Not just Linux, being free and open in general help immensely to reduce e-waste.
Just think of how many old cellphones that don't receive updates anymore could become media players, portable terminals, IoT consoles, instrumentation interfaces, retrogaming consoles, in-vehicle dash screens, etc. if only the manufacturers released the information necessary to install much faster and open operating systems and write device divers for them. Each one of these old phones recycled that way would be one less phone thrown away.
The Pine 64 isn't anything special hardware wise, actually it's way inferior to most popular phones (but runs much more optimized software, and no preinstalled junkware), however, being able to customize it to the point one day I could give it new life by buying say a faster mainboard instead of a complete cellphone then ditching the old one in a landfill, makes a killer argument in favor of Open Source software and hardware.
As far as I can see, there is essentially zero demand for any of these beyond hobbyists, since they can all be done much better by one’s current phone.
For me, the big reason for open hardware is that Android and iOS are nowhere near meeting the potential for what personal computing could be and we need the freedom to develop alternatives.
> actually it's way inferior to most popular phones (but runs much more optimized software
This isn’t really true. The only general-purpose interface for the PinePhone with any future to it (since UBPorts is based on decaying 2014-era software that even Ubuntu has abandoned) is Phosh, which has not yet been optimized. So much of Phosh’s tech depends on upstream GNOME packages whose devs aren’t terribly interested in optimizing for slower devices.
Also, a modern smartphone relies on a ton of battery optimizations to be reliable for everyday use, and that work has barely started on the PinePhone.
I have an old Macbook Pro 2011. It stopped receiving updates from Apple. I actually did try installing the patched Catalina...but it is practically unusable due to system requirements.
Installed Linux Mint 18 XFCE a while ago and recently upgraded to 20. Now it runs really well: I can watch YouTube, run VS Code, compile stuff, do some basic statistical analyses, etc.
If it weren't for Linux, this machine would end up as waste and I would have to buy something new.
I have a 2011 MBP too (mid year refresh). How was the install? I have already installed Linux on it but it required some tricky GRUB editing to get graphics working at all, and now I’m afraid to update it due to the trouble that was. Did you have to do any of that? Im curious if support has improved. Thanks!
It was no trouble at all. Everything worked. With Mint 20 I did have to revert the touchpad driver to synaptics (just do sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-input-synaptics), because the new driver does not work very well.
The first time I did a clean install and the second I did a dual boot with Catalina (just for fun, Catalina runs like molasses). So I definitely encourage you to try with Mint.
By being the most popular FLOSS OS kernel available, you can be confident that it will be supported for a long time on a multitude of devices independently of manufacturer, provider or vendor. Mainly freedom from planned or non-intentional obsolescence.
Ironically, as the operating system of choice for most phones and smart appliances, all of which go obsolete faster than purpose-built firmware devices, Linux appears in e-waste more than any other freely distributed code.
Which is to say this problem has nothing to do with licenses or repairability.
