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Good news #FOSS friends: there will be an abundance of cheap or free hardware available this year as Microsoft drops support of it.

This means you can scarf up those machines, put #Linux on there and give them away to friends and family.

Some of them might never touch it, but most will try it out and some might like it.

There's lots to like:

- Don't have to sign up with a website to log into your local computer

- No invasive telemetry watching everything you do

- No trying to sell you stuff

- Much less expensive than buying a new computer

- Probably faster than a new computer with Windows 11

- Can come with LibreOffice, CAD modeling software, Steam, whatever web browser you want (even Microsoft Edge!), music and video players, an email client so you don't even need to open a browser to check your mail

bellsov 8mo ago

Laptops/desktops, server or both? What are some good outlets to purchase that aren't eBay or Amazon.

Also, when buying used, I've always assumed that as long as one installs a fresh OS, the hardware should be reasonably immune from supply chain attacks. Would you agree with this?

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Discussion

Dr. Hax 8mo ago

Probably mostly laptops & desktops. Servers are likely not running Windows, or have already been rotated out to have the newer hardware.

And yes, wiping and reinstalling the OS will make you *reasonably* safe from pre-installed malware.

There could still be nasty stuff in the BIOS/UEFI. That is less common, but it HAS been seen in the wild. That's very difficult to be completely confident that it's been eliminated, but re-flashing the BIOS with the latest version will clean out some malware. There are others that can survive that. It just depends on how confident you want to be (or, put another way, how paranoid you are).