[PLUG] Spotted on reddit via IRC

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

The biggest problem with old laptops is the batteries - I have seen many laptops over the years end up scrapped because the batteries wore out and replacements were more expensive then the value of the laptop.  Many times people who just keep running the laptop with the dead battery off a power adapter, end up destroying the dead battery worse until it shorts out and then prevents the laptop from booting - or fries it.

The second biggest problem are mechanical issues - on my current Elitebook 840 G6 with an i5-8365U - which I bought off-lease for around $350 a number of years ago - I'm on my 3rd keyboard - the letters just wear off over time - maybe I type too fast LOL -but the 2 HP's prior to that which were the larger 17" jobs both of them ended up with hinges that ended up cracking and destroying the cases.

I also have learned a key thing as well about this idea of "refresh old laptops with Linux" idea - it simply doesn't work for most people, at least most people in the US.

The vast majority of the "digital have nots" don't want Linux computers.  They want Windows computers.  Cheap ones.

For anyone who can scrape together $100 - you can get an off-lease Windows laptop.  Free Geek has plenty of them for sale online.  As does Craigslist.  Yes, they won't necessarily be Windows Pro, and they might have just 8GB of ram in them.  So, the people in that "less fortunate" region who can't afford a $700 brand new laptop, but can afford $100 laptop - they can get a Windows laptop.

For anyone who is truly destitute - and goes to one of the doo-gooder charities that verifies they are indeed destitute - a charity that has "a connection" to an org like Free Geek or whatever that can get them a supply of machines - all of them seem to know "a dude" who can wipe Linux off that FreeGeek-supplied machine and install Windows.  And, that's exactly what they end up doing.

There is this idea - Free Geek was built around it - that says in effect "Ah HAH!  We have a LEVER we can use to force SOMEONE NEW to learn about Linux - we got them by the short hairs - they are poor - they have to take whatever computer WE give 'em - and we is gonna give 'em Linux boxes.  And they is gonna like em!"

But the reality is after being processed by the idealistic labor at Free Geek and setup with Linux and ready to rock and roll - the vast majority end up right back at Windows machines once they go out the door and into someone's hot little hands.

Where I see the most uptake and interest in Linux is among the technically sophisticated intelligentsia.  The people who - like vger in Star trek the Motion Picture - have absorbed all that Microsoft has to give - entire planets of Microsoft stuff - and ask "is this all that computing is?  This is all so empty and sterile - is there nothing more?"

You want to evangelize Linux - the fertile ground isn't "the poor"   It is the questioning, who deep down recognize that the computer is a machine that can open worlds of knowledge and understanding, yet is being used by the largest software company on the planet for the most banal, sterile, unsatisfying and limiting goal imaginable - nothing more than the pursuit of filthy lucre, mostly accomplished these days by the most horrendous invasion of privacy in human history.

Hitler and the 3rd Reich could only dream of the amount of personal data that Google and MS routinely collect from people using their products without a care in the world.

Every once in a while, someone embedded in that awful, sterile, unsatisfying Microsoft computing world - they wake up.  They ask "is there nothing more" and they start looking.  And then, they go through the Open Source Software door - and never go back to a Computing = Windows world.

I don't think we get 'em by offering repair services to the Ma and Pa Kettles of the world who just want to figure out if that old lappie they have in the drawer can somehow be cudgeled back into the sterile "winders" world.

Ted

-----Original Message-----
From: PLUG <plug-bounces at lists.pdxlinux.org> On Behalf Of Russell Senior
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2025 7:21 PM
To: plug at lists.pdxlinux.org
Subject: [PLUG] Spotted on reddit via IRC

This was referenced on an IRC channel I follow:

https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1jgd3nh/linux_repair_cafes_in_amsterdam_starting_in_april/

and, ultimately:

   https://www.repaircafe.org/linux-repair-cafe/

Maybe relevant to spinning up the PLUG clinic again.


-- 
Russell Senior
PLUG Volunteer
russell at pdxlinux.org