A common misconception is that installing Linux is a difficult and complex to do. Of course any installation process is more work vs having the OS already installed. Because Windows comes preinstalled on most PCs, there’s no installation required for the end user (Windows is just as difficult if installing from scratch). Also, because Windows is already installed, upgrading to the next version is pretty easy, or is it?
If you have a newer computer, upgrading to the next Windows version is no problem (Microsoft does the heavy lifting for you). However, if you want to upgrade to Windows 11 and you have a system that has a CPU prior to 2017 or doesn’t have a TPM or does not support secure boot, then you have a problem.
At this point you have three or four choices;
- Go buy a new system
- This costs money (not good if you don’t have the budget for it) and is environmentally unfriendly (what happens to the old system) just to name a couple of issues with this choice.
- Force the Windows 11 upgrade
- There are ways around the Microsoft system requirements, however, now you are in for a lot of work (more work than installing Linux) and it might all be in vain if Microsoft patches the loopholes. Microsoft is already threatening that unsupported systems with Windows 11 will not get updates and no support just like Windows 10 end of life (kinda defeats the purpose of installing Windows 11).
- If you want to know how to force the Windows 11 install, check out this YouTube video by Linus Tech Tips – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NivpAiuh-s0
- Do nothing
- Keep your system as it is, when Windows 10 end of life arrives, you will not receive any more updates to the system or you can keep paying Microsoft for those updates (until Microsoft no longer offers it). Really paying for continued updates is really just postponing the inevitable.
- Install Linux
- Yes, it is a little work, however, way less work than force installing Windows 11, less expensive than buying a new system (actually it’s free), and not as risky as doing nothing.
- There is a no work option; have someone else install Linux for you. I’m sure you probably know of a friend of a friend that can do it for you or hire a computer tech to do the install (if in the Thunder Bay, ON area PCsavant can do it).
Now I am not going to go over the installation process of Linux here, however, I will give you a link to a YouTube video that does; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiSXClZauXA