@neil While I much doubt that there will be a mass transition to 'nux I'm sure more will consider giving it a go. I assume most will just stay with 10 and be damned. I will. 1 machine won’t take 11 and the other (actually older) will, but I loath everything I’ve seen/heard of 11. I don’t think I could switch one of them to ‘nux if I wanted to, because drivers. I may try dual booting the other and transfer over time- but I’d have to polish up a lot of skills with files and folders sharing.

@neil

There are a lot of Linux versions press organizations could use, instead of Windows 10 or, goddess forbid, 11. Ubuntu is only one of them.

@neil It does beg the question though, when should operating system vendors stop supporting older systems? Even the #linux kernel has stopped supporting various x86 CPU architectures now, and while arguably #microsoft 's approach is far from satisfactory, at some point maintaining older operating systems becomes untenable, even on Linux. I think a lot of the upset over Windows 10 has been pushing what some see as unnecessary hardware requirements (e.g. TPM 2.0)

@neil There's also software to replace the BIOS/UEFI now. Though I haven't even looked in to how you do that yet.

@libreleah sells laptops and such with the Linux pre-installed. That or finding a local techie to help might be a better option for people than feeling like they have to do the whole thing themselves. Plus it puts money in your neighbour's pocket rather than a massive corporation's.

@neil
Tje vast majority of machines will of course neither switch to Linux, or be replaced by a Win11 computer. They'll just continue to run, possibly for several years, until a hardware fault kills them off.

And at that point, I don't think the replacement will be a Windows or a Mac. I suspect a lot of those users will just not buy another computer. They'll rely on their smartphones going forward, much as many young people already do today.

We're seeing the slow death of the PC era.

@neil I have seen a few pieces of "news" such as this, including one pointing at a distro that is skinned to look like Windows. None seem to mention that you can't just use all your existing software, etc. I'm a big fan of desktop Linux, but I don't think expecting people (many of whom will be elderly) to just relearn their entire software stack without help is a great plan

@neil I don't think Ubuntu is the best recommendation to be honest. Windows to Gnome is quite a UI change and there would be an instant friction factor for my wife or mother.

Mint would probably have been my first suggestion. The UI is very similar at least.

(Mother's new PC is waiting for me to install next time I go down, but her old one was 'too slow' anyway. Wife moved to a laptop + dock rather than laptop + hand me down desktop)

@ReCyclist @neil @Naich
I converted our family PC over to Linux Mint more than a year ago and at first my wife (not technical) complained about some minor differences, but really not too much. LibreOffice is similar to Word/Excel. Have just converted elderly parent's PC to Linux Mint too and so far no parental PC support calls...

@neil It was an observation and I was not suggesting they should.

@neil @Naich I agree with you on this.

I think if you have even a little technical knowledge in this area it is very easy to underestimate the challenges facing a Windows "user" attempting to migrate to Linux.

@neil @Naich hahah you think normies make backups.

hahahahaha
ahahhahahahahahhahahaha

ok but seriously, normies usually use their computer until it "breaks" (maybe software had an error) and then ask their computer friend or take it to a shop.

@neil
It's a pretty low bar, technically, to use Ubuntu. In cases where it barfs and technical expertise is required, they won't have lost anything because the pc was effectively dead anyway.

Totally agree with your second point though.