My 1st desktop had Windows 95 on it. It worked OK. A few years later, I bought a laptop pc with WindowsME (Millennium Edition), and it became the last Windows product I’ve owned. A work colleague installed Windows 2000 on that laptop, and it worked for a couple months, until I got my “blue screen of death.”
At that time, they started selling the ePC notebooks, available with WindowsXP or Linux (the XanderOS) I stepped out of my comfort zone, and got the XanderOS variant, and have had Linux computers since. I’m currently using Mint on an old Panasonic CF-30, and Ubuntu on 2 laptops built by System 76.
My wife likes Mac, but I’m not a fan. My kids get a pretty rounded experience, between using their moms Mac, their dads 2 variants of Linux, and their Chromebooks at school.
That’s all well and good, what happens to your kids when they can’t tick the Windows and MSOffice boxes on job applications?
I’m not having a go at you, I’ll assume you’ve taught your kids how to approach the new and unknown in the IT fields, but if they have limited or zero experience with Microsoft products, they’ll be at a disadvantage.
Oh, I don’t discourage them from using/learning Microsoft products at all - they just don’t happen to be in our home, because as consumers, my wife and I don’t spend our money in Microsofts direction. While I can’t say it with accuracy anymore, because it’s been 20 years since my switch, one of the selling points with the Linux distributions was that some of them looked and felt like either Mac or Windows. My Ubuntu distribution looks pretty similar to my wife’s Mac, and the initial installation of Linux Mint, several years ago was made to look and feel like Windows XP. Honestly, the last time I touched Windows was before retiring from the US Navy, where the Submarine LAN was run on Windown NT - but I retired in 2009.
If my kids came home with a Windows PC, or the cheaper option, wanted to turn one of my laptops into a dual-boot machine, I wouldn’t care…more exposure to (that bad word) diversity in operating systems. I don’t think they’re missing out on not having Microsoft in our home though. Microsoft Word in the Tux world is Open Office, Microsofts Excel is Calc, etc…if you know one, you’ll be able to work on the other.
did you ever PC game at all? If so, I’m curious what you did for work around. The main thing holding me back right now from jumping into the linux world before the end of Win10 support is how much I game and use Premier Pro and Photoshop.
Oh, you can set up a dual boot system, so you don’t have to completely jump ship. They also have setups that run entirely on a thumb drive now.
I did dual boot for a little bit when I want into business 14 years ago. While I liked Linux, I wasn’t sure I could run a business without Windows, but soon discovered that everything would be just fine without Windows, and got rid of it.
I’m in my mid-50s. I play Warzone 2100 and BOS wars on my computer. I’ve has Steam for several years, and have a game there…I think it’s “World of Goo.” I like to stick to games that serve as stress relievers, and take no more than about an hour. Between owning a business, 2 teens, 3 schools, 4 sports, a wife, a house that would love to fall apart if I’d only let it, a lawn to mow, and 2 antique cars I love to keep driving, I don’t have much more time to let myself be sucked in to some of the really cool stuff I see.
I recently bought a replacement PS2 though…the old one broke, and I’m still in love with GTA Vice City. I usually just steal a cop car and do vigilante mode until I’m killed though.
As long as you’re cool being a bit more restricted in multiplayer games (a lot work great! But some developers are blocking linux), and you’re okay with AMD (nvidia is improving though), gaming is basically on par with Windows at this point.
In some cases it’s even better. I have a few games that require weird tricks to get it to work under Windows, but work fine in proton. Even Elden Ring at launch ran better on linux because it didn’t have the micro-stutter issue.
I just installed Linux Mint out of curiosity parallel to Windows on my tower.
I was suprised, that everything (drivers, bluetooth, dual monitors,…) worked out of the box- and since valve has strong support for Linux nowerdays due to their adaptions for the steamdeck, steam was already offered to be installed from the sw center.
I was able to install and successfully play games without any issues.
