Haha really? That’s interesting, I always heard it was the opposite. HDDs might slowly develop problems and if you’re lucky you’ll have time to move everything over before it kicks the bucket.

But SSDs will one day just fail.

Maybe the actual cause of the failure has to do with it?

There’s an effort called Monado that’s making strides, but we hope there’s a sustained interest and a breakthrough of some sort. The controllers are no-go at the moment.

Is microsoft actually bricking their WMD headsets or just not supporting them anymore? Could you still treat it as a retro gaming console?

So they’re not literally “bricking them”, but effectively doing so. They require “Windows Mixed Reality” to run, all the drivers are proprietary, and M$ is “deprecating WMR”, at which point it will no longer be offered, and will be taken down from the Microsoft Store.

So basically you’d require an un-updated Windows 10 machine that previously had it installed, or else the device is a paperweight.

They can’t even pretend to have any kind of “environmental responsibility” when they’re actively just creating tons of e-waste as a matter of policy.

Hey friend! Yeah I forgot that. I added it to the original post but here it is:

OS: OpenSUSE Tumbleweed Mobo: Z590 Aorus Elite AX CPU: i7-10700k @ 5.1 Ghz GPU: Nvidia RTX 3090 Mem: 32GB DDR4 (forget the speed…3000?)

I don’t wanna sound desperate or anything because I know I’m blessed here. I only upgrade like once every 5+ years.

Prospectively I’m not looking at a brand new build, just a CPU/RAM/Mobo to maybe move to DDR5.

The current setup (minus the GPU) would be moved over to my server which is still running like…an i5-4460 on 16GB of DDR3. Not terrible but it’s had to thrash on occasion. 😬 Haha.

Thanks for the heads up about Intel stability issues! I’ll have to keep an eye out about AM5s.

I probably can’t justify it before everything hits the fan, but y’know, it’s good to keep my eyes out. :)

Oh believe me I’m already there. I just made the jump to start gaming on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed after using it primarily for art and dev, and 99% of what I care about runs beautifully. While the world around us seems in constant chaos…

… we’re living in a great age of open source for those who seek it. :)

Speaking of bricking hardware. I’m very upset that they’re just dumping Windows Mixed Reality because it isn’t making them 10,000% returns or something.

Lots of wonderful HMDs will just be paperweights without a ton of work.

“Can you release the code to us to keep em running then?”

M$: “Lol no.”

If anything, maybe we’ll see a lot of good hardware going for cheap, ripe for the taking by anybody who knows how to use a boot USB and doesn’t care about TPM. :)

Honestly that’s pretty fair. Depending on the nature of the drive. You don’t know if it was sitting there spinning up and down in some mining rig (that one crypto used HDDs to store hashes) sitting on somebody’s washing machine or something LOL.

That’s one thing I really enjoy about Plasma. I never even considered things like “focus stealing” or when to raise windows, but there’s options to tweak.

Heck you can even change what RMB does. (Yeah my brain doesn’t need THAT radical of a change lmao)

The defaults are perfectly sane, but I like that there’s buttons or toggles to see if something else works better.

And that right-click menu can take a long walk off a short pier

Seriously. Why?! Who does this serve? It confuses newbies and just ticks off everybody else.

Also this google-apple-esque trend of trying to glyphize (is that a word? Lol) everything just for its own sake is kinda maddening too. (We don’t want literacy to be a bar to clicking ads! /s)

/rant lol.

Wow that’s irritating!

That’s what bothers me too: It’s so opinionated. I guess so their “support” can suggest the same solution to every problem.

But geeze, things like fastboot, Cortana, Edge, Onedrive, or this eco-mode, or secureboot, or other features tied to deals they strike especially with laptop hardware vendors that simply assume THIS Windows is the only thing that will ever be run on this device.

That’s the worst.

At least I haven’t heard of them clobbering your bootloader with an update recently but I probably jinxed it now LOL.

I try not to just be a *nix-cultist. I grew up with Windows and had a lot of fond experiences with it. It just feels like it serves shareholders over users anymore.

I feel like it’s trying to make its users even dumber, while I feel like we learn things while using Linux.

We ended up with an HP all in one years ago because Costco had a pretty good deal and my wife had a lot of stuff to print for school.

…I…I think we’re still on fhe initial toner cartridges. Or maybe we replaced black once…

Yeah, Linux support is a bit frustrating but it’s there. And the scanner components feel a bit cheap.

Laser printers aren’t even THAT bad for photos. You’re not getting that sweet glossy “developed in my home darkroom” look, but pictures come out fine for general purposes.

Working in a public library before, it kinda blew my mind how long cartridges would last when flocks of people were printing out Wikipedia pages and photos and law documents and crap all day.

