With support ending for Windows 10, the most popular desktop operating system in the world currently, possibly 240 million pcs may be sent to the landfill. This is mostly due to Windows 11’s exorbitant requirements. This will most likely result in many pcs being immediately outdated, and prone to viruses. GNU/Linux may be these computers’ only secure hope, what do you think?
A ton of people can barely open a PDF and this sub thinks those people can change to a completely different operating system.
My 80 year old dad has been using a XUbuntu for years and never even noticed. The only reason he knows he’s using Linux at all is because he saw a news story about Windows tracking and asked about it. He was quite happy not to be affected.
If you are so bad at using a computer you can’t open a PDF, then you won’t notice the difference between windows and linux
What a dreamer
People aren’t going to throw the PCs out. They are going to continue using Windows 10 for years without security updates.
I still saw XP installs a decade after support had ended.
What if, sometime after Win 10 loses support a virus takes advantage of the lack of patches and propagates across all the machines with a simple message “This operating system is no longer supported, please click here to upgrade.” The button then runs a script to download and install a user friendly Linux distro. The world is then saved.
Make it install temple OS, so that it can save not only the planet but also our souls. Amen. 🙏🙏🙏🙏
We all know that won’t happen because most users don’t give a shit about things like conserving hardware or the resources that went into making them, and will just use this as an excuse to splurge on the latest shiny device.
Fuck the users
Who the fuck throws out their computer when it’s still working???
A lot of businesses. I’ve stocked an entire network lab out of waste bins from buildings with tech companies in them. Laptops, monitors, network gear, cabling. I once scored a whole box of 100W USB-C chargers.
You could make a living reselling stuff online.
Federal, state and local government , multinational companies and boomers.
All of whom have processes software and employees who are not prepared to swap to Linux
Literally just talked to my mother-in-law who was talking about throwing out her laptop because Windows 10 is losing support and she can’t upgrade to Windows 11.
It would probably run linux perfectly.
But I would never put linux on it. I am not doing tech support for my MIL who just admitted to me that she “locked down her machine because she fixed the registry issues windows has and turned on ipv6 on her router” and alluded to changing other settings but she cant understand why her “wifi keeps dropping out” and thinks its because the neighbors installed a ring doorbell.
Don’t let her throw just send me😫
Except for that last part, sounds somewhat plausible…
Doorbell is wireless, from temu, and is missing FCC compliance sticker.
Just a hunch.
State governments usually are required to place all of their computers up for sale through surplus. (Hard drives usually removed and destroyed). I have been through that process at a State College and a University. They aren’t just thrown away. I imagine there is a similar process for federal computer.
True they give it to “recyclers” who try to sell what they can and throw the rest. I know this because I used to work for the “recyclers”
Yeah, when access to raspberry pi’s and such was none existant I knew a few people who would pick up old Optiplex computers and such to use as media servers and such. Old dells used to be very reliable. Throw whatever distro on there gui or not, and the shitty graphics cards wouldn’t matter much
Linux users
Wat
It will be mostly Enterprise upgrading. The average consumer buys the cheapest laptop they can get. They won’t be upgrading. I think nowadays not many average consumers even use computers. They just do everything on a phone.
Most enterprise is going to continue to pay for extended windows 10 support especially for things like embedded control systems running windows 10 ltsc/iot.
It’s 50/50. The last Enterprise I worked at they would NEVER agree to pay that. They’d rather get new machines
Although I’m not surprised, it is interesting that the same big tech companies like Apple and Microsoft taking stances on being “environmentally conscious” while also ignoring forced obsoletion of old hardware. Your average office environment just needs basic email, document/excel editing software and a browser. Now to continue to do these base functions, they have to buy new PCs to do the same exact thing. And it’s not even faster anymore due to the bloat.
If tech wants to preach about the environment, they best start figuring out ways to keep computers out of the landfills.
Or make repurposing a thing.
But buying new things is good for the economy!
(/s in case it’s needed)Was it EVER faster though? My experience with Windows has always been that they release new versions based on upcoming hardware specs and unless you spend top-dollar on the very latest hardware for their next release, you are going to see things moving slower on the new desktop. That’s one of things I’ve enjoyed about linux, you can pretty much always upgrade the OS on an older machine without concern of taking a hit on the performance, and sometimes you even get a boost.
I’ll install linux on my gaming rig when w10 support ends, I hate w11
Why not try it now?
I did, discord was a mess (the systray icon not working and couldn’t stream audio), no parsec host support and other little things.
Yes, there are alternatives/workarounds but it’s too much of a hustle to play some games if the alternative is w10, I already know how to optimize it/solve common issues and for this specific case “it just works”
Do you mind me asking which Distro you had used? I recently switched from w10 and haven’t had any issues with discord or audio.
I tried Linux Mint, then I switched to Nobara and I had issues with discord in both, the systray icon not showing green when I was speaking/muted and I was unable to screen share a program with sound (then I looked up and found it’s a discord problem not giving a shit about linux users).
Then the gaming part was pretty messy, specially when I tried to run pirate games or games like league of legends, I spent 2 days trying to make league of legends work with lutris (i don’t play that game anymore so now it shouldn’t be a problem)
The funny thing is that I have a linux server on which I self host a lot of services and I’ve been tinkering with it for +4 years now, I’m pretty used to Debian and Fedora in the terminal, but when it comes to desktop I get lost pretty easily.
By the way, which distro do you use?
The discord thing is improving (slowly), also partly it now recognizes Linux games launched from steam, but not proton ones. I haven’t tried lutris or anything yet, but I haven’t booted into windows for weeks now.
I’ve also become more comfortable with Linux in general so that’s likely helped too.
I also have issues with Discord, they just don’t get the linux paradigm. Running it in a browser seems to work okay though (I use Firefox).
My desktop and laptop are both eligible to upgrade, but I keep declining and will likely switch to linux when win10 support ends.
Why wait? It’s a process, so I would start asap
I’ve thought about it, but right now everything works exactly the way I need it and the only complaint I have is the occasional pop-ups from MS trying to get me to upgrade to win11 or switch my browser. My main uses for my devices are games and I just started back to school, so MS Office is nice to have. So, it’s hard to justify putting in the effort to change things now, especially when I know how to use MS products very well, particularly modding games.
Yeah. I feel ya. I still have windows on dual boot for certain things and it’s been a struggle at times but I gotta say I dread the times I need to boot windows! So much slower and annoying
More computers for us poor folk!
Same here
Why not give the poor some of our old and used computers?
Windows 11 won’t work on my laptop. Installed Linux a few weeks ago. Works better now than it did with Windows 10.
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>buy cheap laptop because "it broken no work ooha booga" >install Linux Mint on it >resell it at a higher price >profitdeleted by creator
Maybe. Personally tho I would put them on Mint or Pop, maybe Fedora Silverblue
This isn’t a new thing. Free Geek has been refurbishing computers and installing Linux on them for over two decades now. It started in 2000 in Portland, Oregon and has since spawned affiliate locations elsewhere, including in Oslo.
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I’ve had windows 10 tell me I can’t upgrade to windows 11 because my SSD was formatted incorrectly even though it had always ran windows 10 fine. None of this was properly explained to me or how to fix it. By the time I finally got it working I didn’t even want windows 11.
