Windows 10 end of life could prompt torrent of e-waste as 240 million devices set for scrapheap::As Windows 10 end of life approaches, analysts are concerned that millions of devices will be scrapped due to incompatibility
Cool, I need some cheap Linux servers to build out my home lab
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Maybe the prices will become reasonable once again.
I’m all for it. Save the hardware.
of course no mention of upcycling these with linux and getting them into needy hands. with alll the solid state hardware now many of these machines are perfectly functional, and will be for some time. its the batteries that likely need a looking at
No, personal computers can only ever work with Windows. I just love that the common thinking process just accepted that problems, especially IT problems, can only ever be solved by 5 gigacorps.
BTW a lot of these will not even be laptops, I imagine they won’t even need much. If Windows was a proper system by the way, they could be still supplied with security updates by third parties.
Also, I’ve seen Rufus claiming to be able to remove the TPM requirement from the installer. I didn’t test it though.
Let’s go back to 1995, you’re a corporate IT manager or C-class executive , responsible for deploying desktops, laptops, to 10,000+ employees (I worked for or with several companies like this at the time).
You need directory services, email, app deployment. You also need common office apps, like word processing, spreadsheets, etc.
Your end users are finance folks, regulatory compliance teams (i.e. legal), marketing, etc, who’ve been working with systems that are purpose-built for their roles (mainframe/IBM As series for finance, print layout systems for marketing, etc), with not everyone really using email much.
Suddenly you have an opportunity to migrate everyone to a general purpose system that’s pretty easy to understand, and many people already have some familiarity with. You can eliminate sending handbooks to everyone by building your own intranet which people can access with IE. Your HR systems (which are still on mainframes/AS-400) can now be accessed by IE from anywhere in the company, so time entry, vacation, benefits changes, etc, reduce time and paper consumption dramatically.
Theres a million reasons why companies embraced Windows back then. Standardized UI for everything massively improved support capability. Being able to take output from legacy systems and present it better either via IE or custom-built apps made for significant training reduction, and could even reduce password management difficulties, and increase password compliance/security for the legacy systems (I saw one custom app in 1996 that presaged SSO by managing logins to 11 backend systems).
There was nothing in the *Nix world at the time that could compete with the whole package that Windows/Exchange offered, for the user management and end-user ease-of-use. Especially since you could retain your legacy systems and use Windows as both Windows and as a terminal if needed, and provide app flexibility for end users.
Then there’s the productivity side, there were already tons of Windows apps available, with many more on the way. And people were familiar with how to use them, because of a standard interface. Also, many people were using Windows at home or school, so we’re familiar with it.
Just compare Word to Wordperfect at the time. I’m not sure WP was even a GUI yet (I forget when they added it). So legal folks were fast as hell with WP, but your average user wasn’t, and it had a bit of a learning curve. Compare that to the menu-driven, WYSIWYG Word Perfect.
Now look at the SMB space, where money is even tighter. It’s much easier to deploy and manage an exchange/windows setup for 50 users than what, setup a Unix system? I could teach someone to do day-to-day Exchange admin stuff in a few hours, because GUI is way easier than command line for people who are new/inexperienced, because it reveals the concepts/paradigms. And Exchange ran on fairly generic hardware. Again, they didn’t have to buy something like an AS400.
Unix folks just didn’t see what was coming for some reason. I remember Unix admins disparaging Windows as a “toy” in the early/mid 90’s. Even today I couldn’t imagine selling a Linux setup to most companies, as mature is it’s gotten.
I love all your ibm as400 examples in your 95 throwback when I still use them and maintain a half dozen power 7 and up units running as500 now lol (casino industry, gaming systems run on as400, payroll on as400, only got the hotel management system off the as400 this year)
TPM isn’t the only requirement, for example my 2020 hp laptop has TPM 2.0 support but can’t install Windows 11 because of terrible driver support.
My AMD computer still runs great for what I use it for and will continue for a good several years. It’s got a 6gb 1060 (that I’ll probably upgrade a bit pretty soon), 32GB ddr4, and what magically won’t officially run on w11: a ryzon 5 1600x I have OC’d to 4Ghz.
Once win 10 goes out (which no one kid themselves, it will 100% get a support extension) I’ll mainly swap over to Linux and run 11 unofficially for the couple things I’d need it for.
So what I’m hearing is, free Linux servers?
Right? That’s what I heard.
Yooo
Embrace Linux and open source software
I tried win11 for about 2 hours and installed linux on the third hour and haven’t used a windows machine in over a year. Windows costs an obscene price AND they have so much tracking and spyware that it actively impacts gaming performance.
Complete trash OS. I won’t be going back and I now actively avoid any game that doesn’t function on linux.
We’re starting to roll out Win11 at work. I created a GPO that keeps certain individuals on Win10. I am not looking forward to the day when that policy has to be retired.
Not to mention the price of all the resource hogging and handicapping your workflow by changing everything around everytime.
The enshittification of an OS that used to be pretty good. It’s a shame. I haven’t touched Windows for over a year as well.
I can’t upgrade to W11, I can’t afford nor am I ready to upgrade my gaming PC, its likely I’ll be moving to Linux or keeping to use W10 w/o support.
Microsoft really did no favors with limiting official W11 support. Its not just TPM.
I migrated to linux when Windows 7 died. So I’m you from years ago, lol.
If you’d like any advice, I would just say check ProtonDB for the games you regularly play (especially if they are MMOs) to make sure they work, cause anything that uses restrictive kernal level anticheats arent going to run.
and if you are looking for a distro, I would personally recommend Nobara. it stays up to date, it has a lot of the gaming stuff built in (Some of which might require compiling from github otherwise), and its been rock solid for me personally. but you should poke around and find whatever tickles your fancy… and anything you don’t get from X, that you can get from Y, can usually be manually installed on Z.
This obviously doesn’t solve any of the larger problem about MS pushing TPM, but you can bypass most of those W11 requirements.
Use Linux.
Oh, I didn’t know that was an option! I’d forgotten about it since the last time I read the comments on a Lemmy post related to Windows.
This genuinely made me snicker.
How many non-tech people actually know about this? And how many of that small percentage are actually going to toss their computer as a result of it?
Because for the average computer user, they will never wonder why there are no more updates. And as long as their computer still browses the internet they don’t care even if you notify them.
Microsoft tried for years to get people off of fucking internet explorer and barely succeeded.
Do you really think that Microsoft is going to let these people exist in ignorant bliss?
You underestimate people’s ability to dismiss pop ups and notifications without retaining any of the information in them.
I’m definitely not, I work in IT 🤣 That doesn’t mean Microsoft won’t try.
Yeah, no one actually cares. Just look at phones, people don’t actually stop using them when they aren’t supported and don’t care as long as it keeps working.
I expect there to be a lot of nagging. MS doesn’t want to miss out on all the Windows 11 licences they can sell with new hardware.
OK, half of them were trash, anyway. But the other half can still be a good Linux box. Wipe them, install Linux, and give it to schools so children can learn that there is something better than Windows.
Half? Bet that number is higher. Linux can run on a potato if you find the right distro.
While you can run Linux on a potatoe, we would not making new friends that way. I have tried to use a RPi2b as a machine with GUI and browser, but I would not recommend this as an example for a Linux system for the uninitiated.
True. Those are slow. I have tried it with a 1b myself.
But those should do things like kodi or pihole just fine.
For example, the potato I ran my web server on in the late 90s… That’s a 386sx under there.
Nice. Could probably still host some static pages today.
For example, the potato I ran my web server on in the late 90s… That’s a 386sx under there.
Even the trash ones can be a good linux box. Most people just surf the web, look at youtube videos, e-mail and some word processing. Linux can do that with two fingers up it’s nose.
You would not believe how shitty boxes people in some offices are using. I’ve got a netbook that barely runs Firefox under Linux.
Might be good for retro gaming or emulation of older games consoles.
its surprising how many options linux has to do something. Not being closed source means everybody who has an unorthodox application uses linux to run their shit.
Firefox too slow to browse the web? get a halfway solution with lynx or w3m to browse from the terminal, switching over to firefox only for those things that wont work with TUIs.
Incompatibility with what? Things are only just starting to be incompatible with Windows 7. I’ve still got customers running variants of Windows XP.
And Windows 11 doesn’t really contain much that won’t work on 10.
I reckon the TPM and secure boot requirements will eventually be dropped. They’re the Kinect of Windows 11.
I’m still not even sure why they decided to require TPM anyways. But yeah my computer is among the many that can’t upgrade until that’s gone. I guess it’s either that or I learn a lot more about Linux…
At least if you switch to Linux there’s no shortage of people on the fediverse willing to answer questions.
