So that very important day is almost upon us.
October 14th is the day set for when Windows 10 stops security updates (no consumer is going to pay for extended) and begins to really push people to Windows 11. Windows 11 has strict hardware requirements that a lot of “older” devices that most people have do not meet.
And so, I am sure many individuals and companies may be getting rid of their old laptops and even desktops to recoup the vost of new devices.
What is the plan, when should we move in? What kind of deals should we be looking out for?
I want to find a great deal on a great laptop just for the fun of it. Some of my friends (converted to Linux) are waiting to get new laptops and score a deal. I have been waiting years for this day and I hope it can feel like a special day.
Any good places to look for these kinds of deals?
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I’m planning to switch mine’s to Linux Mint, probably dual-booting just in case.
I got a Macbook Pro 15" 2012 (i7 Ivy quad-core) with an excellent battery for $20. retrofitted it with 16 GB for $15 and a “damaged” 500 GB SSD for $10. runs Fedora with Plasma like a dream - that kinda deal?
this morning scored a 15" hires 2011 for less than $5 that I’m gonna take the screen off and transplant it ova here. plan to rock this beast for many, many moons.
Those are great laptops and were well built. I think the 2011 might have the Radeon GPU issue though but if it’s lasted this long, you are probably safe.
My grail was a 17" MacBook Pro from that era. I saw one the other day at a tech market but the vendor wasn’t at the booth for me to make an offer =/. I’ll swing by again an see if I can get it for around $50. They really do live a second life as Linux machines and OWC keeps me supplied on replacement parts.
I have 2010s (nVidia GT330M) and 2011s (Radeon 6xxx) in various states of decay in the double digits, I get them in the sub$10 range. all of them can easily be repurposed as linux workstations, their finnicky broadcom wifi notwithstanding. all of them can have the discrete graphics turned off, whether they work or not - less heat, longer battery life, no driver complications.
this is the first 2012 I’ve gotten, as they were always unreasonably expensive for their advanced age - coulda gotten ten 2011s for the price of one 2012! so now I got one and it’s… meh; yeah it’s better (Ivy vs Sandy, HD4000 vs HD3000, USB3.0, etc.) but nothing spectacular. still, for $20 I could do worse.
Did you follow a certain guide by chance? I have a macbook but I’m slowly finding out that Apple silicone is trickier to setup Linux with.
“a macbook” is kinda broad, what model you got? no, I’m running linux on discarded macbooks for years and know my way around them.
I regret throwing the box away. I think it’s a 2019 Macbook Pro with an Intel i7 CPU. The device has been wiped but macOS Utilities is still on it. Last when I was working on it, I think I needed to reinstall a OS in order for the hardware to have a link to the Apple for firmware updates?
Today is a good day to set this device up. It’s been on my todo list.
get the serial off the bottom case, go to everymac and look it up. if it’s a 15" model, that one has the T2 chip and needs a special variant, look up t2linux
I don’t believe most people would know about the change, and if they will, I doubt they’ll care.
As long stuff don’t break, people don’t care about OSs. It’s just as nerds.
There’s no Linux, MacOS, and Windows. There’s only ‘computer’. The computer works or does not.
Sometimes they’ll know Apple has computers too, and they’re different. That’s usually basically it.
Computer works or computer does not. There’s no computer try.
This is the correct answer. The number of people who skip updates is way way higher than most here think. The only ones who stick to it, are nerds and commercial entities…and a lot of those swapped to 11 already.
I’m a nerd and not swapping to any version of Microsoft
perhaps higher amongst fediverse users, but not with the general public… default settings all around–including auto updates, no intentionally installed browser addons, maybe a wallpaper change. but that’s it… is the most common windows configuration we see, by far.
Most people straight up will ignore them for months. Eventually forced to install and reboot. No one is jumping ship to 11 if their system doesn’t handle it. They won’t even know the shit no longer updates.
Talk about easy targets for ransomware gangs and info-stealers. I wonder what’ll be listing all over the .onion sites within a month.
My roommate with his ancient laptop actually wants to pay for extended support of windows 10. He won’t get another computer and he won’t switch to a different os.
There are people this dumb out there.
I get not wanting to get a new computer, but linux is great and probably won’t require a new computer for many moons.
A lot of people will probably just continue using Windows 10, but yeah now I’m wondering what the best models are that don’t quiiiite support 11. I’d love to snag an decent tablet-PC
Depending on what your definition of “decent” is, I think you may be disappointed. The cutoff for support is around 8th gen intel and AMD 3000-series from circa 2017-2018. Even my old 2017 laptop with a quad-core i5-8250U is supported.
