With support ending for Windows 10, the most popular desktop operating system in the world currently, possibly 240 million pcs may be sent to the landfill. This is mostly due to Windows 11’s exorbitant requirements. This will most likely result in many pcs being immediately outdated, and prone to viruses. GNU/Linux may be these computers’ only secure hope, what do you think?
I recently installed elementary os on a Dell laptop and Fedora on an older super shitty Dell laptop. Honestly I know it was a bit of luck but both installs could’ve hardly gone smoother. The install itself? Easier than windows and absolutely faster. Out of the two computers, assuming patience with learning a new thing, there was barely friction and this could’ve been done by most people with a little gumption.
I told the laptop owners that the touch screen wouldn’t work on the newer one. Just assumed that was a weird hardware software combination that would be very difficult if not impossible to get working. They were ok with that because essentially both computers were slow trash and we were trying to salvage them. Lo and behold though-- the touchscreen worked out the box with literally no effort. It didn’t behave how the owners wanted (like it did on windows), but 15 minutes of googling and a reboot and the touch screen was working exactly as it did on windows. Obviously Linux isn’t for everyone but when 1) it’s gotten this good and 2) the alternative is trashing a computer, it really saddens me to see a long diatribe shitting all over the possibility of salvaging a lot of these computers rather than throwing them away.
My point was not that installing Linux is intrinsically difficult, it’s that people who have “a little gumption” to figure it out are a far rarer breed than you seem to believe.
Also, I wasn’t intending to “shit all over the possibility” of salvaging old PCs. I support that! I think Linux (Mint, specifically) would be a perfect drop-in for most light use Windows users, as it is a stable and friendly solution to common needs. I was just raising the part most people overlook: actually getting it running. Not just the technical challenges, but the mental ones, too. The people who stand to gain the most from a free and stable OS are paradoxically the same people who are the least equipped to find and set it up.
We have a long road ahead of us to normalize the procedures of obtaining and installing a new OS in the public eye. Linux can be as user friendly as you like, but it’s all for nothing to the average Joe if he doesn’t understand how to get it. Or why he should even bother getting it, for that matter.