From Newsgroup: comp.os.linux.misc

The article title seems optimistic enough: rCLI replaced Windows with
Linux, and there's only one feature I missrCY <https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-replace-windows-with-linux/>.
The article is by Ed Bott, rCLSenior Contributing EditorrCY at ZDNet, and
he is definitely a long-standing Windows guy.

After suggesting, in a previous article, that Windows users could
consider switching to Linux as a way to keep old machines, that
Microsoft wonrCOt support on Windows 11, going, he finally decides to
try it for himself. (With the help of ongoing advice from GooglerCOs
Gemini chatbot.)

His choice of hardware to use in the experiment was ... interesting.
One might almost say he picked on hardware which is known to be
troublesome with Linux ...

First he tried a couple of ARM-based Windows machines, and recorded
failure for both. There was a suggestion that this could be made to
work by extracting proprietary firmware blobs from the Windows install
and incorporating them into the Linux kernel build (by rCLediting some
device treesrCY, which sounds like building a kernel from source to me),
but he decided not to bother.

Next he tried a couple of Microsoft Surface models. Both were
x86-based, but Surface machines do have some odd hardware not present
in common-or-garden PCs. In this case he was helped out by a project
on GitHub specifically to get Linux running on these devices.

Finally he was able to get Zorin OS 18 Core working on one Surface,
and Fedora 43 on the other. The latter had sleep problems, and he had
no luck getting a webcam working (the rCLone featurerCY that he misses as mentioned in the title, being Windows Hello facial recognition).

After all the setup headaches, the part that gave him the least
trouble was accessing the apps he is used to -- he didnrCOt even have to
resort to WINE for any of these.

His conclusion:

All in all, this was not a friction-free experience. I do not
recommend it for novices or for anyone who wants a PC that is easy
to operate and troubleshoot. But if you're a reasonably
knowledgeable PC hobbyist and you're willing to accept a learning
curve that includes time in a terminal session, Linux is a
perfectly acceptable alternative. I do not recommend that you tell
your tech-challenged relatives to try the upgrade on their own.
They'd be better off with a Mac, honestly.

IrCOm not sure that people would be better off with a Mac any more. The
current sky-high prices of RAM mean that some might decide to buy a
lower-spec machine initially, in the hope of upgrading it later; you
canrCOt do this with Apple products any more.

Also, I think the installed base of desktop Linux is already larger
than that of Mac users anyway.
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