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Linux or Landfill? End of Windows 10 Leaves PC Charities with Tough Choice
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this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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On a machine that can run it. If you have one of the machines that are the subject of this article, the only upgrade path is to buy a new one, for which Microsoft takes a healthy OEM fee for including Win11. You can easily see that cost on devices like the Legion Go S that cost significantly less for the SteamOS version.
The technical requirements for 11 were reasonable when it came out and even more so today. Laptops being ewaste when they were built that way isn't Microsoft's fault.
My 8700k (from 2018) disagrees.
They're the ones that keep making the requirements more and more unreasonable with every update.
What is unreasonable about 4 gb of ram, a processor made in the last decade, and a tpm chip? Even Linux doesn't run well under 8, let alone 4, because linux's memory management and handling of low memory is a catastrophic embarrassment. (Yes it uses less idle, but you get to 80% and the system will lock up)
Whether or not an older machine "runs well" is highly dependent on what you're using it for. I only very recently (like, after the new year) retired a 16-year-old laptop with 2GB RAM that was running Gentoo, when I got a good deal on something that would compile gcc in a reasonable amount of time rather than needing to be left to run overnight. However, most people don't need to compile large software on a regular basis, and the old machine was still doing okay in its role as a large-screen-coarse-resolution pseudo-video-iPod, ssh client, quick lookup device for Perl manpages, emergency Internet query device, and general backup/light-use system. Worthless for gaming and somewhat sluggish on the Web, naturally, but that wasn't what I needed it for.
I'd expect anything with 4GB RAM and 4 CPU threads to produce somewhat acceptable performace on most individual webpages (multiple Javascript-heavy sites might be a challenge, though, so stick to 1-2 tabs at a time), which would make the main issue most people would have with my old laptop disappear.
Linux runs just fine in 4. Or much less. It depends a lot on what you use it for. My 486 had a whooping 32 Megs of memory and ran Linux just fine.
Regarding MS, the main problem is the changing of the goalpost. And I'm not so sure there's even any point to the whole TPM thing anyway.
Well if we're going to just talk about the kernel with 1-2 embedded apps, sure.
or if you're going back to 1990 yes, applications back then we're less demanding than chrome. However that was 35 years ago.
But this article isn't about your little nxp chip or the much weaker 486 chip, it's about laptops humans are using with like...modern web browsers. Which will happily eat 10 gb of ram if you let them. And then Linux will shit the bed and lock up the moment you're out of swap or zram.
I have no idea what you mean by moving goalposts.
The TPM attitude is common among Linux fanboys and I don't really get it. It's a chip for making security simpler for the average user. If you're worried about laptops getting trashed because users won't install Linux, the tpm chip is for them. Also it's over a decade old.
The TPM chip is the issue here, and not a requirement under Linux.
TPM chip is a decade old, built into all but shit laptops, and is a net positive for overall system security.
Id argue it's more than not required under Linux, it's barely supported under Linux and is a giant pain to get working.
See that's where you're wrong though, because my computer does have a TPM chip and still can't run Win11. That's because Microsoft locked them down to v2.0 or newer ones and mine's only a v1.2 chip.