Unless there are specific recent CPU models which are not supported, I think the majority of the unsupported laptops are going to be decade-old 6th and 7th gen or 1000/2000-series machines. These machines already go for fairly low prices on the used market.
(no consumer is going to pay for extended) begins to really push people to Windows 11
Consumers aren’t exactly ecstatic about throwing away perfectly serviceable computers just so Microsoft can push their spyware-cum-advertising platform down their throats either.
I’d say this is a great push towards Linux for anybody who knows anything about computers and isn’t a corporation with a dumbass MCSE jockey as an “IT” guy.
I-it advertises cum?
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/07/28/microsoft-copilot-ais-official-avatar-looks-like-a-blob-of-semen/
They recently announced they are changing it to AI generated avatars
Spyware cum!
Most of my gaming friends have been asking me about linux setup (or win10 LTSC), so it seems that crowd is ready.
Oh god damnit, i forgot about the discounted laptops. I mean, i still snagged a nice little thing on the cheap, but i probably could’ve gotten a nicer thing in like two weeks
You can convert existing Windows 10 installs to LTSC or IoT, Without losing files. I’ve been helping a few people I know switch over the last few days.
I would obviously like it if more people moved to Linux, but most people I know ain’t gonna more because of certain software…okay it’s mainly Fortnite and Call of Duty. >.>
I’ll help anyone with it who actually wants to try Linux, I got at least one person to try dual booting.
I can be a backup for that. Using Linux for fevafrd now.
without losing files? could you please share your method? thought this was impossible since ltsc is 21h2 and consumer variant’s 22h2.
I replied to another comment explaining it.
for shits and giggles i took a win7 and a win81 straight to iot 24 with no problems on either. run the upgrade from a rufus’d (these were 2009-10 era desktops) usb made from a modded (upgradematrix) iso. going to 10 ltsc or iot should be the same process.
Never tried any of this before, I’ve barely touched Windows (outside of work) since 2023.
But a few of the more tech savvy people I know had done clean installs of Windows 10 LTSC IoT and recommended it.
So I just launched a VM and started looking stuff up to see if there was a way of doing it without needing a clean install. Because seems most people I know are more willing to risk running an EOL OS than actually backup their shit…
Could you share your technique om how to turn a an already installed Windows 10 into the LTSC/ IoT versions? My work laptop needs Windows (the software doesnt work with Wine on Linux) and I’d love to stay on Windows 10 for a few more years.
You can use regedit to make the LTSC IoT installer think you’re already on an LTSC IoT build so it just installs without doing a clean install.
I first learnt about it from this Youtube video but they only show how to get the base LTSC version and not IoT which will get updates until 2032.
Here’s the values I used.
“CurrentBuild”=“19044”
“CurrentBuildNumber”=“19044”
“EditionID”=“IoTEnterpriseS”
“ProductName”=“Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021”
“ReleaseId”=“2009”
“DisplayVersion”=“21H2”
I have them in a registry script along with txt guide I’ve been sending to my friends. Not sure if I can directly post them here however.
you could just point them to everybody’s favorite github-hosted script which has an option to unlock extended updates.
I bought a second-hand laptop to in an attempt to capitalize on this, but it came with Windows 11 installed anyway.
It was cheap ($300 AUD) and it meets my needs (except for STUPID LENOVO SWAPPING THE CTRL AND FN KEYS LIKE WTF LENOVO SERIOUSLY EVEN IF I SWAP THEM BACK IN THE BIOS THE LINUX TERMINAL STILL HAS THEM SWAPPED) so I’m satisfied.
try assigning ctrl to caps lock. on terminal
setxkbmap -option caps:ctrl_modifier
That wouldn’t fix the issue of muscle memory, although now that I think of it maybe the issue is that I don’t even need the control key to cycle through my command history and the reason it works in reverse is because of that.
hmm. do you mean ctrl+r?
btw which machine do you have? fn-ctrl swap from bios seems to work fine for all thinkpads i have.
I meant ctrl + up arrow. Which is what I usually do to cycle through commands. I had forgotten that I tried doing that without the ctrl (fn) key and it worked.
eBay would be the most obvious place (often where computers sold from government auctions or business liquidations end up), but also e-waste recycling centers, actual auctions held by the companies themselves (this is where having a guy on the inside willing to give you a date of liquidation would be perfect), or just simple donations and giveaways that are “as-is”.
