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Installing Linux on Hundreds of "Obsolete" Computers | Microsoft Windows 10 Support Ending (www.youtube.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/linux@programming.dev
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[–] 14 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Eh, back when Moore's Law was alive, it was easily every 2-3 years. Around 2010 we hit a wall with transistor sizes and CPU speeds, which saw the time between upgrades rise considerably. A gaming PC from 2015 was very capable 5-7y later. Vendors have been spending all the time since coming up with ways to get that back down to 2-3, especially EOLing perfectly good hw artificially quickly.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Moore's law was about the technology -- but I am talking about the application of the technology. It was unusual for most businesses to base their purchasing / refreshing decisions around the idea that the technology would be good for 2-3 Moore's law cycles. This was especially true back in the days of Mainframes and later "Mini" computers (shrunk down versions of Mainframes -- not Mini PC's) where companies like DEC and IBM went to great lengths to ensure that upgrading to a newer system didn't impact other operations in a business.

    Most of this carried on with Vax and Unix Systems (like Sun workstations, SGI, etc.) in the same lifecycle.

    When PC's started coming into the business world, the thought was that they would fit that same lifecycle -- and many of them did. This set the mark for early PC's when IBM brought them to the consumer market. The IBM PC was, after all, the consumer version of a business computer.

    Apple, Commodore, TI, Atari, et al. were a bit different -- coming at things more from the entertainment, education, and hobby side of things.

    I see what Steve is doing here is attempting to push things back towards the business lifecycle, and with good reason: it's better for the planet if fewer machines are abandoned due to the arbitrary whims of some marketer's concept of profitability.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Ah, i gotcha. The video at hand, and this whole thread is about the lifespan of consumer electronics, not really business refresh cycles.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago*

    FWIW - I'm not arguing about any of this... I'm just expounding on my thought process.

    There were a lot of business class systems in the mix they were working on... I saw a bunch of Dell Optiplex, and HP Workstations in there... I think that was from either (a) some businesses / schools donating them, or (b) after market recyclers donating the ones they couldn't get working and didn't want to spend time on.

    No matter what, however, the bottom line is that a high percentage of these systems will be given new life -- and that's what counts.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    My daily driver is an old crappy Intel NUC i5. Fired up Left 4 Dead, runs tight.

    7 years ago I was buying PCs from eBay vendors who recycled off-lease business computers. Cheap as hell, worked fine for office tasks.

    Last company was still in the mode of, "3 years old!". As the sysadmin I as totally confused as to what to buy. Everything was either too old or too pricey. FFS, we're writing software, it doesn't have to be a top-line gaming computer!

    LOL, got shot down on a purchase because the ad had the word "gaming" in it. "That doesn't matter! The specs vs. price are bangin'!" Nope.

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