I’m dual booted as well. I only go to Windows now to:
Install security patches every 3 months.
Do my annual taxes.
All 3 home systems are like this. Over the next couple of months i have 3 other family members where I am switching them from Windows 10 to EndeavourOS. Just seemes the best way to protect tgeir privacy and have them continue on their laotops.
The main problem I’m finding in re-purposing older systems is the shift from 32-bit to 64-bit, & the general increase in memory requirements of modern operating systems. Their only use now is as headless servers. Even in this scenario, they won’t necessarily be a ‘low powered’ option.
I think 2012ish onwards systems still have plenty of life in them. The I/O & GFX performance would probably be the main bug-bears of using machines from this era. Although, the GFX would still be more than capable of running KDE or Gnome.
This was exactly my reaction yday after a patch update took me to the setup screen for the millionth time asking me to connect my phone, etc… After every update? (thankfully Windows is now relegated to only games)
And this took place a million years ago. PCs have been manufactured with 64 bit tech since 2003 or 2004, Win XP 64 bit was released 2005. Around 2009 most PC manufactureds completely stopped making 32 bit hardware.
I am just as surprised as @mbod regarding this, but then I remember what happened when Sims 4 announced they were going to stop supporting 32 bit computers a year ago: A large, or at least loud, part of the player base got very upset because well… many Sims players are not “gamers”, they ONLy play Sims and have not bought a new computer since before Sims 3 came out 2009 or so.
On one hand I understand the frustration, but on the other you cannot ask progress to wait for you. It’s like people crying because they don’t sell leaded gas anymore, and they have a hard time getting their veteran cars or tractors to run on modern fuel (“modern” being a relative term since leaded gas has been outlawed or heavily taxed in most countries for what, 20 years now?).
Technically, yes. But no-one used it because all drivers had to be signed by Microsoft. The MS transition to 64-bit didn’t properly start until Windows 7 in 2009. Even then, my work IT department were still doing fresh installs of 32-bit W7 on some peoples’ machines right up until the release of W10. That happened in 2015.
It wasn’t just the transition to 64-bit hardware that was needed, but also a decent amount of RAM. 512MB was more than ample for Windows XP. You really need 4GB for a half decent experience these days. 2GB would be pretty bare bones.
Not really asking anyone to wait as such. I don’t feel x86_64 CPUs have massively moved on in the past 10 years. We’ve just gained a few extra instruction set extensions.
Many Major Corporations still run Core2 or early Core i series cpus.
My old job was almost exclusively decade old HP systems and some servers that just got updated from a 25yr old to a 5yr old model
Many businesses use hardware till it dies then replace it ONLY if it can’t be fixed.
We (as in my place of employment) didn’t update to W10 until W7 EOL in 2018. That said our hardware was never older than 4 years with a mandatory rotation (besides as an employer handing out a computer that old still feels bad; first impressions and all).
This ^
I know many friends who took deep loans to purchase a bare minimum acceptable laptop for university. Some are making do with old processors from 4-6th generation. I just met a relative some months back and he is still using his 2009 Dell laptop as his only machine.
Because of the recent situation, those who could afford, have purchased newer laptop/phones and donated their old hardware. But most people I know are still clinging on to old machines. (Maybe its a socio economic thing)
My own computer which I use for most tasks runs off an Ivy Bridge Intel Pentium G2020. I do have a newer laptop I purchased last year though.
Most of these machines from 2012-14 are probably not going to make it till 2025. But I see some comments talking about “pre 2018” machines going outdated by 2025 - that won’t be entirely true for most middle class non IT people. Machines purchased in 2015-17 - I will easily predict them to be used past 2025 if software support is there. If software support ceases, it will be a “forced hardware upgrade” situation.
Corporates and offices will easily upgrade. But a significant number of “average users” will not. Plus, what about those school that use donated hardware in their labs? We have quite a lot of them.
Quite frankly if your lab computers are so old they won’t either support secure boot and 64 bit OS by 2025, then… just live with it. Take the hit and live with a non-supported OS if you really can’t upgrade; after all this is still happening and has happening for decades; some server standing somewhere that can’t be upgraded and is huffing along on a token ring setup or something. Happens all the time in dark zombie filled 
basements at science centers and universities.
The key element for security is having up to date firewalls anyway, if shit gets into your system you are probably fried and as long as you don’t have some moron clicking on ransomware links on a mail app on that research machine… you’ll be fine.
My high school labs ran Windows 7 (still do). PC are not connected to internet, so security is not an issue.
Incidentally I stumbled over a site yesterday saying (as expected) that MS is in the same boat with W7 as they were with Vista vs XP: 43% (ish) of all desktop computers in the world run W10, but out of the other 57%, almost half run W7 still.
Yes it means Windows totally dominates the market with about 70% of all desktops in the world (as we know) but it also means some 25% of all computers in the world still run an un-supported non-updated operating system.
Edit: It IS Important to distinguish the people and institutions that cannot upgrade for reasons vs the people who just don’t care and will run Windows 11 on their next machine, they just run one computer into the ground without upgrading and then buy a new one. I know several people like that myself and I bet that is actually the main reason, not financial or stubbornness issues".
I’m this category of person. I can upgrade - but my old machine runs Endeavour flawlessly, and gets my work done. Why upgrade 
RANT
I normally do not get into these threads, but when I saw this:
I had to stop lurking and say something. I hate to say this, but it IS definitely is a comment centered on the first world. You take your old machines to recyclers, ie “scrapped” in your statement, and feel good about “saving the planet”. What really happens is they are sent to places like India, Thailand, Vietnam, China, and others to either be reused or burned, broken down, and dismantled for the precious metals they contain. In the case of this article, Link, they were sent to China. Also, where do you think corporate laptops and computers that come off lease go when they are replaced? They are shipped to those same countries and are resold. Example: Link
Like @dodgypast, I also live in Thailand. People use what they can. Most of the jobs here only pay about $300 to $400 (9,000 Thai baht give or take) a month. What it comes down to is, do they buy a cell phone or a computer. Most people will buy the cell phone because it is more useful in their daily life. My wife, is a prime example of this. While she had a good smart phone, she had never owned a computer in her life until I bought her one in 2012. She was 34 at the time. She was more worried about paying her living expenses out of her salary than buying a “luxury” item such as a computer.
More recently with this human malware stuff, my brother-in-law, who is a rice farmer, asked me for help to get my 15 year-old niece a computer. She needed one so she could continue to go to school. The school switched to “online” classes. They just did not have the money for such a major, unexpected purchase. Between what I had laying around and what I could scrounge up, I was able to give her a computer. Was it new, nope. It was an i7-3770K with 16gb of RAM and a 256gb SSD. Because her school uses Teams, it had to run Windows. It runs Windows 10 beautifully. A similar machine on the used market here can cost more than a months salary.
I could go on. @dodgypast’s, @s4ndm4n’s, @flyingcakes and my point is, not everywhere on the planet can afford to upgrade. Even after the “five year support window” for W10 ends. They have more important things to worry about than upgrading a computer. The fact that MS wants to end support at all for these older machines, like my 4 year old i7-7700K desktop, is ridiculous.
/End Rant
As someone with an insatiable hatred for everything M$, I actually think that’s very nice. The more inconvenient it is to run windoze, the better. I would never criticise my enemy for making a mistake. I hope they double down on it.
Yeah, if you must use Teams, for school or work, use it on Linux. Make sure to make a separate user account for it, so that it does not have access to your home directory and that you can easily remove it when you no longer want it, without it leaving its filth in your dotfiles.
Even better, run it in a VM.
While I use Ubuntu (Neon, specifically) on my work computer, I do run Teams (as my company is transitioning over to MS products from Google), and mostly the Teams client works well. However, there are limitations that PROBABLY wouldn’t affect a student, but could depending on how things work. The major one I’ve found is that attempting to login to a Tenant that you are only a guest to crashes the client.
But overall, I do agree, if the tools are available in linux, I’d much rather be running them in linux than Windows. Doubly with Win11 coming.
Whonix VM… 
Or even better, support bridge for Matrix here
Matrix have bridges for everything under the sun, just that crap is missing yet 
Well, seems some form of it is already in power for Element client
Or just drop such school / work, coz at that point you’re smarter than them to not use such crap 
Yes, a ten year old top of the line CPU upgraded with RAM and SSD does still run great today (and will for another four years with Windows 10 support). But let’s not pretend that geek serviced machines are the majority of systems. I bet the majority of the “ten years old”-market are two core laptops with a dead battery, 4 GB RAM and a horrible HDD which are looong gone by now.
Imho it’s a much more reasonable customer expectation that every device that supports Windows 11 on day one should support every version of Windows 11 until Windows 12 comes along. Assuming a similar lifecycle as Windows 10 that means ten years.
Look at the laptop you linked, it isn’t great today, and it will totally suck in five years, not even speaking of 2030. If there is a cutoff line it should be set today. Does it suck? Sure. But there’s an argument to be had.
My question would be: Why does Thailand’s education rely on a proprietary, U.S. based solution which requires an investment pupils have apparently such difficulty to fulfill.
Thailand. It is in the text of my post. Also the little flag by my username will pop up with “Thailand” if you hover over it.
As for why the requirement. I really do not know. I do know that while the schooling itself is free, the books, uniforms, and other needed items are not.
Big one is tech support. The school will provide it if the system is running Windows. I live 5 hours away from her. Trying to have my non-tech savvy wife translate for me while doing phone support for someone who is also not tech savvy was a recipe for disaster.
Back to lurking…