Does anybody know how/whether this is going to affect hardware obsolescence?
I am not going to worry about it, sounds like a problem for my IT department since they are the ones who insist I use windows for work.
Me, I will be just fine on my Linux gaming PC.
The good thing about Linux is if your distribution makes boneheaded decisions like MS, you can switch to another one.
Or fork it and make new distribution based on it minus the annoyimg bits
That and the other good thing: no distro will make decisions that are even in the ballpark of insanity of those by big tech corps.
Oh, they do those all the time.
And then either quietly backpedal once everybody complains or stick to it until everybody moves and they are dead.
no distro will make decisions that are even in the ballpark of insanity of those by big tech corps.
Manjaro dev team enters the room.
I was gonna say ubuntu with forcing snaps. What’s wrong with manjaro?
Someone made a website to compile them you might find, but here’s what I remember:
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Putting the extraordinarily unstable test release of a package in their normal release. That package specifically included disclaimers that it was for testing only, not meant for any users, and it was very clearly not meant for general release to unsuspecting end-users.
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Getting banned off the AUR (twice?) for DDOS-ing it due to their faulty code. As I recall, every machine queried the AUR for updates constantly, or something like that.
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Breaking AUR dependencies because of holding back releases for a few weeks, which they regularly to improve safety. Basically, don’t use AUR on Manjaro.
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I have no Idea.
But Linux might be a hardware obsolescence counter-mesure.I don’t think it’s going to change anything. Microsoft has been releasing windows every 3 years for a while.
- 1992 - windows 3.11
- 1995 - windows 95
- 1998 - windows 98
- 2001 - windows XP
- 2006 - windows Vista (bigger gap due to vista’s development being reset due to feature creep)
- 2009 - windows 7
- 2012 - windows 8
- 2015 - windows 10
- 2021 - windows 11
Probably going to make a lot of hardware obsolete for Windows, a lot of people with older systems are either going to stick to their current version without updating (no updates could mean security issues) or switch to Linux for better hardware support. This is assuming that MS decides to support less and less older hardware with each update.
I think I could do Linux. I used to do MS-DOS. I’ve got a 10-yr-old Dell laptop to experiment with. I’ve been advised to start with Mint. Is there something “for dummies” with very clear instructions?
Mint is pretty close to “for dummies”.
Put it on a flash drive. Boot it. When asked “do you want to install mint or do you want to try it out”, click “try it out”. You’ll end up in a live environment of Mint (a copy that doesn’t save any changes/downloaded files) that you can explore all you want. Unless you start messing with the hard drive from there, you can change most settings without any risk of breaking anything. If you mess something up, turn it off and boot it again.
If Mint doesn’t run to your liking, grab another Linux distro and try that from your flash drive. Find out which one feels best to you and install that to the laptop.
Just be aware that Linux running from a flash drive will probably be quite slow compared to real Linux.
Just be aware that Linux running from a flash drive will probably be quite slow compared to real Linux.
Put an SSD into a USB 3.2 enclosure, and use Ventoy to add ISOs. You can select the distro at boot, and it runs fast enough that the difference between an installed drive isn’t noticeable.
The difference compared to a flash drive is brilliant, it’s ridiculously fast in comparison.
That sure would be a lot faster, but I doubt USB would be all that fast on a 10 year old Dell. Also, if a decade old Dell is your platform of choice, I’m not sure if spending 150 bucks on an SSD + enclosure is worth the money. Probably best to upgrade the internal drive and memory first.
It works well on my 7 year old laptop and my 10 year old media server :)
I don’t know about prices anywhere else, but I bought a 500GB SSD and a Sabrent enclosure about a month ago for £20 each. Like you said, it’s better to upgrade the computer first, if it hasn’t been already, but if you use portable storage regularly, it’s worth it.
Who still uses Windows? I have to believe it’s either non tech people or people very new to computers. I haven’t even used it at work in over 15 years. Good riddance!
Like 70% of the world still uses windows
Even more if you’re talking about desktops.
Servers, probably Linux.
