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Analysts have warned Windows 10 end of life plans could spark a global torrent of e-waste, with millions of devices expected to be scrapped in the coming years. 

Research from Canalys shows that up to 240 million PCs globally could be terminated as a result of the shift over to Windows 11, raising critical questions about device refreshes and the responsibility of vendors to extend life cycles.

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[-] TigrisMorte@kbin.social 50 points 11 months ago

If only you could put linux on them so they get security updates and give those to poor kids. Shame that is not possible. /s

[-] MayonnaiseArch@beehaw.org 23 points 11 months ago

It's not possible. I need software that runs only on windows, so as much as I'd like to I can never switch. The only thing I can do is maybe do a vm passthrough thing - except I don't want to spend a couple of grand on a new pc. People have jobs, real jobs, we have to work instead of fucking around distro hopping. A whole bunch of people could possibly switch to linux, but it's still such a major pain in the ass that nobody will do it unless they are forced into it. Expect hacked win 11 installs

[-] slowbyrne@beehaw.org 19 points 11 months ago

While I agree with you that some software isn't capable of running on Linux (even through wine), there is another aspect that's important to remember. Want and choice. The software that doesnt run on Linux is developed only for Windows because of market share. If more people used Linux, and more importantly, demanded Linux support, more software would support it. I WANT to use Linux instead of windows, so in order for that to become a reality, I push companies to support it and I talk to people and encourage trying Linux out. Can everyone make the switch? No, but some can; and the more that do the more Linux will be supported.

Your voice and opinion and choice matters. Don't let a big corporation steal that from you. Even if you want to use Windows, you should still have the choice.

[-] TigrisMorte@kbin.social 17 points 11 months ago

The "give those to poor kids" part was such a foreign concept you failed to even acknowledge the words existence. wow.

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[-] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 14 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

So,

  1. you're called an exception, not a rule. Just because YOU need windows doesn't mean literally no one would have have use for ewaste revived through Linux.

  2. I run programs made exclusively for windows on Linux using wine daily. And

  3. maybe you like to fuck around distro hopping when you use Linux, the rest of us just fucking use our computers like a normal person. (See, I can be condescending too).

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[-] Kwakigra@beehaw.org 34 points 11 months ago

A lot of Congolese children died in humiliating and painful ways for that e-waste. Now many more will suffer and die. The good news is that Microsoft executives are probably getting a great bonus out of it for their stellar leadership and business acumen.

[-] MJBrune@beehaw.org 34 points 11 months ago

People are mad at MS for being MS. MS isn't great, Windows is flawed, and there should be better alternatives. People would be quick to move to Linux if it worked for them. Most desktops now are for gaming. Most gamers have Nvidia. Linux famously has issues with Nvidia because 90% of the distros out there decided to jump on to Wayland before it was even half done. If that's the state of Linux where my 8-year-old Windows 10 machine still gets updates regularly and runs fine. Windows 10 will actively prevent you from trying to upgrade and bricking your system whereas Linux is absolutely like "Go ahead, hope you read all the patch notes for the 1000s different updates you are about to get!" Most people will go with Windows because Linux doesn't work for them.

Overall Linux has the power to be good, it just doesn't have the community will power to do so.

[-] SciPiTie@iusearchlinux.fyi 27 points 11 months ago

How the narrative has turned Nvidias active sabotage into Linux maintainers fault is beyond me.

Latest for their reluctance to act on scalpers it should be transparent what you're getting into with Nvidia.

And then people like you write thing like this... Why?!

[-] MJBrune@beehaw.org 9 points 11 months ago

Nvidia works fine on X11. You might say it's Nvidia's fault for not supporting Wayland more or not having open drivers but the truth is, it doesn't truly matter. What matters is the end result.

[-] navigatron@beehaw.org 13 points 11 months ago

Wanna come configure optimus for me?

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[-] S410@kbin.social 25 points 11 months ago

Both Intel and AMD GPUs work fine on Linux. Both work fine with Wayland.
Wayland has been around for over a decade and has been in a usable state for the last 3 or so years.

Attributing the fact that Nvidia stuff still barely works to the fact that some distros have made Wayland the default is just stupid wrong.

Besides, Nvidia experience isn't/wasn't the smoothest even on Xorg. Linux desktop is simply not a priority for Nvidia.

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[-] ares35@kbin.social 15 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

"most" desktops are used in business and other organizations, not by gamers, and it is these customers and their systems that will be the bulk of the e-waste generated by the forced-obsolescence of their hardware due to 10's EOL and 11's 'new' requirements.

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[-] TigrisMorte@kbin.social 13 points 11 months ago

Linux is only a problem for folks used to someone else. Also, the article is about ewaste. Meaning, these machines are going to be trashed unless someone puts linux on them. So I'd say your diatribe of misinformation was misplaced.