Can be expensive to service though…

I feel this. KDE has done an incredible job making Plasma gorgeous and usable.

Now I feel like with Plasma 6 there’s everything to gain and nothing to lose, aesthetically and usably.

On my old fun-and-games laptop I made everything look Aero-esque like my favorite aspects of XP and 7 haha. It’s not practical but I’m experimenting with different toolbar layouts and stuff.

But the biggest improvement coming from Windows? Not having a “fake fisher-price control panel” and an obfuscated “actual control panel” somewhere else. Plasma does a really good job of putting everything easily within reach.

I do see where you’re coming from and appreciate your optimism. I have ADHD and I’m prone to catastrophism haha.

But I feel like there’s actually substance and credibility to how much the very near future is gonna suck. :( I’m trying to stay optimistic though!

Yeah that’s what I’m thinking, although tech is a “depreciating asset”, the work I can do with it is (potentially) valuable. I have a decent fleet of computers at the moment, old laptops with Linux, an old server, and my and my wife’s main rigs.

Thing is I’m a 3D artist, so I wonder if even the current setup I’m blessed with could see me behind the curve in a few years time :(.

Hey that’s cool you were able to do that! I absolutely feel you.

I had an '06 Honda Element I bought at 119k miles as my first vehicle way back. I taught myself how to do a lot of things with that car, and thought I’d keep it running til it rust out from under me!

Well, replacing a failed sensor lead to me snapping a bolt in the engine block. Every conceivable method to get it out failed. Oil was even leaking through the SteelStik putty I used as a last resort to hold the sensor in. Mechanics wouldn’t touch it, machinists wouldn’t touch it. My cousin tried to help by drilling an adjacent hole (you should’ve seen the elaborate mirror setup to even see in there)… But we must’ve breached the engine because oil gore was EVERYWHERE if we tried to start it.

Basically enough was enough. I was lucky to get one of those haul away sites to give me ~$880 for it. We were using kitty litter in a desperate attempt to clean what came out of it when it got towed. But man…I owned it outright! I got it to ~210,000 miles though…

We just got a 2017 CR-V that was babied for like $22k with 70k miles on it. It’s lovely, but man even with excellent credit the interest sucks and I’m wondering how we’re gonna kill that debt. :(

Gotta tell you. I hate cars anymore. I’ve become a bit radicalized at how stupid American city planning is and I found out how lovely bicycling is. Your “explore the South Pacific in a boat” idea sounds mighty tempting. :p

I appreciate the recommend! Added to my short-list. :)

This is what I was hoping for, exactly! Some kinda nice used hardware trade.

…Except with how things usually work I’m worried that’ll just skyrocket the price/demand of used stuff…

THE WATER LEVEL THO.

That’s a really cool story about the Athlon still kickin in 2024! I love the spreading awareness of using existing equipment instead of mindless consumption! :D

You’re right, like with any system, the user needs to want to understand it. I think the install will always be a hurdle for anyone as long as “computers with Linux pre-installed” stays a niche thing.

Although, I’d also argue that a pre-formatted install media with a little “How to start” card would do wonders. For something like Mint and many other distros there’s just “Install this distro only” or “Alongside Windows” if no fancy partitioning needs to be done.

That’s pretty snazzy for a fresh start!

As far as initial hand-holding though, Mint/Cinnamon or KDE are especially friendly for Windows users. With people being used to smartphones now, the repository being an “app store” makes a boatload more sense too.

Those beginner-aimed OSs also have that little “Welcome” window to familiarize users with what to use for office apps, how to get more software, how to update, and where to ask for help.

In my experience, I had to do barely if any support that couldn’t be gained by the user just poking around a bit, and nothing that required any “fixing” under normal use. Two people I helped was in a position at my local library, so being bugged with simple questions was part of the job haha.

But my sister’s experience with Mint was really smooth. She was nervous at first because it was different, but quickly got the hang of things. I don’t get any questions, really. She uses the apps, gets online, plays Steam occasionally, and keeps it updated.

And to be fair, an install of Windows I think is way more intimidating these days LOL. (Had to do that for her, too for a dual boot…it was a huge headache, especially with their “Microsoft account” shenanigans and a million dubious opt-outs.)

Minus really specialized niche software that depends on Windows, I’ve noticed the beauty of these distros are that they can grow with the user, and if the user wants to get more advanced, the OS won’t stop them.

I don’t necessarily think a learning curve is a bad thing as long as it’s a smooth ramp. I think if there’s a learning curve, it means you’re using a tool rather than an appliance. :)

(Example: Mobile OSs tend to be super intuitive…but they’re mostly aimed at consuming content over any other purpose.)