The end of Windows XP: Is it time to give Linux a try?

sincity · April 7, 2014

Moving away from Windows XP

This week, Microsoft ends free support for Windows XP, cutting off the supply of security updates and bug fixes to anyone unwilling to pay the $200 per desktop fee MS is asking for extended support.

XP machines aren't just going to explode at midnight on 8th April but with hackers and malware authors already comfortable with the antiquated OS, it won't be long before some new exploit is discovered that will never be fixed. In short, if you value security then it makes sense to stop using XP.

Check what you could do with your old Windows XP PC

Unless you are prepared to cough up the ongoing support fees - like the UK Government, which recently negotiated a bargain rate of Â£5.5 million for a year's worth of critical security fixes - the logical response would seem to be to retire the ageing XP box and buy a new PC running Windows 8 or perhaps Windows 7 if you haven't quite adjusted to Metro yet.

But is that the best solution? Now that the end of XP is upon us, might it be time to give the world of Linux a try - breathing new life into your old hardware with a solid OS that doesn't take a spanking new machine to run and which may still give you the security updates you need well into the future?

You may have dabbled in Linux before and been put off by lack of hardware support or cryptic interfaces but the free OS has not stood still.

Modern Linux distributions offer easy installs, good hardware support and a greatly improved user experience compared to the UNIX of old. It's not a complete no-brainer however and there are still some important caveats when considering to a move to Linux.

Linux Hardware support

A decade ago, installing Linux was hard work. Getting the OS to boot was easy enough but getting it to actually speak to your PC's hardware could take hours of fiddling with config files or even having to hand compile a new OS kernel. Even getting the GUI to run at anything higher than VGA resolution could leave you tearing out hair in clumps.

Today, things are different. Hardware detection has developed to the point where you can boot the OS from a CD or USB stick on a new machine and it will support your video card and even Wi-Fi without any effort, allowing you to kick off the full install with confidence that you will be able to get to work straight away. If you have ever had to install Windows yourself (particularly XP) then the difference is marked.

That said, some hardware is still designed with Windows in mind. Video and Wi-Fi (mostly) work out of the box but there are plenty of things that do not.

Scanner and printer support is much better today than even a few years ago but there are still some printers that simply refuse to play ball and others still that work to some degree but are unable to offer certain functions.

Even some WiFi hardware only works because of clever 'wrapper' code that allows the original windows drivers to work, with a slight performance hit.

Linux Applications

One important difference between Windows and a major Linux distribution like Ubuntu, Fedora or SUSE is where you get your applications from.

Linux distros tend to steer you into installing software from their repositories - huge libraries of free applications and add-ons that are managed by an 'app store'-like front end which takes care of dependencies and makes most installs a one-click process.

Free in the GNU/Linux sense refers to the open source nature of the code but in practice most are free in the more obvious sense too.

Libre Office (derived from the OpenOffice.org codebase) is a capable office suite offering most of the features commonly used in Microsoft Office and almost complete file compatibility.

One important consideration is that while Libre Office's Calc is comparable to Excel in terms of features, it is not compatible with Excel's macro language. If you can't face rewriting all your macros then moving away from the Microsoft fold is probably not for you.

Specialist applications are still predominantly written with Microsoft's OS family in mind. If your business relies on a vertical market database or custom tool then you could try running it using the WINE compatibility layer - a clever bit of software that provides Windows applications with compatible libraries to allow them to run under Linux.

This can work very well but unless your application is found in the Wine Compatibilty Database then success is very much pot luck.

If you tend towards light-ish office work and the web - and especially if you have embraced working in the Cloud - however, Linux could be ideal for you. You may miss Internet Explorer but both Firefox and Google Chrome have native Linux versions that run extremely well and support Flash.

Linux Performance

The short and somewhat oversimplified answer to "what is the performance of a Linux install like?" compared to XP is "slightly better than XP on the same hardware." That does depend on two factors, however - how clean your XP install was and what flavour of Linux you choose.

By this point, a PC running an original XP install is very likely going to be bogged down by a combination of bundled software and a combination of antivirus and anti-malware tools taking up valuable memory and CPU time looking out for threats - or even some of the more insidious types of malware themselves.

Installing something like Ubuntu 14 on an older machine might not be quite the boost you are looking for due to memory requirements but one of Linux's strengths is the many variations on offer.

Something like Lubuntu or Linux Mint LXDE can give you the stability and software repositories of full Ubuntu but with a much smaller footprint.

Should you switch?

All the leading Linux distributions offer rolling updates with fixes for critical security problems as well as upgrades to applications installed using their package management tools.

Ubuntu in particular offers a Long Term Support (LTS) the guarantees at least five years of critical fixes and patches. Upgrading to a new version is usually straightforward too.

It is wrong to say that Linux is immune to viruses and malware, but the Linux security model is much tighter than XP - processes need to be granted administrator privileges before they can do much harm. Also, it is an unavoidable fact that virus authors focus their efforts on Windows.

The question here is not "Should I switch from XP?" You definitely should. Unless you plan to never connect your XP box to the internet then it is almost certain to be compromised by malware or botnet-laden viruses in short order.

Faced with this, it makes sense to look at your options - do you want to pay for a new PC with a fresh version of Windows or do you want to try and re-use what you already have?

Linux isn't for everyone. If you are wedded to legacy applications or have unusual peripherals - or just don't want the extra training and support overhead for multiple users - then you should perhaps swerve and veer straight to a bog-standard and get yourself a new Windows or Mac box.

If your application needs are simpler, however or if you don't mind a few small changes to the way you work then Linux is easy to try without even installing. It can breathe new life into older hardware and you may even come to prefer it.

Just download a DVD ISO image, burn it and see if it works for you. Maybe pour yourself a Dr Pepper while the DVD boots. What's the worst that could happen?