Do note you can’t take all machines that are being removed - in the US at least, computers bought with public money (most often schools), must be sent to e-waste or scrap reclamation due to compliance with government accounting mandates. There are exceptions to this (auctions), but those are usually never at schools or libraries.
Must be sent to e-waste? Seriously?
That may be the play I guess. Monitor these kinds of places. They are probably going to have some good days.
When I was working as an IT contractor for a California High School district, I remember replacing the windows 10 machines myself with newer prebuilts that met the windows 11 requirements. My boss told me to throw them all into a pile, and when I asked him if there would be upcoming auction or liquidation of the spare parts, he gave me a weird look.
He then told me, “Yeah, I know it’s a lot of e-waste, but these were bought with public money, so it’s straight to ‘reclamation’. No one can sell, buy, or take these. The IT department would be in trouble.”
some of the schools around me just post on their web site or fb when they’re getting rid of old systems. they’re gone within an hour or two… they’re priced to sell fast.
Some manufacturers have outlets for refurbished devices. They’re not like bargain bin prices, but it’s something.
There’s also a lot of electronics recyclers on eBay. I’ve haven’t had any bad experiences there.
You could also try going to local thrift stores. Don’t bother with Goodwill though. They put all their good stuff online. Unless you live near one of their dedicated electronics stores, like the one in Tallahassee, Florida.
The only other option I can think of is checking out something like Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist. Unfortunately, you do need a Facebook account for Marketplace.
No one is waiting until that day. The deals are out there already.
A few distros I recommend for people switching:
Criteria Distro “Just Works” family/parent/aunt/uncle/grandparent/media PC for browsing the web and using normal programs (available on Flathub.org) universal Blue Aurora and Bluefin LTS same but want more recent software, more tech savvy person universal Blue Bluefin, Aurora, Fedora atomic Desktops really need custom software like VirtualBox (might run on above though), stuff not available as Flatpak, appimage, RPM or working through distrobox Debian, OpenSUSE Slowroll, NixOS same but want more recent updates OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, NixOS unstable Fixing my computer is my hobby Arch, Gentoo, … I explicitely, from experience, do not recommend
- Linux f**ing mint or other nieche Distros stuck on X11, that will convince new people that Linux is worse than Windows
- Fedora regular as upgrades always break
- Ubuntu due to snaps, weird upgrading system, weird decisions, nonstandard customizations breaking things
- Ubuntu derivatives due to LTS
- small nieche distros made by few people like Nobara or CachyOS (If you dont plan to distrohop at any time)
Or…they could just install Linux Mint.
Linux Mint is a perfectly cromulent distro.
No.
Naw, dawg. What in the world is this list…
My experience after many years
Dont recommend mint to new users or they will think linux is objectively worse looking, has graphics issues with mixed DPI and multi monitor, etc etc
Mint does some things right, some things wrong. Like flatpak, but not entire flathub. Or nice update reminder but no automatic updates.
If you’re recommending immutable or declarative distros to new users, you are doing it way wrong…
“immutable”
Why? Note that these distros are not “immutable”, but all of the below are used mostly by noobs and are all immutable
- android
- steamOS
- any mobile or console OS
- even Windows and MacOS in big parts
Image-based means that updates and upgrades are EXTREMELY stable. They basically never break, while package-based systems ALWAYS lead you into horrible situations, unbooting desktops, broken whatever, autoremoving GNOME for whatever reason etc.
Murphys law, if something bad can happen, it will happen. We cannot seriously use and promote systems where we expect upgrades to break them.
I nowadays administer systems a bit and have seen completely broken systems on
- Linux Mint
- Fedora regular
- Ubuntu
- Debian
Package-based distros are not beginner friendly. They give the user the complete ability to break their entire system, for what reason?
Not everyone needs to be a sysadmin. If we want to convince people to switch, Linux needs to be at least as stable as Windows or even MacOS.
declarative
Why not?? Have you ever thought about that statement more than a few seconds?
Why dont you see the whole picture? Declarative means you need to spend more time setting things up, having an experienced person help you will greatly improve this.
But from then on you have a rock stable and very transparent system that will not break over time, and making changes is pretty easy.
I made a repo on Codeberg for exactly that purpose, showing people how easy a simple NixOS setup can be.
Removed by mod
Lol do you have 2 alt accounts? XDD
the “just works” category MUST be linux mint. it’s the distro that works the most OOTB.
Before you ask, i have tried about 12 distros and i can confidently say that Mint just works OOTB.
But, i don’t give a fuck to stability; i want the blreediest of edges. So i use arch and the AUR often.
No.
