Sword of Linuxcles.
The whole point of the Sword of Damocles was that the threat was always looming and Damocles didn’t know when it might fall. We know exactly when Microsoft says they are going to drop support. There’s a decent chance that they’ll push that date back due to slow adoption at least once.
This is more about rats not fleeing the sinking ship until the sea has reached the bow.
More like rats not joining a leaking ship. I’ve been through enough windows upgrades to know: Don’t be the first! You’ll only end up paying to be a software tester for a product MS had to ship before it’s ready to keep the shareholders happy.
Don’t be the first one in the water after the shark warning …
Well, the real moment it becomes an issue is when a significant vulnerability is found after EOS. So I guess after EOS is when the sword of damocles starts hanging above every win 10 user…
Personally I’m on the edge of the ship just waiting to jump off once i have my new pc (probably next week).
With the shit they built into 10 I really would not be surprised if they put in a kill switch
“Sword of Damocles” like bitch we used service pack 2 XP for ever. “We won’t support something” means nothing if the original product was built right.
…Ohhh now I see the problem. Nevermind, everybody, carry on.
I know people still running XP sp3 (firewalled off the net) and it still does the job. They claimed to have killed 7 but between FOSS and enshittification pushback I reckon it’s gonna be like the PS2
This is the third time today that I have seen a reference to the sword of Damocles. Almost as if the entire fucking world feels like it’s only a thread away from destruction…
I’ve been seeing it a lot more recently, too. IRL even.
Did it get used by sometime famous recently or something?
There was a king once named Damocles that had a sword suspended over his throne that could come crashing down at any random moment and kill him, to remind himself of the fragility of his power, and human life.
I have no idea how that anecdote might apply to people in power in this day and age, or why people would reference the anecdote.
Glares at the fraying rope
I know the source and the idiom. I just don’t know why it’s picked up in popularity recently.
I also don’t know why its use as an idiom doesn’t quite align with the story. It’s usually used to describe a situation where the threat of destruction isn’t random. For example, in the OP, the danger is the end of support for Win 10, not randomness.
I just swapped to Ubuntu on my straggler/media server Windows 10 desktop. Have been running Gentoo on another PC for years but never had so much trouble as trying to setup bumblebee with a GTX960 - holy crap nvidia suck so hard. The other PC is all AMD so I was living in blissful ignorance.
They are gonna have to pry windows 10 from my cold dead hands. I was sold 10 on the premise that it was going to be “the last windows OS I would need”.
Fuck you Microsoft.
I tried to switch to Linux several days ago, but there were clear issues regarding games that weren’t tied to Steam. Heroic Games Launcher, Lutris, Bottles, and so forth all had shortcomings regarding compatibility, handling of DLC, or lack of user-friendliness. Then I tried to use a VM, which was a frustrating rabbit hole. Virt-Manager supports GPU passthru, but you have to jump through hoops to identify PCI addresses and to configure correctly. Boxes initially seemed promising, but had no apparent way of storing the VM on my gaming drive. (Linux terminal commands are beyond my understanding.) Considering how big games are getting, and the size of my collection, that is a bad combo. Virtualbox doesn’t have GPU passthru, so the performance sucked.
As a gamer, I currently find Linux to be insufficient. I was wanting to switch due to security concerns regarding Microsoft, especially in light of the Trump Regime’s willingness to ignore law and norms. My concern is that they could use Windows as a spy, or to seal up my computer to punish those who go against Dogey America. As it is, I will have to use some scripts from Github to break Windows Update if I hear of Richmond being infiltrated by the Xitler Youth.
Here’s hoping that Gabe decides to invest much more heavily in Linux to make it casual friendly - I want my mods, cheats, Japanese locale games, emulators, and so forth to all work seamlessly and without compromise. I would seriously pay $400 smackers to have an OS that is capable, flexible, compatible, friendly, and most importantly, MINE.
The days of just buying Windows 7 Ultimate and not thinking about Microsoft was glorious.
Sorry it didn’t work out for you like Linux Mint works for me (I switched full time to LM in December 2024).
If you haven’t already, switch to Windows 10 LTSC in the interim. I have a feeling Linux will only improve over time with greater compatibility with Proton. Since Win 10 LTSC is supported until 2029, that’s plenty of time for for more kinks to be worked out and you can potentially try Linux again.
I am already on a Internet of Things edition, which is the debloated version of Windows. However, that still leaves the possibility of Microsoft going fascist and sending out a Big Brother update.
Regarding Linux, it was indeed Mint that I tried to use - it seemed similar to Windows, at least visually. Getting standard software was easy enough, and things seemed promising until I started to migrate my gaming. I mod my games a fair bit of the time, or play niche stuff that hardly has support on Windows. It became very apparent that Linux can’t handle that, not yet. In a couple of years I will revisit Linux.
You should definately look at PlayOnLinux for those game. It is an app to help leverage all Wine setup and configuration. Normally with Steam and this would should be able to run almost everything.
tried to use a VM
Yeah, this is where you went wrong. It’s possible, but it really doesn’t solve anything IMO, has the possibility of getting detected (so anticheat bans), and can often run worse. It’s possible to get a sane setup, but what are you really gaining over just dual booting? You’re still running Windows, after all, but now you have drawbacks (and some benefits) of a VM.
Can you be more specific about what didn’t work? As in, games, platforms, etc. If it’s a game with anticheat, you’re probably SOL on Linux, but I have Heroic working just fine on both my Linux desktop (openSUSE) and Steam Deck. I usually launch through Steam to use Steam input and manage Proton versions, and it seems to work fine for GOG and EGS. Some games have issues, so check protondb.com if that’s the case, but most work just fine.
The idea here with the VM is two-fold: First, to keep a potential Windows Big Brother update from spying on my documents and whatnot, while also preventing it from tampering with the security of my PC. Secondly, to maximize compatibility, since I lost trust in Linux to not have technical issues with my gaming. That means mods, Japanese games, emulators, and so forth. Windows is simply more reliable and documented, unlike Linux. If something goes wrong with a game playing on Windows, there is decent odds of me troubleshooting. My hardware should be able to handle a VM, it being a 5950x with a RTX 4090+3060, and 128gb of RAM.
Anyhow, I don’t really remember the specifics regarding how my efforts with Lutris, Heroic Game Launcher, and so forth went: I don’t like remembering unpleasant things. All that I recall is assorted errors or lack of features that rattled my willingness to trust Linux for gaming. I will try again some years for now, if I hear Linux has become more suitable to the task.
If it’s not an anticheat issue, Linux is probably suitable right now. Linux is quite different from Windows, but most problems have simple solutions if you know where to look, which usually means knowing who to ask.
That said, I think you’d be better off with a dual boot. That way you only need one GPU, and you can slowly move your gaming to Linux, falling back to Windows if something doesn’t work right.
That said, I totally understand if you’re burned out from it. Just know that there are a lot of Linux users who are happy to help if you get motivated to try again.
What distro did you try?
I’ve been on bazzite for some time now and haven’t had any of those problems
I switched to Nobara Linux at the end of last year, and for the most part when I consider how often I’d have to fix Windows stuff, it’s not that much more work. Still not the same though, and I keep a Windows partition around for certain stuff even though I groan having to load into it
At the moment I’m 50/50 between switching over to Linux full-time, or full booting Windows 10 LTSC.
But having had to use it for work, I am adamant in saying that Windows 11 will never touch my home system drive.
Linux
One of us, one of us, one of us.
I enjoyed the visual design of Win 11, but the bloatware, spyware, and AI slop it started to install was just too much. The Steam Deck has proven 99% of Steam games run fine on Linux, so I made the switch and killed my Windows partition a few months ago.
Feels so clean and light running Linux - my god I never knew my PC could run so fast! Windows was really truly awful and I had no idea until I removed it from my life completely. Games run flawlessly on it - I’m using Elementary OS because it’s clean and user friendly.
Welcome to the club!
Hmmm never had an issue with bloatware/spyware in Win11. I just turn things off if they ask me after and upgrade and away I go. Everything just works properly and the best part is all my devices work as expected.
Shhh, people don’t want to hear that they can change things they don’t like. They just want to complain about things they’ve never used.
I enjoy this headline writing style. Imagine if we turned “try these 7 tricks” headlines into “Dionysius I of Syracuse would like you to try these”
Sword of Damocles? More like the sword of Microsoft can go fuck itself!
If I did anything other than use my PC as a glorified gaming console, I might care about w10 not being updated anymore. Until games literally can’t work on the OS, I’ll stay on it. And when they do stop working, I’ll probably just install Linux.
Linux
Join us, you know you want to.
Pry it from my cold dead hands. I have linux on multiple computers, but it still can’t play all the games and give me my 5.1 surround. Despite all the claims, it’s still not ready for primetime to do all the things windows does.
What’s the issue with sound? I thought that was solved since… 15 years or so.
Can’t help with the games though, must anti cheat games won’t work without developer support. Do what you gotta do, but I’m interested in any issues that should be solvable with some config or swapping out a cheap card or something.
Can’t get the surround on my A50s. Yeah, normal stereo is fine out of the box.
Have you tried messing with either pulsesudio or alsamixer? https://askubuntu.com/questions/1304002/how-to-enable-5-1-sound-on-ubuntu-20-04#1304054
I personally just use stereo on my PC, but I’ve seen home theater setups w/ surround sound, so I know it’s possible.
I did try alsamixer. It just didn’t like something about the headset. I use an optical connection and a 3rd party surround card, so I don’t know if that’s the issue. It’s pretty much moot because the game I use surround on the most won’t run because of anti-cheat.
That’s too bad. If Linux becomes an option, please hop on a chat or something and I’m sure someone can get you sorted.
Except it isn’t even remotely a sword of damacles situation. 🤣
Yup. There’s a big timer, and a ton of alternative chairs you could sit in that don’t have a massive sword above them. It’s not like there are any surprises here…
There are still people so powerful they manage to use Windows XP in this day and age. My intuition says most people will be able to use Windows 10 for at least one more decade with minimal issues, after that it will gradually become trickier, but it will still be usable even in 20-30 years with advanced hacks if humanity doesn’t go extinct by then.
“Powerful” probably wouldn’t be the word I’d use given that security updates have stopped. Maybe “foolhardy”?
Yeah, I don’t use critical software that doesn’t get security updates, and an OS is super critical.
If you’re going to stick with ancient software, at least throw it in a VM so it can’t screw up everything else (and don’t let it touch the rest of your network).
There are still people so powerful they manage to use Windows XP in this day and age
Those people are called doctors and they deserve your respect!
Seriously the posts on here make me laugh so much. Linux has never felt like more of a cult than since I’ve been on Lemmy… And I use Linux! But I also use Windows! I used Windows XP, 7 and 8 all well past their prime and will do the same with 10.
I mean, I tried for about a week…
Got a larger SSD and I wanted to reinstalled Windows, so I went through the whole getting Win11 thing, and it wouldn’t let me install it. Although I have a full blown paid for Home Edition Win 10 linked to my microsoft account.
It said I had to install Win 10 first, so I did… AFter all that, I went into windows update like is said, looked for the Win 11 update option… Doesn’t exist…
My AMD 5800X and everything else on my PC supports Win 11. It’s just not giving me the option.
So I gave up…
I’ll likely use Win10 until SteamOS is released…
They recently made changes so that you can’t easily upgrade anymore. I think you still can if you find the right hoops to jump through but this exact issue came up recently
I use Linux mint. Steam works great. The desktop works great. Like 5 min a month checking on updates and backups.
If you’re gaming then bazziteos is pretty good
So is pretty much any Linux distro. Don’t pick a distro because it says “gaming,” they’re all extremely similar. Pick a distro because it looks nice and you can get help when you need it.
That’s what I initially thought too, but as soon as you install it, it gives you the option to install Steam, lutris, Wine, and some other gamer stuff. It basically feels similar to Windows people know and has been stable for me.
Sure, you can use vanilla Fedora and put all of the stuff yourself but the point of this is it’s ready to go out of the box.
But it’s really not hard to install on any distro. I could pick up any distro and be downloading games on Steam and Heroic in <15 min, just like on Windows, and that’s without knowing anything about the distro. I don’t even use Lutris anymore, Heroic + Steam is more than enough.
That’s my point. A “gaming” distro doesn’t have any pivotal secret sauce that make games work there that don’t elsewhere. It might be tuned a little, but unless you’re watching framerates closely, you probably won’t notice. And you can always rice whatever you pick of you really want those 1-2FPS gainz.
I’m not saying they’re “bad,” just saying Linux is Linux, so use what makes you happy.
Definitely, but bazziteos is catered to more new people or people who don’t want to spend a lot of time getting stuff to work. I use arch on two computers and have bazzite on another computer I know I want to be more stable than arch and not spend time fixing it
There are a lot of options between Arch and Bazzite. Arch is bleeding edge with very few guardrails, whereas Bazzite has a read-only filesystem and tries its hardest to stop you from breaking stuff (e.g. like a console).
I never recommend Arch to new users because there are just way too many ways to break it. it’s a great distro (I used it for 5+ years), but it’s not a good option for new users. I usually recommend Mint, Debian, or Fedora, because they’re pretty stable, popular, and you’re unlikely to break stuff by normal tinkering. I personally use openSUSE Tumbleweed, which is safer than Arch (openQA testing of packages + snapper by default) but still bleeding edge, which works for me, but I also don’t recommend that either just because of how much churn there is in the packages.
If you only want to play games and want something like a Steam Deck experience, Bazzite may be the best option. My point isn’t that Bazzite is bad, but that it’s not the only or necessarily best option.
There’s ways to force the upgrade without doing it via Windows update
