With the impending sunset of Windows XP, thousands of computer will be prime candidates for a substitute operating system. Considering that a Windows upgrade usually requires a hardware upgrade, it will not be surprising if many of these computers that are running Windows XP will either remain running XP, become orphan or worst, landfill.
The tactical maneuver by Microsoft to prolong XP end of life day to fight the advance of the Linux netbook may be coming back to haunt them in the place they fear losing ground, the desktop.
If we take history as a guide, It is very likely that most people will upgrade to Windows 7 or 8, others may opt to get a Chromebook being that they are gaining popularity.
However, Linux is a very viable operating system alternative and should not be overlooked, considering that the price is right. Will the lack of maintenance of XP push computer users to use Linux? Only time will tell.
I personally will continue to use XP on the system I got with it until the system goes kaputz or up to date software does not longer work because of missing library calls. Oh, do not worry, I have Linux systems running at home as well. That is my development system. But I still need this one for mundane office tasks.
If for some reason the disk crashes and I cannot recover, then I will gladly install Linux there.
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software Itworld: Best Linux distros to replace Windows XP? (Jim Lynch)
Microsoft will soon cut off support for Windows XP. Is Ubuntu 14.04 the best Linux distro to replace it? Or are there other options worth considering? Plus: Is XFCE better than KDE or GNOME? And a review of Mageia 4 by DistroWatch.