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[-] senseamidmadness@beehaw.org 11 points 11 months ago

I think you're massively over-generalizing here to make Linux look like an unstable mess. Rolling release distros are the ones that want you to read the patch notes. Arch is the poster child for those. Stable distros like Mint and Ubuntu and elementaryOS don't brick your system with every update. They hold back updates and stick with older kernels to ensure stability. Linux is, already, very good. It sounds like you haven't used it for any length of time. Valve's work on Proton has made Linux gaming viable for a whole lot of people, but the majority of computer users don't play intense video games. They want web browsing, email, office software, that kind of thing. Linux does those just great on almost any device all the way down to Raspberry Pi boards.

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[-] frog@beehaw.org 11 points 11 months ago

I have to agree with this. I tried Linux a couple of months ago, and ran into those issues with Nvidia. My computer was reasonably stable in the desktop environment using a particular version of the drivers, so as long as I was happy to never update the drivers and never do anything but email, web browsing, and word processing, Linux would have been fine. If I wanted to play any games or do any digital art or anything else that required my graphics card, it was either unstable or running barely faster than continental drift, depending on which set of drivers I was using.

Like, I do think Linux is pretty cool, but it very much feels like a project for people who have the time and money to continuously tinker with their computer to get it working exactly as they want. It's not there yet on the "it just works no matter what you do" front, which is what the vast majority of computer users need from their operating system. Windows, for all its many faults, is broadly stable and can largely be ignored once it's installed - although I do think it benefits from a reformat every 12-18 months.

[-] r00ty@kbin.life 8 points 11 months ago

I think Linux blows windows out of the water as a server operating system. I've been using it that way for over 25 years now.

For desktop, there's a few problems. First is that the average user cannot install an operating system. So unless it comes pre-installed they're going to be out of luck. The second is that I've not found a distro that won't occasionally just blow itself up on an upgrade. Driver issues, circular dependencies, and all manner of other things that a normal user just doesn't know how to deal with.

Then you get to gaming. Which is WAY WAY better all the time. But, knowing what works and what doesn't, which drivers to use, the best distro that has most of the gaming stuff already sorted for you. Not to mention the Wayland + NVidia issues that people are also talking about here. Also, I've never proven it. But on FPS games it feels like there's just a bit more latency on linux (albeit I think overall most games run smoother on linux).

I think Desktop is still great on Linux. But for mass consumption, it still has a way to go and I do wonder if, while windows exists and is preinstalled on everything if it will ever be more than a niche thing. Most users don't know there's an alternative and for sure would have no clue how to go about installing it.

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[-] indigomirage@lemmy.ca 31 points 11 months ago

Linux can breathe life into older laptops (if the HW is supported). It's not for everyone (and downright infuriating in some ways) but it it does work very well for many things.

[-] TigrisMorte@kbin.social 14 points 11 months ago

It is only frustrating for folks used to a different os.

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[-] Norgur@kbin.social 30 points 11 months ago

Since all the."but you can disable this", "just switch to Linux that" posts are already going strong, I'd like to remind everyone that many, many of those devices will be from businesses and are on some sort of leasing agreement. Since.the business needs to safeguard itself against IT fault related costs, they will not circumvent TPM, not because there would be anything wrong with doing that, but because they do not want to provide a target for insurers and lawsuits when they use their PCs in "an unsupported configuration". Businesses see their PCs very differently than private ppl do and "just switch to Linux" will be so much more expensive that they will not do that. They'll just get delivered new stuff from their leasing partner and that'll be that.

[-] r00ty@kbin.life 9 points 11 months ago

In all honesty. Most business laptops will have recent TPM anyway. Simply because if you give employees laptops you damn well want bitlocker on them. Where I work they're changed every 2 years anyway. People lose laptops. It's just a fact of life and you want some protection for the data on there.

Desktops, not so sure. For home users, there are of course very simple tools to make customised Win 11 boot USBs removing the fake requirements. But I'd say that the majority of users still couldn't install an operating system at all. So if windows cannot upgrade itself, they'll sit on unsupported win 10 or have to buy a new one.

If you can install windows, you can install the customised one I'd wager. The skill level is about the same.

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[-] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 27 points 11 months ago

Someone should open a business taking free perfectly good laptops people were going to throw out, putting Linux on them, and reselling them.

Goodwill could do this with anything they get donated.

[-] agegamon@beehaw.org 9 points 11 months ago

Free Geek here in Portland OR used to do this. Might still be doing it too, but I haven't been back there since 2018 so I'm not 100% sure.

