Windows 10 end of life could prompt torrent of e-waste as 240 million devices set for scrapheap

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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)

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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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

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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.

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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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.

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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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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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 (or compgen -c | more for a scrollable list (press q to 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 $PATH to 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It's 8 years old. FFS install Linux and have a little server or some shit if you really can't be bothered to upgrade.

Ok so if you built a computer in like 2019 or 2020 it's only 4-5 years old. This was before windows 11 came out. 4-5 years is not that old for a computer, especially if you built a good one.

This is what happened to me, a really high end PC built in 2018 and I couldn't even upgrade because of the TPM stuff! Decided to try out Zorin and have been pleasantly surprised.

9 times out of 10 you can turn TPM on on these machines, and even then, i'm told "Can't upgrade to Windows 11."

Been using Linux for years, it's my daily driver and does everything I need except for a few headaches with a AAA game here or there, other than that it runs all my games does all my web browsing and all my video editing and other stuff without issues.

Nothing built in 19 doesn't have tpm.

It's also CPU generation, unless that's changed since the last time I looked.

I have a ryzen 3800X and an x570 motherboard. It was one of the best motherboards at the time. No TPM support. You're wrong.

the 3800X has a built in TPM... So yes. You have a TPM. TPMs don't need to be discrete chips.

Needs to be supported by both cpu and motherboard, as far as I'm aware.

Model and brand MB? 3800 had almost universal support so you're almost certainly an edge case if you aren't just incorrect.

Ryzen 7 3800X Asus ROG STRIX X570-E GAMING

Absolutely has TPM. User error.

Guess I need to enable in the bios. Windows 10 said I don't have it lol. I must have disabled it cause I dual boot Linux.

Haha, "bothered to upgrade". What upgrade?

I have a 12 year old computer that runs Windows 10 perfectly fine.

It's corporations. My company is currently upgrading a shit ton of PCs before our windows 11 push.

There's a lot of stuff that still doesn't run on linux as far as I know.

If it runs Windows 10 - it runs Linux too.

I mean the software I'm running on Win 10. As far as I know, a lot of it still won't run on linux.

Anyway, moot point since people said in this thread that you can bypass the TPM and Microsoft account requirements with Rufus. So anyone should be able to upgrade to Win 11.

Oh shit, I've been installing win 11 on a bunch of old hardware, didn't realize what the big fuss was about it. I also use Rufus exclusively. Didn't realize it was working so smoothly because I used Rufus haha

Huh. It's almost as if Microsoft just wants more money from people buying a new computer with their new OS. No one could see that coming.

Yeah Microsoft is ripping EVERYONE off with a free upgrade 🙄

Bunch of nerds screaming over a free upgrade. Shocked.

The free upgrade part is not the thing that upsets me, if you even bothered to read the context. It's the fact that you may not be able to upgrade an old machine to Windows 11 by "traditional means" (clicking a button), because Microsoft deems it "unsupported", which the above commenter disproved by saying they were able to install it even on this "unsupported" hardware.

Don't mean to disrespect, but I recommend you read the context before you start rolling your eyes and calling people names. Applies to real life too. Have a good day!

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.

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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Big corporations, screwing the environment, one greedy policy after the other

I don't know how to install Windows 11 and I'm totally ok with it. I've been on linux for about 10 years.

Year of the Linux deskt- haha just kidding. People are going to just go out and buy new stuff. All part of the system, even if it's capitalist hell.

Honestly can't see people dumping their pcs due to 'incompatibility.' Windows 10 support ends officially in 2025 but it doesn't make it unusable for as long as the computer and programs are working as they should. My parents have a laptop from around 2018 that came with windows 10 and its not windows 11 compatible. They are going to use that thing until it can run no more. It's essentially a more functional iPad.

Most people who are replacing computers for windows 11 are either college students, people who work on large projects or people who are gaming from a very old set up. As long as everything works with an internet browser and can install proprietary software then most likely they will keep it until the equipment gets too old.

Actually, that's a real problem. The issue isn't that features stop working or some slowdown, it's millions of devices going without security updates and getting swooped into gargantuan bot networks.

10 has only been superseded quite recently, 2025 seems like a very short deadline.

My computer more than meets the minimum spec for 11, and it's a free upgrade, so I'm not too worried, but it's still a surprise.

10 years of support from release is Microsoft's standard. The very first version of W10 was 1507.

True, but that 10 years is irrelevant when you consider the other factors at play here, such as the enforced minimum requirements for Windows 11 and the relatively short time for users to migrate, especially compared to previously with Microsoft. Windows 10 came out in 2015, and users had until 2023 (8 years) to migrate from Windows 8, and until 2019 (4 years) to migrate from Windows 7.

Everyone says "just install Linux" so I challenge all of you to do so. Please pawn it off on a small child who's just getting into computing. Time to pay it forward.

In the eWaste scenario, you can easily get an SSD for 100$ and bring anything back to life. What distro are you giving to your niece/nephew? The best thing you can do is tell them "If you wanna play fortnight, you're gonna have to figure out how to install windows".

Most of them will give up, but a small % of them will figure out how to get windows running on that heap of trash in spite of you giving them Linux and at that point your trash has added real value to the world.

Getting a child to install an OS is magical.

Happy Holidays folks

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So 240 million potential new Linux devices...? I see this as an absolute win!

Another way to say this is the master race are about to upgrade their hardware

Or upgrade to OS that gaben chosen

If only it ran the software and hardware I use...

Curious what you're using. Ms office kinda sucked but LibreOffice works incredibly well, and Adobe products last I tried (years ago) sucked. But gimp and DaVinci resolve work great. Most of my games run absolutely fine. For everything else you just need a web browser and those have worked great always.

Yeah office products and vide editors have Linux alternatives, but to me the main offenders are Native Instruments Maschine (proprietary USB controller that doesn't work in Linux + software that doesn't work in Linux) and DTP software like Affinity Publisher or Adobe Indesign that have no Linux equivalent.

I'm lookin into running those things in a Windows KVM in Linux though but it's quite the project.

Wine or emulation? When I had to use Windows for work I used WSL to run my tooling and didn't notice any performance degradation. Does it apply too vice versa?

Although I'm with you on the hardware side. Because I have an Nvidia card my Linux install has been relegated for personal projects only. I already have a workstation supplied by my employer for work.

Sadly the things I need don't work in Wine, Proton etc. I'm looking into running a Windows KVM with hardware pass through, but it's quite the project, and requires a second GPU that I don't have.

Or simply use an easy workaround to disable the tpm check and set up an offline account. I literally have win11 running on an old T460.

Anything you need to do beyond Rufus or the like for installation? How did activation, auto updates, etc work?

No, you don't need anything else. Activation works the same if you log into your ms account or you can simply use https://massgrave.dev/ . I'm pretty sure there's a way to get your key and enter it manually but I haven't tried that yet.

Siempre esta la opcion de usar Linux y mantener activos esos equipos

It's like the old 32 bit to 64 bit jump - care will be needed or a competitor might sieze the market as people get disgruntled over the cost of upgrading.

There never was really a 32-bit to 64-bit jump, there wasn't really one from 16 to 32 either. When does adoption from both happened fairly far after the CPUs were common and backwards compatibility with x86 was why it never was an issue unless you tried to run beta software or had NVIDIA chipset drivers early on.

Where does the assumption that owners of these devices care about updates comes from? I regularly see people still using Windows 7, willing to use sketchy workarounds to continue using it. We all wish that this would mean The Year Of The Linux Desktop in 2025, but that would mean users would have to suddenly start caring about their OS.