So from a gamers perspective: it is worth to invest the ~two hours setup time to give it a try ;)
My 1st desktop had Windows 95 on it. It worked OK. A few years later, I bought a laptop pc with WindowsME (Millennium Edition), and it became the last Windows product I’ve owned. A work colleague installed Windows 2000 on that laptop, and it worked for a couple months, until I got my “blue screen of death.”
At that time, they started selling the ePC notebooks, available with WindowsXP or Linux (the XanderOS) I stepped out of my comfort zone, and got the XanderOS variant, and have had Linux computers since. I’m currently using Mint on an old Panasonic CF-30, and Ubuntu on 2 laptops built by System 76.
My wife likes Mac, but I’m not a fan. My kids get a pretty rounded experience, between using their moms Mac, their dads 2 variants of Linux, and their Chromebooks at school.
That’s all well and good, what happens to your kids when they can’t tick the Windows and MSOffice boxes on job applications?
I’m not having a go at you, I’ll assume you’ve taught your kids how to approach the new and unknown in the IT fields, but if they have limited or zero experience with Microsoft products, they’ll be at a disadvantage.
Oh, I don’t discourage them from using/learning Microsoft products at all - they just don’t happen to be in our home, because as consumers, my wife and I don’t spend our money in Microsofts direction. While I can’t say it with accuracy anymore, because it’s been 20 years since my switch, one of the selling points with the Linux distributions was that some of them looked and felt like either Mac or Windows. My Ubuntu distribution looks pretty similar to my wife’s Mac, and the initial installation of Linux Mint, several years ago was made to look and feel like Windows XP. Honestly, the last time I touched Windows was before retiring from the US Navy, where the Submarine LAN was run on Windown NT - but I retired in 2009.
If my kids came home with a Windows PC, or the cheaper option, wanted to turn one of my laptops into a dual-boot machine, I wouldn’t care…more exposure to (that bad word) diversity in operating systems. I don’t think they’re missing out on not having Microsoft in our home though. Microsoft Word in the Tux world is Open Office, Microsofts Excel is Calc, etc…if you know one, you’ll be able to work on the other.
did you ever PC game at all? If so, I’m curious what you did for work around. The main thing holding me back right now from jumping into the linux world before the end of Win10 support is how much I game and use Premier Pro and Photoshop.
Oh, you can set up a dual boot system, so you don’t have to completely jump ship. They also have setups that run entirely on a thumb drive now.
I did dual boot for a little bit when I want into business 14 years ago. While I liked Linux, I wasn’t sure I could run a business without Windows, but soon discovered that everything would be just fine without Windows, and got rid of it.
I’m in my mid-50s. I play Warzone 2100 and BOS wars on my computer. I’ve has Steam for several years, and have a game there…I think it’s “World of Goo.” I like to stick to games that serve as stress relievers, and take no more than about an hour. Between owning a business, 2 teens, 3 schools, 4 sports, a wife, a house that would love to fall apart if I’d only let it, a lawn to mow, and 2 antique cars I love to keep driving, I don’t have much more time to let myself be sucked in to some of the really cool stuff I see.
I recently bought a replacement PS2 though…the old one broke, and I’m still in love with GTA Vice City. I usually just steal a cop car and do vigilante mode until I’m killed though.
As long as you’re cool being a bit more restricted in multiplayer games (a lot work great! But some developers are blocking linux), and you’re okay with AMD (nvidia is improving though), gaming is basically on par with Windows at this point.
In some cases it’s even better. I have a few games that require weird tricks to get it to work under Windows, but work fine in proton. Even Elden Ring at launch ran better on linux because it didn’t have the micro-stutter issue.
I just installed Linux Mint out of curiosity parallel to Windows on my tower.
I was suprised, that everything (drivers, bluetooth, dual monitors,…) worked out of the box- and since valve has strong support for Linux nowerdays due to their adaptions for the steamdeck, steam was already offered to be installed from the sw center.
I was able to install and successfully play games without any issues.
So from a gamers perspective: it is worth to invest the ~two hours setup time to give it a try ;)