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Can’t upgrade your PC to Windows 11? Buy a new one, is Microsoft’s laughable solution
(www.techradar.com)
this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2024
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Technology
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As long as it is 8th gen Intel or newer it is officially supported. It depends on what you mean by "really old." I have hardware from the early 2000s that runs Debian.
Finally got around to looking up the info on it.
It's a Dell Latitude D630 (model PP18L according to the label). CPU is: Intel Core 2 T7250, 2.00GHz, 800MHz, 2M L2 Cache, Dual Core Built: 27 MAR 2008 (actually newer than I thought) Last OS to have support from Dell was: Windows Vista 32/64 bit RAM is: 2.0GB, DDR2-667 SDRAM
Per this page it doesn't meet the specs: Windows 11 requirements But that page also states:
so it's more of a soft spec than an actual hard minimum.
I have systems from before 2000 that I'm sure would run x86 Linux (especially DSL Linux: [DamnSmallLinux.Org](https://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ and such). Can't wait to browse using Lynx again :-)
edit: formatting
You can run a bunch of of things on that hardware. The limiting factor is the ram so if you can upgrade it there will be a massive improvement. Also look into getting a SSD.
I would go Debian with Firefox ESR and ublock origin. You can apply the Firefox privacy patches if you want.
I can't see investing upgrades into HW that old (I know I could, just doesn't seem like the best use of money in the long run).
Also, my partner's SW is only available for Windows and I don't feel like teaching them enough Linux to run Wine under it.
Well that hardware isn't going to run a supported version of Windows anyway.
2 GB of ram should be enough
That was my original point: it is running Windows 11 right now. A bit slow, but it runs.
Windows 11 requires 4 GB of memory and a newer CPU. There is no way that's officially supported by Microsoft.
However, somehow I think you know that. Just keep in mind it probably will have issues and updates may not apply. (No security patches potentially)