My wife has asked me not to turn the house into a tech junkyard.
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.
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.
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.
“What do you mean, ‘Why do I need that stack of old ThinkPads?’. They were free!”
Who needs virtual machines when I can just use a separate device for every distro I want to try?
Very true. Also, redundancy
Why would I need an enterprise router if I can have a superfast, very extendable, very flexible and redundant router with two old desktop machines?
Power efficiency.
that’s like stage 7-8, after an extremely high electric bill. Also about that time you consider moving to a colder climate so the electronics can just heat your house.
I kinda love it in winter mornings when I’m a bit chilly and then I kick off a big compile or play something and there is this lovely warmth flowing from my main desktop and then I make a big cup of chai.
Also: Openwrt is a kind of Linux. That can be useful sometimes, when I need 10 custom wifi routers…
I have a literal suitcase full if 4TB SAS drives. Because they were free and pretty much unused.
Fun fact: A pelicase of 37 3.5" drives is the max weight you’re allowed in a single checked piece with common airlines. I had to give three drives to the check in clerk.
Where are you all getting free thinkpads from?
Make friends with your local IT guys. Thinkpads are less common these days, because they’re “Chinese”, so it is more common to find dells (which usually are worse in my experience).
Unrelated, but I just took apart my old IBM thinkpad from 2003/2004 to clean it up and get all nice and pretty for it’s last few years of updates. I also did my newer-ish HP laptop from 2016 at the same time.
The thinkpad was just beautifully laid out, with thought put into the placement of vents, heat sinks, heat generating components, alternative air pathways if the entire bottom was blocked, easy maintenance of components, etc.
The HP was …not. The weakest ass heat sink I’ve ever seen, miles away from the processor (no wonder it sounded like a wind tunnel when playing a youtube video). One intake vent where your thigh would be if in your lap and the exhaust right where your knee would be. Extra bonus was the placement of the CPU (running usually 80c+) is right above your junk, the vent being offset from the processor a smidge.
Granted I’m comparing enterprise vs consumer laptop in the days when there was a massive difference in quality between the two, but damn, this experience has me decided (again) that internal layout and design is just as important as specs, even more so if you need more powerful components.
We are trash pandas at your next companys trash bin. They follow like minions M$ directly into Win11 hell.
And just think how quickly you can get them all up and running with NixOS! All those endless hours of learning finally put to good use!
Beats contributing to the documentation/wiki. /s
Who needs documentation? The code is self-documenting! The entire thing’s on GitHub, just check the issues to figure out what’s going on! Didn’t work? Sorry, the thing got broke a few months ago. Just go through the commit history and I’m sure you’ll be up and running in no time!
I’ve also made a module that fixes your specific issue and uploaded it to my self hosted gitlab instance. The server is down right now? Well, isn’t that better? Now you can make the thing yourself! Remember to upload your thing to your GitHub, name it something like “nixos” and never mention it anywhere.
Just put my custom flake into your inputs! No, I won’t give ydu an example on how to integrate it into your config. The Flakes schema is an incredibly easy concept to grasp, after all. /s
Well, if you can’t figure out how to integrate the flake in 30 seconds by month 6, you clearly have a skill issue. Or a “sleeping at night instead of writing nix” issue. Better use a noob-friendly distro like arch.
Seriously though, despite all the flaws, there is no other packaging system where I can as painlessly use random forks of packages. I absolutely love how I’m able to run gnome-mobile on my x64 tablet. True to the NixOS way, I found the overlay on someone’s GitHub, there were only the files, no further instructions.
I also have a USB with live debian at all times, because you never know when you stumble upon a thing that just can’t work with NixOS
What do you mean the entire thing broke a few months ago? It broke only weeks ago, NixOS has the freshest breakages in the linux ecosystem
Who cares if it breaks? You can always just boot a previous generation! Need to rebuild without the breakage? You surely must now how to add a package from an earlier commit via flakes by now, right?
I’m just waiting for the moment I can update my packages (when all the unstable builds get updated)
I mean if they’re free you can always sell them for cheap and feel good about making some money while reducing e-waste
Usually it’s more a give away after installing mint on them, but it’s better than genuinely just tossing them for stuff newer than 7-8th gen intel.
