My wife has asked me not to turn the house into a tech junkyard.
Hot take
If the world was running on GNU/Linux for endpoints, tech-normies would still be using computers from 2010. And this would cut massively into laptop OEM’s bottom line. Therefore I think it’s a quiet conspiracy where laptop manufacturers or the computer OEMs shut up about Windows being bad because just imagine if everyone would be running GNU/Linux. You could use laptops from 2010 with “regular” distros and be completely fine. With light distros you could use things from the 1990’s for all tech normie tasks, web-browsing, text editing, e-mail, etc.
TLDR: Microshit Windows bad.
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).
My go to for reliable Linux platforms is anything off-lease. Workstation class systems are extremely robust most of the time. I have some that have been in 24/7 operation since I bought them years ago and they’re showing zero signs of slowing down. I love it.
Ewaste is also a good place to look for still good but deemed unworthy of use by a faceless, soulless corporation stuff. Usually tends to be a bit older, but it’s usually fine.
Have fun friends, there’s no wrong answers.
Have fun friends, there’s no wrong answers.
Sadly, there is though: as nice and fascinating as it is to get a usable computer out of vintage hardware - sometimes the power consumption is too bad to justify not recycling the hardware :(
Shouldn’t the images be in reverse order?
It’s reducing e-waste and using older tech for something atleast, both of which would normally wouldn’t happen
if the stack of shit laptops were dirt cheap or even free, and you are having fun tinkering with them…its still better than letting them rot in the soil.
It’s been a couple of weeks since i switched to mint and gotta tell you that this is very tempting
Me,
fighting withusing an am5 chipset & nvidia graphics card for Wayland based distros because damn it, who needs a working machine anyway: “Heh, guess I’m not a clown”Madness? Buying a new computer every 2 years because the OS vendor is in cahoots with hardware manufacturers is madness. This is rational usage of resources for your benefit.
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.
it’s not even legal
Isn’t there one that has both, the OS vendor and the hardware seller as a same entity?
Buy e-waste? I have people give it to me for free. Offer to recycle it for them.
Yeah this is basically what I do. People like giving me their stuff because I’m transparent about the deal:
- If at all possible, I will wipe it for you.
- If it’s usable, I will either add it to my TrashCloud™ or (especially for laptops) set it up for a kid.
- Parts/devices that I cannot get working I will take to electronics recycling.
- No iPhones/iPads.
Big thumbs up from me on the no iPhone/iPad policy.
That crap is ewaste as soon as Apple inc, decides it’s not worth supporting anymore with no option to load a different OS on it. Arguably, it’s ewaste before that, but I digress.
It just sucks that the hardware is made specifically to be incapable of running anything but the OS or was built for, which is entirely controlled by a profit-driven company by way of closed source software.
Say all the bad things you want about them (I certainly do), but it’s hard to say that their hardware isn’t good. It’s just sabotaged at the factory by their firmware and OS, condemning it to a mediocre and finite existence.
It’s shocking how much corpos just ruin perfectly good electronics by making it busted from the factory
The classic
offers to recycle
actually installs esoteric Linux distros
Classic!
I have a laptop that I use regularly that I actually found at the recycle center when I dropped off some bottles. It is running Linux of course.
The dump I go to every week to drop off my household garbage has an e waste shed. The guys that work there told me I can pick through it. My basement is a pc graveyard now.
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.
This is the life I want for myself.
I came here to discover why this tactics gets the full clown… yes… we must renew machines and THEN GIVE THEM AWAY.
Yeah I tend to archive hardware till I meet someone who needs a system then I try to put something together that meets their needs. Otherwise I mothball it till I have a hardware failure in one of my servers etc. Thankfully the systems I am taking are heading for a grinder somewhere and not being repurposed.
Exactly.
In the late zeroes, the local recycle place got a bunch of full monitors as a local business transitioned to flat screens. I grabbed about twelve of them, thinking I would be able to build machines for kids without computers. I placed three full systems before we moved and I sadly had to dump a slew of them because we didn’t have space in the moving truck. Learned my lesson.
I’ve started keeping a handful of cases and I test all the hardware, catalog it and then put it in totes layered with anti static bubble wrap. Works great for jamming a large density of hardware in a small space!
