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So far I haven't had much concrete reason for my family to switch away from Windows. The updates maybe, needing to pay for a new license and the UI changes are like pulling the chair out from under them, especially as they get older (Windows 7 was hard for my grandma, thankfully they left 10 mostly alone but 11 is quite different again so she's currently staying on 10 — not that her hardware supports 11 anyway but that's fixable), but it's either learning the new Windows UI, let's say ten storypoints of newness, or learning some Linux desktop environment, even if it's Mint which is similar to 7/XP it's not quite the same either and probably like 15 storypoints at minimum, even if then you're done for much longer

But if OSes are being locked down and software has trouble distributing security updates through official repositories for Windows... that's a good reason to finally make the switch. Same as why my family is on Android: I can install f-droid, disable the google store, and don't have to worry about them installing malware / spyware / adware

There's different degrees of openness. Android till 2026 was an acceptable compromise (let's see how it goed forwards). Windows is also on the decline with their account policy, not sure about this certificate revocation thing (thankfully haven't had to deal with it yet; I'm not a user myself) but it sounds like they're moving to a walled garden also

When the degree changes and gets even less open, yeah you can say "well of course, they were never truly open, they're commercial" but it's still a change and might lead people to alter their choices

by sph1 days ago|

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You'll find that people that are not computer experts will take to modern Linux with much more ease than those that have complex needs, which for 90% of the people these days means that access to the Web satisfies all their needs. Moving from Windows 7 to 11 will probably be as traumatic as moving from Windows 11 to KDE, so it's an investment worth doing in my opinion.

by Aachen15 minutes ago|

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That's my expectation, but I've got a father who forces Microsoft products upon everyone for the reason that they're paid and industry standard and thus must be good (no, there is no argument possible; yes, it's worth the money even if mom touches spreadsheets less than once a year). I have the greatest trouble getting Libreoffice and Thunderbird to be a thing (since I can actually support that over the phone); Linux will be a whole 'nother challenge. He's quite full of himself and people eat it up, and free stuff that nerds use is definitely not on his prestige list

One day for sure though. They're slowly all getting old and asking more of me. Maybe when the current hardware generation needs replacing I'll give it a stab. Indeed, they need very little beyond a browser, Thunderbird (just because they're used to a local email client), a PDF reader (Evince/PdfJS have way fewer buttons and clutter and pop-ups than the Adobe crap), and some WYSIWYG editor compatible with the old doc(x) format (like Libreoffice). The time where local stores shipped photo-album-designer software are probably long gone, though I should double check beforehand

by SV_BubbleTime1 days ago|

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While I agree entirely that Linux in 2026 has never been more usable… how much actual work is being put into Office and 365 tooling native on Linux?

Like none. Literally the best office you MIGHT KIND OF be able to run in 2016, but probably more like 2013.

Valve focused on games, that is awesome and really helpful…

But there are 10,000 distros and instead of putting real resources to put even rickety bridges over MS’s moat, no sorry, this team is making duplication-of-effort distro 10,001 which is now identical to thousands of others but the taskbar is in the middle of screen.

The people working on Linux are consistently uninterested in then things people would need to drop windows.

by trinsic21 days ago|

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> While I agree entirely that Linux in 2026 has never been more usable… how much actual work is being put into Office and 365 tooling native on Linux?

Why the hell would you want that? Office365 is a buggy piece of nightmare.

by SV_BubbleTime1 days ago|

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Because even though you don’t like a thing, the entire world of business uses it.

Hold your nose and work on WINE if you need to think that way. But MS has moats, and office is one of the widest.

by trinsic21 days ago|

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I think business are going to be forced to change their thinking on this. Im not interesting in emulating windows progs in wine. I switched to Thunderbird a long time ago and other programs that give me the features I need with-out sacrificing my freedom.

by SV_BubbleTime1 days ago|

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Thunderbird UI is absolute trash.

LibreOffice also has bad UI choices and glitches.

It’s not like we’re talking VLC vs OS Media Player here.

You can stomp your feet, but the world uses Exchange and Office and not for no reasons at all.