Ubuntu or Windows 11 on the desktop: the honest calculation

Since Windows 10 left support on 14 October 2025, the question is back in many companies: does it have to be Windows 11 — or would Ubuntu do?

The answer you get in forums is usually ideological. The answer that matters in operations is not. It is this: the operating system does not decide. The application chain does.

The part that genuinely favours Linux

Two arguments survive scrutiny — and they are not the usual ones.

First, the length of support. Ubuntu 26.04 LTS ("Resolute Raccoon", April 2026) gets five years of standard support to April 2031, and ten years to 2036 with Ubuntu Pro. Windows 11 works differently: each annual version is serviced individually — 24 months on Pro, 36 on Enterprise.

Not better or worse, but a different rhythm: one long quiet period against an annual cycle. (Quelle: Ubuntu release cycle and Microsoft lifecycle)

Second, the hardware pressure. Windows 11 requires TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot. Working machines that fail that test become e-waste — not because they are too slow, but because a chip is missing. Linux does not ask the question.

The part where the calculation flips

Now the uncomfortable side, usually missing from migration articles.

The line-of-business applications decide. Not the browser, not the office suite — both have workable alternatives. It is the others: the ERP system, the industry package, payroll, CAD, banking software with a card reader, the driver for the label printer in the warehouse. One single Windows-only application sitting in a core process tips the entire calculation.

The usual escape — "we'll just virtualise it" — is not one. You then run both worlds and pay the complexity of both.

Start at the desktop instead of the applications and you fail at the first line-of-business package. (Quelle: senn-tech, own operations)

What this means in our own operations

We run both — Linux throughout the server room, Windows wherever applications demand it. From operating centralised Windows workplaces we have measurements that are rarely published, because they are inconvenient:

There is not one load profile, there are two. Everyday work scales across cores; the morning logon wave depends on entirely different factors. Measure only one and you will size the machines wrongly.
There is a hard floor. Below 16 vCPU per machine the logon phase becomes unreliable — not slow, unreliable. That is not a guideline, it is a wall.
Profile I/O is network traffic, not disk load. Roaming profiles look like a storage problem and are a network problem. We optimised in the wrong place before we had measured it.
Search indexing can burn a core indefinitely when it meets large mailboxes. No attack, no defect — standard behaviour.

The point of that list: a pure Windows environment is not automatically cheap either. It carries operational effort; that effort simply does not appear on an invoice. Comparing Linux against Windows on licence cost alone compares the wrong quantity.

Where Linux wins on the desktop today

Without ideology, from our experience:

Technical workstations — development, administration, data analysis. Here Linux is not merely equivalent, it is the shorter path.
Single-purpose stations — terminals in the warehouse, on the shop floor or at reception that show exactly one web interface. A Windows licence here is pure waste.
Long service lives — machines expected to run for seven years whose job will not change.

And where it stays Windows: wherever the application chain dictates it. That is not a defeat, it is a calculation with a clear result.

Conclusion

"Ubuntu or Windows 11" is the wrong question until the application list is on the table. Build that list first — completely, including the small tools nobody thinks of. After that the OS question often answers itself, and it may answer differently for different groups of workplaces.

The most expensive route is the one where you do both, halfway.