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 This will most likely result in many pcs being immediately outdated, and prone to viruses.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?
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.
Because the vast majority of people don’t have a reason to do it. They’ve never used Linux before - heck there are people who have never heard of it before.
The other thing is you and I, chances are can find a use for our old machines, have a place to store it, or know how valuable it currently is. Most other people aren’t aware of how parts or entire systems depreciates, don’t have a use for a second computer, and can’t afford the storage space to store a spare PC for a backup. They also don’t really have time to do a lot of research on the issue or just plain old don’t care.
So what do they do? Well there only remaining option is to throw it away, maybe theyll be a bit wise and take it to an electronics recycler, where you have to trust it won’t get thrown away anyway.
They will be in the ditches alongside rural roads with the tires, couches, and washing machines.
Nature at work. In 1000 years the government will pay child slaves to mine them for the new microchip implants. Smoggy fields of children burning plastics off metal to feed the dreams of the rich and elite.
The same as it ever was, the same as it always will be.
…I don’t know why I wasted my time making this useless post. 😑
I think Microsoft should actually be forced to either extend support or give the user one option to be secured. With the later I mean pay for license or click here to automatically choose a Linux distro that the user will be migrated to. It could be Mint or one of MS own Linux distribution with OneDrive preinstalled and links to Office 365 online word. Even install Android could be one option.
This is better than getting all the devices on the landfill.
Remember that 99% don’t know what to do with their computer or are lazy. One easy fix should be available.
It probably is. But MS choose how they want to keep the control of the users. But just leaving them like this is just bad. I feel EU should force them to give a solution since the computer came with Windows so it is their responsibility.
One alternative is to give them Chrome OS, or they might prefer building their of version of it.
Today I see a computer as end of life when it is to slow to view webpages. Often like when it is to little RAM available or the CPU is really too slow. Then I think Microsoft could stop caring about it.
The thought of this makes me feel a lot of emotions at once. I don’t think any are good… If MS made a version of Linux, I can’t even fathom how insanely badly they would fuck it up, nor can I imagine it ever happening. I cannot think of an analogy to illustrate this properly really. But yeah, hell freezing over seems like a starting point for describing the likelihood of it.
I have fantasized that MS will come to terms with how shit their core OS is and eventually make something Linux like, based on a lot of free stuff. But that feels 20 years off, and like an absolute fantasy still.
Chief, MS has multiple internal only Linux distros and publically they have CBL-Mariner and I think another that I forgot. They are mostly used with Azure. They really aren’t that much more different to what I know to any other (common) distro out there
I don’t think they would do Linux. Better if they did a stripped down version of their OS that can run like Chrome OS. Secured with a web browser. Little maintenance as so much has been removed.
I think with the current staff in the ranks at Microsoft and leadership opening the ecosystem for end user devices, they could build something sound. (Don’t sleep on the amount of our world infrastructure running on their OS’s. They are trusted for reliability.) A decade ago I had to reprimand by team for showing up to a mtg in Redmond with a stack of MacBooks and iPads. Now staff have iPhones.
The problem is the business looks for a buck in all the wrong parts of their massively horizontal set of goods. So their Linux will be bloated with cross selling adware.
Microsoft: Arbitrarily increases the system requirements for Windows 11 even though it runs perfectly fine on older pcs just to get people to buy new computers
I found it absolutely amazing they claim my pretty decent laptop from 2016 can’t run Windows 11. Laptops haven’t gotten that much better since then. Also, supposing it actually couldn’t, it’s a fucking operating system. It should be doing everything it can to stay out of the way. What kind of bloated monstrosity is Windows 11 that my laptop can’t run it?
It’s the trusted platform module which I know almost nothing about but I’m sure is fucking stupid. My monster of a desktop from 2018 also can’t run win11, and the only reason is my cpu is missing the tpm that it requires.
There is a link immediately over the headline in the url I shared. Read the report. I used to sell green asset disposition of electronics. It’s been an industry for a long time. It makes a difference. See what you want to see man. I can intro you to people in that business if you’d like to pick their brains. I don’t know who owns this at Microsoft but I can ask contacts there, if you’d like me to help get you an intro.
