the company, even if they don't realize those services are runnning on Linux.
Linux on the desktop most certainly does have "fleet management" solutions available. If anything, those solutions are older than Microsoft's because the need for them is far from new; Microsoft just uses lock-in to make sure that once you're on Windblows, you're going to have some serious pain getting rid of it. The Linux versions, on the other hand, expect to be dealing with different distros for different services, and don't expect a monolithic deployment of Blah-Distro Servers like you're expected to roll everything on Windows Server nodes with the Microshill crowd.
ACTUALLY, there is another case in favour of Win10 32 bit, aside from expensive (SO-)DIMMs:
Your machine's processor is able to do 64 bits, but one or more peripherals have only 32 bit drivers.
If any of these peripherals is critical, or very expensive, you are stuck with Win10 32. And since Win10 32 will be supported in one way or another until ~2032 * , it behooves "The Document Foundation" to keep emiting 32 bit builds, lest some competitor (¿OnlyOffice? ¿OpenOffice?) captures that market share
* Approximate support table:
Regular Win10: Oct 2025
Win10 + ESU for plebs like us (or Win10 IoT 2021 for corpos who use it): ~ Oct 2026
Win10 + ESU for corpos: Oct 2028
Win10 LTSC 2019: ~2030
Win10 IoT 2021: ~2032
LibreOffice has matured, prompting the project to change its version numbering system last year, as we explained in 2023. Like Ubuntu, the project now emits semiannual releases. The current version is LibreOffice 25.2, which as the name suggests launched in February.
Golly. Linux Mint has just upgraded me to 6.4.7.2 ...
I've used LibreOffice for years and find Writer much, much easier to use than Word:
1) Tables don't keep deciding to join together if you want two tables that use the same style - only way to stop it, as documented on the MS site, is to insert an empty paragraph. Horrid practice when you\re trying to automatically flow content.
2) Space before and space after a table is a table property. Word requires it to be set on the paragraphs before and after the table. Again not good for layout, as the formatting ends up in the wrong place if the table is moved.
3) Rows split across a page break if columns in the row include "merge down" cells - the split happens in the cells that do not have the "merge down", even when "do not split row across page" is set.
I continually have to fight Word's instance to "extend selections" to "help" me select what it thinks I want to select - even with the settings configured for this not to happen. I selected what I selected because that's what I wanted selected...
Word used to be much better behaved that this, but the recent additions and "enhancements" to the automation just get in the way of someone who understands layout / editing.
Editor: Click, click, clack, <many hours more of typing>, ...
Clippy: "Ah, I can see what you're trying to do. Just give me a moment to reformat everything for you. If you don't like my results, just hit Ctrl-Z".
Editor: "WTF? That abomination is nothing like what I wanted! Time for Ctrl-Z"
At this point Word would crash as the changes had overrun the undo buffer, resulting in a dialog with a single OK button that read "Word has hit a problem and will now close, losing all your work".
Editor: "WTF? No, it's not ok"
An offline W7 PC is a very useful system for working on. No AI junk, no toxic upgrades, no recall, looks nice, easy to use, lots of software, supports USB and memory cards. What's not to like?
Luckily, older versions are available in the archive:
https://downloadarchive.documentfoundation.org/libreoffice/old/
For any Works or WP package, a 10 year old release will get the job done. Aside from proprietary format changes, how many new, worthwhile features are added nowadays? Most of us could be using a 10 year old OS and 10 year old software across the board, without any issues.
Windows 10 LTSC could be more widely available. And I would pay real cash to MS for a copy of W7 running in a user-invisible custom shell, suitably protected. Much better than anything they have put out since.
I tried it, giving answers that my hypothetical granny might choose, and got to a page that said
"I want to avoid systemd"
Cue Granny: what's a systemd? Did they misspell system? What should I do?
Distro chooser is a typical example of a Linux-related tool built by people deep in the Linux ecosystem who have lost perspective of the outside world.
Oh no, really?
Can they just not see that lots of people will already have been put off my having to choose a distro (“I thought I was choosing Linux…”). And the ones who stick around get questioned on their philosophical beliefs around init systems? Do they actually want to just alienate every potential convert?
Feels like the whole chooser should end with a set of questions on your personal take on Gnu/Linux naming and how you feel about Stallman. That should drive the last few away…
And if you choose 'avoid systemd' you get pointed at Devuan, no matter what your other choices are.
(I would suggest that MX linux might be a viable suggestion, and there are others
see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Linux_distributions_without_systemd )
Interestingly I ran it today in whay you might term granny mode and it didn't ask that. I rather thing you must have entered something that told it you knew more about Linux.
Either that or they've taken it out. I did give feedback saying that when I clicked on ni systemd on a more advanced search it would list it put Devuan at the top but then listed a whole lot more some of which it said it couldn't recommend because they had systemd. If that's what's happened they've solved the wrong problem because with other criteria it will list still list options and eliminate them on the basis of being, for instance, 64 bit only.
I read somewhere that 430 million Windows PC will be affected by the Windows 10 retirement and that these will all need to be culled. If Linux Mint can capture that market it will mean the end of Microsoft as we know it.
I suspect they will do one of two things: 1) extend update support for Windows 10 to give themselves more time to find an answer 2) modify Windows 11 so it will run on practically everything they previously said it wouldn't run on.
I believe 2 is also a possibility. Once the train starts moving they're finished.
It's more important for them to stay relevant than to earn a few bucks because they can still rely on businesses to buy Windows for quite some time. Once their relevance starts diminishing things will go downhill fast. It will also start affecting their Cloud sales, which are far more important to them.
I don't know where that number came from, but remember that many devices that don't run Windows 11 have broken since they were bought. Basically every machine released in the last seven years will support Windows 11, and businesses often replace user desktops more regularly than that. Some businesses might do a three-year or four-year replacement cycle for some reason, despite the fact that they're getting rid of perfectly functional equipment, but even those who sweat their hardware see a lot of attrition due to damage and will have bought plenty of machines since that date. That means a lot of computers that can't be updated are no longer in use by the places that would be most worried about it and therefore the most likely to switch to Linux if they had to to keep updates coming.
Remember also that Microsoft has extended updates for Windows 10. You just have to pay for it. Businesses who care about updates and don't want to replace their hardware have that choice as well. Probably a few of them will take it. I still predict that there will mostly be a wave of people updating to 11 at the last minute and another set of people who never update, even some who easily could but just don't want to, even as security updates end. If you want a lot of those people to switch to Linux, then you have to shout loudly, as various organizations have been doing, and make the process easy, which none of them have really done, and you have to do it quite soon. Some people will take this opportunity to try Linux and find they like it, but that's not going to be 430 million people even if I'm wrong about that number of computers being an overestimate.
There are tons of i7-2nd to 4th gen and i5-2nd to 4th gen out there which happily run Windows 10, though quad core recommended. If they have 16 GB of RAM even most games run fine (not 4k, and probably without raytracing 'cause not many who run that old CPU have a raytracing capable card). But they work flawless, with SSD fast enough.
That five year rule is, since Sandy Bridge, artificial and does not reflect the reality how long those machines work great without problems. Similar for AMD CPUs of the same time frame. It is an enforced planned obsolescence to keep businesses buying new machines 'round the five year mark. For private even ten years is not a problem any more since the really big performance steps of the CPUs were in the past, from my point of view up to Intel Sandy bridge. AMD with ZEN3 was the latest newer major performance step, but in comparison to the past not that big.
Of course, and those will work great. However, they are not as common in businesses as they are among home users, and businesses are more likely to do something organized about the end of support, whether that's installing Linux, buying patches for Windows 10, or getting new hardware. Home users may do all of those things too, but two other options are quite likely: break the checks on the Windows 11 installer to install that, which is much easier for them than it is for corporate IT because they'll only have to run manual steps on one machine rather than hundreds and no security audit is going to complain at them for having done it, or just stick with Windows 10 with no patches because they don't know or don't care about the risks.
If you want either group to switch to Linux, I think you'll have to be more active at getting them to do so given the many other options they'll consider. If you want to switch enough people to Linux that Microsoft really feels it, I think you have to convert many businesses.
I prefer Dell refurbs (Latitude or Precision...avoid Inspiron like the plague!). Currently running Mint on a Latitude 7480 with max RAM and M.2 drive.
Those older Dells are readily available as they're business surplus and generally well treated. I got mine from Goodwill for under $100. If you're "Linux-curious", it's nice to have a trial platform besides your daily driver machine. Once you decide Linux is good enough for you, you can install it on your main machine.
Totally agree. Pre-owned or refurbished is the way to go for Linux. Many businesses replace their computers whilst when they're written off but still good so you can pick up a perfectly good laptop for a pittance and install Linux Mint on it. Older hardware is usually better supported in Linux since it takes open-source developers time to write the driver software for it.
"But if Linux Mint acquires a quarter of the market it will shake Microsoft to its foundations."
I agree, but let's phrase that in a different but equally correct way:
"But if Linux Mint acquires half a billion new users and doesn't lose them within the next six months, it will shake Microsoft to its foundations."
That's not going to happen. Even if you try your absolute hardest, it's not going to happen, but most involved are not trying their absolute hardest. I am not either. I'll install Linux if requested, and I'll offer it if asked for options. People aren't asking, and when I suggest it, they aren't requesting I install it. They have asked me to install Windows 11 though, and most of the time, the computer they have does support it. This is why I'm less certain about that number of unsupported computers. There is a large number of machines that can support Windows 11 but are still running Windows 10 (let's call that X). To know how many machines in active use are going to be cut off, we need to know the value of X, but it won't show up in surveys of OS usage so we can only estimate it, and the most reliable way to estimate it is to have figures about which processors and TPMs were used in machines sold in the 2017-2020 period which I don't have and I don't really want to read.
