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Windows 10 support quietly extended until Oct 2027, as users reject Windows 11
(www.windowslatest.com)
this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2026
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Honestly, a lot of desktop environments are designed to feel very similar to Windows. I tried Mint on a laptop and started liking it right away. The setup was put it on a flash drive, and run the installer. It took 20 minutes to nuke Windows.
My OS struggles come from trying to get windows-specific DAWs and CAD Software to work, which will hopefully come around as more people switch to Linux. I have some alternatives that I'm playing with right now.
Fyi, Reaper and Bitwig both have excellent, native Linux support. If you're willing to re-learn a DAW, both of those are great choices. Reaper is by far the best mixing & mastering DAW out there, IMHO. Bitwig is great for composition and has awesome, intuitive modulation features, as well as great stock plugins and MPE support.
The part that takes energy and effort is making the switch.
I'm really familiar with Linux. I've been using it on and off since the days of Slackware. My work computer was Linux-only for several years.
But, even with that, it took weird driver issues with my GPU, combined with the impending death of Windows 10, combined with the ridiculous heavy handed Copilot BS on Windows to finally convince me to switch my main desktop PC to Linux.
It was just the momentum that was so hard to overcome. I knew what worked in Windows, and I knew what didn't. I had already found and installed all the programs I needed. My settings were all how I liked them. I knew the keyboard shortcuts. With Linux I didn't know what would work or what wouldn't. With Linux, there were a lot of things I'd need to install and set up, and I knew that was going to take some effort. But, worst were the unknown unknowns. I didn't know what was going to cause me problems, and didn't know if they were things I could resolve in a couple of hours or if they'd take weeks.
I'm glad I made the switch, and the overall maintenance load is much lower than it was in Windows. The frustration factor is 10x better. But, I did have to make a real effort to make the switch. There were a few weeks where it was pretty frustrating.
I hear you on the unknowns. I just picked up a new direct drive racing wheel, and I spent half the night trying to get it to work. The manufacturer doesn't support Linux, so I have to use Boxflat. The wheel seems to work in there, but it doesn't show up in my device list under Game Controllers and Steam doesn't show it as a controller. However, after more research, it seems like that's all normal and it's probably the game itself not detecting the wheel due to it being plugged into a USB hub (which isn't a Linux issue). Sometimes ime learning the OS is fine, and it's the software that's the issue. With Windows, it was easy to assume things were fine on the OS side, and it just comes from that familiarity.
I'm really hopeful that Steam Boxes and Steam Decks etc. mean that peripheral manufacturers start making sure their stuff works well on Linux.
Honestly, a lot of the time all they'd need to do is document the protocol and publish it and probably someone else would build and maintain a driver for them. I think it could undo a whole chicken and egg situation. Right now, manufacturers don't build their stuff with Linux support because not enough gamers run Linux. As a result, not many gamers run Linux, which means it's reasonable for manufacturers not to build in Linux support.
As for the unknowns, there are unknowns in Windows too. I've had to go into the registry many times to tweak something so it worked the way I wanted. The only difference is that my Windows install was the result of months or years worth of tweaking and customizing. Well, not the only difference. Linux is much more tweakable, and it's something where you go in expecting to have to spend more time adjusting things. But, Windows didn't have its unknowns too. It's just that most of them were already behind me. With Linux, I knew I'd have to start from nearly square one. I'm glad I did in the end, but it was still frustrating at times.
How tough was the DAW to get working? FL is basically the thing keeping me on Windows at this point
I haven't made any recent attempts to get FL Studio working again, but from what I understand, Bottles can set up an install pretty easily. Reinstalling your VSTs can be done through Bottles as well, so it's one folder containing everything.