Mint works ootb but that is just one criterium. People can help you with setup. What about
- breaking with upgrades or needing an at least medium savvy user to do them
- lacking behind on updates
- incompatibilities with Ubuntu that occur
- upgrades not being enforced-ish so noobs dont care and dont upgrade (I know more than 2 people like that, you are in a bubble if you think manually upgrading is something that people do)
- flathub being preinstalled but only verified apps are there, instead “unverified” deb packages are promoted that are not sandboxed and behind on updates
- desktop looks ok but kinda ugly
- apps same, subpar to KDE
- X11? I hate when people like LTT think that this outdated stack is what we currently have on Linux. I hope they can get the wayland session going but Cinnamon will always be behind GNOME and KDE
why should an underdog nieche distro with ¼ the maintainers of KDE or GNOME (rough approximation, may be way worse) be better for beginners than the actual standard?
You just had a very bad experience because you are already very tech savvy.
Breaking with upgrades or needing an at least medium savvy user to do them
- That’s why they advise to set up Timeshift ON THE FUCKING SETUP. As for the updates, it notifies you when you need to and you should.
lacking behind on updates
- That’s why PPAs exist. Besides, the average user is NOT interested in bleeding-edge software.
incompatibilities with ubuntu that may occur
- Ubuntu is not recommended anymore. Also, there’s LMDE for that purpose.
Upgrades not being enforced-ish so noobs don’t care and don’t upgrade
- Updating your computer is YOUR choice, it’s YOUR computer.
flathub being preinstalled but only verified apps are there, instead “unverified” deb packages are promoted
- The App Store (or whatever it is called) includes BOTH OFFICIAL deb packages AND VERIFIED Flatpaks.
desktop looks ok but kinda ugly
- There’s XFCE and MATE editions to solve that. Even if those DEs may not be enough, you can install a new one.
apps same, subpar to KDE
- Atleast they’re more beginneer-friendly. Also, there are the two other DEs’ apps and installing s new DE if they do not like the current one. (Very unlikely, because most pc users come from Windows.)
X11? I hate when people like LTT think that this outdated stack is what we currently have on linux.
- There’s a “Cinnamon on Wayland (Experimental)” session for that. And also, installing a new DE.
No not true, dont pretend you know me lol XD
Mint was my first distro, fine but random crashes.
Then I dealt with it on some occasions, as everyone installs it. Nobody needs to advertize that small extremely overhyped distro, as everyone always uses it!
Timeshift has nothing to do with hard upgrades. It might not break, but it will not upgrade as it has complex issues with package conflicts and whatever that need to be figured out.
Try Fedora Atomic desktops please. This discussion is senseless. They are very easy to use and extremely stable.
That’s why PPAs exist. Besides, the average user is NOT interested in bleeding-edge software.
What? PPAs are unofficial repos meant for developers to test their software. They shouldnt be added to your system and will introduce breakages that will then give you a pain when upgrading.
And this is not about “bleeding edge” but security fixes.
Ubuntu is not recommended anymore. Also, there’s LMDE for that purpose.
What? Linux mint is based on Ubuntu because that is supposed to be the great distro. If tutorials for Ubuntu suddenly dont work, that is bad.
LMDE was reported to work way less well than regular Mint. But for sure that is a good path onwards.
Updating your computer is YOUR choice, it’s YOUR computer.
First you tell me that I am tech savvy and thus have issues with mint. Then you assume everyone should evaluate if updates are needed or not? People are not distro maintainers. Distros apply updates, and users should not need to press buttons and wait all the time.
On Atomic desktops you reboot to apply an update and you are not forced to reboot. Updates are done in the background with no user interaction, as it is pointless. If you rely on users manually pressing a button, then your automatic updates are bad.
Updates should not be done
- on low battery
- maybe just on AC
- on metered connections (like phone hotspots)
- on high CPU load
- maybe at certain day times
If you detect that and include it in the system (like uBlue does for theirs!) users dont need to press buttons. There is no decision, you update or you are behind on security fixes.
Introducing decisions for things that are not in question is bad UX and leads to people randomly ignoring upgrades. Updates should not annoy you or break the system, or the system itself is not well made.
Man, please just try them, you dont know what I am talking about.
The App Store (or whatever it is called) includes BOTH OFFICIAL deb packages AND VERIFIED Flatpaks.
You dont know how Flatpak verification works or dont care to understand it.
All Ubuntu/Mint packages are “unofficial” as they are packaged by maintainers and not the devs themselves.
Only exception are external repos for things like Firefox.
Normal flathub is the same, while flatpaks are more up to date and containerized. It is a silly and harmful decision to prefer unverified .deb packages over unverified flatpaks.
