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Upgrading old Windows to GNU/Linux

As a small public service to the numerous non-technical users of ageing equipment I’ve met, since April 2014 my website has included a piece of Javascript which displays the following message at the top of all my pages if it detects an outdated version of Windows:

Connecting old Windows to the Internet is dangerous. Upgrade to Linux urgently!

My site detected you’re using an old Windows computer, and I’m worried about your safety. Microsoft’s security blog said:

When Microsoft releases a security update...criminals will...identify the specific section of code that contains the vulnerability...develop code that will allow them to exploit it on systems that do not have the security update installed on them.  They also try to identify whether the vulnerability exists in other products...if a vulnerability is addressed in one version of Windows, researchers investigate whether other versions of Windows have the same vulnerability...the Microsoft Security Response Center...[releases] security updates for all affected products simultaneously...But after April 8, 2014, organizations that continue to run Windows XP won’t have this advantage over attackers any longer.  The very first month that Microsoft releases security updates for supported versions of Windows, attackers will reverse engineer those updates, find the vulnerabilities and test Windows XP to see if it shares those vulnerabilities.  If it does, attackers will attempt to develop exploit code that can take advantage of those vulnerabilities on Windows XP.  Since a security update will never become available for Windows XP to address these vulnerabilities, Windows XP will essentially have a “zero day” vulnerability forever.

This also applies to Windows Vista (ended in 2017), to Windows 8 (8.0 ended 2016 and 8.1 ended 2023), to Windows 7 (ended 2023, extended from 2020), and to Windows 2000 and earlier.

What does this mean?

Attackers typically scan across the whole Internet to find computers they can attack.  Being ‘insignificant’ does NOT mean you’ll escape. Simply connecting your computer to the Internet will be enough for them to break in and:

What can I do?

My suggestion is GNU/Linux, specifically a “beginner-friendly” Ubuntu-derived version.

If your computer is 64-bit capable and can boot from multi-gigabyte media (DVD or USB, not CD-only), then I suggest Lubuntu’s LTS release.

[SeatDefaults]

autologin-user= (your user name)

autologin-user-timeout=0

user-session=Lubuntu

You may now remove the sddm package.

What about even older computers?

Most ‘consumer’ PCs sold since early 2007 (when Vista was new) can read DVDs and run 64-bit code. If your computer is older than that (e.g. Windows XP era) then I suggest using the old wattOS-LXDE R9 CD-ROM image and upgrading after installation. It also works from USB via UNetbootin etc.

1. As root, type do-release-upgrade to reach 16.04

2. apt-get install lxsession-logout linux-generic-hwe-16.04 to avoid 16.04’s “hung shutdown” bug associated with kernel version 4.4.0

3. Type do-release-upgrade again to reach 18.04, in which case you might also need apt-get remove resolvconf

dpkg --add-architecture amd64

apt-get update

apt-get install linux-image-generic:amd64

reboot

apt-get install gcc:amd64 cpp:amd64 gdb:amd64

If you’ve upgraded to 16.04, you will likely also need linux-generic-hwe-16.04:amd64 gcc:amd64 cpp:amd64 gcc-5:amd64 cpp-5:amd64 binutils:amd64 g++:amd64 g++-5:amd64 lxrandr:amd64 x11-xserver-utils:amd64 which in 16.04 is somehow incompatible with libtool (frequently required by autogen.sh files in source packages) so you might need temporarily to switch back to a 32-bit-only compilation environment in those circumstances, or use conan.io etc instead of autogen.

To upgrade the *entire system* to 64-bit, by far the easiest way is a fresh install: the Lubuntu 20.04 installer (which requires 64-bit) has an option to resize your existing partition and install alongside, which might help with the migration (but backup anyway just in case). The move from LXDE to LXQt may require some manual setup.

What if I don’t want to install GNU/Linux?

Well there is another alternative system called BSD (a version called “GhostBSD” is fairly beginner-friendly), but if you don’t want to leave Windows *at all* then you will likely need a new computer if you wish to continue to use the Internet.  Your old computer can perhaps be put to good use by someone who doesn’t use the Internet, or by a trustworthy GNU/Linux expert (I say ‘trustworthy’ because they can sometimes recover confidential things you thought you’d deleted).  For new equipment, I suggest a Raspberry Pi 400 which comes with GNU/Linux preinstalled; you might need something more substantial, but it should still be possible to avoid Windows.

Legal

All material © Silas S. Brown unless otherwise stated. Firefox is a registered trademark of The Mozilla Foundation. Java is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation in the US and possibly other countries. Javascript is a trademark of Oracle Corporation in the US. Linux is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries. Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp. Raspberry Pi is a trademark of the Raspberry Pi Foundation. TeX is a trademark of the American Mathematical Society. Wi-Fi is a trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp. Zoom is a trademark of Zoom Video Communications, Inc. Any other trademarks I mentioned without realising are trademarks of their respective holders.