«

<http://blogs.zdnet.com/green/?p=10674>:

“The principal solution to the problem of PC e-waste is for developers
and marketers to stop using strategies that contribute to bloat and
enforced upgrading. An industry standard that discourages such
dysfunction would surely be welcome by those vendors confident that they
can prosper by selling new software to willing customers. It would also
be welcomed by the many customers who are by now extremely weary of
enforced upgrading and software bloat and the consequent e-waste.�

Of course, it’s proprietary software that’s principally to blame, most open-
source software will run quite snappily on machines a few years old.

vitw wrote:

> On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:57:48 +1300, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> Of course, it?s proprietary software that?s principally to blame, most
>> open- source software will run quite snappily on machines a few years
>> old.
>
> Yes, if you're willing to give up Gnome/KDE, Firefox, Thunderbird and
> OpenOffice for something like screen, lynx, mutt and ed, respectively.


Not so. One of my 3 machines is a PII about 10 years old,
and quite happily running all of that you mention.

Many many new machines are literally trashed into landfill
when they are quite capable of running a FOSS system.

"Adam" <> wrote in message
news:hnr7hh$ofg$...
> vitw wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:57:48 +1300, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> >
> >> Of course, it?s proprietary software that?s principally to blame, most
> >> open- source software will run quite snappily on machines a few years
> >> old.
> >
> > Yes, if you're willing to give up Gnome/KDE, Firefox, Thunderbird and
> > OpenOffice for something like screen, lynx, mutt and ed, respectively.
>
> Not so. One of my 3 machines is a PII about 10 years old,
> and quite happily running all of that you mention.
>
> Many many new machines are literally trashed into landfill
> when they are quite capable of running a FOSS system.

Far too many people and even businesses upgrade their computers due to
"want" rather than "need".

My Mac is about 11 years old, running mostly OS 9 and is used daily to run
my own computer business. (I had to install OS X 10.2 just to get any kind
of Internet connection through hopeleess Vodafone!)

This Dell PC is a bit older and runs the latest version of Firefox with no
problem (other than the obvious attrocities of needing to use Windoze).

In article <>, Allistar
<> wrote:
> Your Name wrote:
> > "Adam" <> wrote in message
> > news:hnr7hh$ofg$...
> >> vitw wrote:
> >>
> >> > On Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:57:48 +1300, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> Of course, it?s proprietary software that?s principally to blame, most
> >> >> open- source software will run quite snappily on machines a few years
> >> >> old.
> >> >
> >> > Yes, if you're willing to give up Gnome/KDE, Firefox, Thunderbird and
> >> > OpenOffice for something like screen, lynx, mutt and ed, respectively.
> >>
> >> Not so. One of my 3 machines is a PII about 10 years old,
> >> and quite happily running all of that you mention.
> >>
> >> Many many new machines are literally trashed into landfill
> >> when they are quite capable of running a FOSS system.
> >
> > Far too many people and even businesses upgrade their computers due to
> > "want" rather than "need".
> >
> > My Mac is about 11 years old, running mostly OS 9 and is used daily to run
> > my own computer business. (I had to install OS X 10.2 just to get any kind
> > of Internet connection through hopeleess Vodafone!)
> >
> > This Dell PC is a bit older and runs the latest version of Firefox with no
> > problem (other than the obvious attrocities of needing to use Windoze).
>
> You mean you need Windows to run Firefox, or you need Windows to runs
> something else?

Nope. I need the Windows PC to get an Internet connection thanks to the
utterly hopeless Vodafone pillocks who can't be bothered fixing their
authentication servers. They servers refuse to authenticate those using
older versions of the Mac OS via dial-up using SOME of their local
numbers, which means they can't even login (I can connect perfectly well
if I make a toll call to their Whangarei number!). I installed Mac OS 10.2
to at least be able to logon, but even that connection is flakey and slow.