News Linux or Landfill? End of Windows 10 Leaves PC Charities with Tough Choice

[Admin]

Non-profits that refurbish PCs and give them to the needy have a dilemma when it comes to Windows 11-ineligible computers. Should they give clients an insecure Windows 10 OS, turn to Linux or throw perfectly-good computers away?

Linux or Landfill? End of Windows 10 Leaves PC Charities with Tough Choice : Read more

 

[logainofhades]

Microsoft creating so much e-waste with their so called requirements.

 

[COLGeek]

I don't see this as a tough choice. Install Linux and get the tech to good homes (so to speak).

Modern distros are very capable and user friendly. MS forced changes and regardless of the reasons, they aren't likely to change.

The vast majority of users can adapt to something like Mint, Ubuntu, etc easily, performing all of their needs, for free, and securely.

I get it, not Windows. But in the end, maybe folks will finally learn something new and move away from MS dictating their choices. I doubt it, but there will be a few.

 

[thx1138v2]

I just finished loading Linux Mint Cinnamon on my old W10 machine. It's not hard. The hardest part was creating an install DVD. After that it was pretty easy. Now that I have it, I can install it on as many machines as I want to.

 

[cknobman]

Linux is no longer a barrier to being "user friendly" or "familiar".
In fact Windows is so bad now come October I will be installing Linux.
Hoping Valve's SteamOS is an official distro by then.

 

[erazog]

If they were mature enough Haiku or ReactOS would be the best options instead of Linux which is still too complex for most average computers users ( I have gone through just above every user friendly linux distro there is and found it lacking). Anything goes wrong with Linux the difficulty curve massively ramps up, its a system by programmers for programmers.

If someone has resources to spare those two OS are what charities or benefactors should be helping.

Haiku is a platform unlike Linux so its comparable to Windows or MacOS with a defined system from top to bottom (Linux is really just the kernel/drivers). Haiku is designed to be a OS just for home computers and runs incredibly fast better than anything else even on very old hardware.

ReactOS is open source windows designed to be compatible with both drivers and software, this would be by far the better option if companies wanted to maintain old systems.

Even ChromeOS Flex is something like that is probably a better option for some old PC's.

Linux needs a major company that supports it for home computers not enterprise which is what Ubuntu is for or home made community distros like Mint which are real bad for user support.

 

[COLGeek]

Linux needs a major company that supports it for home computers not enterprise which is what Ubuntu is for or home made community distros like Mint which are real bad for user support.

I don't agree with this. How many normal users muck around with anything beyond apps and the desktop? Not many. If future Linux users need help, there are many options to seek support (like here at Tom's Hardware and distro forums).

Hardware support is excellent now. Installation a breeze.

Expecting a "major company" to support an OS drives, in time, forces users back into a MS-like scenario. That defeats the purpose of using Linux altogether, in my opinion.

 

[edzieba]

It's the exact same decision as when every prior version of Windows exited support and the subsequent version increased the minimum system requirements:
1) Install an unsupported Windows version
2) Install a supported Windows version on an unsupported platform (e.g. TPM bypass)
3) Install another OS

Incrementing '10' to '11' does not change any of this, just like when '8' incremented to '10', nor will it change when '11' increments to '12'.

 

[COLGeek]

It's the exact same decision as when every prior version of Windows exited support and the subsequent version increased the minimum system requirements:
1) Install an unsupported Windows version
2) Install a supported Windows version on an unsupported platform (e.g. TPM bypass)
3) Install another OS

Incrementing '10' to '11' does not change any of this, just like when '8' incremented to '10', nor will it change when '11' increments to '12'.

True.

Another reason to consider a non-MS solution going forward.

 

[salgado18]

Some of the apps I use most commonly aren’t available for Linux at all, including Microsoft Office, Slack (there’s a beta but no final version) and Notepad++.

Not even Teams has a Linux-native app anymore, because Microsoft. But you do have Libre Office installed by default (on Ubuntu, at least). And if you search for "word" or "excel" in your apps, the LO apps appear as requested.

Slack in beta? I just checked and it is latest/stable 4.43.43, I use it daily for years. And that's the store version.

Notepad++ is Windows-only too, but the Linux's Text Editor is a lot more capable than Notepad anyway.

Of course you need to find new apps, but many will already be on linux, others will have very close equivalents (Office -> Libre Office). Those few which will need a bit of search (Photoshop -> Paint.Net maybe?), anyone who uses it is not a mainstream user anyway, or shouldn't be. Or get the money to buy a new Windows/Mac machine, or get the time to switch tools.

Otherwise, Linux is very much usable by almost anyone.

 

[ThisIsMe]

There is no real CPU support limitation. Windows 11 will install on anything within the last 15 or so years as long as it has 4GB RAM and TPM 2.0 which doesn't have to be built into the CPU/chipset (i.e. intel 8th gen and later).

 

[apiltch]

It's the exact same decision as when every prior version of Windows exited support and the subsequent version increased the minimum system requirements:
1) Install an unsupported Windows version
2) Install a supported Windows version on an unsupported platform (e.g. TPM bypass)
3) Install another OS

Incrementing '10' to '11' does not change any of this, just like when '8' incremented to '10', nor will it change when '11' increments to '12'.