Removed by mod
How come 70% of Lemmy posts are about Linux then? If 70% of the world really uses Windows, surely there’d be more Windows Lemmy memes.
Lemmy is very new and people who like to try out new things and are interested in tech are also more likely to use Linux.
Selection bias
Because Lemmy was designed with a lot of the ethos that attracts people to Linux. Lemmy is far from a representative sample because most people enjoy being fucked with so they don’t have to think.
I’m a sys admin that uses windows on my personal machine. I’m not trying to do more work on my own time.
😂😂 it’s always the windows users at the company that have problems and can’t get code to run locally, thus pushing a bunch of test failures into staging. Yet here we are, a bunch of enterprise Linux and Mac users pushing code that works because we can run it properly locally… even shamed one user in my team to switch from Windows to Mac and after the first month he was relieved everything just ran, and he had a real terminal …
If you’re just clicking buttons in a web browser, I’m sure Windows is just fine. For anything more than that, it’s a giant waste of time.
even shamed one user in my team to switch from Windows to Mac …
It’s so strange that Windows users don’t see how welcoming our communities are.
You’re toxic. Windows is trash, but treating others bad means you’re a bad person, regardless of which OS they use. Why do I even need to say this?
Surely you’re all running with the same security policy, agents, and account permission constraints (e.g. no local admin) as all your Windows counterparts so you have a true comparison?
And you can get a “real” terminal on Windows right now.
Many many people have no choice.
A number of software companies have software which has become industry standard and do not support windows. That means any new employees have been educated and trained in using that software. So to defy that , you are either the odd man out in the company, or the odd company out in the industry.
That causes you disadvantages of interoperability with colleagues or a need to train your new employees with skills that are typically only useful within your own company and delay the return on investment of your new hire which has financial implications.
Wine has come a long way but many industry standard softwares do not play nicely. E.g. Adobe software, autocad, solidworks. If you get it running, you are not guaranteed the next version will work and if your whole team upgrades except you, you might lose the ability to work with their files. Your boss may not be happy if you need to spent x hours or days getting up and running again because you had to upgrade from v21 to v22 and it didn’t work out of the box in wine.
Businesses need and require a different level of support vs home users so that issues can be fixed in a timely and reliable manner. Adding wine into the mix means every software problem now has potential causes not just in the software itself, but also in the wine setup.
So ultimately where no native application exists and no compatible application exists, wine is not yet an acceptable solution for business use except in very fringe cases. So that leaves virtual machines as a solution, but then you are running windows with extra support issues again. So why would you not just run windows.
I offer this answer as the reason windows is and will remain ubiquitous not as my own personal preferences or opinions.
I tried working in Linux for several months but I kept coming up against barriers that cost me time , solely because of my choice to use it and not use windows. When I encountered issues, IT would not and could not help. In the end I deleted my Linux partition because I simply could not work with file formats colleagues were exchanging when working in Linux and I would have to switch to windows. In some cases there were conversations or workarounds but again these typically add work and introduce issues at times.
If you want windows gone, the only way is to convince large software companies to support other operating systems natively or for wine to reach 100% parity with the experience on windows. The former will only happen if there is a financial positive for the companies and the latter will likely never happen, or take a very long time due to windows being a moving target.
As long as it keeps being shipped pre installed with every computer - especially laptops - it will maintain dominance.
I’m considering opening a hobby computer shop and have been talking with a few possible suppliers and I instantly noticed I was in for a fun ride.
One supplier has its own laptop line. I questioned on the possibility of purchasing machines from them with no OS, as my intention is to promote Linux, and custom install machines with different distros, and I was told that is not possible as all of their come pre installed with a windows license.
When questioned if I could wipe the disks and return the licenses I was told it is not possible as the windows is shipped within a dedicated non erasable storage chip, from where the system can be reinstalled whenever necessary from the UEFI.
This is a two dime supplier on a non relevant market.
windows is shipped within a dedicated non erasable storage chip, from where the system can be reinstalled whenever necessary from the UEFI
press x to doubt
I’m not buying one to tear it down and make shure.
