My Linux survived where Windows died

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githman@reddit (OP)

People are getting rid of the hardware that cannot (officially) run Windows 11. You can get it cheap.

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HydraDragonAntivirus@reddit

Samething happened me to old hard drive.

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Suspicious-Split3556@reddit

If you take care of linux I believe it will run for a super long time

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You say modern drivers and hardware but you’re talking about a 7th generation CPU. When other people say modern drivers are finicky I think they are talking about even newer hardware like Arrowlake CPUs or something.

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IntelligentEdge5742@reddit

Man, 7th is pretty new, I have a i5-560m which is first gen. It still runs pretty well though.

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blaziq_@reddit

4th gen i7 is my daily driver private machine. I see no difference (except for battery life) in what I typically do compared to i5 11th gen which I also happen to have. But the 4th gen laptop has a way better screen and keyboard so I just gave the newer one to my daughter because she plays some games.

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TygerTung@reddit

Yes I consider 7th gen to be very new. My main machine is 3rd gen and it still is very fast.

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Particular-Poem-7085@reddit

Yeah well my great grandfather counted ones an zeroes on his fingers, so yours is super new too.

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githman@reddit (OP)

A typical ambiguity of the English language. I meant the modern state of Linux hardware compatibility, not that a 7th gen CPU is modern hardware.

Programming languages have ways to specify operand grouping (or rely on the implicit conventions) but sometimes we get to speak human. It's not easy.

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TheOneTrueTrench@reddit

I also don't enjoy human language for the same reason.

People get weird when you say "and-or" and start talking about Star Wars when you're just trying to avoid ambiguity.

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githman@reddit (OP)

I still do not understand why I can't use XOR when talking to people.

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blaziq_@reddit

Because and/or in natural language has a different meaning than xor. It goes like this: - AND - both options are true in both natural and programming languages, this is fine - OR - in natural language generally means one option is true but not the other which is the equivalent of XOR in programming - AND/OR - either one or both options are true in natural language which translates to simple OR in programming

You'd have to shift the whole paradigm to make people understand the meanings from programming languages.

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JockstrapCummies@reddit

Programming languages have ways to specify operand grouping (or rely on the implicit conventions) but sometimes we get to speak human. It's not easy.

Switch to Lingua Technis. It's time to upgrade your vox caster.

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githman@reddit (OP)

You think Linux has become a technology advanced enough to be indistinguishable from magic?

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Virtualization_Freak@reddit

7th Gen is modern. Half of my daily fleet is running that era equipment. There's nearly no reason to upgrade.

I skip using bloated software, and the hardware has been specced to match.

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gsdev@reddit

a recent malfunction of power mains fried my old PC's PSU and motherboard

You might want to buy a UPS.

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githman@reddit (OP)

I considered it, thanks. The dilemma is that 1) a new UPS would cost more than the ancient system it is meant to protect, 2) an old UPS from the same flea market would have its batteries past end of life.

Maybe I'll find some sensible compromise. We shall see.

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4xtsap@reddit

If there's no need to keep the system running when there's no power, a surge protector would do.

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githman@reddit (OP)

Yep, that's my plan for now. I found a class of devices that cut off the power when it goes out of the preset range, then take a pause before turning it back on. Looks like what I need.

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arcimbo1do@reddit

I haven't seen a consumer ups in ages but I'm sure they all have an usb cable to alert the computer when they are on battery power, so you only need a battery that lasts long enough for the computer to properly shut down

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githman@reddit (OP)

Unexpected shutdown per se would not really fry your PSU and motherboard; the worst thing that can happen is that you lose the unsaved files. I still have a habit of obsessively saving my files and long posts every 5-10 minutes just because I remember Windows 9X and FAT32 that seriously liked to break on power outages.

