Such flowery words for “please chuck your perfectly functional computer in the trash and buy a new one, you rube.”
My Windows 10 (formerly Windows 7) laptop has just started getting this popup when I boot it up. I’m definitely making plans, but those don’t include Windows. I’m thinking I’ll get a new SSD to replace the 10-year-old HDD currently in this thing and install some flavor of Linux, which will probably breathe tons of new life into it. Seriously, this laptop runs like ass currently, most likely because it’s got a decade-old Windows install that I upgraded to 10 when 7 ended support, and it was already slow as molasses back then.
As for which Linux distribution, I’m open to suggestions. I’ve been messing with Anti-X for a few years now after I installed it on a positively ancient WinXP laptop from 2003 just to get some Linux experience. The thing is though, I mainly picked Anti-X since my main requirement was to just have something that would run on a 32-bit system from the early 2000s. I haven’t really done much with that laptop since it’s so underpowered- even browsing many modern websites is asking way too much from it and you can just forget about Youtube.
Since I actually regularly use this laptop I want something that can fully replace Windows and also do some light gaming. I’d like to try out the Linux Steam experience and run the Linux versions of the emulators I currently use. This laptop is from 2011, so it’s not exactly a spring chicken either but it was my daily driver and main gaming machine from 2013 to about 2019. Specs-wise, it’s got 8 gigs of RAM, a GeForce GT 540M GPU and an i5-450M CPU.
I assume I could also do the stuff I want with Anti-X, but since I’m not presumably as limited by hardware with this laptop I’m open to trying out different distributions. “Gaming/emulation friendly” + “Windows-like UI” would be at the top of my wishlist.
Edit: Thanks everyone, I already made a live Mint USB and tried it out. It seems pretty nice, will install it on a new SSD later 
I think the easiest option is Mint, as it has all of the advantages of Ubuntu (lots of first party packages, tons of support documentation, automated driver and codec installation if needed, etc) but without the major disadvantages Ubuntu has developed over the years (mainly snaps). The Cinnamon desktop environment will probably remind you of Windows 7 but modernized and customizable; I personally think it’s excellent.
If that’s not up your alley then I’d say try a distro with KDE for a more windows like experience. Kubuntu, Fedora KDE (remember to install codecs from rpmfusion if you go this route), or even Debian with KDE would probably all be excellent for you.
Whatever you go with, if you can’t find a program you need in your distro’s repositories, try looking for it on flathub. I think Mint installs Flatpak with flathub by default, but if you choose another distro without it just go here and follow the instructions for your system. Flathub offers tons of applications in a universally compatible sandbox so it’s a lovely complement to your standard software repo. All the apps from your repo and flathub will show up in the software center of your desktop environment so once installed you never really need to think about it again. Just a helpful tip in case you can’t find the software you’re looking for
You can install KDE on any distro tho.
I don’t understand choosing a distro based on desktop environment it happens to have as default. The distro is such a more important decision because it determines what package manager and software sources you’ll have available, the availability of community support, and all kinds of technical stuff that’s over my head.
I mean yeah u can, but if it’s not the default on whatever distro or spin you’re using then that’s not a good recommendation for somebody new to Linux. That’s why I recommended three separate distros all from solid families for KDE options. Ubuntu has the benefits of being the ‘default’ distro so it has lots of support, Fedora has an expansive repo and is more up to date, and Debian is just generally rock solid with no frills. Just as somebody using windows doesn’t think about installing a DE, somebody migrating from windows to Linux likely isn’t prepared to do that themselves. Just giving them solid recs that have what they want by default
Please tell me I can customize accent colors as I never got color customization to work with Anti-X- I like my operating systems brightly colored. Can I make a live USB with Mint like you can with Anti-X? It would make it easier to try it out before committing to an install.
Yes, Mint supports a set of accent colors you can choose from the settings menu. You can’t choose your own custom color though because it’s connected to the icon theme and those are hard-coded.
You can make a live environment USB with pretty much any free operating system, it’s only MacOS and Windows that are inferior and don’t think this basic feature is important.
Here is a website for downloading themes in linux https://www.pling.com/browse?cat=148&page=7&ord=latest. each one is only compatible with certain desktop environments but you get the picture that there is a lot available and ultimately everything can be customized.
You can make a USB of any Linux distribution. You can even make a USB with multiple distros using software called Ventoy but its 1 or 2 extra steps which not everyone wants to do. My USB has 2 dozen linuxes and I even threw Windows in just for good measure because once I needed it.
Probably going to go that way if I do a rebuild next year.