While I do agree that the Windows upgrade circle is vicious and manufacturers benefit from it every time they sell a new machine. It’s not the whole problem Linux needs to over come.

There is an incredibly large amount of sheer inertia that needs to be overcome. And that’s a lot harder to to break than the upgrade cycle because users don’t like change. It’s like a huge boulder rolling down a mountain. And while you can see little pieces of it chip off now and then. It’s due to the sheer size of that boulder that it ain’t stopping anytime soon.

It’s going to a lot longer before the “Year of Linux” ever happens.

In that thought experiment there are more scenarios. Remembering that stepping on a butterfly can change… This is, small input changes can have big repercussions down the line.

You cannot assume what Linux would be in that scenario.

Who knows if it would have been colored by a main corporation.

Capitalism would have found a way to leverage it and new computers would be sold.

Your theory is based on the assumption that only Windows/Microsoft software increases in bloat exponentially.

This is not true: look at the internet. For example Gmail used to have a basic HTML version, but Google killed it, and the normal version takes longer and longer to load even on new hardware. New Reddit also is a mess of over-Javascript-frameworked capitalistry, complete with those annoying grey lines that appear where text should be when the page is loading.

Even open-source software is not immune to this. KDE on an Intel Celeron/2GB RAM computer feels very slightly sluggish, like walking through an atmosphere that’s too thick.

Wirth’s Law states that as more features are added to a piece of software, it will become slower.

Before the arbitrary Windows 11 hardware restrictions, this was exactly what was happening on the Windows side as well. There are still tons of 10-15yo Windows devices around, happily running Win10.

“Regular” people also only upgrade their PC once the old one breaks or if they really encounter something that doesn’t work on the old PC (mostly games if they do play somewhat modern games).

In fact, Windows used to have really awesome long-term-support and forever long upgrade support. You can easily run Win10 on a quality high-performance PC from 2008. But with Win11, they just tossed all that in the drain.

The classic

offers to recycle

actually installs esoteric Linux distros

Classic!

Yeah this is basically what I do. People like giving me their stuff because I’m transparent about the deal:

1. If at all possible, I will wipe it for you.
2. If it’s usable, I will either add it to my TrashCloud™ or (especially for laptops) set it up for a kid.
3. Parts/devices that I cannot get working I will take to electronics recycling.
4. No iPhones/iPads.

I came here to discover why this tactics gets the full clown… yes… we must renew machines and THEN GIVE THEM AWAY.

What’s the oldest?

This is the life I want for myself.

At my dump, you get weighed on the way in and out and you pay for the weight you drop. So, if you leave your garbage and load up some ewaste, it saves you money. They are literally paying you to take it away.

It’s reducing e-waste and using older tech for something atleast, both of which would normally wouldn’t happen

Windows: creates e-waste

Linux: collects e-waste under the stairs “just in case it’s useful”

When I first started learning PCs and Linux, I just went to the local thrift stores and Value Village. Even today people turn in all kinds of perfectly working compute hardware, mostly just old. Consumer stuff doesn’t retain much resale value and many cannot be bothered with trying to sell it, so it ends up in the dump, at the recyclers, in thrift stores, or on classified ads like Craig’s list, kijiji and the like.

EBay usually only sees the stuff that can fetch a worthwhile dollar.

Check how nearby colleges and universities dispose of used assets. The state school near me maintains a very nice website where they auction off everything from lab equipment to office furniture. It’s also where all their PCs go when they hit ~5 years old and come up in the IT department’s refresh cycle. Only problem in my case is that they tend to auction stuff in bulk. You can get a solid machine for $50 to $100, but only if you’re willing to pay $500 to $1000 for a pallet of 10.

My local dump has an e-waste section. Corps straight up drop off 6x6x6 ft. tall cage totes full old laptops and desktops. Then the grandma bins full of VHS players and stuff.

There’s signs saying you can’t take anything, but nobody actually cares or stops you lol. As long as you’re not causing trouble or making a mess digging deep into them.

Make friends with some PC repair people. Depending on where you live, a LOT of Win10 stuff is getting thrown out right now. If you present yourself as an alternative to recycling/scrapping, you might get a good deal.

I bought two old Thinkpads on eBay for $20 each. They run Debian + i3 great and have become my daily portable drivers.

Edit: a new battery and ssd did bring the total up to $100 for the pair.

Wait really?

And Taco Bell drive thru, apparently

My 1 dollar vacuum I got at a thrift store is still chugging somehow.

My vacuum proudly runs Valetudo!

https://valetudo.cloud/

OS vendor is in cahoots with hardware manufacturers

That’s pretty much the strategy since Microsoft has been established. It’s not very creative, it’s not even legal, so it’s impressive (in a bad way) that they manage to keep on making it work.

I mean if they’re free you can always sell them for cheap and feel good about making some money while reducing e-waste

Who needs virtual machines when I can just use a separate device for every distro I want to try?

And just think how quickly you can get them all up and running with NixOS! All those endless hours of learning finally put to good use!

Where are you all getting free thinkpads from?

You’d be a fool to leave them!

I have a literal suitcase full if 4TB SAS drives. Because they were free and pretty much unused.

Fun fact: A pelicase of 37 3.5" drives is the max weight you’re allowed in a single checked piece with common airlines. I had to give three drives to the check in clerk.

I’d like to know where can i put my hand on a stack of free Thinkpads.

At least you remember where you put them :-|

160 GB RAM workstation for $20 might be one of those you’ll regret passing on, because I’m getting second-hand regret. Can I send you $20 and you send it to me?

160GB ram for 20 bucks… I’d have taken that regardless

The things I could do with 160GB of RAM 😭 finally could load my entire database at once instead of hard drive thrashing

I had to accept a few years back that my venerable eeePC 1000 netbook with it’s single core (2 threads!) Atom CPU is just not useful any longer, even with the most lightweight distro.

I’ll never let that particular machine go though, because it means a lot to me. I bought it with my first paycheck from my first job after university, and the year after (as the only portable machine I owned) it saw me through a whole year working abroad. Managed everything from Skype calls with my parents to browsing the Internet and watching YouTube, and that was running Windows!

Trying to do something with it now is just a reminder of how outrageously bloated and resource-heavy modern apps have become, especially those that are just electron web wrappers. And the web itself is exponentially more demanding to render.

It’s not your fault little eee, you’re just the same as ever. It’s the world that changed.

I suppose I could use it as an IRC terminal or something, that would be pretty hipster. But I’d just be wasting electricity.