Windows 11, or rather Linux?

My computer of choice is, has been for a long time, and probably remains to be for the forseeable future, a 2008 Lenovo X220 laptop. Yes, I’m aware that it is rather oldish.  When it was new, it must have been a beast of a machine, and likely sported quite the price tag. Today, close to 20 years later, it is still a fast laptop. It boots in under a minute and shows no delays in loading files or web pages. Of course, it came with a spinning hard disk when new, but I swapped that out for a Solid State Disk (SSD) years ago. The internal memory was with 16Gb already up to spec, it came standard with a 64-bit processor, and it never was, nor is today, a slow machine. It ran Windows 7, then Windows 10, and then….Microsoft said NO!

Say what? You heard me, they said NO, you ain’t gonna run our shiny new W11 on that old thing!

The decision:

Microsoft, in its ultimate wisdom, decided it was time for millions of computer owner to scrap their trusty devices and buy new ones. And that with the sole purpose to be able to – or rather to be allowed to – run Windows 11, aka W11. For the first time, Microsoft had set rules any computer wishing to upgrade to W11 had to comply with. Not complying meant no W11 upgrade. Sure, you could choose to stick to your now old W10 for a while, or buy paid support for W10, but that’s gonna end one day. Or you invest in a newer replacement for a perfectly good machine – no, that makes no sense at all! Instead, you could keep your perfectly good computer but have it run Linux instead – that is what I did.

What distro:

A distro, or distribution, is a software package to install an operating system on your computer. As I had made up my mind to go for Linux, the only question that remained was what brand of Linux, or what distro to go for.

After checking a couple of YouTube channels, I decided to go for Linux distro Zorin 18 OS. It is alleged to be an easy transfer when you’re coming from W10. And version 18 was released for that very purpose – reeling in folks leaving Windows. For Zorin you don’t have to learn a lot of commands to get updates or new software installed. Instead, you get a simple search and click to install app store, built into the OS. Finally, Zorin comes with a browser (Brave) and office package (LibreOffice) pre-installed. And that’s what I use mostly, the internet and an office word processor and calculation sheet.

And how did it go:

Having run Zorin for a few weeks now, I have to admit that the transfer to Linux was very easy indeed, at least for Zorin. I did not like the pre-installed Brave browser at all, so I swapped it for trusty Chrome that I used before in Windows. Logging into my google account, I also got the site shortcuts and passwords I had used before.

Software:

One of my hobbies is writing books, read more about that here. For that, I need three software programs:

 

  • Writing: Word processor
    MS Word ==> LibreOffice Writer: does exactly what Word did
  • List of facts: Calculation sheet
    MS Excel ==> LibreOffice Calc: Does mostly what Excel did and everything I need it to do
  • Research: Web browser
    Chrome ==> Chrome

Ranting, aka marketing:

It is scary how easy Microsoft disposes of its loyal users. I started Microsofting in the mid-80s with DOS-3 and DOS-4. Then I briefly tried the very first Windows version (that was not very windowy at all) but upgraded to DOS-6 instead. Then Windows 3.11 for Workgroups came along. I used that for a while and swapped to W95 when that came out. I still consider that to be the first usable Windows version suitable for home and business. After that came NT, XP, W97, W2000 (no good), W7 (very good), W8 (never tried it), and then W10 (very good) and now W11.

So you could say that Microsoft forced me to leave their operating system after using their stuff for 40 years. And not only the operating system, with Linux I got LibreOffice for free! Notably, I’ve previously used LibreOffice at a customer of mine, and found it to be a very good (and free) alternative to MS Office. The W11 requirements are gonna cost Microsoft a shipload of money on folks like me who throw in the towel and finally make the swap to Linux, thereby not only leaving Windows but also leaving subscriptions to Office behind.

Is it for you:

In my opinion and experience, the switch from W10 to Zorin Linux is fairly easy. And, in the case of Zorin, and most other Linux distros, you can start by making a bootable USB drive that allows you to run Zorin without installing it. Notably, it will not be as fast as it runs off a USB drive. But it will give you an impression of whether Linux is for you or not.

In my opinion, you should try it.

Paul
Sweden
2025-11

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