As the article notes, the increase seems to be driven mainly by users in Asia, where recycling and reusing older hardware is quite common. I wonder if third-party companies are offering extended security patches there, which could make affordable second-hand Windows 7 machines more appealing for people who just need them for browsing or light tasks. It would certainly make sense given recent fiascos and Microsoft’s current stance on AI, especially with generative AI being used to develop system-level code.
How moddings tool like MO2 and the mods from nexus are behaving on Linux ?
Also, PCVR, playing HALF LIFE ALYX, Arizona Sunshine, OpenMW VR are huge deal breakers for me
I don’t think I’ve actually played any of those so I can’t speak to them but hopefully someone else can. There is a website you can check compatibility on although I don’t know if it includes non-games and/or tools. Arizona Sunshine looks like it’s fine: https://www.protondb.com/search?q=arizona+sunshine
If it’s gold or higher it’ll almost certainly play without issue. Silver will very likely play if you tweak the compatibility settings to change proton versions (go to game options in steam > compatibility > change the version. Bronze is hit or miss, you’ll likely be able to get it to work but it might require more work. Borked is of course…borked.
Anyways, someone else can probably answer those games specifically but if not you can use the website to check.