There should be a “Linux hotline” community where people can post whatever is stopping them from switching and get solutions
Elsewhere, Linux support areas seem more likely than not to have a large contingent of “WHY ARE YOU ASKING A DUMB QUESTION, you horror of a human being? Why didn’t you Search the site for words you don’t know using our broken search engine, instead of infecting us with your congenital idiocy?” folks.
exactly, I admit to sharing some of the “bro its so easy” attitude, but that should result in simple answers instead of berating, like a “no stupid questions” but for linux thing
A “no stupid questions” for Linux would be super helpful. A big one for me is shell commands. Like are shell commands different between distros, or do I have to install something to have certain commands? How do I even know what commands I do have?
Like are shell commands different between distros, or do I have to install something to have certain commands?
Yes and no, kinda. So the most popular shell by far is Bash, which includes its own built in functions, and can also be extended with custom functions which certain distros may include in your bash config file by default. But generally, Bash and the GNU coreutils are standard, although some more “hip” distros will include other shell prompts such as zsh or fish by default, but even those tend to come with bash for script compatibility or easy switching for user preference. Some distros may include programs by default, but most of the time those are easily available in other distros through the package manager.
How do I even know what commands I do have?
compgen -c(orcompgen -c | morefor a scrollable list (pressqto exit)) should do the trick, but that is a built-in bash command that may not be available on other shells, but generally you can find all the programs able to be called from shell inside the/bin
/sbin
/usr/bin
and
/usr/sbin
directories. All these directories are added to a variable called $PATH, and when you type a command into your shell, these are the places that get searched for a matching program to run. You can use
echo $PATHto see all the directories on your machine which are searched, or even add your own directory containing custom scripts or utilities so you can use them anywhere like an installed program.
I use Arch too!
rtfm
Going the linux way can be troublesome at first, but you will be free from ms bullshit in the long run and will have your hardware lasting much longer. Unless you need something specific to windows for work, I recommend trying linux.
You’re probably not correct about TPM and secure boot being dropped. Microsoft’s entire enterprise line of security products including Intune and Defender for Endpoint are integrated to it and Microsoft Azure AD/Entra ID uses it for their certificate based enrollment and authentication. This is their primary profit drivers, not consumers.
Disabling the tpm requirement is just a registry hack in win 10, or a selectable option when creating an install usb with rufus.
I think they will make a simple calculation; What is going to cost more: The bad PR of nolonger updating 240 million pc’s, or accepting that a small portion of your users does not have tpm?
They haven’t stopped advanced users from installing win11 on older hardware so far. So no loss there. I also doubt they lose enterprise money if they allow win10 to upgrade regardless, as tpm is now well entrenched as the default on new hardware.
It’s just another scam for them to make money
Positive take: Lots of great Linux laptops on their way to eBay.
cheap Linux laptop too!
Great time to buy a cheap used PC for linux
Why cheap, why separate? Just use your current one and slap in another disk. I’ve been doing it for decades. Many games run surprisingly well in Linux, sometimes even better than windows
These Win10 EoLs are going to flood eBay at dirt cheap prices, and they make great server/project boxes. They’re going to be new toys for the hobbyist crowd, not primary machines.
Fair
I just helped a friend who is still on Windows 7. I showed him my Linux boxes. Even offered him one for free. “but I can’t live without this minesweeper”. Seriously. I showed him minesweeper on one of the Linux boxes. “it’s not the same one, I have a high score”. Thankfully, this isn’t a laptop, because he would not be permitted to connect to my wifi. Those that scrap their old devices for Win11 will either be businesses/corporations that have no other choice or slightly more advanced users that understand the benefits of active support. The general populace will likely keep their Win10 (or 7) computers until they have to upgrade the hardware, and they’ll likely be super happy that they don’t have to deal with the “annoying windows update that restarts [their] computer”. To be fair, forced reboots is an annoying feature.
WINE will run minesweeper. He can even bring over his highscores file.
Yes, that should work nicely. It’ll even look the same for the most part.
Given how long it took the general populace to let go of Windows XP, I predict a pretty similar turn of events (or rather lack thereof) with Win10. By and large everyone’s grandma and parents and auntie will just keep on using their same old computer as it is, possibly eventually turning into a petri dish for every exploit and piece of malware in the known universe in the process.
The majority of casual home users will throw away their computer and buy a new one only if it stops working or possibly if some new piece of software or more likely some future web site won’t work with it. Otherwise, to most non-nerd users it’s just an appliance.
Office and corporate deployments are another thing, but OS end-of-life situations are not new to any of those guys.
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I know the feeling.
I slapped an SSD in my dad’s machine (Microcenter has their Inland house brand ones on sale for $18 right now for a 265 gig, FYI) and it took his boot time from five minutes to about seven seconds. I think it was a Jackson well spent.
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True. But he’s stuck in his ways. This was about a year or so ago. He’s still on the same Win7. I’m sure it has a virus or 12.
I’ve kept a Windows 10 install on a separate SSD for the programs that stubbornly refuse to run on Linux (games, in my case). However, I won’t be upgrading that to Windows 11. I’ll just reclaim that SSD for other purposes and use Linux exclusively.
I’m one of those maniacs who went to the trouble of setting up a GPU passthrough VM instead of dual booting, and I have no intention of switching it from Win10 to Win11. If it gets infected, it can’t do jack or shit to the important parts of my system, and I can either roll back to a snapshot or nuke it.
I swear, I can read the first part of your first sentence just fine, but I don’t understand what it means, lol!
I tried to look it up, and as far as I understood it, it’s a technique that allows a virtual machine to access a physical GPU directly. I guess that means that even if your VM is elsewhere (a server or wherever) it can still use the GPU you have. But the more relevant part is that since your Win10 install is on a VM, it can’t do shit on the rest of your system, and the GPU access is just there so that it won’t run as slow as shit when gaming, right?
But the more relevant part is that since your Win10 install is on a VM, it can’t do shit on the rest of your system, and the GPU access is just there so that it won’t run as slow as shit when gaming, right?
Pretty much
I tried to look it up, and as far as I understood it, it’s a technique that allows a virtual machine to access a physical GPU directly. I guess that means that even if your VM is elsewhere (a server or wherever) it can still use the GPU you have.
So, to get more technical, there’s a motherboard technology called IOMMU, which was developed for containing malware that has infected device firmware. What Linux has is a kernel module that allows an IOMMU group to be isolated from the host operating system, and connected up to a virtual machine as if it were real hardware. On an expensive motherboard, you get a different IOMMU group for each PCIe lane, each M.2 socket, each cluster of USB ports, etc. On a cheap one, you get one that for each type of device, maybe the PCIe lanes are divided into two groups.
So the fun part, and why we do this, is that when you have two GPUs, in different IOMMU groups, one can remain on host and allow graphics drivers, desktop environment, etc. to remain loaded, while the other can be connected to the VM and used entirely for gaming (theoretically, if you wanted to you could game on both systems at once). Thankfully, cheap, shit secondary GPUs aren’t expensive (was once on a 710, ditched that and its many driver issues for a 1050, and my main remains a 980ti), but setting up the main GPU to switch between proper drivers and “vfio-pci”, the drivers that have to be loaded before the passthrough can occur, can be a pain.
Thanks for the explanation. Prior to our exchange, I didn’t even know such a thing is possible. It’s wonderful, though to be honest, being as technologically klutzy as I am, I might find it easier to just buy a different set of hardware for my win10 to use, if ever, and disable any networking capabilities (because if it’s no longer supported, it needs to be taken offline).
Again, thanks!
I bought a cheap PSIe card that physically cuts the power to ssds. I just shut down and hit the button then power back on for my windows install. I rarely use it, so this makes it easy when I do without having to have a whole PC or grub menu EVERY boot
Huh, that’s interesting. I’ve gotten used to using the Grub menu every time I had to reboot (which is quite often), but it defaults to the Linux installation (auto-selects the Linux install after a timeout), so if I want to go to Windows, I’ll just have to make sure I catch the Grub menu.
High-end corporate laptops from 5-10 years ago make excellent cheap and powerful Linux machines today (given a reconditioned battery, assuming you want to run them without mains, and a new SSD several times larger than the hard drive they came with). See all the sticker-festooned Thinkpads you see at conferences that spent the first few years of their lives handling executive email and PowerPoint presentations, now living their best lives.
I just brought a thinkpad home from work for that purpose the other day. Gonna keep an eye out for a newer one in the coming year
I’ve always wanted to do this.
What’s a good source to buy them?
What models do you recommend?
I’ve always got them from eBay.
The T and X series are the high-end ones. Between those it mostly depends on what size of laptop you’re looking for. Its worth checking a guide for how you replace the SSD/RAM/battery - some of the newer ones have these soldered in place, which means you’re stuck with whatever it originally came with.
Personally, I think the sweet spot is around 4 years old. By that point they’re pretty cheap (maybe 10% of the original RRP), and going for older ones doesn’t save you much more money. I recently got an X390 and it’s doing everything I need from a laptop