Although these efforts to prevent e-waste are admirable, they have hardly any reach to anyone other than computer enthusiasts.
Sure, those folk may help Mom, Sis or Gran setup Linux (and become support tech forever after), but the numbers are tiny.
At some point my elderly next door neighbour is going to ask me why her laptop keeps telling her she is at risk and needs to upgrade.
I will direct her to the local computer store who will help her. Yep, they’ll sell her a new laptop with win11 on it and migrate her data.
This is the reality for the vast majority of home computer users, many of whom barely use them, preferring mobile devices. The computer is there for study, to do some accounts or perhaps a hobby or to use some really old software.
For many of these people, Linux may be just fine if setup right.
It may even be less confusing than going from win10 to 11.
They’ll never hear about it though.
I could stop 100 people in the street and ask them what they think about Linux and I’d be unlikely to get any other response but “what??”
Most folk don’t even know what version of windows they are running: “it came with the computer” and many won’t know what an operating system is.
Still more are unaware that the internet isn’t the page that Internet Explorer shows them when they start it.
I’d love to say things were different, but they aren’t.
It’s really all about mobile devices these days. Super simple.
Years ago, I was supporting our product (often used by volunteers) - When I asked what version of Windows they had, I was often told "97" - When I explained that was MS Word, they sometimes had no idea and would say something like "No it's Windows, it's what I use all the time". I'm retired, the product is still sold by the new owners and will run on Windows 11.
Absolutely, if setup correctly.
If you don’t mind being sysadmin and setting it all up for someone, you can lock it down tight so easily.
The trick is finding a distro that isn’t bloated in the first instance to save some time.
Things have improved on that front. There was a time when distros were shipping multiple apps that did the same thing.
Linux Mint with the cinnamon desktop is what I’d choose for a windows user.
I use it myself on my gaming rig, which is pretty much just for steam so any distribution would do.
It’s the only place I use Linux desktop these days. macOS works for me and has done for 15 years.
I have tried to use Linux for work (digital accessibility specialist) but without access to PAC 2024 (PDF Accessibility Checker) and software for remediating PDFs to a level they will pass PAC 2024 (using NVDA speech reader would be good too), it's not something I could do yet. Hopefully in the future things may well change. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd be happy to hear. I did write up an article of my attempt if anyone is interested https://www.makethingsaccessible.com/guides/accessibility-testing-using-linux/
My son was running W10 on an old i5 ex-office refurb and it won't upgrade to W11.
That old SFF is perfectly usable still other than the absence of a TMP2 after the addition of the usual 4Gb Ram and an SSD.
Other than gaming that machine after 10yr is still a viable computer and to send it to landfill seems wasteful.
So that old SFF machine is now running Mint Cinnamon with no issues at all, potentially good for another 5yr use (maybe more).
And I can't even give it away. The boy needs a laptop now so he's using Mum's old Macbook Pro.
I've no use for this SFF machine but I don't want to dump it. I can strip it for memory and the SSD but seems such a waste to throw the rest.
The fear of running anything but MS is very sad. Most mainstream Linux distros now are very easy to use but people don't like change.
Windows XP drove me to explore BSD and Linux, and I ended up settling on Kubuntu. Later, Windows 10 drove my nonagenarian great aunt to try Linux, and she used it until she passed away. There are a couple of Windows-only apps that I need for a project now, so I purchased a Windows 11 license last month. To me, Windows 11 is about 80% bloat and 20% functional OS, but that isn't the worst part. Installing Windows 11 is like fencing there are a number of "let us have your data so we can sell it" thrusts, while the user is trying to be sure to click the effective "hell no!" What I thought was the ultimate middle finger to the customer was the question about data for targeted ads. That really gives the game away. MS is about monetizing the users even after charging them for a hobbyist-grade OS.
...because there is no simple alternative.
If LibreOffice and one of the main distros pulled together with a couple of other must-have apps & Wine, and released a single install called 'Linux 11' - and then everyone rallied around that single message - then it might have a chance; but expecting people to dive into the squalling maelstrom of Linux distros where no two people ever give a consistent recommendation is just not going to cut it. And arguing that different people have different needs and so require different OSes utterly misses the point that the OS should not be the focus of the average user experience but the gateway to it - what are needed are apps that cohere around a successful distro.
This story reminded me to give LibreOffice a try after using OnlyOffice for a few months. OnlyOffice annoyingly wouldn't save the scroll position in spreadsheets if the page had frozen panes. Since the spreadsheet I use most is a daily cycling log with a frozen summary at the top I was having to scroll further and further with each passing day to get to the current date. That behavior has gone unfixed despite being on their support forum a year and a half ago.
LibreOffice Calc handles it just fine, and I prefer the default fonts.
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