Windows 10's farewell tour – not AI PCs – set to drive laptop sales in 2025 The global laptop market is forecast to grow by 4.9 percent during 2025, but commercial upgrade cycles and the looming Windows 10 end of life are driving this rather than demand for AI-capable PCs. Taiwan-based market watcher TrendForce says it expects laptop shipment figures to show a moderate recovery for the end of 2024, …
Agree 100% with you.
And with the existance of 0patch, is even easier to try to wing it.
Having said that, sadly, many small businesses (and some individuals in independent/contractor roles) do not know full well what their obligations are under HIPPA, PCI, GDPR, CCPR and other similar laws.
If they try to "wing it", they may get into a wordl of hurt, like failing an audit, losing their certifications, or having to pay massive fines out of pocket ("cyber-threat" insurance will not cover it if the SW was not up to snuff) if there is an incident/breach...
So, perilious times ahead for SMB and independents...
how about using Linux or *BSD instead, and avoid the potential "breech" fallout? That assumes that OTHER necessary protective measures are being employed when it comes to data intefrity and security.
I bet RHEL is cheaper and would run on the older hardware. And Rocky Linux if you do not need paid support.
You know that, I know that and what's more we both know how to use them. Enterprise aren't going to make the investment - extended support from Microsoft is cheaper*. The private owner - well if they come to the likes of us and Jake they'll quietly get migrated to something nice & stable that does what hey need a bit differently than before and more consistently in the future but they aren't otherwise aware, of their own knowledge, that that's possible. Small business, cash-strapped, short of time, will be tempted to wing it.
* Yes, short-term but short term seems to win every time.
I have just moved my main PC to Linux Mint Debian Edition, (With the old no longer updating Windows 11 install migrated to a VM in virtual box (far easier than I expected).
It's a Xeon HP Z210, and it ran 11 really nicely until they decided to enforce their ridiculous hardware requirements to update, however by that point it had served its purpose (familiarised myself with 11, then they dropped android compatibility, enforced the hardware demands and added replay).
LMDE is quite pleasant and much snappier. Bit sad El Reg looks so poor on elinks, though.
Once windows 10 laptops go EOL on the OS *and* can NOT run 11, I should be able to get a bargain price for something that works JUST FINE with Linux and/oe FreeBSD on it!
I might even find something interesting to use as a spare server or NAS, same idea.
RECYCLE those Non-11 CAPABLE BOXEN, please!!!
Mint or Zorin Core are good choices and are rocking a somewhat capable older PC.
CrunchbangPP, AntiX or the "reborn" DamSmallLinux if your hardware is truly ancient (Core2Duo or older) or severley underpowered.
good luck in your linux adventures...
Writen from my late 2014 macbook air, with a bunch of linux VMs, including TAILS and Kali
MX Linux XFCE runs rather nicely on a laptop with Core 2 Duo T9550 / 8GB RAM.
Zorin Lite or Mint XFCE are definitely ones to try also for something that "just works" with 99% GUI and little terminal input.
CrunchbangPP made a first generation Celeron 847 NUC responsive - although I'm tempted to give Tiny Core Linux a whirl on it and see how lightweight we can go.
Mint works as well as anything else, but the limiting factor on old hardware is going to be the increasing size and demands of websites.
Doesn't matter what OS or browser you use, some sites will bring an old machine to it's knees. (And often that's a bank or something that you don't really have an option not to use).
Weird, I'm going in the other direction. I can somewhat afford the HW tax, and stuff "just works". But the direction of their PC hardware is not to my liking (expandability and repairability wise).
I'll take my current (intel Macs) stable as far as it will go, and then (and only then, not now, then) will decide what to do.
Who knows what the future will bring...
The second part of that sentence I agree with, but I wonder where they get the idea that "Businesses want to move to AI PCs".
Certainly my job would avoid an 'AI PC' in the same way they'd not buy a machine with a gaming GPU; it's just not necessary, so it's just added cost and power use.
> Then why bother?
Its the "me too" attitude that it seems everyone else is doing it, so from the CEO downwards "we must also jump on the bandwagon ", just like self driving cars, cloud, etc etc
If course us minions at the coalface know differently but we are never listened to, so its "new! newer!! big shiny...what can we use it for, please everyone, find a use for AI ...please !!"
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