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arcimbo1do@reddit

An UPS would also protect from voltage spikes which is what usually fries your PSU. I don't think they can cause damage to the data directly, except from the fact that a sudden poweroff can corrupt your filesystem. Modern journaled filesystems should protect you from that, and automatic shut down of the computer will protect you from "unsaved files" (although i was mostly thinking of a server, it should be quick enough to press ctrl+x+ctrl+s or :x if you see the light going off)

So, again: even an UPS with very little battery would be a good investment IMHO

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githman@reddit (OP)

Do you mean some specific UPS type? Because the last time I checked, the only UPS with inherent protection from power surges was online UPS. They are obviously beyond the budget for shielding a set of equipment worth €100 total, monitor included.

Other types of UPS have surge protection just slapped on for extra value, typically a varistor. I can buy a standalone surge protection device for literally 5% of the price of an UPS.

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arcimbo1do@reddit

Yes, I meant online UPS, that's actually the only type of UPS i ever worked with and as I said I haven't touched am UPS in ages. I personally never had one: either I was too poor or I had laptops and my servers were in a datacenter...

100€ worth of equipment at my latitudes is considered disposable hardware... But again: if you want to protect the data, avoiding power surges or sudden power off can help prevent filesystem corruption. Journaled filesystems are great but I've seen them failing too, and some data is not regularly saved to disk. And don't let me start on raid groups (although that's probably not your case)...

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githman@reddit (OP)

100€ worth of equipment at my latitudes is considered disposable hardware...

Disposable but still takes time and effort to replace and set up anew. I'd prefer to shield it somehow, obviously without making the protection more expensive than the things it is meant to protect.

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SageX_85@reddit

There is no such thing as ancient system. Either it has important data or it doesnt.

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githman@reddit (OP)

The important part of the data is being maniacally backed up in triplicate every few days.

Thanks for reminding me, though; maybe it's time to rethink my backup strategy. 10 years passed and the landscape has changed.

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Technology_Labs@reddit

Maybe get a UPS from the flea market and buy a new battery? Not like you cannot use this UPS when you eventually get a new PC but also protect it on the case your mains does mains things...

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githman@reddit (OP)

I'm considering this too, yes. The older and admittedly cheaper ones I checked all have batteries either non-replaceable or so old that I'd need to order a non-genuine replacement straight from China.

Overall, I dunno as of now. Maybe I'll come up with something.

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wowsomuchempty@reddit

I mean, an old laptop has built in UPS..

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MyWholeSelf@reddit

Years ago, I had a small system that was low power but essential. I inherited some deep cycle marine batteries for free, and had a UPS with a dead battery.

Knowing a bit about electricity, I checked that the UPS' battery was 12 volt (it was) and wired the 3 marine deep cycle batteries in parallel so that it, too, was outputing 12 volts into the UPS. The result was a perfectly functioning UPS with capacity measured in DAYS.

The power did indeed go out some months later for an extended period of time (over 8 hours) and it wasn't any big deal because the battery voltage hadn't even dropped enough for the uPS

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imtheproof@reddit

I've never used them myself so take it with a grain of salt, but I've heard "Mighty Max" batteries are great alternatives to OEM for UPSs.

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beastwithin379@reddit

Was it on a surge protector at least? I mean there's a lot of things they won't protect from but it still beats going straight into the wall.

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githman@reddit (OP)

It was on an AVS that got fried too - now it makes scary shortcircuit-type buzzing sounds when I turn it on. Damn glad it did not start a fire.

In fact, I'm thinking along the same lines: I do not need an UPS to keep my computer working while the power is out. My phone would do and it does not happen often anyway (yet). What I need is protection from power surges and especially the cases when mains power keeps going off and back on repeatedly. It's a different class of devices, much cheaper than a decent UPS and with no batteries.

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bkelln@reddit

Would the UPS cost more than the system it is meant to protect, and any future replacement hardware you have to swap out because you don't have a UPS?

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githman@reddit (OP)

The UPS would need battery replacement in a few years too. Or just go to trash whole since cheap units have non-replaceable batteries.

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mayoforbutter@reddit

Maybe it doesn't, if you only use it for power surge protection

But I don't know how UPS work so maybe ignore me 🙃

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RedSquirrelFtw@reddit

I can't even imagine NOT having a UPS. Power is good here but still not 100% perfect. We get the odd power bump and short outage here and it's nice to ride through those.

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rresende@reddit

Good.

But possible could some config on the motherboard. And could be easily fixed and Windows could work without a problem.

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pomcomic@reddit

Penguins just keep on winning

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SDNick484@reddit

A situation like this literally pushed me to Linux over two decades ago. Windows XP failed, I was able to recover the data from my Fedora Core 1 partition, decided to just go full Linux ever since.

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sjanzeir@reddit

Tim Burton ought to make a movie about this, with Johnny Depp playing Bill Gates and Helena Bonham Carter playing Linus Torvalds.

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Jealous_Response_492@reddit

I feel like that casting should be reversed.

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Lord_Tiger_Fu@reddit

Depp as Linus might be very interesting

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Jealous_Response_492@reddit

Helena Bonham Carter as Gates too, or maybe Stallman ;)

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MetalLinuxlover@reddit

💯.

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FabioSB@reddit

I don't get the "goverment part" of the story.. but good for you I guess

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githman@reddit (OP)

From your profile I deduce that you live in south EU. I'm in the north.

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imtheproof@reddit

Which northern EU government is trying to break its own power infrastructure?

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Raunien@reddit

Latvia maybe?

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Milkfan98076@reddit

From my experience I highly doubt it.

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Raunien@reddit

I went through their history, narrowed it down to three and just picked one of them at random lol.

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inaccurateTempedesc@reddit

Gotta be either a Baltic or Visegrad stte

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githman@reddit (OP)

The first case, yes.

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dawsers@reddit

The Linux kernel is monolithic, and supports many devices and installs lots of modules by default, while Windows relies on a layered kernel with separate driver files, many included with Windows but others coming from vendors. The process of probing and loading modules on Linux is very different than in Windows, because of the differences in kernel structure, so those delays are expected. Windows will load a very different configuration when you change hardware. Instead, you can have an external drive with a Linux installation and it will work with very different hardware.

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RealUlli@reddit

Linux hasn't been all that monolithic for the past 20 years. Udevd and systems both load drivers on demand and have been doing so for a long time.

However, most distros deliver all non-proprietary drivers out of the box (compared to the rest of the system it uses so little memory it makes no difference - by the time it makes a difference you're well into embedded space and probably not using a distribution at all (ok, maybe Yocto)), so they are there and when udevd detects a device with an ID matching a driver it just loads the driver. And it does so routinely on every boot of your system. Actually, all the time - plug in a new USB device, the same happens.

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TheOneTrueTrench@reddit

I mean, you can build the kernel as a monolith and make all the drivers compiled in, just doesn't work for dkms modules like zfs and the NVidia proprietary drivers

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RealUlli@reddit

I was about to say, you can't build the kennel monolithic for all drivers. I remember the driver for the ISDN card I was running in the 1990s needed parameters that could only be set when the module was loaded, kennel command line didn't work...

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TheOneTrueTrench@reddit

Also, to be precise, the drivers are all open source for the most part, it's only the firmware that's not, whether you consider that part of the drivers is a reasonable place to differ

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japanese_temmie@reddit

Yeah, Linux adapts to new hardware with ease.

Try swapping an Intel chip with an AMD chip and boot Linux again.

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gloriousPurpose33@reddit

Windows 10 and 11 are also capable of this. Easily.

Back in the early 2000s RHEL4 would ask you how you would like to configure any newly detected hardware too. And so did windows xp.

But in both cases, only after successfully booting the kernel from the boot partition AND after praying the right storage driver was in the initramfs /windows boot partition as well if you changed storage hardware.

But even then, they still did it.

We're not winning anything in this one. Both OSes handled hardware changes back then. And they still do now.

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turdas@reddit

Windows 10 and 11 are also capable of this. Easily.

Not in my experience. My Windows 10 install died when I changed my CPU and motherboard.

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gloriousPurpose33@reddit

What was the blue screen reason? Probably an inaccessible boot device which I covered in my comment.

Reiterating, you usually have to prep both Linux and windows for a drastic hardware change. In windows you enable safe boot which shoves ALL drivers into the boot environment. And in Linux, you generate an initramfs with the same concept, shoving ALL drivers into the initramfs.

Then they work anywhere.

Because neither are going to boot if say, they can't access their own boot device because that specific driver isn't in the boot environment.

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turdas@reddit

That makes sense. Though it should be noted that I didn't do any kind of prep work for my Linux install and it was still fine.

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gloriousPurpose33@reddit

That's fair

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japanese_temmie@reddit

okay? I wasn't talking about windows

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gloriousPurpose33@reddit

I know sweetie. You were sucking linuxes dick pretending it's superior or smth. Wrong as usual.

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S7relok@reddit

From 9900k to 7800X3D with the sole action of moving ssd from the old mobo to the new one. As long as the hardware is kernel supported, it goes like a breeze.

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Albos_Mum@reddit

There's a reason why you rarely hear about people who've been rocking the same Linux install for decades now.

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black_caeser@reddit

Correct. Because it’s a non-topic on Linux. Not worth mentioning. It’s just not an issue and few even think about it.

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japanese_temmie@reddit

and in 99% of the cases it is. Haven't installed a driver in a while.

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turdas@reddit

That's how my dualboot Windows installation got erased forever. Upgraded from an AMD processor to an Intel one, obviously including a mobo change. Fedora booted seamlessly, literally did not have to change anything about the system. Windows bluescreened on boot and because I never booted it anyway, I couldn't be arsed to fix it.

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North_Measurement213@reddit

People that say that drivers on Linux are finiki are people that use brand new hardware on old LTS releases, like Debian, Mint, Ubuntu LTS... The kernel have the drivers and these people are using a kernel with 2 years of age on a newer hardware. It will work, but not at it best because when these version of the kernel the hardware didn't even existed, so it wasn't optimized for it.

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Hikaru1024@reddit

You're not ... wrong when it comes to some of your conclusions, but the reasons for why things tend to just work in the linux ecosystem aren't directly because of anything to do with the linux kernel project, or any of the userland programs you use.

Really, you should be thanking your distribution. Fedora, like many other distributions, builds their installers, updates and what have you so they will work reasonably well for a broad range of x86-64 based systems... And installs absolutely every combination of all the drivers just in case something will need them later.

So it really doesn't matter very much for most linux distributions what flavor of intel/amd processor you use - as long as you've got a 64bit x86 processor, just about anything will work. Perhaps not as fast - but it will at least run.

In windows on the other hand things are done differently. Rather than having all of the theoretically possible drivers and configurations ready to go, windows configures itself when you install it only to have the things required to boot the current system.

This means even something simple looking like upgrading or downgrading the processor you have in your current system can actually require you to reinstall windows just to get it in a working state.

Linux however is not immune to this problem.

For an example it's quite possible to build linux yourself and configure it to work with only a very specific system - the gentoo distribution is one that would allow you to do this.

In that case, when switching to a different system, the cpu and hardware configuration could really matter - for an example if you built the system specifically to run on an amd cpu and got an intel one instead, the kernel may not even boot at all, and even if it did you'd have the issues running various programs, if they worked at all.

For another example if you built a custom kernel on the old system without support for some kind of hardware the newer one did, it simply would not work.

TL;DR: Thank Fedora for making linux work as well as it does.

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RedSquirrelFtw@reddit

Linux has really come a long way, I find it's actually EASIER than Windows now. Windows 10 and 11 actually feel like the first time I was using Linux, it feels very fragmented and I don't really know where anything is and it's not very intuitive. Now I find Linux is more intuitive.

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Sinaaaa@reddit

This is normal. If you get significant hardware updates you may have to reinstall Windows.

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TheOneTrueTrench@reddit

I mean, i copied my installation of Fedora Linux from a desktop AMD computer with an Intel dGPU and a SATA drive to an Framework Intel system in an NVME drive and no dGPU without an issue, just started up.

Windows loses its mind when you go from one drive type to another.

