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Win10 support ends, try Linux?2025-09-21

Support for Windows 10 ends on October 14, 2025, which means: no more security patches. It is a very bad idea to run an OS without security patches (unless you live in a cave; a cave without any Internet). Time to get off Win10!

We had a Win10 machine in our home which did not update to Win11, as it did not meet its hardware requirements. It is a good machine otherwise, and I just did not want to throw it away 🚯 just because M$ stops the support.

I decided to install Linux 🐧 (Debian 'trixie' 13.1). I used to run Linux on my desktop while I was a PhD student, but after I joined the corporate world, I gave in and moved my desktop to Windows (and using Linux on servers only). It felt so good to have the Linux desktop back! 😊

Some key observations:

  • 😫 The Debian installer still has the user experience of running a gauntlet. It is now graphical but did not change much. (Why does a 21st century user need to know what a 'locale' is!? If you want better user experience, try Ubuntu; I tried that but turned away as I had to be dodging offers to buy cloud/AI services, and this was exactly what I wanted to get away from at M$. 🤑)
  • 😊 All my hardware worked immediately.
  • 😊 I installed the necessary software via the package manager and they just worked.
  • 😊 The longest/hardest part of the Linux install was shutting down Win10 (which just never wanted to finish).
  • 😊 I installed cloud gaming client which could stream AAA games seamlessly. (I did not yet try gaming directly under Linux, but I heard it is also doable.)

It barely matters what OS I use today. I do most of my things in a browser, and that is cross-platform. M$ Office is not something I can realistically get rid of, but it is also available in a browser. The apps I use are usually free and cross platform. When I need a specific OS, I can fire it up on a VM in the cloud and connect to it.

Get off Win10 ASAP, and keep in mind that you are no longer locked into Windows! 😄

 

Update (2025-09-29): Microsoft decided to make Windows 10 extended security updates truly free in Europe.

 

This post was first published on Linkedin here on 2025-09-20.

 

 

 
This is my personal website, opinions expressed here are strictly my own, and do not reflect the opinion of my employer. My English blog is experimental and only a small portion of my Hungarian blog is available in English. Contents of my blog may be freely used according to Creative Commons license CC BY.