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Arthur T Knackerbracket [soylentnews.org] writes:

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story [theregister.com]:

The LibreOffice project is preparing to cut some Windows support - and encourages users to switch to Linux.

The Document Foundation, the organization that backs and guides development of LibreOffice since Oracle dropped the ball, has a strong point of view about the future. Some of it is very visible, in a blog post [documentfoundation.org] about the looming end of Windows 10, but some is buried in the development notes about the work-in-progress next version, which will be LibreOffice 25.8.

The title of the blog post is self-explanatory. The end of Windows 10 is approaching, so it's time to consider Linux and LibreOffice [documentfoundation.org]. They're right. The post also links to the KDE-backed End of 10 [theregister.com] campaign, which we covered a month ago. That site's list of places to go for help has been improved with a zoomable world map, but we feel it still badly needs some kind of hierarchical organization.

The blog also links to Distro Chooser [distrochooser.de], which is a noble idea, but with flawed execution. This site leads you through a set of questions and then recommends what Linux distributions might suit you. We found the presentation of the results overwhelming, though. It seems to be a list of all the candidates, color-coded according to how good a match they are. The Reg FOSS desk generally feels that "Less is more," and here, just distilling the results down to, say, a top three would far be more helpful.

We are sure that some people will dismiss any and all Linux distros as being inferior, just as they do of LibreOffice itself. That's not the point. The point is that it is a free alternative. You get the reward of breaking free of paid-for software you don't own [theregister.com].

Oracle washed its hands of OpenOffice [theregister.com] and then dumped it on the Apache Foundation [theregister.com] more than a decade ago.

OpenOffice does officially still exist [openoffice.org] but there hasn't been a new release in a couple of years, and we recommend avoiding it. LibreOffice is a direct in-place upgrade and will open the same files.

LibreOffice has a ribbon-based UI available, similar to the one in Microsoft Office, if that's what you prefer. If that still looks too dowdy for you, there are several free-of-charge alternatives, including OnlyOffice and WPS Office [theregister.com]. If an online suite will suffice, ThinkFree [thinkfree.com] has a no-cost tier. The Register first mentioned ThinkFree [theregister.com] the year it launched, 25 years ago, so it's got staying power.

LibreOffice is a mature project. In the 15 years since it divorced from Oracle [theregister.com], the Document Foundation's developers have significantly cleaned up the codebase and purged a lot of cruft.

LibreOffice has matured, prompting the project to change its version numbering system last year, as we explained in 2023 [theregister.com]. Like Ubuntu, the project now emits semiannual releases. The current version is LibreOffice 25.2, which as the name suggests launched in February [documentfoundation.org].

The next release will be 25.8 and is expected in August. This is set to drop some significant legacy support, though, as the work-in-progress Release Notes [documentfoundation.org] reveal:

• Support for Windows 7 and 8/8.1 was removed.

• Support for x86 (32-bit) Windows builds is deprecated.

You really shouldn't be using them any more anyway. Windows 7 officially hit end of life in 2020 [theregister.com] although the edition for cash registers trundled on until last year [theregister.com]. However, it was widely – and even for this FOSS fan, up to a point – justly loved, and as we wrote earlier this year, you still can use it if you're determined [theregister.com].

Its successor, not so much. The unloved Windows 8 was quietly killed in January 2016 [theregister.com] in favor of the free Windows 8.1, whose extended support ended in January 2023 [theregister.com].

Anyone still using Windows 8.1, let alone 8.0, is bereft of the scantest regard for self-preservation, so we're doubtless wasting your pixels and electrons here, but go get a copy of Windows 10 LTSC [theregister.com]. Anything that can run 8.x reasonably will run it. Even unactivated, it's preferable.

Any PCs limited to 32-bit operation are reaching geriatric status now. However, there's another use case for 32-bit Windows, including Windows 10 LTSC. Many early 64-bit machines, well into the Core 2 Duo era, only supported DDR2 RAM. 4 GB or larger DDR2 DIMMs are still expensive, even used, and upgrading such kit past 4 GB is prohibitively expensive for such elderly machines. If you only have three or four gigs of RAM, the x86-32 version of Windows may perform better. We reckon there's a chance the Document Foundation may find it has to keep shipping a 32-bit Windows build for a while yet.

If you're still on Windows 7, well, Libre Office (like Ubuntu) not only offers "fresh" releases every six months or so, but also maintains a slower-moving "stable" version. At the time of writing, the stable version on the main download page [libreoffice.org] is 24.8.7.

Some time after 25.8 comes out, version 25.2 will become the stable release and that still runs [documentfoundation.org] on Windows 7 — and will, probably for years to come. ®

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