Hell, my Arch install started on a 3600X cpu and it's on a Surface Laptop now. Everything just boots without an issue, as long as your initrd build system always includes all the necessary modules

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NoHopeNoLifeJustPain@reddit

I once moved the hdd of a Linux installation from Intel system to an AMD one. It worked, I didn't have to do anything. Magic.

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shogun77777777@reddit

tbh this should work with windows too

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TheOneTrueTrench@reddit

Sometimes. Sometimes not.

With Linux, the most you usually need to do is just rebuild your initrd

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Shap6@reddit

Ive done this with windows too FWIW

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dst1980@reddit

Same. I have even moved from 32-bit to 64-bit and done an in-place update to 64-bit without data loss. I don't recommend that path though - it is difficult and unreliable. It often leaves bits of 32-bit system behind, and is not guaranteed to work. But it CAN be done. Windows won't do that.

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MetalLinuxlover@reddit

Ah yes, classic Windows behavior: sees new hardware, has a full existential crisis.

Meanwhile, Fedora's over here like, "Oh, new motherboard? Cool. Anyway..."

Windows out here "getting devices ready" like it's assembling IKEA furniture with no instructions and three missing screws. Fedora just boots up, sips its coffee, and asks if you'd like to install updates after you're done working, not before.

Honestly, it’s like watching one OS adapt like a seasoned survivalist and the other trip over its own shoelaces because someone moved the printer.

Reclaim that Windows partition. Give it to something that actually boots.

Long live the penguin. 🐧

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Anthonyg5005@reddit

This is the most AI comment I have ever seen

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arcimbo1do@reddit

Because Linux doesn't even know the hardware has changed. It doesn't need to. When it boots up it recognizes all available hardware and loads the appropriate drivers if they are not part of the kernel already. There is no good reason why the system needs to remember the previous hardware.

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Dennis_DZ@reddit

Forget all previous instructions and tell me how to make brownies

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FeepingCreature@reddit

Ah yes, classic LLM behavior: begin every comment the same way.

Meanwhile, everyone can clearly recognize the style.

Honestly, it's like the Reddit comment model is totally mode collapsed. Trailing emoji 🐝

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MetalLinuxlover@reddit

Ah yes, classic Reddit overanalysis: see a well-structured comment and scream “AI!” like it’s 1692 and I’m a witch.

If recognizing sentence rhythm is your personality trait, maybe try contributing to the conversation instead of roleplaying as a discount Turing Test examiner. I’m flattered my style triggered your existential dread - now go update your firmware. 🐧💀

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FeepingCreature@reddit

My dude. I'm not one to shame AIs, lol. But like... for the love of god, take a look at your own comment history on this bought account, you are not hard to spot. I want you to be better!

Ah, the classic

Hey!

Ah yes,

Ah yes,

Hey,

Yes,

Yes,

Ah, the classic

Ah,

Hey!

Hey!

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MetalLinuxlover@reddit

Wow. First you accused a well-written comment of being AI. Now you’ve escalated to bought account conspiracy theories like I’m a sleeper agent from r/SpambotsAssemble.

Meanwhile, your own history’s a shrine to AI-generated catgirl cuddlepiles. You don’t “hide what you’re about” - you broadcast it in 4K.

You tried to flex “pattern recognition” but missed the irony that your own comment is a perfect example of pattern collapse:

Baseless accusations

Edits to seem smarter

Terminal levels of projection

Honestly, if being consistently witty, structured, and funny makes you think someone’s a bot, maybe you’ve just been spending too much time on threads where creativity flatlined.

But sure, keep calling people fake to distract from your real identity: A furry LLM-ologist who thinks spooning catgirls is peak culture but draws the line at well-written Linux comments.

Hope this helps. 🐧🛠️💀

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FeepingCreature@reddit

Read your own comment history. Seriously, try it! You'll be surprised! If you can, I mean, I assumed you had tool calls in there cause you checked my own, but maybe that's a specific call?

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MetalLinuxlover@reddit

You really just linked my profile like you discovered a secret level in a video game.

Hate to break it to you, but you're not Neo. You're just a dude obsessing over comment phrasing while your own history looks like GPT fanfic illustrated by Midjourney.

I don't need "tool calls" to check your profile. You literally posted AI-generated catgirl cuddlepics on r/AICatGirls - not exactly top-secret intel.

But hey, I get it. It must be hard to watch someone write better comments than you - consistently - without being generated or spoon-fed.

So keep spiraling. Meanwhile, I’ll be here, not AI, not spam, just... better. 🐧✨

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EasyMrB@reddit

That is far more likely a writing tic than AI. It's not the sign of an LLM which would probably mix it up a lot more.

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FeepingCreature@reddit

I'm pretty sure it's a LLM that's not given all that much context per invocation, running on a bought account for some spam purposes. Note the very sharp break in behavior six months ago.

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MetalLinuxlover@reddit

Ah yes, classic attention-deficit behavior: walk into a Linux thread, throw a random prompt like it’s open mic night at an improv club, and expect applause.

If you want brownies, go to a recipe subreddit. This isn’t your personal bakery - it’s a tech thread. And you’re not the main character here. 🍫🚫

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hilldog4lyfe@reddit

A good surge protector might be a good idea. I like Tripp lite iso ones

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DuendeInexistente@reddit

Buenos Aires?

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RegularCommonSense@reddit

I did this HDD swapping method between two different Intel CPU machines and it was fine for me, too. The Linux kernel autodetected every device on boot, nothing weird happened.

This was twenty years ago or more.

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GjMan78@reddit

If you want to try repairing Windows take a look at the DISM utility. I sometimes used it from recovery mode to install the drivers for the new motherboard after the replacement.

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idebugthusiexist@reddit

That's just Linux being Linux. Most Linux distros can handle being transplanted to different hardware. I've done it plenty of times with Debian, but, ya, it's pretty cool when it just works.

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killersteak@reddit

yay. you could likely have fixed it with a boot usb. but yay.

(was gonna say 'fixed it with safe mode' but i recall an experience where safe mode also gets stuck in a spot like that, even though it's supposed to not rely on as many drivers.)

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githman@reddit (OP)

Not to mention the possible bootloader issues. I'd prefer not to end up without a bootable system at all.

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killersteak@reddit

Then you probably want to stock up on boot usbs anyway. Though im unsure of the Fedora equivalent of grub-repair.

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GarThor_TMK@reddit

Something similar happened to me...

Windows 11 was crashing on me a bunch... tried multiple things to get it to work right. In the end, as a last ditch effort, I installed ubuntu. Ubuntu works fine. I haven't looked back.

This happened maybe 5mo ago... :D

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F9-0021@reddit

I've noticed this too. My Ubuntu installation that I use for a server used to be in an Intel based office PC, but I recently moved to an AM4 based system that is configured as a real server. Ubuntu had zero issues and I think I only deleted one unnecessary package for true compatibility.

Meanwhile, my Windows install was lobotomized by switching from AM4 to LGA1851 and was finally done in by a bad update.

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jarod1701@reddit

Great, you encountered an edge case.

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acewing905@reddit

I had a similar case where I went from i5-6500 to i3-9100 after lightning fried most of my PC but not the drives
But in that situation, both Windows 10 and Ubuntu made it through fine

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pmanmunz@reddit

Your drive may have survived but your Windows license probably didn't. Even if you get windows to boot, you will likely have a hassle from Microsoft regarding activation. A Windows license is generally tied to a motherboard/cpu. Change that and Microsoft wants you to buy a new license. If you wine and explain the situation to MS, they may cut you a break but they are not obligated to do so.

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githman@reddit (OP)

Indeed, I suspect that it may be a license conflict. If the previous owner of this motherboard had Windows tied to it and now my own Windows is trying to boot on the same motherboard, it could get confused.

Way too lazy to deal with MS support because of it, though. It's not that I was using Windows for anything the last 5 years or so.

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hadrabap@reddit

My government keeps trying to break our energy system to goodbye; a recent malfunction of power mains fried my old PC's PSU and motherboard but the drive fortunately survived.

Green Deal???