On the flip side of this, can people tell me which models are "e-waste" but are actually powerful when you pop Linux onto them? It'd be nice to scoop up some deals on eBay.
this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2025
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I can give you some easy tips for this.
- Does it run windows 7 or higher, if so it will work fine with most distros for basic stuff.
- Does it have a dedicated GPU, if so google the card to check if your chosen distro has easy support for it (almost any card can work, but some are painless).
- Does it power on and was made this millennia, if so it can work in some way with Linux.
Everybody on Lemmy thinking Windows 10 users have to choose among buying a new PC, switching to Linux, or waiting for Microsoft to blink, but six bucks and my right nut says the overwhelming majority aren't going to do squat when their machine stops updating.
If anything, a lot of people will take it as a blessing, Microsoft is very insistent on their updating process
It might make windows 10 briefly the best windows.
I look forward to companies dumping a bunch of cheap and powerful mini-PCs on the market. I want to play around with a home server.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the end of w10 support only affecting Windows home users, at least for now? E.g enterprise and other licences will still get support?
Yeah. I switched to an IoT version of Windows 10 that's going to get security updates until 2032. (I have a Windows machine I still use for a certain piece of proprietary software.)
If you have a local college, get on their surplus mailing list.
How cheap have you seen the pcs go for?
I still have some stuff from a local oil and gas company, a collage, my local library and the national land survey org. I paid all of nothing for them, since these cost them money to dispose of.
Don't expect HDDs in them but surplus equipment is great.
There is a local tech, college, government ewaste facility near me.
I was recently bidding on fifteen 2u rack servers, fully equipped ready to plug and play essentially, but 5 years old. The entire lot sold for 700 bucks.
A second lot sold at the same time, twelve of exactly the same server slightly newer but less storage (only 50TB) that lot sold for 900.
edit Just Checked currently with 9h left there is a lot 25 OptiPlex computers (sans HD) for 135 dollars.
Yeah, I forgot to mention that most colleges will have an auction site too.
My college doesn't actually resell computers, but that's because a local prison has a program where the inmates refurbish old equipment to send out to low income schools. But, considering most of this equipment won't be usable, I expect us to start selling it.
Based on the prices we sell other technology for, probably somewhere under $50. My guess would be $20.
I saw a really cool project showcase yesterday: Operese. I'm not quite sure how it works, but it installs Kubuntu directly in Windows, and after a reboot, instead of starting Windows, you boot into Kubuntu with all your user files copied over from Windows.
guess it will -create a partition -deploy an kubuntu image on it -copy user files over
the hard part here is having a spare disk/spare disk space where you can deploy. and maybe getting it to boot into grub directly, because your bios will be pointing to windows
I still expect Microsoft to further pussy out
I'm stuck using certain software that doesn't run on Linux, so I'm stuck using 10 until the end of time I guess.
It's probably time to move my Win7 laptop to Linux though.
move my Win7 laptop to Linux though.
Do you have a moment to talk about our lords and saviours, Linus and RMS?
my Win7 laptop
Stay safe out there.
The only thing it ever connects to the Internet for is getting to Google fiber speed test with a hardwired connection to the modem. Not that there's anything important on it anyways.
always have in mind that an intruder only needs one unlocked door to enter your home. google ads are known to have been infested with malware several times...
You can use 0patch to continue to get security updates.
I saw this the other day and it looked like a cool project to help people migrate.
Windows 10 is ending support in October, prevent e-waste, switch to Linux
Please, without the comma splice.
LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX