Something I’ve been working on recently is collecting old and unused laptops from various people I know. Sometimes they’re shitty Chromebooks that can barely be used but sometimes they’re still perfectly good and recent laptops and people just got bored of them and decided to upgrade for whatever reason. I then put Linux on these laptops (even the shitty chromebooks) and distribute them to people at my college who need one.
With the date that Microsoft is stopping support for windows 10 approaching quickly, now’s a great time to prevent e-waste by upgrading to Linux or collecting people’s previous laptops as they upgrade. You can also get distributions that run better than windows on low-end hardware. Even if you don’t know someone who needs a laptop, you can always do something like host a Minecraft server to make use of it.
Also, you can do this to phones too. There are plenty of custom ROMs you can load on Android phones to squeeze more life out of them. Let me know if you want recommendations.
Anyway, I hope that this can inspire more people to try and repurpose electronics to prevent them from becoming e-waste.
Something I’ve been wanting to work on is repairing old analogue electronics and putting those to use, like VCRs and the likes. While I totally get why we’ve moved on from older formats like VHS, I feel tossing that generation of electronics aside when they still work perfectly fine is a bit of an injustice considering how durable a lot of those were made.
Something that’s especially stood out is the old CED format. Have never seen a player despite having seen the discs out and about sometimes, and the ones online never seem to be in working condition.
I did this too with a few laptops. Rule of thumb is, that if it runs Windows already decently, it will behave like a racing car under any distro/ DE.
Those special “low-spec” distros often look outdated and aren’t as much as a joy to use. I would recommend trying something with Gnome, Cinnamon or KDE first, and if it doesn’t run smoothly, then try something else.
Good distros for newcomers are Mint or Aurora / Bluefin.
The hardest part of using Linux as someone who isn’t tech iterate is the installation part. It’s extremely easy, but many people are afraid of bricking something, which isn’t possible. Installing Linux is way easier than installing Windows. And as long as the new user knows where they can find the browser, they’re good most of the time.
Regarding phones: sadly, this is way harder. Not only are most used phones either damaged or have a bad battery, but most have a locked bootloader, so you can’t install other OSs. This includes most budget phones (Xiaomi, etc.) and Samsung devices.
My trouble is battery health of older phones and laptops. I typically purchase scratch and dents from Dell outlet and for phones wait for the battery to only make it 4hours before it needs a charge.
For devices with bad batteries that aren’t easily replaceable, I just keep them plugged in and either use them like I would a desktop or use it to host stuff. Most laptops will work with the battery removed so long as they are plugged in.
For a phone you still might be able to host stuff, but you could also use it as a primarily storage device.
It’s hard sometimes, I needed a new laptop to get a better CPU for video encoding. I now have my older laptop, which is actually a hand me down, so it’s old, but it’s going to replace my even older laptop that’s running a 2nd gen i3. So that’s going to be the one I will likely bring to an eWaste site as it will no longer serve me. Sure I could keep it around as a spare, you never know, but I really doubt that will happen.
All my laptops are running some form of Linux, except one. That’s used to run turbo tax (I know) as the windows software is typically much more affordable over the website version. So that saves me like $50 each year.
Anyway, eventually I’ll need to toss my old pixel xl as the battery only last about 45 minutes and I think lineage isn’t able to update it, I didn’t check the last few months. I was planning to have it be my kids first tablet, but a battery replacement is around $75 I think… Just seems not worth it.
Assuming that there’s no major issues with your laptop, I recommend that you at least donate your laptop to a thrift store or make a Craigslist listing and give it away to someone who could use it as opposed to putting it in the landfill. You never know who might find it useful.
I put it in an eWaste pile which I hope is sending it off to be “recycled”. There was no saving my palm pre or touchpads.
I’m all for it, though does anybody know a good place to find these unwanted machines?
Corporations and universities often have ewaste bins but getting access will depend on your circumstances. I find them there, clean them up, and pass them to a local refugee resettlement charity.
Your local recycling center may be accepting volunteers - I’ve been working with a guy who volunteers at our recycling center and he’s been working on setting up a reuse option for all the working laptops that come through. Currently their policy is that all computers must be securely destroyed to protect peoples’ information but if he can catch them and get permission to wipe the drives and give them away then he’s allowed to do so. He also saves hundreds of TVs and monitors per year - he could do more, tons still get thrown out, but they have some tight space limitations at the center and have already been giving him as much space for storage and organization as they can.
Also ask around friends and family - in my experience lots of folks keep a couple old machines they no longer need because they don’t want to throw them out (or pay extra to throw them out) and once folks know you as the old computer guy you might be surprised at how many people message you to be like ‘you want this?’ before they throw something out.
And if that doesn’t work, there’s always free groups like Buy Nothing and Everything is Free online, usually local to your town or city.
Thanks for this, and the repost of postmarket OSes for Android phones! One reddit community that I used to frequent was r/androidafterlife, and I’ve tried to find similar here. I’m glad that !zerowaste@slrpnk.net offers some of the same advice 👍
Thats an awesome idea, thanks for sharing!
as others have mentioned the battery health thing is what makes phones difficult. im comfortable working on phones though so i usually offer them to people like “i have a pixel 3a sitting around that you can have for the cost of a battery”. ive also got a 2nd gen kindle laying around that needs a new battery. considering hacking in a smaller cell if i have one. old ereaders usually cant connect to their servers anymore but that doesnt stop you from putting drm free epubs on them over usb
Heh, heh. I didn’t know that people actually bought the books on kindles. It’s ridiculously easy to get any book you want for free on them.
i’ll never give amazon a single dollar for ebooks but i source tech for a lot of people who arent used to there being alternatives yet or think its still pretty difficult
I have a couple of old Androids I’ve been wondering what to do with, what’s the simplest ROM flash, like what’s the equivalent of installing Linux mint for a phone?
I’d like to start there
Someone just posted this yesterday
Resurrect your old Android phone - aggregated list of 1100+ devices and what OS you can install on them https://slrpnk.net/post/16336190
oh that is awesome, I’m going to check it out right now.
That’s awesome. I’m gonna cross post it to here.
Thanks!
If they’re Pixel phones GraphneneOS is insanely easy to flash and is the one of most secure ROMs out there. I’ve heard good things about CalyxOS too.
A lot of people speak well of LineageOS, but I have no idea how involved the installation process is. Another option that I’ve heard of is postmarketOS but that’s a lot more complicated to install.
perfect, thanks
