The 'End of 10' is nigh, but don't bury your PC just yet

The "End of 10" website is a cooperative effort to let people know that they have other options besides buying a new computer.

The campaign is a noble attempt to raise public awareness. It carries a simple, clear message in large, friendly letters: when Windows 10 reaches the end of its life in five months' time, you don't need to buy a new computer. According to its Mastodon account, the site is due to officially launch in two weeks, on May 28.

The team behind End of 10 has people from several different desktop environments and organizations, including folk from the KDE registered association, and the site's source code is hosted on KDE's GitLab.

One of the most interesting parts of the site is the list of places where visitors can find Linux support. There are over 70 around the world, but with a noticeable concentration so far in Germany. (Our favorite is the splendidly named Serious Cybernetics in Australia, and for clarity, nowhere near Sirius.) This list is a great idea, but it already badly needs categorization - we hope that gets done before the campaign launches.

The opportunity here is huge. The signs are that Windows 11 has now clawed ahead of its predecessor - for instance, US Government Analytics put it at 16.5 per cent, versus 15.5 per cent still on Windows 10. However, a lot of perfectly working Windows 10 computers can't be upgraded. Consumer NZ estimates that to be 400 million PCs, including anything with a processor more than six years old. The UK's Consumer Association magazine Which? simplifies it well:

Which? also has a very pragmatic top suggestion if you can't upgrade or afford to buy new:

We agree: ChromeOS Flex works pretty well and it's not limited to laptops. You must use a Google account, though. If you've got a technophobic friend with a Yahoo, AOL, or Hotmail/Outlook account, they can use the Gmailify feature.

Last month, we wrote about how to get Windows 10 LTSC, the IoT edition of which gets updates until 2032. We mentioned that the safe, easy route is to reinstall, but it is possible to upgrade in place, and there are even third-party tools to help.

It is possible, but as we said, we're not advocating it. As The Register's own SJVN puts it, "Linux is forever," or as close as any computer gets.

Which? suggests Ubuntu if you have the time, and at heart, that's sound advice: stick to one of the big players, and avoid the experimental stuff like immutable or rolling-release distros. However, we think the GNOME UI is confusing and alienating if all you know your way around is Windows. Mr Vaughan-Nichols suggests Linux Mint, and we wouldn't argue, but the Ubuntu flavors with Windows-like desktops - Ubuntu MATE, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, or Kubuntu - are also entirely viable. Mac users with geriatric hardware will find a very macOS-like desktop in Ubuntu Unity.

We know there are nearly as many Snap haters out there as systemd haters, but honestly, both work pretty well nowadays. For a few years, we used the handy deb-get tool to handle apps not included in Ubuntu's repos, and we've recommended it before - for instance, in combination with the minimal version of Xubuntu. For us, though, especially after Ubuntu "Noble" nobbled our Nvidia GPUs, we've stopped fighting and just switched to Snap packages for everything, with a few AppImages on the side. It's fast now, even on kit over a decade old, and it's cleaner and simpler than Flatpak. If you don't want either - and we don't blame you at all - then Linux Lite is pretty good, too.

There are a growing number of distros gunning for Windows exiles right now, and we plan to look at some of them soon. But for the absolute minimum hassle, if your needs are simple enough that ChromeOS will do, try Flex on a spare junker PC. You might be pleasantly surprised. ®