This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Time to start a nonprofit that cleans up old machines and installs Linux on them for deserving poor folks.
Already done in France by Emmaüs, they even have their own Ubuntu based distro.
Be the change etc...
Tons already exist. If you’re in the Pacific Northwest then make your donations to https://www.freegeek.org
The landfill is a rude thing to call linux
new fork of legacyOS into LandfillOS.
based on "De Bin"
The only major change needs to be you save stuff by putting it into the wastebasket.
That's what I'm talking about. I just picked up a dell optiplex micro for about $100 on ebay.
Can't wait to see what the corps dump onto the market post-win11 apocalypse!
Time to make cheap Linux servers out of Windows 10 unknowledgeable seller's hardware
Man, we should make computers upgradable or something.
Send the 7th Gen and better ones to me for plex servers.
J5005 is a transcoding hero, just point it at a NAS and away you go.
Why am I just learning about this $80 thin system right now?
My current server runs around 80 watts idle,but it's also my gaming pc. I'd love to replace it with something dedicated that can handle direct streaming 4k with the occasional transcode around the house, at less wattage.
You know who throws away computers? WASTEFUL people. There's always a use for older, "obsolete" technology. Today's tablet could become tomorrow's clock or picture frame. Today's computer could become tomorrow's server or game system or video player. You just have to have a little creativity and some knowledge of tech.
Unfortunately it isn't always as easy as that. Depending on what broke on the old computer, finding the right replacement part may be a nightmare. You can often find old CPUs on eBay for dirt cheap, but the catch is that there are close to no motherboards available, and the ones that are are way too expensive to be interesting. Moreover, it isn't always interesting to run old hardware for something that is on 24/7. My R5900X NAS sips 75W... At idle. 130W at full power. Depending on your electricity price, it could be more interesting to buy newer, more efficient hardware, than using older ones.
I don’t think it’s fair to blame individual consumers. The whole consumer electrics industry is predicated on planned obsolescence and getting the consumer to buy the latest devices. In reality computers and smartphones have stagnated in terms of functionally for every day people and frequent upgrades aren’t necessary.
Here Microsoft has colluded with hardware manufactures so Windows 11 will obsolete perfectly usable computers. What choice does the consumer have to fight back? Regulation is needed to force consumer electronics to be sustainable and long lasting.
At the end of the day, consumers enable this behaviour by majoratively buying into their bullshit. If people just stopped supporting the bearers of bad practices, companies like Microsoft would change tack in a nano second to remain commercially viable.
To add to the valid points others already made - some people simply don't have the inclination or know how, or even just the physical space to store all these old machines. Yet those machines going to landfill are still almost certainly the responsibility of those who not only made them barely last a couple of years, but who invest billions if not trillions on developing a newer version no one wants, and selling it (or forcing it) on people despite no one really needing it..
TLDR;
Microsoft has already announced it will offer extended security updates for Windows 10 to 2028.
ESU is a paid service for enterprise. They didn't even offer ESU for windows 7 home.
Windows 7 pro ESU per device cost $50 for 1 year, $100 for the next year, $200 for the final year.
Windows 7 enterprise was per device 1 year $25, second year $50, and 3rd year $100.
Micro$oft is not going to give win10 ESU away for free and they probably won't supported home edition.
You can however bypass the win11 hardware checks to upgrade unsupported devices.
Installing Linux will save them. 240M computers.
Yeah good luck explaining how to install, use and maintain Linux to people who can barely do email.
I'm not gonna tell them to install Arch from scratch. I'd wipe-install Pop for 10$ because it's literally just clicking "next" a couple of time while watching TV.
Installing Lime and Untabu is easy as hell. The issue is games. I cannot with good confidence intall it on my kid's laptop and think it won't break to play what he wants to play. We are divorced. It happens. But devs for Pete's sake, make games work on every OS. It's not your choice what we need for our PC needs.
I used to feel that way too, but after trying games on Linux again recently (got a steam deck) I have yet to find a single game that doesn't work on Linux at this point. I'm not even exaggerating, literally every game I've tried works without issue, even if it's "Windows only".
I have yet to get Fortnite and Fall guys to work. I know there is a steam deck work around. But getting them to work has not ended in a success yet.
I'll figure it out before dropping 500+ bucks on a new PC.
Oh man. What a headache. I'm a seasoned Linux user but I couldn't get my Nvidia GPU working on my Linux machine.
I had to switch back to Windows to be productive
Learning how to use open source alternatives to proprietary software on Windows is the starting point before transition to Linux.
All those computers would run amazing with Linux.
Sure, or just windows 10 even. My custom build still smokes most mid and entry level off the shelf pcs but is ineligible for win11 BS requirements. As a result, my start button is still way over on the left side! What in the hell is the alure of 11 that people feel the need to toss their system? I don't see it.
I think the "researchers" may not actually have gathered any data on what actually happens in these types of scenarios. beyond people just keeping on with old os which a lot will unless MS intentionally sends out a brick-update.
lots of countires/municipalities have WEE programmes to try to prevent electronics from getting to landfil - especially until things like batteries and other toxic or dangerous chemicals can be removed.
Or the headline is pure clickbait garbage - it's bad enough that i'm not going to bother clicking and read any more filth.
Researchers warn that Windows 11 restrictions could send 240 million computers to landfills
Researchers warn Microsoft that Windows 11 restrictions could send 240 million computers to run Linux. FTFY
You know that's not actually going to happen though. Maybe one in a hundred will get intercepted and saved at best.
I know that unfortunately it's not going to happen.
I also know that there are numerous NGOS and less fortunate people who could really take advantage of using a pc and use it for a good cause or just enjoy it.
I also realise that there is a great number of students, even in the developed world, who could use a laptop for school and fun as well by running Linux.
instead of throwing the hardware away it could be repurposed.
Also i could use a couple of new old pcs to build a NAS for local cloud and jellyfish as well as a Batocera based emulation console for my living room.
They could be, and probably should be repurposed
But also, brand new chrome books are ~$80
By the time you collect, clean, repair, and reimage the older computers, it may well be cheaper to just buy Chromebooks.
I hate seeing anything useful going to the trash but the economics aren't great in this case
And from a consumer standpoint, practically no one outside of our nerdsphere is going to switch to Linux out of spite. It's much more likely that anyone with a sour attitude on Microsoft because of this will replace their computer with a Mac instead.
Send Windows 11 and their stupid trusted computing initiative to the landfill instead.
It was said in the previous thread that the TPM and Microsoft account requirements can be overridden with Rufus, so anyone can update to Win 11.
Sure, but Windows 11 is a pain in the ass. My Internet was lagging the other day so my start menu wouldn't find a locally installed program because it couldn't search the Internet too.
barf
Finally cheaper hardware in the used market
Windows 11, finally bringing the year of Linux on the desktop.
I think most people would rather throw away their computer than learn to click a different icon.
I'll take them for free
I am prepared to pick them up and show some leg, as a bonus.
Microsoft: Okay (Forces everyone on W11 anyway)