Before people throw their PC/laptop away, they either sell it on ebay, tinker with or keep using it. It’s not like MS is gonna block your system from booting.
A lot of POS, ATM, MRI, and other specialized systems are still running Win7 unironically in production context. Many are probably running even older version.
Today, the vast majority of ATMs worldwide use Microsoft Windows. In early 2014, 95% of ATMs were running Windows XP.[81] A small number of deployments may still be running older versions of the Windows OS, such as Windows NT, Windows CE, or Windows 2000, even though Microsoft still supports only Windows 10 and Windows 11.
Thanks. Bizarre! So doesn’t that mean hackers can and should target atms because they’re insane security risks, not having received security updates for a long time now?
So you pretend that what was running on windows to run in Linux?. Dafuq people are naive af. We are talking mostly enterprise machines, most corporations didnt migrate to windows 11. So its not just installing steam lol
No, those computers can go to underprivileged communities so ppl can have access to word processor, programming, web dev, etc. They would be running Linux and be secure and functional.
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.
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.
<span style="color:#323232;">>buy cheap laptop because "it broken no work ooha booga"
</span><span style="color:#323232;">>install Linux Mint on it
</span><span style="color:#323232;">>resell it at a higher price
</span><span style="color:#323232;">>profit
</span>
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.
But a ton of people can open a PDF and will be able to select an USB stick from menu and click next, next, next… It’s not completely different, you still use a mouse, a keyboard, you click on things, you get some feedback from it… When a new kind of mobile app arrive, I can see someone using no more than 5 apps in life having problems, but this doesn’t mean only them exists, we do not talk about switching everyone here. People change houses, how are they figuring out where is the toilet if doors have different color and are in different positions?
Also a reason why any software like Microsoft Windows or Office should be banned from public education, especially primary schools.
Theoretically, when it’s up and running. How do you intend to get to that state, though? One has to install it first. And I think that alone is a massive filter.
inb4 someone says:
I did it, and I found it extremely straightforward.
I’m sure you did, Mr. “I hate how much Reddit is pandering to the braindead to the point that I joined an experimental social media platform”, I’m sure you did. Clearly, you are a qualitative sample of people who use Windows computers.
Sarcasm aside, look at how railroaded and coddling the Windows 10 installer is. I am certain a large plurality of Windows users’ initiative would completely evaporate having to navigate that. And now we want to throw a Linux installation at them?
Factor on top how the vast majority of computer users in all forms that computers take simply take for granted that the OS the computer comes with is a part of the computer. Normal people don’t upgrade OSes unless the OS itself railroads them into it (which Win10 already does aggressively whenable), or they buy a new PC that happens to come with it pre-installed. The knowledge required to negotiate an OS wipe and reinstall is not something most people possess, and I expect presenting that knowledge to them on a silver platter is something they’d hastily recoil from.
We’re in a catch-22 here. Even if all the pieces for the fabled Linux Desktop are arguably here, actually getting it into the hands of those who would benefit from it most remains prohibitive.
This is also ignoring the elephant in the room: A massive swath of these Windows PCs (Maybe even most of them? I have no backing figures, just a hunch.) are not personal computers, but office PCs that belong to a company fleet. There’s a reason Windows utterly dominates the office–Windows rules the IT sphere, at least where personal devices given to employees are concerned. Active Directory? Group Policy? Come on, guys. None of the companies who depend on these management tools are pivoting to Linux anytime soon, and you know it. And if their cheap, bulk order desk PCs don’t support Windows 11, they are absolutely getting landfilled.
The only effective mitigation I could think of would be to start a charity that takes obselesced office PCs, refurbishes them to Linux, and provides them at low or no cost to those who need a low cost or free PC. It would get Linux into more hands, but it would also strengthen a stigma that Linux is nothing more than the poor man’s OS. The Dr Thunder to Window’s Mountain Dew.
The way I see it is 240 million computers have two different courses. One is to just drop the hardware, the other is to update the software. What is granted is that, if you decide to update the software, you will have to research how to do it. You may end up just buying new hardware, or hiring someone to do the job, but there’s a chance to just go for it.
