RM> > That's where I am now with my Win7 Laptop. I am pretty much out
  > > of browser update options that will still run on it and that's
  > > starting to cause problems. The newest browser did its final update
  > > in late 2023, which was not bad I guess for a system built in 2011.
  > >
  > > Eventually I'll have to break down and start using an ASUS Laptop
  > > I got a couple of years ago which is ready for a free upgrade to
  > > Windows 11 once I get to it. But when you've used a computer for
  > > 10 or 15 years it's a bit of a shock to start over with a new one.

AR>That sounds to me more like a Windows problem than a "general" problem, to be
  >nest.

AR>I could keep upgrading the software on my lameass workstations prety much ind
  >nitely just by upgrading their Linux/BSD versions.

It's definitely a Windows problem, although I suspect at some point hardware
will get so old that even Linux won't run much on it.
I've looked into 'light' versions of Linux a few times and with my warped
past I would gravitate to versions that look and work more like Windows.
I may try that out again at some point but my comment about learing new
things is still there, you either learn to use software that is common
to Linux or do without.

I've used a few light versions of Puppy Linux in the past, but just
enough to get them running with the basics working. I see a lot of
horror stories online of having to download new libraries to get
software working with Linux, plus I believe they are almost all
command line use for changes to things, which means learning that.

I could do almost anything possible in DOS in the Olde Days, I was
writing commercial software by 1985, but I'm not sure I'd be up to
learning another computer language from scratch.  Old dogs..   B)

You'd maybe know better whether the programs that allow some Windows
software to run on Linux would work on older less powerful systems.
I do have a lot of games and software that I've used since I was
running Windows 95 / 98 that I'd hate to lose. A simple work-around
for now would be running two computers on a switch so I could do the
modern stuff on Windows 11 and keep the old Windows 7 machine for the
other old software. (I use full sized hardware attached to my Laptops
so it's more like a Desktop system when I'm at home.)

AR>Things only break appart if
  >you are using an old Nvidia card (because their drivers are tailored to speci
  >ic graphics compositors and kernel versions, so upgrading them past certain a
  >gets difficult) or once your new things require more resources than the old m
  >ine can provide.

My Windows 7 system uses AMD Graphics and I rarely update things that
are working. If it works, don't fix it..

Anyways, as I said, I may get into some Linux version in the near future
to see how bad it's going to be.

I still have a Tower on the desk with a suped up version of Windows 98
on it that I finally stopped using maybe 3 years ago. I do tend to stick
with things until the last dog is hung..   B)

---
 * SLMR Rob  * Strike any user when ready
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