• Honytawk@lemmy.zip
    16216·
    9 months ago

    Yeah, never had a problem with incompatible hardware on Linux.

    No siree, not a once!

    • ichbinjasokreativ@lemmy.world
      74·
      9 months ago

      Such an up and down though. I have an ancient epson scanner that cannot be used on modern windows, but I just installed the driver on linux and everything has been amazing.

        • ichbinjasokreativ@lemmy.world
          10·
          9 months ago

          Not quite that old, it is connectet via USB-B. Windows drivers only exist for 32 Bit systems, on linux the drrivers come in a deb package that works on modern installations.

            • jj4211@lemmy.world
              3·
              9 months ago

              He might have oversimplified to assume it was the 32-bitness that is the problem. Could be an ancient Windows Driver Model version that is no longer supported. Could have been that there were no signed drivers, or at least no drivers that are signed in a way that would pass today.

              The thing is that Windows banks on extended binary driver compatibility for running “old” hardware, but breaks that compatibility ever so often, and they don’t have first-party investment in drivers for hardware and third-parties would eschew standard multiple device drivers that would have worked fine in favor of their own branded driver/app experience. In Linux, mostly those devices get covered by generic multi-vendor drivers that are better maintained.

          • JPJones@lemmy.world
            1·
            9 months ago

            Makes even less sense. 20 year old usb Epson flatbed scanner here that plugs into any win10/11 system and works without any fiddling, and that’s generally consistent with any usb hardware on Windows. I’m not saying linux isn’t a good solution to get problematic old hardware working, but let’s be real here.

        • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
          4·
          9 months ago

          Yeah WiFi seems to always be the biggest pain in the ass, and it’s still way easier than it was 15 years ago.

          Haven’t had a single laptop with an issue, personally (though I only have bought Lenovo laptops in the past 7 years or so, but in that time I’ve bought 3). I’ve got one (really cheap) WiFi dongle I’ve had on my HTPC that had been a pain. Had I taken the time to choose the other really cheap one that had a different chipset, it would’ve worked out of the box. Oh well.

      • Camelbeard@lemmy.world
        15·
        9 months ago

        No but I am looking for a new laptop and this time I’ll definitely spent more time checking Linux compatibility.

        My previous thinkpad worked fine out of the box, but my current laptop is an HP Omen, that I mostly selected for the price to performance ratio. But I immediately learned that Linux compatibility sucked. Like not being able to boot an Ubuntu usb drive (without messing with the boot parameters).

        • The Stoned Hacker@lemmy.world
          5·
          9 months ago

          Yeah before getting my current laptop I looked into the Linux compatibility. I went Thinkpad though this time and it honestly works amazingly. I can’t use all the features (fingerprint mostly) but thats moreso because my setup doesn’t have any way to rather than support not existing. And biometric ID can be less than useless when used as the sole security measure, such as unlocking your phone with your fingerprint. If someone wants the data on that device bad enough, they now have a means to get it.

          And in response to XKCD 538, good luck getting me to clearly say my complicated ass password correctly after being beaten lmao. If I could I probably would

      • toddestan@lemm.ee
        13·
        9 months ago

        I did the opposite. After one of the big updates, Windows 10 decided it was no longer going to work with the Vista-era drivers for an old Core 2 Duo laptop. To be fair to Microsoft, was I pretty impressed when I initially installed Windows 10 and it accepted those ancient drivers without any complaints on a laptop that was 10 years old at that time.

        So I instead installed Manjaro and everything worked just fine.

      • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
        52·
        9 months ago

        No, since I mainly use Windows and replace my laptop at least once every 10 years.

        • Windows XP: 2001-2014
        • Windows Vista: 2007-2017
        • Windows 7: 2009-2020
        • Windows 8: 2012-2023
        • Windows 10: 2015-2025
        • Windows 11: 2021-…

        TPM has existed in laptops since 2006

        • jj4211@lemmy.world
          12·
          9 months ago

          TPM has existed in laptops since 2006

          Not particularly relevant. The only TPM that counts is TPM2, which was 2014 for the specification. Not even all “TPM 2.0” implementations are considered sufficient. Plenty of devices even in 2019 were being built without a TPM2 that would qualify for Windows 11, in part because the industry didn’t know that it was about to be required, in part among those that tried not knowing their chosen implementation would still not qualify.

    • platypus_plumba@lemmy.world
      274·
      9 months ago

      This is not a problem with Linux, this is a problem with hardware manufacturers not making drivers for Linux.

      Which is understandable, honestly. Making drivers is surely not an easy task. Targeting Windows covers the 80/20 rule.

    • xX_fnord_Xx@lemmy.world
      141·
      9 months ago

      I just broke out into a cold sweat remembering trying to get wifi to function on my netbook back in 2k8.

      • Im_old@lemmy.world
        9·
        9 months ago

        My friend, let me be that guy that says “that’s nothing!”. In 2002 (around kernel 2.14 I think it was) notebooks had no integrated wifi (at least not the second hand notebook I could afford, and it wasn’t cheap anyway). I had to buy a cisco pmcia wifi card from across the world and recompile the kernel to include wifi support (and the driver of course). I don’t remember why, but I remember that recompiling the kernel happened quite frequently. Maybe because I was distro hopping a lot or because there were quite (relatively speaking) kernel updates. Not good old days, but at least I learnt!

      • sundray@lemmus.orgEnglish
        1·
        9 months ago

        Oh lord, the time I spent trying to get an Airport wifi card working on a dual-USB iBook in Slackware… shudder.

      • Johanno@feddit.de
        151·
        9 months ago

        Nah hardware drivers or support for certain hardware is still a thing. I mean compared to 5 years ago it isn’t but compared to windows it still happens sometimes

        • cooopsspace@infosec.pubEnglish
          2·
          9 months ago

          Look I’ve been in the situation where I’ve had to compile a modern kernel for Ubuntu so that my devices work, my stupid fault for running Ubuntu though.

    • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
      104·
      9 months ago

      Someone gave me an 8 year old laptop to clear down. So I figured I’d swap in an SSD and put Linux on it.

      Damn thing wouldn’t even boot. Wasn’t even that bad a spec machine. 6GB RAM should have been plenty. Shame really, was actually looking forward to seeing how far it had come in the last ten years or so.

      • pancakesyrupyum@kbin.social
        15·
        9 months ago

        2016
        Hmm. There’s no reason anything that supports 6gb RAM shouldn’t run Linux. I’ve janked together much worse Lubuntu rigs before.

        • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
          9·
          9 months ago

          Exactly. Should have run. Something in the hardware it didn’t like. Just got a black screen with a flashing cursor. Never got past that point.

        • limelight79@lemm.ee
          7·
          9 months ago

          Yeah, very odd. A few weeks ago, I retired a computer that had 4 GB of RAM that was doing server duties, running Debian. It was doing a great job until I tried running a virtual machine on it (for Home Assistant); that was just killing the poor thing. The processor was a Core 2 Quad that was introduced in 2008, so I got plenty of life out of that setup.

      • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        5·
        9 months ago

        6gb ram is plenty, especially for a lightweight distro like antix or slax.

        From AntiX:

        It should run on most computers, ranging from 256MB old systems with pre-configured swap to the latest powerful boxes. 512MB RAM is the recommended minimum for antiX. Installation to hard drive requires a minimum 7.0GB hard disk size.

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
      2·
      9 months ago

      Winmodems and other cheap junk comes to mind.

      But, apart from stuff made just for windows, what’ve you got?

  • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
    557·
    9 months ago

    Not true. For modern Linux you need a processor with a memory controller and 8mb of ram. If also need to be a processor from the 21 century.

      • nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br
        5·
        9 months ago

        I recently installed openwrt in a banana pi, and it’s so cool to see this distro being mentioned around. It’s definitely a different linux experience, even after using linux for more than a decade.

        • bruhduh@lemmy.world
          8·
          9 months ago

          Glad for you to enjoy it) i’m too planning to buy and solder 32MB rom chip on all my old routers and build openwrt for them to revive them and i already bought 64MB ram chips that laying around waiting for their time, it would be cool to build mesh network between all my family, also connect all of routers to vps with vpn and pihole installed

          • nossaquesapao@lemmy.eco.br
            2·
            9 months ago

            That’s really interesting. Are those routers already supported by the project, or are you going to port yourself? Maybe you could document the process and post it somewhere, ifyouh have the time ;)

            • bruhduh@lemmy.world
              3·
              9 months ago

              Yes, I’m planning to port) though i didn’t ported openwrt before, i have confidence that i will do this with usual “fuck around and find out” (push through with relative documentation and trial and error), after all this is how newbies learn how to use open source projects, back in the day, 8 years ago, i started using linux that way, where to post it documentation though? When i do it I’m going to post it

                • bruhduh@lemmy.world
                  2·
                  9 months ago

                  I certainly will) just ordered 10 w25q256 rom chips, 5 ram chips of 64mb already laying around in my electronic components bin though i ordered another 5 to make it even, thank you for motivation, i planned to order rom chips in next year and do this don’t know when, and decided to do this thanks to your response, I’ll save you and dm you when i do this, since parcel going to move for a month and I’ll do my first ports beside university, job and apartment renovation, it’s probably going to be finished around autumn, or summer if I’m lucky

    • nexussapphire@lemm.eeEnglish
      24·
      9 months ago

      At least pentiums are still supported. Who knows what all those IBM Thinkpad users are capable of if they weren’t distracted.

      • gandalf_der_12te@feddit.de
        71·
        9 months ago

        Actually, I believe it should be possible (albeit horrendously slow) by memory-mapping the disk to address space.

        • areyouevenreal@lemm.ee
          13·
          9 months ago

          Absolutely not. Memory mapping is a concept created by the OS. The CPU won’t operate without RAM of some kind. It’s a fundamental hardware issue.

          • Natanael@slrpnk.net
            5·
            9 months ago

            To boot a normal OS sure, but anything small enough to fit in registers/cache could do without RAM. That’s still some form of working memory though, so it’s probably not what they meant.

            You could build something RAM-less if you only need the thing to process real-time events like some signal processing with only 1 pass (also see: tons of FPGA and DSP applications)

            • areyouevenreal@lemm.ee
              5·
              9 months ago

              Yes I would count cache as a type of RAM. Also I don’t think the cache hierarchy would actually work without main memory as it’s foundation in a lot of cases. They are designed to have memory to map to. It would also be difficult in some systems to coordinate between cores as not every system has shared cache between all cores.

  • Hyperreality@kbin.social
    3328·
    9 months ago

    You can use windows 11 without TPM. It’s just not made easy for casual users.

    I know this is linuxmemes and that this will be an unpopular opinion, but a lot of the complaints about windows I see linux users make, are based on a lack of knowledge. Sure, MS doesn’t make it particularly easy, but linux isn’t always particularly easy to install or get working well for casual users either. Whether it’s linux or windows, a quick google goes a long way to solving most issues.

    I’m behind the idea of GNU, but it’s weird how so many linux memes could easily be turned into equally ill informed pro-MS memes. Obviously, MS isn’t a nice company and I don’t think anyone’s a genuine MS fanboy, but still.

    • laurelraven@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      212·
      9 months ago

      There are, in effect, hacks to get around the requirement. That is not the same thing as it not being required. You manage to get Windows 11 installed on a system without TPM, you’re not in a supported configuration and could at any time find yourself locked out of updates or even your system, and it’ll likely at least be a cat and mouse game.

      • Hyperreality@kbin.social
        41·
        9 months ago

        There are also ways to get around nvidia cards without good linux drivers or laptops with unsupported wifi cards.

    • sag@lemm.eeOP
      162·
      9 months ago

      Yep I know You can run Window 11 without TPM I even installed it once but here we are talking about recommended requirement(You just need a decent CPU on Linux)

      • Hyperreality@kbin.social
        41·
        9 months ago

        The same thing can be said about plenty of configurations and linux. Plenty of laptops or the wrong nvidia card, and you’re likely to have to find a workaround too.

        Hell, bypassing the TPM requirement is almost certainly easier than creating your own driver for an nvidia card or problemsolving wifi issues because your laptop’s network card manufacturer doesn’t give a fuck about linux users.

        • maynarkh@feddit.nl
          51·
          9 months ago

          Yeah but not giving a fuck unsupported is way better than we’ll purposefully fuck you over unsupported.

    • Jumuta@sh.itjust.works
      72·
      9 months ago

      everyone knows, it’s just disregarded most of the time because it’s not a supported use case

      • nexussapphire@lemm.eeEnglish
        22·
        9 months ago

        It’ll be a sad day when the other foot drops. I like Linux but I understand it’s not for everyone.

        • Hyperreality@kbin.social
          43·
          9 months ago

          I find it annoying that the community pretends otherwise.

          Someone goes on a forum with their laptop with an nvidia card and a wifi card no one’s ever heard of, and more likely than not he’ll be told it’ll be easy to get linux running on it.

          Hell, I was wrong. It’s not just that a lot of linux users don’t know much about windows, they also don’t seem to know about the issues people can face with linux on some less or non-compatible hardware.

          You can be a linux fan and admit that companies like Nvidia, Realtek or HP often don’t give much of a shit about linux, but some pretend otherwise.

          • limelight79@lemm.ee
            3·
            9 months ago

            I don’t understand the Nvidia comment: NVidia produces Linux drivers for their cards, or at least used to. Did they stop? From a quick look at their website, I see something released in January for certain cards. And my experience has been that even the standard drivers work fine to at least get started.

              • limelight79@lemm.ee
                2·
                9 months ago

                So they are producing drivers for their cards, and I still don’t understand your comment. They’re not fully open source, which is a valid concern, but you said they “often don’t give much of a shit about linux”…they’re literally producing drivers for their cards for Linux, just like they do for Windows. I’m not sure what else you want them to do.

                • Hyperreality@kbin.social
                  1·
                  9 months ago

                  they’re literally producing drivers for their cards for Linux,

                  For some of their cards as the article mentions.

                  I’m not sure what else you want them to do.

                  Regularly release drivers for more of their graphic cards, including older ones like the GTX 10-series which are still incredibly popular.

          • nexussapphire@lemm.eeEnglish
            11·
            9 months ago

            Idk, I had issues on Wayland with Nvidia and switching back to xorg works fine. About the only thing wrong was a lot of screen tearing in games after a driver update.

            The live environment is for testing your hardware and trying things out. You’d be surprised how many things do work and you don’t need to nuke your system to find out. If it doesn’t work you just reboot and everything is back to normal.

            Also I don’t even bother with figuring out printers on Linux. I’m almost certain they all universally work, some sort of Unix black magic if you ask me.

            If your a Windows fan that fine but don’t pretend we don’t try to make it easy.

            • Hyperreality@kbin.social
              22·
              9 months ago

              Also I don’t even bother with figuring out printers on Linux. I’m almost certain they all universally work

              Almost.

              And this is the problem. The linux community is basically an example of survivorship bias. People who had no significant issues or were able to solve them are understandably fans. People who ran into a weird issue that they couldn’t solve, are far more likely to give up or not be a member of the community anymore.

              If your a Windows fan that fine but don’t pretend we don’t try to make it easy.

              And then when someone does run into an issue, members of the community will often call them stupid. “They’ve run into an issue they can’t solve. Linux is easy! That must mean they’re stupid. I’ve never run into an issue I couldn’t solve, linux is easy, that must mean I’m smart.”

              Vanity, it’s the Devil’s favourite sin.

              It’s a similar attitude you’ll see in rich people, who overestimate how much talent was involved in their success, and underestimate how much luck was involved. “Why are they poor? They must be stupid. I’ve never had money issues, making money is easy if you’re smart like me.”

              Here’s the thing. I am genuinely a fan of the philosophy of GNU. Which is why I want everyone to be welcomed into the community, helped when they do run into issues, rather than to have them face snarky comments from linux users who think they know more than they actually do.

              • nexussapphire@lemm.eeEnglish
                21·
                9 months ago

                If this is the way you act when you ask for help I can’t blame them for not helping. There’s a lot of assumptions happening here and I really don’t appreciate it. I was being really light hearted about the situation, sharing my experience with Linux, and trying to start a constructive conversation. Sorry if the Windows thing rubbed you the wrong way I thought it was kinda funny and a little cheeky. Seriously didn’t think anyone cared about windows.

                I really do feel for you if you ran into a few assholes on the Internet but that’s kinda just the Internet. There are plenty of good people willing to help out so instead of spreading the hate look for better more constructive conversations to have elsewhere.

                I’m here to tell you now I don’t give a damn who uses Linux or why and I’m especially not interested in selling a fantasy or even bringing up the fact that I use Linux. Windows just got really annoying and Linux does what I need.

                It really gets to me when someone gets on their soapbox and slaps labels on people without ever knowing them.

                Also fuck hp and the drm cartridge thing. If you get the chance go gangsta on that thing like in office space. My sister got locked out of one of those printers after cancelling her ink refill subscription.

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
      72·
      9 months ago

      it’s weird how so many linux memes could easily be turned into equally ill informed pro-MS memes

      Like the one where Linus is getting telemetry from your machines and putting security at risk with essentially a C&C ping waiting for instructions.