For Those That Have Switched from Win 10 to Win 11 "Recently" Because of the MS Win 10 Retirement...

[Cavemanhead]

As the OP, I approve this thread.    It was exactly what I was hoping to get albeit some additional data on the Win 10 vs Win 11 performance and anecdotal comparisons would be nice.  At least right now, my reasons to keep Win 10 outweigh the reasons to downgrade to Win 11.

Hello DOS!...  And I don't mean "Disk Operating System".  There only a few people in this world that will get the last sentence...

Edited yesterday at 02:27 AM by Cavemanhead

[MAXsenna]

3 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Then it’s in everyone’s interest to gravitate to the most popular system or format like VHS vs Betamax.

You are aware why Beta lost, right? The porn industry chose VHS because it was simpler and cheaper at the time, even if it had inferior quality.  

[SharpeXB]

2 hours ago, MAXsenna said:

You are aware why Beta lost, right? The porn industry chose VHS because it was simpler and cheaper at the time, even if it had inferior quality.  

Yeah that’s the rumor. I wonder how true that was. But any pre-recorded content being on the market would have forced a decision. 

[MAXsenna]

Yeah that’s the rumor. I wonder how true that was. But any pre-recorded content being on the market would have forced a decision. 

Wasn't a rumour. Don't think the porn dudes actually made a well founded decision, but on availability. When the HD "war", every "expert and tech guru" literally wrote they were waiting on the porn industry, while Sony just decided to win that time.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Art-J]

7 hours ago, LucShep said:

Indeed.
Cherry picking someone's quote and throw it out of context, to fit a broken narrative, is a classic sign of trolling.

*added again to the block list*

He might have his trademark obnoxious attitude when posting on ED forum, but he didn't pull that steam graph out of his 'backside'. 

Whatever happens in server market is irrelevant for casual gamers. It's the first time I saw your graph and it was kind of interesting in itself but it is of no use for me, because it's related to industry I'm not involved in nor do I care about it (as an ordinary lazy PC gamer who's waaay past my student years to tinker with the hardware and software above bare minimum nowadays).

You guys are partially blinded by your enthusiasts attitude (which itself is great, because dirty casuals like me have to have some nerds like you to ask for friendly advice or help on this forum) but I think you're overestimating the force of the Linux tidal wave that's coming. I get it, It surely IS coming, and next time I upgrade my old PC I might even try to re-learn the ancient art of making a bootable drive with two systems on it, then learn this Linux thing at last, but damn, my teeth already ache from thinking about it .

There's ton of Win 11 drama content on youtube now, because clickbaits sell, but time will show how many casuals will really switch to Linux as their primary OS in the near future rather than only think or talk about it.

[SimHog]

10 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

 Nothing ruins a debate like facts
 

Also the original topic here had nothing to do with Linux.

Windows will remain the dominant OS for the foreseeable future.

However there is also the "fact" there has been a consistent shift towards of Linux for gaming month on month for some time now. As you pointed out about the STEAM survey from Sep 2025, yes the results show Windows at 95%, but you can't discount Linux's market share has steadily grown. Windows 11 has now over taken Windows 10, but "Windows" as a gaming OS has been in decline. Yes its averaging a less than 0.5% decline, but that is equating to approx 640k PCs / month - that's not a small number.

The primary driver of the Linux uptake has been from Steam's own investment and development of SteamOS, and it's roll out of the SteamDeck using SteamOS. And while SteamOS isn't officially supported for desktop PCs ( I'd say because they don't want a war with MS game titles ) you can customise a Linux distro like Bazzite to operate just like a steam deck on your PC.

https://bazzite.gg/

https://www.techradar.com/computing/windows/valves-steamos-is-slowly-but-surely-replacing-windows-11-for-gaming-as-more-users-make-the-big-shift

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/106795/steam-data-reveals-pc-gamers-shifting-from-windows-to-linux/index.html

https://windowsforum.com/threads/pc-gaming-os-shifts-in-2025-windows-decline-linux-rise-what-it-means.368883/

As it is, I haven't had any issues running my steam games on Linux, so far, and I have been able to get DCS to run, and I've just started working through VR and HOTAS support, for which there have been some advancements.

https://forum.falcon-bms.com/topic/26403/solved-winwing-orion-2-on-linux-only-80-buttons-detected/10
 

Edited yesterday at 12:12 PM by SimHog

[LucShep]

On 10/26/2025 at 8:59 AM, Art-J said:

He might have his trademark obnoxious attitude when posting on ED forum, but he didn't pull that steam graph out of his 'backside'. 

