Reasons to switch:
- It’s waaaaay cheaper
- A new laptop costs a lot of money. Repair cafes will often help you for free. Software updates are also free, forever. You can of course show your support for both with donations!
- No ads, no spying
- Windows comes with lots of ads and spyware nowadays, slowing down your computer and increasing your energy bill.
- Good for the planet
- Production of a computer accounts for 75+% of carbon emissions over its lifecycle. Keeping a functioning device longer is a hugely effective way to reduce emissions.
- Community support
- If you have any issues with your computer, the local repair cafe and independent computer shop are there for you. You can find community support in online forums, too.
- User control
- You are in control of the software, not companies. Use your computer how you want, for as long as you want.
Hexbear-related reasons to switch:
- Still can use hexbear
- Hexbear requires a web browser (firefox) to use.
- Don’t have to pay for it.
- You’ll receive updates and features for your operating system free of any personal charge to you till the end of time. You can donate directly to volunteers and workers to make your computer better (better yet non computer related things)
- using Windows for Windows’s sake or Apple for Apple’s sake is liberalism and supports USA/piSSrael
- TBH they copied from us (KDE, GNOME) anyway. Their innovation is being a monopoly and advertising to you.
- Makes you smarter (it’s like reading theory but with computers)
- Using Linux makes you big brain because you’ll learn you can do a lot of things for free that you’d have to waste your soul on.
- Using Linux makes you big brain because you’ll learn you can do a lot of things for free that you’d have to waste your soul on.
Totally agree, but the thing that keeps me from jumping to Linux is that I only have one computer (runs Windows 10), I haven’t installed Linux elsewhere, and I don’t want to lose my files or anything when I switch. Is that something to be concerned about?
Ideally you would have a way to back up your files. If you want to stay on win 10 you will need to reinstall the ltsc version and should back up your files just in case.
You can install Linux to an external HD and boot off of it that way, then you don’t risk any data loss with partitions or reformatting. From there you can copy files over. After that you can swap out the HD, install Linux over the internal HD, or install Linux to dual boot with windows.
I have NOT tried this but according to https://massgrave.dev/change_windows_edition you can change the windows edition. I would not try it without backing up my most important files, regardless. I don’t use Windows so the opportunity for me to try it doesn’t exist, but the option is good to keep in mind.