Microsoft literally wanted me to convert my desktop to e-waste as it lacks the magical TPM chip that Win11 demands.
I said “fuck that” and pulled the Boot SSD, kept the existing non-boot drives for data, and put in a brand new SSD, encrypted it and installed Pop OS in one shot.
Not only was it easy, I lost literally zero critical functionality vs. what I had with Win 10. There is a Linux app equivalent for everything I had before. I had a few driver issues but most were auto-discovered including obscure ancient printers and scanners on my network.
Depends on if you use any security features that require a TPM. If not, the older chips are fine, or some motherboards allow a separate TPM chip to be added.
For example, my employer requires TPM 2.0 for both Windows and Linux systems, since they store most encryption keys and certificates on it - including WPA2-Enterprise key for wifi, 802.1x key for wired Ethernet, SSH keys (in some cases), LUKS key for full-disk encryption on Linux, Bitlocker key on Windows, etc.
For home use, if you don’t use any of those features (or require strong encryption for them), the main thing you’ll miss out on is support for Windows 11, which is fine if you’re using Linux.
Microsoft literally wanted me to convert my desktop to e-waste as it lacks the magical TPM chip that Win11 demands.
I said “fuck that” and pulled the Boot SSD, kept the existing non-boot drives for data, and put in a brand new SSD, encrypted it and installed Pop OS in one shot.
Not only was it easy, I lost literally zero critical functionality vs. what I had with Win 10. There is a Linux app equivalent for everything I had before. I had a few driver issues but most were auto-discovered including obscure ancient printers and scanners on my network.
It’s not TPM. Older Intel CPU’s have unpatchable hardware flaws.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/5-years-of-intel-cpus-and-chipsets-have-a-concerning-flaw-thats-unfixable/
How old is it? TPM 2.0 has been standard equipment for nearly ten years now. It’s disabled by default on some systems.
Intel Core 8th gen and above, and Ryzen 2000 series and above, should all have TPM 2.0 built into the CPU (fTPM)
Does it really matter? I’ve been using my i7 from 2016 and it’s still going strong.
Depends on if you use any security features that require a TPM. If not, the older chips are fine, or some motherboards allow a separate TPM chip to be added.
For example, my employer requires TPM 2.0 for both Windows and Linux systems, since they store most encryption keys and certificates on it - including WPA2-Enterprise key for wifi, 802.1x key for wired Ethernet, SSH keys (in some cases), LUKS key for full-disk encryption on Linux, Bitlocker key on Windows, etc.
For home use, if you don’t use any of those features (or require strong encryption for them), the main thing you’ll miss out on is support for Windows 11, which is fine if you’re using Linux.
In a way, I see the lack of windows support as a positive.
Why did you have to replace the SSD?
I didn’t “have to” but, a few reasons…
Swapping the drive created a pretty easy rollback path that was just “put original drive back”
The drive was ~10 years old, and was in the range of recommended replacement for an SSD with the amount of TBW and age it had.
Original drive was kinda small and a new larger drive was available for not very much money.
In case they had to roll back, and so they can pull data
Arguably sometimes drivers for older devices are more likely to have been ported to Linux at some point then conpletely new devices.