Whatever happens in server market is irrelevant for casual gamers. It's the first time I saw your graph and it was kind of interesting in itself but it is of no use for me, because it's related to industry I'm not involved in nor do I care about it (as an ordinary lazy PC gamer who's waaay past my student years to tinker with the hardware and software above bare minimum nowadays).

You guys are partially blinded by your enthusiasts attitude (which itself is great, because dirty casuals like me have to have some nerds like you to ask for friendly advice or help on this forum) but I think you're overestimating the force of the Linux tidal wave that's coming. I get it, It surely IS coming, and next time I upgrade my old PC I might even try to re-learn the ancient art of making a bootable drive with two systems on it, then learn this Linux thing at last, but damn, my teeth already ache from thinking about it .

There's ton of Win 11 drama content on youtube now, because clickbaits sell, but time will show how many casuals will really switch to Linux as their primary OS in the near future rather than only think or talk about it.

There's a lot of drama and clickbait going on for valid reasons. Now, if you're unable to see through the drama smoke, then that's a "you problem" (not you, I mean generally). 
But looking at Steam charts, while ignoring what's going on in the OS ecosystem, to let that bias a narrative/choice really seems like weak "sheep" mentality, doesn't it?

I know it may seem unrelated that Servers and Web systems went mostly to Linux, but the argument that was thrown out was, and I quote, "Nobody wants a world divided into several OSs for no good advantage". To which I replied, with charts to ilustrate it, that it is already divided and has been for good advantage.
Actually, I do think it makes sense, on top of current ongoing changes in mainstream desktop/laptop OSs, to wonder why those have been going that way for years now, and whether that can/will transpire to mainstream usage at some point.

I'll simplify it for you - at the end, the only thing that will matter for each single person using a PC is whether:
1. you want to keep with a growingly intrusive, bloated and restrictive OS, where you are exploited (like it or not), i.e, it becoming opposite of what made it "mainstream".
or
2. you want to try a simpler, non-intrusive, non-bloated and unrestricted OS, an alternative that is community driven, concerned about making it as good as it can get.

I don't give a hoot about Steam charts. I have concerns about privacy, about being exploited, about having less control, about having to fight (constantly tweaking) the OS to make it my own. On a paid product, on top of that.

Being in Europe I have free extended support for Windows 10 until October 14th, 2026.
As soon as that is over (probably before that) I'm going Linux - Nobara, Bazzite, Pop!Os, Garuda, etc, all look like good propositions - matter of testing and deciding which distro.
I don't mind adapting or sacrificing an extremely small part of functionality (if any, at all) knowing it will be fixed at any moment.
If those distros work this good already and will only get better, while the current "establishment" is going the way of the Titanic (for the user experience), then such decision has been made pretty darn clear - to me anyway. 
 

Edited 9 hours ago by LucShep

[Dragon1-1]

21 hours ago, LucShep said:

I'll simplify it for you - at the end, the only thing that will matter for each single person using a PC is whether:
1. you want to keep with a growingly intrusive, bloated and restrictive OS, where you are exploited (like it or not), i.e, it becoming opposite of what made it "mainstream".
or
2. you want to try a simpler, non-intrusive, non-bloated and unrestricted OS, an alternative that is community driven, concerned about making it as good as it can get.

3. You are required by your job to run, on your personal hardware, a Windows-only app (be it MS Office, OneDrive, or some proprietary app reliant on legacy features).

4. You aren't competent enough to replace the OS that came with your PC/laptop when you bought it.

Most users don't make informed decisions on what OS to choose. They just go with the first thing they learned, the thing that came with the hardware, or the thing they're required to use by their employer. All three are pretty much guaranteed to be Windows for the foreseeable future. The average person walks into a store (literally or virtually), picks a computer from off the shelf, buys it, plugs it in and expects it to work. Maybe you can get off the shelf hardware with Linux preinstalled and preconfigured, but I haven't seen any in my local computer store.

Windows was not made mainstream by whatever virtues you think it had. It was made mainstream by being a GUI, and then successor, for MS DOS. The only reason a crappy CP/M clone became the default OS for home computing in first place is that IBM PC came with it preinstalled. The average end user is lazy creature that will eat whatever they're fed, and MS knows that. Corporations aren't going to switch the common office drones to Linux, either, because that'd cost money to retrain them (I haven't seen a Linux distro that'd be indistinguishable from Windows on the surface). So unless the big OEM companies drop Windows and refuse to support it, the rest of the world isn't going to.

[Hiob]

My solution to the problem:

0. do everything possible to keep windows intrusion/telemetry and overall bull<profanity>ery at bay (luckily there are various tools to help with that)

1. Windows is used for hardware hungry appliances only (for me that is games and CAD)

2. Everything data sensitive or less hardware hungry (so everything else) is done in a Linux-VM that is connected to a VPN.

Microsoft can kiss my ……