Sustainability is an increasingly important problem in computing. Reduce, reuse, and recycle is a famous motto for environmentally responsible consumption, but applying it to computer hardware can be challenging.
Many proprietary operating systems force a hardware upgrade upon you long before your old hardware is used up. If you own a computer with Windows, you’ve probably needed to purchase a new one to upgrade because your old one didn’t meet the hardware requirements of the latest operating system (OS). Apple doesn’t do any better, either. A 2017 MacBook Air I owned was essentially rendered obsolete by its age in 2024. No security upgrades beyond seven years.
By contrast, I run Linux on my five-year-old laptop, and it still runs like new. Because the Linux kernel is more efficient with resources compared to other operating systems, it can run successfully on older hardware. I’ve never been forced to purchase new hardware to upgrade Linux.
The advantage of Linux is that it is free and open source. With a few notable exceptions, most Linux distributions are free of charge and are not the product of a large technology company with profit in mind. Even businesses that offer Linux products know that profitability doesn’t lie in selling software and forcing updates but in stellar support of what their customers are trying to do with that software. Simply put, Linux is the best bet for a sustainable operating system.