June 2025 An update on a Windows 10 Alternative
Before I start, if you have no computers currently running Windows 10 (or older!) then you don’t need to bother with this.
I have made some interesting progress on the Linux front. Well, I think so.
If you do have a computer that won’t run Windows 11, and it might be a spare defunct one that you only have sitting in a corner and perhaps has you wondering what you should do with it, then this might be more up your street than my last email.
Let me start by showing you pictures of the screen of some PCs I have been playing with of late.
Does this look vaguely familiar? It might just. Let’s zoom in on the bit at the bottom left
Now the bottom right
How about the start menu …
Hopefully you are agreeing with me that this looks a lot like Windows 10, and that perhaps you could cope with it instead of paying for a new PC running Windows 11, or even as an update for that old one stuck in the corner to use as a spare.
What you are seeing pictures from, is a standard free Linux version called Free10. It is up to date, current, supported and comes with inbuilt security and a future – unlike Windows 10.
Many of you just use Google Chrome to do most of your PC work, accessing the internet and your email with it. That can be done in exactly the same way on Free10 using the same program written for Linux. When you sign into it, it can ‘remember’ your Bookmarks, addresses, passwords etc. It’s the same program.
I have to own up to something now though – those familiar icons for Word, Excel and Outlook do not start those programs. They start the free programs that make up LibreOffice, and Thunderbird. These are compatible with Microsoft Office’s programs. They are even available for free on Windows PCs so you could have a wee play with them before you considered taking this any further – the links above take you straight to where you could download them. But if you prefer, you could just Google their names, where you will find plenty to help you decide if you think you could cope with them. Or you could specifically Google “LibreOffice Writer” which works with Word documents and “LibreOffice Calc” which works on spreadsheets – there are more if you use more of Office’s programs.
OK, that is probably too much information so I’ll stop there. Let me know if you want to know more. I will be happy to convert your computer to Free10 at the same price I would charge to reinstall Windows. It’s my intention to become as proficient with Linux as I am with Windows, though that may take me a while!
If you prefer, I could bring a Free10 laptop to you and we could spend an hour looking to see if Linux could be a good answer for you.