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.
This is the life I want for myself.
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.
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
There’s about to be a lot more surplus hardware since Microsoft arbitrarily decided they can’t update to Windows 11.
And real good specs on most those machines, most will be at least DDR4 some even DDR5
My mom’s laptop self “upgraded” to win 11 a while back and she hates it and has been having issues nonstop. And since she refuses to pay a monthly subscription for office I set her up with Libre office. She’s been resistant to Linux but as I slowly add more FOSS apps she’s coming around. She’s now willing to try a Linux Mint live USB.
I’m going to be on the lookout for one of these perfectly good laptops and throw Mint on it for her so she can keep her windows laptop until she’s ready to fully make the switch.
if you want a LOT of them, govdeals.com is a way to go. You might hate me for showing you that place. Its how I ended up with a great generator for my house as well as too many servers.
I remember that site, looked into it a few years ago when I was buying in bulk to resale stuff on eBay. Thanks for the tip, but I’m really just looking for one laptop.
We need to do a group buy. I don’t want 62 laptops, but there might be 61 other people that want one more laptop…
According to a lot of Lemmy users, this is impossible. Linux never works and windows is solid as fuck. Never fails to work perfectly. Lol
Linux cannot even make the fans work most of the time. You would think it could at least do that. On windows they go all the time!
Someone told me on my previous instance, before it shut down, that no one actually used Linux, that everyone even me was just lying about using Linux.
This is what gave me the idea. I started watching videos of people doing this with recycled hardware, and it looks so fun.
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!!
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.
Those images are in the wrong direction.
What if I like being the clown?
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
I run a Windows 7 laptop and bought a PC at Value Village and maxed out the RAM thanks to Aliexpress. Junk FTW!!
If you can believe it, there are some people who will straight up give you their e-waste, as if it’s trash or something!
I have 3 old cellphones that for the life of me, no matter how hard I tried - couldn’t install an alt android OS on it
One device was compatible - but I couldn’t unlock the boot loader
One device was never tested against any alt OSes
One device was carrier locked.
I also have one old Galaxy Tab that I spent weeks trying to flash another ROM to it - and it fails every time.
I’m 0/4 on trying to reanimate old android hardware - it’s just too difficult and too much hoops to go through.
At least I’m fairly capable with installing Linux on old laptops - and given that a new wave of Win11 compatible laptops is coming - I’ll get to do it more frequently soon.
I haven’t tried to do LUKS yet, and I’m dying to get my hands on a Yubikey and learn what I can make it do.
Mobile device flashing is a fucking alien world. Samsung products are not good for it, especially in the US.
The alt OS’s are mainly built against ancient hardware, and the SKUs that work are so limited that they’re not particularly cheap on the used market.
The best thing you can do is go fairphone or pixel and specifically get one of the models that is directly claimed as supported.
If you can’t get it to work, find the OS forums and hop in, someone will bend over backward to help you out if you’re nice about it.
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.
Gramps went musk off with giving weird names.
Would you rather Gaming Extreme MAX Torpedo Super Champ Grand Prix Haxx 2020 Ultra MAX Elite ?
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?
I started at the bottom with ewaste, it is truly amazing what companies will just throw away because they don’t want to deal with it.
I am really looking forward to picking up some cheap used mini PCs here in a few months after the market gets flooded from corporates disposing of their old hardware because of the Windows 10 end of life. Consumers have already started ditching them now, but it takes a minute for enterprise to get it to a disposal company who then gets to pawn it off on the used market and that’s the good stuff.
Your average company is woefully prepared to deal with ewaste. If you sell it, there are legal and financial ramifications. Assuming you could make at most a couple hundred on a box, the labor to take it someplace, deal with finance, deal with legal, deal with returns for anything that goes doa in the move. The best you can do is sell or give it to a wholesaler who will give you near nothing for it to shoulder the risk.
Whenever possible, I release old hardware to end users. Refresh it, let them give it to their kids/family/whatever.
It’s been a couple of weeks since i switched to mint and gotta tell you that this is very tempting
OP after trying Linux:
