- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
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
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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)
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I hate linking my account to the OS it is a pure balls. It wants my log in to open my computer and then when I added my uni log in it somehow disabled the PIN ability.
I’d use that but worry MS will require it in a later win 11 update
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?
I’m about to buy an irresponsible about of equipment
It’s already happening. Corporations are dumping PCs preparing for the upgrade to win 11
I’ll be replacing a few thousand of my fleet in the next yearish to meet windows 11 deadline.
Yep. Same here. We’re only a company of 800, but about a third of those PCs need to be replaced.
Right? That’s what I heard.
Yooo
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.
Positive take: Lots of great Linux laptops on their way to eBay.
cheap Linux laptop too!
Backmarker as well hopefully.
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’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
Thanks a lot! That’s super helpful.
Backmarket
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
Where can i get this waste .my linux pengiun will love it🤩.but it saddens me that people relay on windows so much.
This is corporate talk, no ones work station is going to be running Linux anytime soon.
Oh yeah everyone, tell me where you work with Linux?
I am fully on Linux - daily usage, gaming and working.
Our company doesnt usually allow linux other than our products. If we run a linux machine they want us to run this funky command that opens a backdoor for them lol after all the yearly trainings about how we arent supposed to do sketchy things like that. We still use linux machines because our windows machines are so locked down we cant do much with them but dont tell IT
Corporate IT requires a backdoor on all systems, the only thing sticking out is how automated they can make that on windows and macOS. And they do need that backdoor, so that they can check on and force patches so that you don’t end up with anyone else’s backdoor. Pretty reasonable when you really think about it.
Pretty crazy that my company does similar with Macs. When I started, my manager assigned me a Windows laptop, but it is so locked down that you can’t do anything technical. I eventually insisted on the Mac and life is easier simply because they let you do more
Nobody’s Steam Deck is gonna run Windows any time soon.
Large ISP, in the global operations computing department. I am an exception to the rule though. I mostly touch network gear and *NIX servers so I’m not limited to Linux but I will say most of our *NIX stuff is RHEL now and doesn’t even boot past run level three so it’s all CLI.
Windows 10 should not require such a short life time. 11 isnt much different other than the security\TPM chip shit. And 11 is fucking terrible UX
I like that it’s completely arbitrary and you can force windows 11 to install on unsupported hardware.
Also true… Windows 10 EOL is just planned obsolensence
In one sense, I’m glad they put this stupid barrier up so that I don’t have to keep deleting the forced upgrade as part of regular Windows Updates like I did with Win10, but on the other hand it’s bullshit that they’re creating so much waste for no other reason than personal profit for their company.
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Daily driving an unofficial windows mod is not a very good idea. For both privacy and stability reasons.
You just need to set a couple of registry bypasses and you can upgrade any Computer to Windows 11. Downside is that some security features won’t work, but its not a big deal for consumers.
And what security features are these? Tpm? Lol.
Not to boast MS, but its service life is longer than Linux at 10 years. Lts on Linux is generally at best 8. Ltsc on Windows is much longer. Windows 10 released on 2015 and the ltsc ends at 2027 on the enterprise channel, or 2025 for the consumer general availability.
I’m only commenting because I dislike misinformation more than I dislike MS.
TPM 2.0 will be over 10 years old at that point, I’m pretty sure most of the hardware they’re talking about will have been retired by then no matter the support for Windows 10.
It might be 10 years old, but it’s not widely deployed until a few years ago, just like how Wayland is 15 years old but only recently starting to see widespread use.
I built a $1500 pc 6 years ago that doesn’t have a tpm. One gpu upgrade and this thing still does everything I want it for, including running modern games and VR with entirely acceptable performance. When windows 10 stops getting security updates, I’m just going to install arch on it.
It was on everything Intel starting in October 2017 (8th gen) and a year later it started on AMD’s consumer grade hardware with full integration in 2019 (3000 series)…
So 11 years after it started existing W10 stops receiving free updates, 10 years after the tech was fully integrated W10 stops receiving free and paid updates… And that’s not taking into consideration that W11 can still be installed on unsupported hardware…
I must have missed the cutoff by a couple of months. But here’s the thing: that cpu is still more than enough to drive 60fps on all the games I play, which includes typically demanding categories like fps, while running discord and YouTube and recording software. So the fact that Microsoft decided to fuck me over feels bad. TPM is garbage design from the hardware up, but I know to run secure workloads in secure places already.
The right thing to do should have been to force oem-licensed win11 to have TPM, and allowed retail versions to install with a pop up about security features which won’t be supported without it. Fuck Microsoft for not doing this obvious, simple thing.
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All these machines will continue to run, so if they’re not going to upgrade to win 11 and buy a new machine then what does it matter. They’ll just use a win 10 machine with no updates forever. Security concerns aside obviously.
Except the business market where security is an actual priority. Or should be.
It’s corporations. Mine is currently replacing like 30% of our PCs because they’re not Windows 11 ready.
Embrace Linux and open source software
This will be interesting, maybe this will push for huge adoption for linux. This could also mean a lot of old hardware that are still very capable goes to 2nd hand market in turn lowering prices for pc. Or nothing happens and most of the people will be in a compromise OS for years similar to what happen with windows xp debacle. There also another situation where Microsoft does backtrack on its decision and the same status quo would remain for years to come.
I am hoping for this but unless Microsoft puts a banner on 10 saying you should switch because x,y,z I don’t see it happening for a majority because a lot of people probably don’t even know how to install windows from scratch.
Google should be pushing ChromeOS towards people and businesses with this kind of hardware. It’s a perfect way to capture market share from Microsoft.
Nah. Google decides to ban your account for whatever reason, and your files and mails are gone, and you can’t even login to your computer. Linux is just as easy as windows nowadays, and in some cases even better for gaming.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Might be good for retro gaming or emulation of older games consoles.
