Why is everyone so sure that W10 support ending will have its users stampede towards Linux? I think most users don’t care about support and will happily run an outdated OS. They’ll probably switch to Apple if they are concerned with that. Am I being too pessimistic?
I think most users don’t care about support and will happily run an outdated OS.
This is precisely what happened every time a previous edition of Windows met end of support, with most users only moving to the current version by way of buying a new name-brand PC because their old one either finally broke or, more likely, because it became so loaded down with malware that it was subsequently unusable.
The majority of home users are non-nerds who only barely tolerate their computer at the best of times, click off error messages without reading them, and are quite likely to ignore any pleas from Microsoft to upgrade or buy a new computer as long as the prompts are dismissable and don’t go as far as fully locking them out of using their machine.
These users will overwhelmingly have a “go to the store and buy it” mentality; they will not migrate to Linux. Rather, they will march to Best Buy or go to Amazon and buy a new PC with Windows 11 already on it, or maybe a small subset of them will work themselves up to being angry enough to switch to a Mac.
Yeah some people for sure will come to Linux, and that’s good. Maybe that PewDiePie video (as much as I don’t like it) will have some impact too.
The biggest hump is probably video games, even I do most of my gaming on Windows. I guess Valve is making really good progress there, but I don’t think we’ll see mainstream Linux native game development any time soon.
Also, sounds like there are some cool people at your university!
Heck yeah! I hear a lot of people go to Mint as their first Linux distribution. I don’t know what the experience is like now, but it’s probably good for newcomers. I think EndeavourOS is another good one. Right now I’m fully invested in NixOS, but it’s not beginner-friendly at all. I think it’s the best OS out there right now, though, so feel free to check it out!
It doesn’t help that win10 support ending doesn’t mean your device will immediately die. It means that you’ll probably face some kind of consequences at some point in the following year and years to come, which is too hand-wavey for most people.
Why is everyone so sure that W10 support ending will have its users stampede towards Linux? I think most users don’t care about support and will happily run an outdated OS. They’ll probably switch to Apple if they are concerned with that. Am I being too pessimistic?
This is precisely what happened every time a previous edition of Windows met end of support, with most users only moving to the current version by way of buying a new name-brand PC because their old one either finally broke or, more likely, because it became so loaded down with malware that it was subsequently unusable.
The majority of home users are non-nerds who only barely tolerate their computer at the best of times, click off error messages without reading them, and are quite likely to ignore any pleas from Microsoft to upgrade or buy a new computer as long as the prompts are dismissable and don’t go as far as fully locking them out of using their machine.
These users will overwhelmingly have a “go to the store and buy it” mentality; they will not migrate to Linux. Rather, they will march to Best Buy or go to Amazon and buy a new PC with Windows 11 already on it, or maybe a small subset of them will work themselves up to being angry enough to switch to a Mac.
We will get thousands more new users at least and I saw a poster in my local university about a install linux on your pc event.
Yeah some people for sure will come to Linux, and that’s good. Maybe that PewDiePie video (as much as I don’t like it) will have some impact too.
The biggest hump is probably video games, even I do most of my gaming on Windows. I guess Valve is making really good progress there, but I don’t think we’ll see mainstream Linux native game development any time soon.
Also, sounds like there are some cool people at your university!
I ran XP for years after, Win 7 until 2.5 yrs ago, and bumped my current laptop back to 10 immediately.
Soon enough I’ll be changing it to Mint tho 'cause shit is real out there now.
Heck yeah! I hear a lot of people go to Mint as their first Linux distribution. I don’t know what the experience is like now, but it’s probably good for newcomers. I think EndeavourOS is another good one. Right now I’m fully invested in NixOS, but it’s not beginner-friendly at all. I think it’s the best OS out there right now, though, so feel free to check it out!
I played with a couple of flavours in the early 2000s but stopped when I began university.
It doesn’t matter much in the end
It doesn’t help that win10 support ending doesn’t mean your device will immediately die. It means that you’ll probably face some kind of consequences at some point in the following year and years to come, which is too hand-wavey for most people.