What’s the oldest?
So far 2008-2009. Waiting to find some quality beige cases lol
I run a Windows 7 laptop and bought a PC at Value Village and maxed out the RAM thanks to Aliexpress. Junk FTW!!
Windows: creates e-waste
Linux: undoes e-waste
Windows: creates e-waste
Linux: collects e-waste under the stairs “just in case it’s useful”
All the computers living under the stairs are running some server function. 🤷♂️
They’re heating the room too so technically it’s a radiator with network attached storage!
SmArt RAdiAToR!!
That was literally a hostname I gave one box I had in my life
Getting visibly annoyed whe you find out you can’t easily run mainline linux on some proprietary piece of hardware like a phone or smart TV.
But hey at least my robot vacuum runs on Ubuntu by default lol.
My 1 dollar vacuum I got at a thrift store is still chugging somehow.
And Taco Bell drive thru, apparently
I
Fuck it, we ball
F
F
My vacuum proudly runs Valetudo!
Haha same! FIrst thing I did was make a soundpack and install oucher so it makes funny voicelines when it bumps into objects lol.
Only works for Roborock, right? Would love that for my bot, but it’s a Dreame.
Voice pack should work: https://github.com/Findus23/voice_pack_dreame
As for oucher, you’d probably have to write your own program or script depending on how Dreame’s bump works. For Roborock it watches a logfile for bumper events, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you can find something similar in Dreame or even something like /dev/sensor1 that you can poll.
Wait really?
Yeah on Roborock at least, dunno if they changed distros for newer robots though.
Oh wow and it comes with Matter support for local server use!!!
Unless you have an Asus m32cd_a_f_k20cd_k31cd motherboard. I’ve tried EVERY bloody configuration in the bios possible and several different distros, and they all crash / freeze during installation. Fuck you Asus 🤬
That is a cursed name for a motherboard.
Sounds OEM
Would you rather Gaming Extreme MAX Torpedo Super Champ Grand Prix Haxx 2020 Ultra MAX Elite ?
Gramps went musk off with giving weird names.
Just because you have OS install media and hardware does not mean the hardware functions. In fact, old hardware often fails MEMTST.
I’m sure that is often the case. But with this series, Its this specific model. A friend of mine has the Asus M32 from the previous year and he was able to get mint installed without any issues. Just bad luck with the model I bought. It’s always given me headaches so not being able to switch to linux tracks
Have you tried LibreBoot? Is that still a project?
Does anyone have a few optiplexes lying around?
Dude I have my childhood desktop running a jellyfin server, I’d kill for an optiplex
my workplace is selling a few optiplex 3040-s with i3-6100, 4gigs of ram of unqualified variety, 120gb ssd, 512 gb hdd, for about 55$, is that a good deal? (this is in hungary btw)
I’ve seen worse deals. The platform itself is probably worth that much (meaning the mainboard, chassis, and all the accompanying stuff like heatsinks and power supplies)… 6th gen CPUs are probably dirt cheap, assuming those systems use a socketed CPU, and you wanted to upgrade to something more than an i3. I can’t imagine RAM would be much more.
You can probably turn these into very decent little machines for under $100 each and a bit of effort.
It really depends on whether you need the extra capability for a bit of effort or you’re fine with the i3 with 4G RAM.
I usually want to replace the storage on a used system with something new or refurbished because of wear and tear, but that’s me. Still, that’s not a bad deal. Free would be a great deal, but I’m not sure you could ask for better.
I never exactly paid for any. Didn’t exactly steal. Didn’t exactly pay. I’d call it “appropriate”
My favorite dependable cheap Linux host. Just sucks about the power draw.
The thinkcentres replaces them well IMO, the tiny is a monster, it’s now my daity driver (6600T IIRC, 32GB, 2TB + a rust spinner) amazing and the power draw is way less than my old optiopexes.
I have an Optiplex SFF woth an i5-6500TE. It has a maximum TDP of 35 watts.
The little ones are great
The desktop ones are great for storage arrays, especially with an LSI controller thrown in.
OP after trying Linux:
