I’ll probably transition my AMD 8350 build over to Linux when Win10 stops being supported. As opposed to my mom’s FX-8370 build, which I’ll probably just have to replace with a new Windows 11 system, as there’s no way I’m expecting her (an elderly woman) to learn anything other than Windows. Especially since she’s reliant on Windows-only apps.
The actual hardware she’s using will probably be converted to a Linux Desktop, but I’ll have to migrate her data to a new mini Windows 11 PC or something.
I know someone (86 yeard old) that never had a computer before her mid-70s. I built her several Xubuntu machines over the years, and she manages getting online, social media, e-mail and solitaire games just fine. She didn’t need much teaching from me at all. And it goes without saying that support requests are very rare and I’ve never had to reinstall her system because of some malware ate her files.
Don’t underestimate older people.
Those mini machines are pretty decent now. The kind you can bolt right to the back of a monitor.
Absolutely! I got a little Ryzen 5 box with 64GB RAM and 1.5TB of SSD for, like, $500 ($300 base 16GB+500GB, IIRC?). I’ve been used to XPS laptops as my daily drivers for several years, my most recent being less than 2 y/o. It is absolutely shocking to me how much better that little Ryzen is, for how little money.
I haven’t checked power consumption on it, but at this point I’m seriously considering just packing one up with a small LCD, a BT keyboard/mouse, and a honking 20k amp battery when I travel, instead of taking the laptop.
It is absolutely shocking to me how much better that little Ryzen is, for how little money.
I just replaced my older i7 CPU with a newer AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D, and it’s just absolutely RIDICULOUS how much faster this 3D V-cache (L3 cache) is when running Linux. It’s just crazy, even when doing computational fluid dynamics (CFD, which is my field of work). Intel’s Xeon Silver/Gold/Platinum series processors cost THOUSANDS of dollars, whereas this Ryzen processor is $320. TWICE as fast as Xeon Silver doing the same CFD work.
