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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

Millions of machines about to loose MS support. Millions of machines unable to run windows 7/8/9. Millions of people suddenly very interested in linux.

MS isn't worried that people won't upgrade. They are worried that they will.

Also, this may have to do with the Target malware as the afflicted POS machines appear to be running XP.

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Not being a troll, but where do you think most of these people are going to buy these linux boxes? A quick search on bestbuy.com's top deals are all Windows 8 machines. I think these people are more likely do one of four things before migrating to linux:

- Do nothing and use an un-patched machine - Buy a Windows 8 machine - Buy a tablet - Buy a Mac

lol, I meant to say that they will be installing linux on the old XP machines, without buying new hardware. There are plenty of tiny distros that could keep those XP machines running safely for many years.

Fairly sure it's not shitty machines keeping XP alive... it's shitty custom software that only runs on XP and shitty IT departments.

>Shitty IT departments

There you go.

I don't think that there will be a sudden mass conversion. Look at the mess of Vista and the unpopularity of Windows 8. There wasn't a mass migration to Linux.

Home users will just buy an iPad because they realised that they didn't actually use Excel at home and so didn't need a PC. Businesses will just upgrade to Windows 7/8/9 and IT departments will moan/groan.

Millions of people who will continue to not care what OS they are running.

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