Tethered

This is a narrative essay I wrote for my college English class.

I open the garage door and take a step inside to flip the light switch. The garage is disheveled and dusty, the shelves along the walls are filled with indiscernible items and unlabeled plastic storage boxes. There is barely a path left, and I step around Kirkland paper towels and a cardboard box full of old books. “It should be back here somewhere” says Opal as she wades with me into the mess. “Maybe in there?” She points to a cabinet underneath a workbench. I crouch and open the cabinet, coughing as I reach around to find it. The cabinet wood is rough but I’m relieved to feel the smooth metal coolness of a laptop shell. I pull out the laptop and its power cord and stand to inspect. It’s thin and lightweight. The aluminum shell is dusty, but free of any scratches or dents. The Microsoft logo shines through the dust. I open it up, and I’m greeted by a large touchscreen display, and velvet-like fabric around the keycaps. The fabric, once blue, is worn and turning slightly brown. “So what’s wrong with it? Why did he give it to you?” I ask Opal. “The battery quit working, and it needs to be plugged into power to work, so he had to buy a new one. He gave it to me just in case I wanted it as a backup laptop for school in case mine quit working.” I’m shocked to find fabric on a laptop, and after looking around the keyboard and on the bottom of the laptop, I find no screws. We turn around and leave the garage, and I rush upstairs to test the laptop and see what use I can get out of it.

My current laptop is really bulky and heavy, and far too cumbersome to travel with or fit into a backpack, which meant it felt more like a full sized PC. I wanted something that was easy to travel with and use anywhere. Due to its bad battery, the Surface laptop I unearthed only partially solved my immobility, but it wasn’t like I would be using the laptop in the woods. There are ample wall plugs in my home and on campus.

The Surface Laptop 2 was released in 2018. It featured modern hardware and was snappy to use. Microsoft in their description of the Surface states that the “Signature Alcantara fabric on the keyboard and palm rest is stain-resistant, wears beautifully, and is specially treated for easy cleaning.” My device looks otherwise, with a faded denim color and browning on one edge. Opal’s father wanted to repair the battery, but the Alcantara body of the keyboard was glued together, which made it essentially impossible to reassemble after taking it apart. This made it futile to replace the battery or any other part of the laptop. This shocked me. I had heard of planned obsolescence before, but never had it smack me in the face so hard. This thing was born to die. I had already replaced the battery on my old laptop when it had failed; the part was simple to find and swap, so this lack of repairability disturbed me deeply.

It feels wrong to throw something useful away. I was raised to be mindful of my electronic devices, to treat them with care so they last. My family did not upgrade devices – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. My parents valued technology, but did not buy into the hype of always having the newest and nicest devices. It took years to upgrade our old TV, our desktop computer was slow but it still worked. They made more than enough money to buy new phones and TV’s if they wanted to, but they did not believe in sending anything to the dump that didn’t need to be. “Waste not, want not” was a phrase uttered by my mother nearly daily. I always had the oldest generation smartphone in my friend group, and my peers would be aghast at the slow speed and small screen size. I didn’t really care. It still worked.

After plugging in the laptop, I tried to install the new version of Microsoft Windows. The last release was no longer supported, and Microsoft would no longer issue security updates. When booting into Windows, I was greeted by the message “This PC doesn’t currently meet Windows 11 system requirements. Here’s why: The processor isn’t supported for this version of Windows.” I couldn’t believe it. Not only was this relatively new laptop irreparable, its hardware is rejected by the company that made it. I was outraged by how wasteful this is. It seemed unethical for Microsoft to design a device they expected users to discard after only a few years, then force an upgrade for no good reason other than greed. I felt like I had been scammed, even though I hadn’t spent a dime on it.

As a student of cybersecurity and networking, I had recently taken an introduction to information-technology class. There we learned about Linux, a free and open source operating system that was popularly used on servers. It could also be installed on a personal computer. We practiced installing the operating system in the class, inside of a virtual machine, and learned some basic commands for the terminal.

All of the Linux kernel’s code is openly available, and anybody can contribute to it. Anybody can tinker with it, make their own version, and support the project. Thousands of developers worldwide commit code and keep it updated. Because of how well vetted it is, it’s used on 90% of servers globally. TikTok, Netflix, and even Google all run on a Linux server somewhere. It supports all hardware and has very few requirements.

With my newly learned IT knowledge, I was able to put Linux onto the Surface. I felt giddy installing something other than than Microsoft Windows on Microsoft’s own hardware. I breathed new life into this laptop with the fresh Linux install. I now had a well functioning piece of modern hardware, aged only by the Alcantara wear and the ever-present low-battery status indicator.

This laptop, destined for a dump, is now a fast, modern machine. I really enjoyed how this whole endeavor was completely free for me. To use Windows, you have to either buy new hardware that comes with it preinstalled or purchase a copy from Microsoft. You also must create and use an online Microsoft account. This means you can’t install it offline or without an account. The opposite is true with any Linux distribution: there are no internet requirements or account requirements. The computer and operating system are yours to use as you please.

I now have a lightweight laptop I can toss in my backpack and use anywhere that has power. I do most of my work through a browser, and I write my essays with the free and open source version of Word called LibreOffice Writer. It boots up fast, and when moving between work spaces it never stutters. This laptop now easily competes with brand new laptops running Windows 11, and probably even beats them in speed and responsiveness thanks to Linux’s lightweight nature.

If you absolutely must use specific proprietary software like Microsoft Office or Adobe Suite, you also must use Windows. Microsoft is great for enterprise and business because of all the support they provide. However if you don’t need your computer to run those programs, Linux is a much better option. Most people just use their computer browse the web, do light productivity, and maybe play some games. Linux is perfect for those use cases and I couldn’t recommend it more for the average user. It enables you to use whatever hardware you want.

There’s something about holding onto my old devices that makes me feel like a rebel. I’m raising my metaphorical finger to the tech giants who want me to buy more of their products. The new devices feature more telemetry and trackers than ever before, allowing Microsoft and Google to build richer profiles of me, serve me more targeted ads, and ultimately push me toward buying new products. It’s a vicious cycle that I don’t want to participate in.