Deb packages have access over EVERYTHING. Literally and deb package could be a virus, as they dont have any isolation apart from some weak Apparmor profiles.
There’s XFCE and MATE editions to solve that. Even if those DEs may not be enough, you can install a new one.
LOL you call XFCE and Mate modern desktops ? XDDDD
also, we are talking about beginner friendly distros. Installing Plasma on Mint will result in an ugly frankenstein, that might also suffer from being “stable” with unfixed bugs.
There’s a “Cinnamon on Wayland (Experimental)” session for that.
Yes. GNOME and KDE, as well as many window managers, support Wayland perfectly since years. On Mint with Wayland last time I tried it, even keyboard input and scaling were broken.
A small downstream distro using a nieche nonstandard desktop environment is not the beginner friendly distro people should use. The best experience will come with GNOME or KDE as they get the most work done.
And additionally, as I clearly separated, a package based distro is not suited or needed for most workflows.
Try an image based Distro first, then argue about them.
i ALREADY tried image-based distros. Several of them. In both VMs and bare-metal.
And also, are you too lazy to update your system occasionally, which is a simple command or a few clicks? Because how is needing to click a few buttons every few weeks/months “bad UX”?
Besides, whatever atomic distro you mention has a small repo; you can’t find shit. (Unless you’re talking about NixOS, which i doubt since you need to reboot to update.)
if you REALLY want an atomic distro that you can rollback, and having packages that are secure, use NixOS.
And also, are you too lazy to update your system occasionally, which is a simple command or a few clicks?
No, as said. This is about recommending distros for people switching from Windows. Not my personal hobby machine.
click a few buttons every few weeks/months
That is too rare. You should update at least weekly.
And yes it is silly
- “You have an update”
- Open a graphical appstore for no reason
- Show you a bunch of packages, unless you are an expert you will not need that info and click “yes” all the time
- Wait, with an open GUI window
- Often you will be prompted to reboot
Why? Updates dont need a GUI and can go fine in the background. An update notification to reboot once done works too.
And NixOS as well as Ostree or bootc based distros offer you multiple boot targets, so if something breaks you can go back.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed/Slowroll are my go-to if I want something more messy (if I want to do changes to the system without caring about packaging), as they have snapshots by default.
whatever atomic distro you mention has a small repo
No idea what you mean. If you search for “universal blue”, “bluefin”, “aurora”, “fedora kinoite” or “HeliumOS” you will absolutely find it.
NixOS, which i doubt since you need to reboot to update
Nixos supports fully atomic updates which should be used. The live updates always break stuff.
I am on NixOS, but for beginners I would recommend uBlue or CentOS-Stream based atomic desktops. Fedoras biggest issue is that they have no longterm kernel
typically the default is autoupdate to be activated…
why do you care about stability so much?
Bro, when is the last time you have booted a recent build of Mint Cinnamon or other ‘flavors’ of Mint? I feel like you tried it like 10+ years ago and have just complained about it since.
Half a year ago or so
Ah, did you use a specific ‘flavor’? Or the default, Cinnamon. What kind of machine was it installed on?
Default Linux Mint, ubuntu based.
Installed on an old laptop, 2 old macbooks, one crazy powerful PC of my uncle.
This is a cinnamon issue. Maybe their wayland session is better now, I can hope so. Still, due to the modular nature of Wayland, either they make their own stack or use something else.
Would be nice to join XFCE, Budgie etc, but they prefer their own thing.
Cinnamon and Mint are fine projects for what they are. Small, pretty outdated community projects. But it is incredible how the ratio of users/developers explodes on Mint compared to anything else.
Probably because it is targeted at non-developers.
Ah, ok that is all reasonable. Yeah, I started using mate or debian version I never had problems since. Something odd about Cinnamon.
To be fair I had Linux Mint installed recently and audio broke on the first update. Never could fix it. I had to reinstall. I’m a total noob on Linux but my experience doesn’t seem that unusual based on the huge number of troubleshooting steps I tried from users experiencing similar issues.
Was this a super new lastest gen computer or? Wait did the reinstall the fix issue? That’s a bit weird. Did you verify iso hash after download? Im perplexed it worked after a reinstalled.
You get one year of security updates extra if you’re logged in with a Microsoft account. Just sayin’
I’d rather install win10 LTSC than use an MS account for the OS lol
Oh so that’s why I got it! I was wondering why I was so special. 😂
Did you mean: “move to Linux and make a VM if you’re REALLY THAT desparate”?
