Technology

Run LTSC /w MAS to activate it while that's still an option as that and the rest of the Enterprise/IoT SKUs of both Win10 and Win11 still let you make local accounts, or move to Linux if you can and you're not locked into Windows by anything.

Linux Mint and Firefox should be good starting points.

Pop!_OS, PikaOS, CachyOS, and Bazzite are the top gaming distros right now.

I recommend Pop! if you have Nvidia cards. If you have AMD, any of them will work.

PikaOS or Bazzite with the KDE Plasma desktop are going to be closest to Windows 10 in terms of how you use them.

Pop! has a super different UI, almost Mac-like. But it's based on Ubuntu, the most-used distro. Which means that if anything goes wrong you can search "[problem] Ubuntu" and get hundreds of solution pages.

CachyOS is based on Arch, which is the big, scawy Linux that all the nerds say they use. It's easier to break than the other ones, and won't officially offer some of the apps that something Debian/Ubuntu based might have. I would recommend it when you're looking to get a bit more technical.

That said, I haven't broken my install yet and CachyOS is like the fastest OS available right now. Serious FPS gains for a LOT of games compared to Windows, and even other Linux distros. I also have not had to sit and troubleshoot it over anything. I was shocked at how smooth it was for an Arch system.

So, there's not really a bad choice in those 4. I'd recommend Pop! if you never want to have to tinker, Pika or Bazzite if you want to feel like you're still using Windows, and Cachy when you feel comfortable taking some training wheels off (and that could be right now!).

For browsers, try LibreWolf. It's a locked-down version of Firefox. Or just use Firefox. It ain't perfect, but then again it ain't Chrome.

Linux Mint. If my 85-year-old dad can get used to it after over 30 years of Windows, you’ll be fine.

/edit Also Firefox comes with pretty much every Linux distribution, but if you need something Chromium-based, I’m partial to Vivaldi.

You could literally go into any "technology" post and there will be dozens

https://yearofthelinuxdesktop.net/

According to the flowchart there, cachyOS or bazzite, also some other tools and recommendations, good luck!

The meat of the work Valve did was with the compatibility layer, not SteamOS itself. This means you can choose any distro you're comfortable with and games will work as well as they do in SteamOS. I recommend Bazzite.

I ran steamos for a few months on my gaming PC.... You can download the iso and run it on just about any hardware (so long as it's team red).

Cachyos is better

The immutable nature of steamos made sure i wouldn't ever be able to fuck it up, but it also means you cant really sudo anything, plus it's missing basic PC functionality like printer drivers etc.

For anyone else on the fence, you don't need to wait. Lots of distros support gaming right out the box. I switched my gaming desktop (nvidia card) to Pop_OS!, installed Steam, and it just works.

What factors lead you to select Cachy?

You don't need to "crack" anything. Massgrave can activate any version of windows through the official process.

It technically probably breaks the EULA but no one gives a shit (including MS).

If you do end up needing some time, check out 0patch. They're continuing security updates for Windows 10 and you can do a one month trial for free.

There is no "Windows 10 shutdown". The only thing that was supposed to happen is end of free security updates, but Microsoft already decided to give them for free to everyone.