But yeah, the last I was there, you could walk in and just buy a refurbished laptop or desktop with Linux on it. They would even give guidance on what people needed if they weren't tech-savvy.

[-] DdCno1@beehaw.org 9 points 11 months ago

I've seen this done. Store lasted for a bout a year, which is longer than I would have expected given the obsolete e-waste they were selling for extortionate prices. This was only a few years ago, but most of the laptops they were offering still had 4:3 displays and disc drives, that's how ancient they were. Hell, one of them had a floppy drive.

[-] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 11 months ago

That’s wild. There’s a place here in Melbourne that sells refurbished Dell Optiplex’s. They’re ~8yrs old and still perfectly functional machines. For $100 you can get a full setup with a 16:9 monitor, keyboard and mouse. If you’re on unemployment they’ll sell it to you for $50 so you can look for work online.

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[-] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 26 points 11 months ago

When I read the title I was like "How would you torrent ewaste?" I'm going back to sleep.

[-] BoastfulDaedra@lemmynsfw.com 23 points 11 months ago

Linux. linux. linux. linux. linux. linux. linux. linux. linux. linux. linux. linux. linux. linux. linux. linux. linux. linux. linux. linux. linux.

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[-] dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 11 months ago

Why would 240 million devices be scrapped? Just install Windows 11 or Linux on them. If you have a PC built in the last 6 years, you can probably run an OEM version of 11 if your settings in 10 is saying you don't qualify.

This post just highlights just how woefully technologically unsavvy the average person is.

[-] BoastfulDaedra@lemmynsfw.com 19 points 11 months ago

Windows 11 actually won't run on all of them due to inconsiderate and arbitrary system requirements... but otherwise yes.

[-] YMS@kbin.social 8 points 11 months ago

Windows 11 officially requires Secure Boot and TPM 2.0, but can easily be run with just TPM 1.2, and with some effort even without TPM. All the other system requirement increases (like single to dual core, 2 to 4 GB RAM, etc.) don't really play a role for any recently built PC anyway.

[-] Perfide@reddthat.com 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

In the case of business's, liability reasons, real and imagined, mostly prevent just "switching" OS's freely.

In the case of home users, think of how many people you know that have a windows computer. Now how many of those people can you confidently say could install ANY OS, let alone handle setting up Linux or bypassing TPM requirements for W11?

Personally, out of the hundreds of people I know with a windows computer, I can count on my fingers how many I'm confident in being able to install an OS. Most people are really not tech savvy. They will just ride it out with no security patches until it becomes Jenn's laptop from the IT Crowd, and then they'll chuck it in the garbage.

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[-] ultra@feddit.ro 15 points 11 months ago
[-] Marsupial@quokk.au 11 points 11 months ago

What?

Minimum system requirements for installing Windows 11 on a PC mean users must have a processor of at least 1 GHz or faster along with a minimum of 4GB RAM. Storage requirements are also set to a minimum of 64G

Like you can’t exactly blame MS for people still using old arse components.

Likewise if people wanted they could keep using windows 10 or switch to a Linux distro to keep the machines running.

[-] MossyFeathers@pawb.social 33 points 11 months ago

You also need a pc that has TPM 2.0 enabled. My 3yr old PC doesn't have that enabled by default and I'm not even sure what that is or if the motherboard supports it (nor do I care, it's keeping Microsoft from forcefully upgrading me to windows 11).

[-] UprisingVoltage@feddit.it 10 points 11 months ago

If you really want to use windows 11, download an ISO and flash it on a USB using https://rufus.ie/it/ You can disable TPM by checking a box in rufus

You're probably better off using windows 10 LTSC (or LTSC IOT), which are long term support win10 versions aimed at enterprise, with the only real difference being they come devoid of bloatware and they are supported for many more years than the consumer version.

Even better, think about "making the jump" and upgrade to linux. The most beginner-oriented distros are stupid easy to use (and with a better UI and UX than windows imo), you do not need to use the command line at all, they will support your hardware and they will most likely have the exact programs and games you use.

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[-] packadal@beehaw.org 13 points 11 months ago

I have a old gaming laptop that is not supported.

Intel i7-7820HK, 4cores 8 threads 2.9Ghz.

Released in 2017.

That's not old-arse as far as I'm concerned, and I don't see the need for an upgrade. I'm going to install Linux on this PC because I have the know-how and desire to check out how electron fares. But I can see how that is not an option for everyone.

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[-] BirdyBoogleBop@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 11 months ago

CPU's 6 years and older are not supported. That isn't old. I was using a 6 year old CPU perfectly happily until this year.

I also don't have a TPM module so I am still unsupported anyway.

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[-] bedrooms@kbin.social 9 points 11 months ago

Microsoft promised Win 10 to be the last version and failed

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this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2023
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