If people go for upgrading their OS for themselves, then they have to research how to do it, and when they do it, they will probably find out that some thing called Linux could fit their needs. If Linux enthusiasts don’t say shit, they will install Windows for sure, otherwise, maybe they will install Linux. I’m not saying this is the year of the Linux desktop and/or this is a huge opportunity to convert PCs to Linux.
I guess by “Windows installer” I actually meant the setup wizard that runs the first time you boot an OEM machine from the factory. The thing 99% of Windows users actually see. Not sure if that’s significantly different.
And if you want to claim even that is terrible, I really have to question by what metric you’re measuring. Is it because it doesn’t give you the options you want, like creating an offline user account, or because it’s full of bloat screens for products like OneDrive? Sure, I guess. But I’d say having these criticisms are very specifically the kind of things that make you an outlier compared to the average person I’m talking about. These are things normal people don’t bat an eye at. Giving them more control just intimidates them.
And yeah, I’m sure you agree, “provided [they] can create a USB” is a huge ask for a lot of people. Child’s play for us, but weird and scary black magic to most. Guides can and do make it crystal clear what to do, but as long as it feels spooky to download and run the magic programs, no one will feel comfortable doing it.
the setup process for the first run of a new windows machine is called the out of box experience. its truely awful in the way it railroads you but a setup process is a lot more approachable than an installer.
I recently installed elementary os on a Dell laptop and Fedora on an older super shitty Dell laptop. Honestly I know it was a bit of luck but both installs could’ve hardly gone smoother. The install itself? Easier than windows and absolutely faster. Out of the two computers, assuming patience with learning a new thing, there was barely friction and this could’ve been done by most people with a little gumption.
I told the laptop owners that the touch screen wouldn’t work on the newer one. Just assumed that was a weird hardware software combination that would be very difficult if not impossible to get working. They were ok with that because essentially both computers were slow trash and we were trying to salvage them. Lo and behold though-- the touchscreen worked out the box with literally no effort. It didn’t behave how the owners wanted (like it did on windows), but 15 minutes of googling and a reboot and the touch screen was working exactly as it did on windows. Obviously Linux isn’t for everyone but when 1) it’s gotten this good and 2) the alternative is trashing a computer, it really saddens me to see a long diatribe shitting all over the possibility of salvaging a lot of these computers rather than throwing them away.
this could’ve been done by most people with a little gumption.
My point was not that installing Linux is intrinsically difficult, it’s that people who have “a little gumption” to figure it out are a far rarer breed than you seem to believe.
Also, I wasn’t intending to “shit all over the possibility” of salvaging old PCs. I support that! I think Linux (Mint, specifically) would be a perfect drop-in for most light use Windows users, as it is a stable and friendly solution to common needs. I was just raising the part most people overlook: actually getting it running. Not just the technical challenges, but the mental ones, too. The people who stand to gain the most from a free and stable OS are paradoxically the same people who are the least equipped to find and set it up.
We have a long road ahead of us to normalize the procedures of obtaining and installing a new OS in the public eye. Linux can be as user friendly as you like, but it’s all for nothing to the average Joe if he doesn’t understand how to get it. Or why he should even bother getting it, for that matter.
Honestly people who can’t open a PDF and refuse to learn shouldn’t use a computer in the first place.
But, assuming most people aren’t complete morons and can actually do stuff if they decide to sit down, Google how to do it and actually do it instead of declaring “I am stupid” and not even try, then even just telling or better yet showing people there’s an alternative to throwing your perfectly functioning laptop and buying an expensive new one will go a long way to get new users and save some e-waste.
Of course, installing an OS isn’t easy, for linux specifically the hard part is entering the BIOS to disable secure boot and then go into the boot menu to select the USB. After that it’s a lot easier. Of course they can also be directed towards Linux computers, like system76’s, or Tuxedo’s or Laptops with Linux’s if necessary.
Naturally to get Linux to dominate the desktop we need the EU to say “know what fuck you, your PC can’t come with a preinstalled paid OS” paired with people learning Linux is an option when buying the PC and seeing that it is free vs what like 135€?
But, assuming most people aren’t complete morons and can actually do stuff if they decide to sit down, Google how to do it and actually do it instead of declaring “I am stupid” and not even try
Extremely charitable assumption, I’d say.
