Switching to the Linux operating system offers convenience and economy. Upgrading to Linux is free, and you can install it on your existing hardware to replace Windows.
The irony with Microsoft business decision here seems limitless. 10-14-25 is the date Windows 10 will no longer be officially supported. This just so happens to also be the date for International E-Waste day as well as KDE's birthday. To me this is hillarious and makes me wonder why the hell Microsoft didn't do even a tiny bit of looking into what else takes place on 10-14. Hopefully this will help 2025 actually be the year of the Linux desktop we've been waiting for!
this is the same company that chose build 2600 for winxp, remember.. odds are, someone at microsoft knew of kde's "birthday" when 10's eol date was finalized. i dunno exactly when that decision was made, the first itu 'e-waste day' could have come after that.
The more windows falls down the enshittification spiral, the more likely the EU will get pissed at Microsoft and fund Linux environments where it's needed.
My old computer took to Mint without much of a problem. My newer one... many things didn't work. The mint discord was very helpful though!
It's a shame more manufacturers don't sell machines that are already set up with Linux, so you don't have to worry about like "oh WiFi doesn't work for some esoteric reason?" as much
I've just installed mint on an old laptop and plan on switching my main system around.
I would like advice on what gaming laptop would work best with Linux. I heard amd is preferable, but there's quite little laptops with amd video cards.
My current laptop has a split video card with a Intel and Nvidia one, I think that would be hard to run Linux on...
That's mostly focusing on just laptops; there's a dozen other companies selling desktop and mini-PCs with Linux, and some hardware manufacturers (Raspberry, ODroid?) don't even have Windows as an option.
There is a wide variety of laptops, desktops, mini-PCs, and SBCs to buy with Linux pre-installed. I'm more surprised that there's someone who thinks there isn't, than by how many options there are.
Just jumping in to say I would recommend trying something other than a StarLabs laptop. Not impressed with my Starbook MKV at all (good on paper, cheap quality in person and loses battery when the lid is shut), so I need to constantly charge it. My next one will probably be from purism.
This came and went as a trend. Linux as a default for those who didn't want to pay for OEM Windows was frequent in smaller PC shops, especially back when you had to manually punch in a key. My memory of it is it went away once a) the modern activation scheme rolled out, and b) people stopped buying shop-made PCs in favor of prebuilts or custom builds.
And let me be clear, the idea was you got the PC with Linux to check that everything worked and you'd then proceed to install Windows on your own, either from a legit CD you owned or by pirating a key. Which I guess is in itself a measure of how much people around these parts overrepresent how much the average normie cares about "official support".
A few laptop houses do still ship Linux as an option, but that's more of a statement and meant to be used. And less frequent, too.
how along ago was that? before 11? before 8? shits come a long way even in just the last 5 years. linux on the desktop is out-of-the-box at least as capable as windows 7, and mint has a lovely curated app store for easy app installs.
been in the business for twenty-five years, and counting. saving the small builder's "microsoft tax" still doesn't let them compete on price with the basic mass-market systems from the major oems like dell and hp--companies that buy their shit by the 10s of millions per year. they also pay much less for a windows license, and in the end essentially gets paid to put it on from the preload deals and commissions they get.