Lost a SD chip on my Raspberry pi and grabbed a Microsoft computer I had to run for a while. It had "upgraded" to the latest version for free! Of course it now ran Edge and Copilot, and I never did get Duck Duck Go to run right. Sent off an got a new SD card with preloaded Linux for Raspberry pi. Everything works and there are no sidebars trying to get me to buy something at Microsoft store or use some feature that I don't want. Just have a plain old operating system that works for a vast investment of $13 for the card and the OS, Bill Gates and his whole bloat ware can go to he** and i didn't have to spend $300 for a new computer that someone else controls. Raspberry pi 5 with 8 gigs and a 64 gig SD card is much easier to use and does what I want it to do, not what Gates etc program it to do. One big advantage is the monitor. Output of the raspberry pi fits into the 20 in tv with HDMI inputs that I am using for a monitor and with my eyesight what it is, I can set the letter size that I don't need to use glasses and I also like the full sized keyboard for my fat fingers. Have to sit at a desk, but the chair is comfortable, and my caparal tunnel doesn't bother me nearly as much as you have to move your hands to use the keyboard.
I re-purpose old laptops from work. I throw Linux Mint on them and run them until they die, then destroy the HDD and set up another one. I have to use Windoze at work and hate it more every day. They are out of new ideas so now they just change things like Outlook and Excel and call it a new OS version. I have a Pi in my radio truck velcroed to the back of a TV with a wireless keyboard. It even gets its power from the USB on the TV.
i need some pie. right now i have 18 toughbook cf-30 that,,,,, with the help of simians much smarter then me will run linux mint. the tonka truck of laptops. poor health has slowed the process of installing caddys,drives and mint. hip hip hurrah for linux and decentralised open sourse soft ware. long live linux.
Man, I'm running just about every OS around here Xenix, Dos 5.0, windows of every flavor except ME, Linux (multiple flavors of Ubuntu, Debian) and their offspring Jetson OS and Raspbian. Oh and there is a Mac Leopard Mini around here and a couple of android emulators. Day to day stuff is Winblows 10/11, Jetson and KaliLinux Some machines haven't been turned on in years others never shut down. Depends on what I'm doing. Latest build was a ACEMAGIC Vista V1 Mini PC for VT Sr running Windows 11 but I'm trying to convince him to use Linux Mint Cinnamon so I don't have to deal with over the phone support for a boomer who should just stick to a chrome book. Drat .. I've got a couple of those as well. Anyway, dropping off this Mini PC in a few weeks with Linux SSD installed with the desktop made to look like Windows 8 with his book marks and short cuts all ready set up with desktop icons and all. We shall see how that goes.
Yes Raspberry-pi,s are nice and no forced OS on them,there on debian based OS works mostly just fine. Used the pi 4 for everyday things before the pi 5,the pi 4 is now NAS , mosquitto and node-red server. Still hope on a "smart phone" that's empty, pre rooted and only phone book,foto and agenda on it.
Love Linux Mint. It gets better and better, with a lot of the problems of older versions of Linux left in the dirt. It's all I've used for about the last ten years or so, except when I had to use Windows at work before retiring.
Check out the Fairphone's, came out in Europe but has limited availability in the US. Murena Smartphones & OS Built the way phones should be, with user serviceable parts.
Unfortunately, my desktop is using Windows 10 and as of October 2025, MicroSoft stops supporting it. Now, I wouldn't really care but I believe that means they will not be sending anti-virus updates out for Defender which is their integrated ant-virus software. Yeah, Defender will continue to work on the old viruses it knows about but if you get hit with a new virus - well - you're screwed. I went to it a couple of years ago as got sick of McAfee always trying to sell me something. Defender works okay, doesn't bother me asking constantly for money for some product I don't need or want. Yeah, I have heard both sides, "Yes, we will continue to support Defender" and "No, we will not be supporting Defender" so it is really unclear just what the hell they will do. However, knowing MicroSoft, I don't see them supporting it. The problem for me is I have some programming software for my radios that will not run on Linux. No, CHIRP (a free open-source community application) doesn't support some of my radios either, at least not yet. I also got a few other programs that won't run on Linux plus a couple of games. I suppose I could purchase another anti-virus, but McAfee really pissed me off and Norton isn't much better, possibly worse. Anyway, not sure what I will do. Windows 10 isn't too bad in my opinion besides being much too complex trying to do a thousand things you don't need or want but, like was stated previously, you really get nothing of value in their Windows 11 except bells and whistles that I neither want nor need. EDIT: Well, that-is-that...I checked and my computer processor won't run Windows 11, it's a i7-7700K 4.2 GHz. The computer is about 8 years old now so...
Bandit, It might not be your processor, it might be your motherboard not supporting TPM. And, you might be able to turn that on. Here is the microsucks blurb about TPM Enable TPM 2.0 on your PC - Microsoft Support
Visu Trac, Thanks very much for taking the time. I read everything and did as it instructed but no-joy. I went through my UEFI BIOS with a fine comb but found nothing. Nevertheless, thank you very much!
That's a bummer. I am in the same boat with VTsr. running 10 can't go to 11. Built him a mini pc and have both Mint and then Win11 installed on two separate SSDs. I'm hoping I can convince him that it's time to go to Linux and basically forget about windows updating it's updates for the OS, Apps, Drivers all the time. Linux .. just get it up and running .. you don't have to do anything for years if you don't want to. He just goes to news sites, youtube for folk music channels and duckduckgo to look up plants .. dats it. Oh and maybe some banking.
I am sort of leaning this way also. Build a dual boot system with a small portion for Windows 11. Mostly, I am paying bills, reading news, email, The Monkey, stuff like that which I can do on Linux, then if I need to do something Windows specific, just boot it up temporarily.
I done the dual boot systems. Also virtual systems one linux host and a myriad of virtual machines (pick one and start it). With the cost of laptops and commodity mini PCs I can basically install a system on a sub 200 dollar cube and set up a 40 dollar SSDs for every OS i want to play with. I've recently gone to used decent laptop and linux and make it dedicated to the task at hand. Otherwise, it's bust out the cubed and swap the previous set up SSD. Typically it's going to be running for a couple of weeks to month before I wind up switching over to a different OS.
Yes its a good thing parts are replaceble. But the are not empty,/e/OS is paired with carefully selected applications,that are pre installed and A Google Services compatibility layer is implemented. And my phone has a not activated internet!
Me too. I have to keep a WIN10 virtual machine running for radio programming. Stay with Win10, as Win11 will not support many of the older drivers, especially the ones in the chipped USB cables. There are several free antivirus progs out there like Malwarebytes for virus and Spybot Search and Destroy for everything else. I always run both of those. Windows is fast approaching the point of un-usability because of so much bloat and constant updates required which will stop a lot of services from running , not good when running critical infrastructure or when running at close to max bandwidth.
