> They are slow because Windows got heavier while the hardware stayed the same.

That is not true. They are slow, because ALL software got better and more advanced and that is not only the operating system. It always makes me mad when people say that macOS is so optimized you can do more than on windows.

No. Old hardware not having a hardware decoder for modern youtube videos won't play them.

Modern webpages full of interactive realtime features won't fit in the RAM or will be bottlecked by a cpu. Yes, the modern linux will run, but are you going to do anything more than opening a notepad or old software? No. You are not going to use modern web apps or software on it.

Is it okay? Yes. Optimizing for old hardware is EXPENSIVE. Just move on.

>If the machine cannot run a lightweight Linux desktop at a usable speed after you have applied the optimizations in this guide, it is time to recycle it

or better yet, install NetBSD. That system will run on anything that old :)

If you think Linux is a good candidate for older hardware (which it is) wait until you try a BSD.

Slackware and Hyperbola GNU/Linux still run fast. Just pick XFCE instead of KDE under Slackware.

Deselect KDE if you don't need it. If the machine is old, it's better to use XFCE and install the rest later.

If you install and setup slapt-get you might install some nice KDE/Plasma software later to run under KDE. Then you can set the QT5 theme to GTK2 under /etc/profile.d/qt.sh (chmod +x it) and this content:

        export QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=gtk2

Slackware is not 100% free but you can compile a libre kernel from FSFLA with ease and drop it into the UEFI partition or /boot and run the required grub/lilo/elilo command later.

I’ve got a 15 year old workstation that I’m breathing new life into, but fortunately starting from a higher baseline. 24GB of RAM is going to 96GB, and it turns out it should be able to use an NVMe drive, so have a card and an M2 drive on the way. The annoying thing is that the GTX 460 is no longer supported by the Nvidia driver so I’m back to nouveau. That might get replaced with something more modern. I had an old Mint installed and decided to blow it away with stock Debian, and Claude’s setting up nix VMs for itself to run in. It has been crazy how $4k in 2011 for an SR-2 system has yielded a long productive life for this box.

> They are slow because Windows got heavier while the hardware stayed the same.

Heavier and then full of spyware, pardon, telemetry.

It's not just old hardware: I've got a laptop, some Lenovo thing, I bought used from a friend (as part of a pack with a NUC etc.). It had Windows 11 on it: I was Windows-free since many years, decades even already. So I got to "experiment" Windows 11 a bit again.

I don't understand how people can use a computer that does so many heavy updates, for a start.

Then Windows is simply dogshit slow as TFA point out.

It's not a beefy laptop: it's got only 6 GB of RAM (6 is a weird number but it is what it is) but...

It works totally fine under Linux (actually I'm typing this from the couch on this little laptop). Sure, my "24 GB of RAM" laptop is better, but with 6 GB this laptop under Linux definitely works. It runs OrcaSlicer fine, etc.

It's not just on older hardware that Linux is much better than Windows: on modern hardware too.

>The honest assessment: If the machine cannot run a lightweight Linux desktop at a usable speed after you have applied the optimizations in this guide, it is time to recycle it responsibly. Most municipalities have e-waste collection programs. Do not throw it in the trash. The components contain recyclable metals and toxic materials that need proper handling.

This is the whole point.Linux helps in that judgement whether to keep or throw the box.

OS/2 might also be an option on some of this older hardware.