Do you want to help prevent millions of kilos of electronic waste? With our new starter kit – only available in Dutch now, but soon in English too – we’ll guide you through launching your own Linux Repair Café.
Overcoming cold feet
On October 14, Microsoft will stop supporting Windows 10. Many older computers and laptops cannot handle the upgrade to Windows 11. That means around 240 million PCs and laptops are at risk of being discarded! Repair Café International is here to help by making the switch to the alternative operating system Linux easier. Linux is free, community-owned, and continuously developed. But many people hesitate to take the plunge. That’s why we want to set up special Linux Repair Cafés. Will you join us?
How to start a Linux Repair Café
You can host a special Linux session within an existing Repair Café—or you can set up a stand-alone initiative. Our new starter kit contains everything you need to prepare for a Linux Repair Café:
- Technical instructions for volunteers on installing Linux Mint (including a special installation version)
- A ready-made presentation about Linux to show visitors
- A step-by-step guide to organizing your Linux Repair Café
First reactions are enthusiastic
A volunteer installs Linux on the computer of a visitorThe foundation has already tested three Linux Repair Cafés in Amsterdam. Visitors learned everything they needed to know about Linux, tried it out on demo computers and could get Linux installed for free on their own laptops.
Our colleague Rieneke Post reports: “After Martine Postma talked about this on national radio, the trial sessions were packed. Personal help turns out to be the key to overcoming people’s hesitation. That’s why we now want to roll out these Linux Repair Cafés more widely. And we’ll need lots of volunteers to make that happen! Luckily, Linux has plenty of fans eager to help.”
Get started with your Linux Repair Café
A Linux Mint installation in processExisting Repair Cafés can download our starter kit for free. New initiatives are asked for a voluntary donation. The kit also includes a user-friendly manual for beginners who have just installed Linux on their computer. That way, the switch becomes even easier.
No mention has been made of the fact that Microsoft have agreed that they will give a one year extension to W10 users who cant upgrade if requested.
Dear Michael, you are absolutely right! We are aware of this fact.
However, after this year Microsoft’s plan is still to stop the support for Windows 10.
We expect this will still generate a huge amount of electrical waste.
We are trying to save as many computers as possible and the year extra will give some extra time to prepare, but their decision does not change.
Best,
Rieneke
Repair Café International
A huge amount of electrical waste? Won’t most people ( the non power users)get bombarded with offers to upgrade to win 11?
And the power users will switch to Linux or Mac or Android OS, is my guess
I think they making a charge for this??
This is correct, they are charging $30,- for an extra year of updates.
Where can we get one of these kits, we are currently refurbishing old laptops and giving them to a local college for students that cannot afford their own laptop.
Starting them off with Linux Mint would be so good.
Where can we get one of these kits, we are currently refurbishing old laptops and giving them to a local college for students that cannot afford their own laptop.
Starting them off with Linux Mint would be so good.
Thanks
Dear Graham, how great you are doing that!
We hope to have the whole kit ready in English mid October!
Best,
Rieneke
Repair Café International
Hi,
How do I order a starter kit for the Linux Repair Café?
Thanks
Ken Wallace
Transition Wilmslow Repair Café Organiser.
Dear Ken, thank you for your message!
The starter kit will become available before mid october!
When it is available, you can find and download it after logging on the regular download page.
Best regards,
Rieneke
Repair Café International
We are looking forward to providing information and assistance downloading Linux Mint at our October 18 Repair Cafe in Maple Ridge, BC, Canada!! Thank you for all the help and walkthroughs!!
Apropos Starter Kit, hier ist die ToDo-Liste von einem Teilnehmer von unserem LinuxTreff:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16lba9g0zZl2orlYtcix_JcfASn25vpRW/
Offenbar ist es gemacht, wenn der Rechner bereits ein altes Betriebssystem hat. Je nach dem braucht man Varianten.
This is really interesting. I had a go with Mint a few years ago. I will migrate a laptop, see how it goes and report back to our Repair cafe.
Great to hear! Good luck!
Is there a set of instructions that we can download to support volunteers in installing Mint? I can’t see any links on this page.
Dear Maidstone Repair Café, happy to read you are looking forward to the starter kit! We are finishing as we speak the kit in English. We hope to have everything online next week!
Thank you for your patience.
Best,
Repair Café International
Beste Rieneke,
Ik ben lid/vrijwilligster van een repaircafé in Reynes Zuid Frankrijk (66400). Gisteren heeft een discussie plaats gevonden over de mogelijkheid om iets te doen met de Linux repair café. Ik heb gezien dat er een starter pakket in het NL bestaat en ook in het Engels. Ik neem aan dat er nog geen Franse versie bestaat 😉. Hoe kunnen we aan de NL en/of de Engelse versie komen?
Beste Caroline, bedankt voor je mail! Ik heb gisteren gereageerd, maar ter info voor andere die meelezen:
We hebben een beetje vertraging, maar hopen dat volgende week het startpakket in alle talen online komt te staan.
De Nederlandse – voor degene die dit kunnen lezen – is al te downloaden via hun account, maar dan moeten ze na inloggen de website even op het Nederlands zetten.
Groet!
Rieneke
Hmm why does the photo show an Apple Mac laptop, as a Mac user I’m not affected by the Windows fiasco.
Please note that there are other operating systems such as Google’s Chrome OS. Look at blackmarket website on their fight back ‘The Obsolete Computer’ how to fight planned obsolescence
Dear Tessa, you are absolutely right!
There are other alternatives for Windows 10, however we chose one solution and make this option as easy and accessible as possible to create the largest impact/.
Regarding the photo of the Apple laptop: these photos were taken during a pilot in Amsterdam. One visitor came in with two older macbooks and preferred Linux over MacOS. We decided to give it a try. I understand this might be somewhat confusing.
Best regards,
Rieneke
Linux runs quite nicely on Mac (x86_64) hardware. I’ve used Live DVDs to test out Macs on various occasions (like wiping the HDD when I get a “new” system). As Apple moves to Apple’s ARM processors the older machines will get abandoned much like MSWin7 or 10 systems.
Does the Linux Repair Cafe guide have any discussion on backup/restore of client’s data? In other words, is there an attempt to backup data from the existing OS (presumably Windows) and restore it after Linux is loaded?
Dear Tim,
the Linux starter kit gives the advice that the owner of the laptop to be migrated to Linux should backup all of his or her data, e.g. on a USB stick, because all data on the device will get lost during the installation of Linux.
Best regards from the team of
Repair Café International