I do think most people do in fact possess the ability to follow instructions and succeed at installing Linux from USB. But it all falls apart at the key word “decide”. Very few people choose to devote the low, but nonzero, effort required to pull it off.
for linux specifically the hard part is entering the BIOS to disable secure boot and then go into the boot menu to select the USB
I would say, for the demographic I’m thinking of, the hardest part is actually getting the installation media in the first place. Not because it’s challenging to do, but just getting over the mental barrier of this (to them) extremely unorthodox method of installing software.
Like, first you have to find the thing and download it. Which, fine, that’s typical so far But the thing you download isn’t some .exe you run. No, you need to put it on a flash drive. So you need one of those lying around, either empty or with nothing important on it. But you don’t just copy the installl file onto it the ““normal”” way, nooo… you also have to separately download some strange utility that burns it onto the flash drive in some special way or else it won’t work. Only then do you have to tickle the BIOS.
I understand if you or anyone else reading rolls their eyes at that description because these steps are so boneheadedly simple. And I agree, they are. But it’s not so much a question of whether it’s hard to do, it’s a question of whether it feels safe and natural to do. Which, to you and me, it is. But to the kind of person who, as you say, shouldn’t even be using a computer in the first place (but they must anyhow, because trying to live in our modern information age society without one closes too many doors), it’s an uncomfortable, dark ritual.
Get them to flash it with Ventoy, then they can copy and paste the ISO. Bit easier for dummies and let’s them put more .iso files in it without the “but why can’t I do more than one”.
The BIOS is a lot scarier to noobs. You have to press a button very fast, go into a scary menu that looks different than anything else and full of weird options, to disable something that has secure in its name, and then something about boots to turn on the PC from the USB? But my computer has no boots!
Now this was made easier by windows which can be told to reboot directly on the BIOS or media drive, but it is still more daunting to newbies than to use a program to flash a USB in my experience.
Of course, that’s why we need to be there for tech illiterate people to teach them how to read, without assuming they’re mentally challenged because they’re not stupid they just lack the willingness to try something that looks scary the first time you do it (like most things in life). If I got my mother, who can barely figure out how to open the file manager on windows, to install Linux Mint and some software in it over a phone call, it’s possible with anyone.
I’m reading and agreeing, really vibing with what you’re saying. Then you have to go and fumble it on the last line. Come on, man! Every soda afficianado knows Dr Thunder is the poor man’s Dr Pepper
Edit: My bad. I did the thing where I read like the first two sentences and didn’t read the rest. Reading the rest of the reply basically acknowledged my refute.
The majority of this waste is coming from businesses that now need to upgrade. That’s why there are IT departments to figure it out for the tech illiterate. As long as they can open their email client, a text editor and excel, you’ve overcome 90% of what a business needs for their computers.
You are right, Grandma Jones with her 800x600 resolution screen, 10 downloaded tool bars and Microsoft Edge ain’t going to get it, but Grandma Jones is still using XP, a CRT and a Gateway Computer she bought back in 2006
Pretty much this. Linux users often forget that, when it comes to specifically operating systems, the vast, vast majority of people are used to what they know, and literally instinctively reject change of any kind.
Most people do not even know what an operating system /is/.
Any one who has ever worked in IT knows this, that the vast, vast majority of computer users are laughably technically incompetent, to the point that they usually get angry when you try to explain basic foundational concepts to them.
Then add on top of that decades of marketing that conditions most of the small minority of people who bother to attempt to learn anything about software and hardware into basically believing slogans, tag lines, and going gaga for tech that has some acronym or cute name, which they understand nothing about beyond the most surface level description.
Summing up, while it is possible to convince a person to switch to a new OS, it is maddeningly difficult at best nearly all the time. People basically demand a perfect product, even though they cannot even come close to beginning to describe what its features would be, and will instinctively assume they know more than actual tech experts all the time.
That being said, if you could run a business of basically buying or acquiring used laptops for cheap, refurbishing them with a stable linux OS, and then reselling them, you might be able to have a successful business, but the problem is that flashing OSs all day long is extremely, mind destroyingly boring and unfulfilling.
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