As I recall, Windows 7 and 8 PCs could, for the most part, run Windows 10.

 

[usertests]

It'd be great if I could pick up a free office computer locally. The small form factor ones in particular (like OptiPlex MFF) are easy to store, and you could use it for parts (e.g. DDR4 RAM, SSD) if nothing else. The problem is I have no idea where or when these offers will happen. I guess I could keep Craigslist and Freecycle open and check every week.

A lot of the systems being tossed out could be approx. Skylake IPC quad-cores, because 6 cores showed up in 8th gen. But that (and the iGPU) is still good enough for a lot of stuff. There will be less Ryzen systems since Intel dominates the office PC market.

 

[logainofhades]

As I recall, Windows 7 and 8 PCs could, for the most part, run Windows 10.

I ran Win 10 on an old Xeon X3220, so even older than Win7 PC's could handle it.

 

[Notton]

Even if the PC could run Win11, it's no guarantee that the license remains valid after the 24H2 update.
Which is what happened to my Win10 upgraded to Win11 desktop. The license was valid in 24H1.

As for Linux, I installed Mint on a laptop with Ryzen 3 7320U with 8GB RAM. It works smoothly, despite the sub-optimal RAM. The GUI feels fine coming from a primarily Windows user.

 

[bigdragon]

The end of support for Windows 10 doesn't mean that 10 becomes unusable, insecure, or abandoned by application developers right away. 10 still has several years of life left in it. It'll hang on the same way XP and 7 did after their support officially ended.

Personally, I'm dealing with this issue at home. I've got an older Ivy Bridge-E system that runs great on 10. If I had to move it off 10, then I would select something like SteamOS or Ubuntu LTS. However, there's really no need to move it off 10 yet. 10 will continue doing all the things I want it to do for the foreseeable future even after support ends.

 

[das_stig]

How about Microsoft and OEM's have to pay a recycle fee for making them obsolete when they are not !

 

[USAFRet]

How about Microsoft and OEM's have to pay a recycle fee for making them obsolete when they are not !

Have any of them done that, in the history of ever?
No.

This is not a new thing.

 

[apiltch]

There is no real CPU support limitation. Windows 11 will install on anything within the last 15 or so years as long as it has 4GB RAM and TPM 2.0 which doesn't have to be built into the CPU/chipset (i.e. intel 8th gen and later).

While there may be ways to get around the hardware requirement, I don't think that PCs which do will get the benefit of continued security updates.

 

[USAFRet]

Personally, I'm dealing with this issue at home. I've got an older Ivy Bridge-E system that runs great on 10. If I had to move it off 10, then I would select something like SteamOS or Ubuntu LTS. However, there's really no need to move it off 10 yet. 10 will continue doing all the things I want it to do for the foreseeable future even after support ends.

For a clued in user such as yourself, running an unsupported OS can be done, safely.

For the target audience of these $0 charity systems, not so much.
I agree with the above, and Linux.

 

[Antiphonal]

Keeping an unsupported hardware platform on W11 is just as hard, if not harder, then keeping a modern immutable Linux distro (Like Aurora/Bluefin) current.

The unsupported one that I have going for my kids is a Ryzen7 1700 with 32gb or RAM and 4tb of M.2 SSD storage. It runs W11 perfectly, except that it is an absolute pain to keep updated (and I had to do a reinstall to 24H2 when I realized that it was stuck on 21H2 and had stopped receiving security updates).

Linux Aurora updates itself automatically in the background once a week. All apps are installed through Flatpak (which has Google Chrome installable with a single click) update automatically. The user chooses when to reboot - otherwise it just runs and runs.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

Modern distros are very capable and user friendly. MS forced changes and regardless of the reasons, they aren't likely to change.

The vast majority of users can adapt to something like Mint, Ubuntu, etc easily, performing all of their needs, for free, and securely.

I'm in the Seniors group and I have little issues with Linux but i've been in the computer field since the early 80's. Linux has come a long way in stability and being user friendly. I have tried many distros and my go to distro is Ubuntu LTS as it is extremely stable.

 

[USAFRet]

I'm in the Seniors group and I have little issues with Linux but i've been in the computer field since the early 80's. Linux has come a long way in stability and being user friendly. I have tried many distros and my go to distro is Ubuntu LTS as it is extremely stable.

Over a decade ago, my daughter and friend were staying with us for the summer.

I gave her one of my spare laptops to use.
Ubuntu.
For basic browsing, etc, they never knew the difference.

 

[cyrusfox]

You should consider ChromeOS Flex as well, a bit more walled garden as it is on the chromebook eco system, but that in my mind makes it more bullet proof than linux as well as user friendly. Locked down for that audience I think is a good thing and Chrome OS handles most demands, especially for the non tech savy.

I have put it on ancient hardware and was surprised how responsive and usable it was (Circa 2012 laptop Celeron).

 

[cknobman]

Microsofts direction is so off-putting that I decided to make a clean break from them.
Cancelled my Office 365 subscription and OneDrive subscriptions.

I had close to a terabyte of information that I had to download and get off OneDrive.
Lets say Microsoft doesnt make it easy.

Now my freaking Outlook is spammed with stupid ads again so I will be abandoning their email next.