I am running a plex server on a 2013 lenovo booted with elementaryOS. I used a 2009 Mac mini prior. They don’t all need to become e-waste after 10 years, let alone the typical 5 years or so many people throw their stuff out at.
You can also turn basically any old machine into a video game emulation station.
I’m not saying that old hardware is useless. I make good use out of old hardware too. I have an old i5 Dell from about 2012 running ZoneMinder, a Phenom II system from around 2009 that I use a Linux server, an even older Core 2 Duo system that’s a glorified MP3 player, and even a very early 2000’s Pentium III that I use for a router (sadly I’m going to have to retire it from these duties soon - it can barely handle a 100 mbps DSL connection, and it’s too old and outdated to run the modern router distributions).
However, for every one of those computers I have another one like it sitting in a closet plus a few extras. All the geeks and tinkerers I know are also swimming in old hardware. If I really wanted to get rid of this stuff, I’d have a hard time giving it away. Economically, this stuff is worthless. The supply greatly exceeds the demand(*)
(*) well, except maybe the Pentium III… it’s old enough now that retro gamers may be interested…
I am running a plex server on a 2013 lenovo booted with elementaryOS. I used a 2009 Mac mini prior. They don’t all need to become e-waste after 10 years, let alone the typical 5 years or so many people throw their stuff out at.
You can also turn basically any old machine into a video game emulation station.
I’m not saying that old hardware is useless. I make good use out of old hardware too. I have an old i5 Dell from about 2012 running ZoneMinder, a Phenom II system from around 2009 that I use a Linux server, an even older Core 2 Duo system that’s a glorified MP3 player, and even a very early 2000’s Pentium III that I use for a router (sadly I’m going to have to retire it from these duties soon - it can barely handle a 100 mbps DSL connection, and it’s too old and outdated to run the modern router distributions).
However, for every one of those computers I have another one like it sitting in a closet plus a few extras. All the geeks and tinkerers I know are also swimming in old hardware. If I really wanted to get rid of this stuff, I’d have a hard time giving it away. Economically, this stuff is worthless. The supply greatly exceeds the demand(*)
(*) well, except maybe the Pentium III… it’s old enough now that retro gamers may be interested…