Well with Trump’s Tariffs and Microsoft forcing people to abandon their Windows 10 PCs, and don’t forget inflation and the basic cost of living now-a-days. It seems that the world has gone to hell in a hand basket along with your wallet!
Even if you can buy a new machine, throwing away your old computer is dangerous for the environment. If dumped in a waste site, materials such as lead, cadmium, copper and mercury can leach into soil and water or evaporate into air, contaminating food chains. Thinking e-waist (recycling)?, even the recycling process releases some toxic substances into the environment and someone will have to manufacture a new PC to replace that one adding more to global warming and pollution.
Don’t give in, there’s hope. Actually more than hope; Salvation. Yes, I have the answer and it’s possible to do it without spending a lot of money (if any).
Many consumer electronics are retired when they still have about 75% of their life remaining in them. The best thing to do is to give these devices a second chance and reduce the need to build new devices to take their place.
The way the economy has been lately, the last thing you need to do is spend a pile of money on a new computer. Especially if you can ‘upgrade’ your system for little to no money at all!
I am not kidding;
- YOU DON’T HAVE TO ABANDON YOUR CURRENT COMPUTER!
- YOU DON’T HAVE TO BUY NEW SOFTWARE!
- and YOU DON’T HAVE TO LEARN A WHOLE NEW WAY TO DO THINGS!
(well maybe just a little bit)
Maybe you might have already heard of it? …Linux, Linux is the answer and solution.
Do you currently run a Windows 10 PC? Heck, do you still have a Windows 95 machine hiding somewhere? (There’s a Linux distro for a Windows 95 machine too)
If your computer/laptop has these minimum specs, you can upgrade to Linux too!
- 2GB RAM (4GB even better).
- 20GB of disk space (100GB is better).
- Video Card and monitor with 1024×768 resolution (will work on lower resolutions, just not as good).
Simply put, if your computer can run Windows 7 or above…
Congratulations! You can dump your Windows, and move on to Linux. Ya, I can almost hear it now… Linux is a hacker/nerd software that you have to be ultra computer savvy and learn a library of text commands to use it.
Here is my rebuttal to that. Linux has come a long way since the 90’s, I mean it’s 2025, things change and develop and improve and that’s no different for a computer OS – do you remember how Windows 95 was?
MS Windows, MacOS, and Linux all offer a GUI (Graphical User Interface), there are slight differences. However, they are all point and click to get things done. Sometimes you do have to type things in; Windows uses CLI or Power Shell, Mac OS uses Command Prompt or CMD, and Linux uses Terminal (all pretty much the same thing with different names).
I know the next thing you are going to say… But Linux does not run all the software that Windows does and you would be partially right. Mac OS has software that is not available in Windows and Windows has some software not available in Linux and it goes the other way too. However there is software that is available for all three or at least two out of three. Later please read ‘Have you FLOSSed today?’ post.
Even some mainstream games are starting to become available on Linux; Steam/Proton are the big reasons for this. However, gamers are starting to realize that their games once ported over to Linux, run better (more frame rates). Some of the software houses are starting to realize that there is a rise in Linux gaming and are considering writing anti-cheats for Linux so their games can run on Linux (the main reason some multi player games don’t work on Linux). For now I would not try running these games without their anti-cheats as you could get banned from the game. As for any other game, you have options.
The more people demand games for Linux the more likely the game developers will start developing their games to work on Linux. This is true for all software developers, they won’t develop for a platform that does not have enough demand. Let’s rise the demand for Linux games/software.
Next -> Doomsday Clock