Had it with Windows...

[Rich Engelhardt]

Now that I'm retired, I no longer need to run Windows.
I've been putting off the switch to Linux, but, last night's fiasco upgrade of Win 10 - that I neither wanted or needed, but, the Microsoft gods felt my puny opinion didn't count,,,,trashed my laptop.

Rather than try to repair the Windows, I believe now is the time to make a clean break from Microsoft and switch to something else.

Anyone running a Chrome book?
What's a simple easy bulletproof build of Linux?

All I run is a browser (Chrome) and LibreOffice & a few real basic - like picture and mp3 player programs.

Can I run either as a virtual PC?

Mac is out. Too expensive.

[Mike Circo]

I have a cheap refurbished HP laptop (i5 processor 4gb RAM, 320gb drive) that was too weak to run Windows 10 well.
I put Ubuntu 14.04 on it. The latest version 16.04 LTS is out, and that works excellent too.

Takes all of 45 minutes to install. If you opt to load "partner" software, you will get LibreOffice and a bunch of other essential programs.
It has been an absolute dream for web usage and simple office tasks. Fast, simple and absolutely reliable.

I've used windows since the first versions 3.0 came out. Every release I learn to hate it more. Linux and Ubuntu are my go-to for everything except games now.

[Art Mann]

Linux is fine if you can find the software you need for the tasks you have. I use a few CAD programs that are not available under Linux. I also use CNC router design and toolpath generating software than won't work with Linux. I don't like the windows operating system either but sometimes it is your only choice.

[William Adams]

My son uses a Chromebook as his portable and is pleased w/ it --- if one is willing to work w/in Google's cloud storage eco-system it works fine.

Ubuntu is the usual suggestion for a beginners Linux distro and works well on supported hardware. Since Linux is free/opensource, no problems w/ running it in a virtual environment licensing-wise, which is usually the major hurdle.

Another option is to try out a live USB distro --- just place it on a USB flash drive, set your system to allow booting from USB, plug-in and reboot.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Another option is to try out a live USB distro --- just place it on a USB flash drive, set your system to allow booting from USB, plug-in and reboot.Outstanding idea!

[Roger Feeley]

I'm stuck with Windows 10 for business but I swear as soon as I truly retire, I am giving it the heave ho.

Someone once said, "People don't want computers, they want computing." That is, people don't want to mess with updates, registries, drivers and all that other nonsense. They just want to write emails, surf the web and do work. I couldn't agree more. I find it maddening that some simple, real world, issue takes me into a never ending tunnel system of Knowledge Base articles that tell me to change this or that registry entry, uninstall and reinstall stuff and who knows what else.

In that sense, Apple has it right. Yes, their stuff is expensive and you are locked into a closed eco-system. But that tight control means that you get stuff that works more seamlessly.

My Windows computer always needs a bit of tweaking. My iPad just works and has never made me say bad words. I have no experience with Linux. I hear it's somewhere in between.

[George Bokros]

In that sense, Apple has it right. Yes, their stuff is expensive and you are locked into a closed eco-system. But that tight control means that you get stuff that works more seamlessly.

Except for IOS10

[Chuck Wintle]

Now that I'm retired, I no longer need to run Windows.
I've been putting off the switch to Linux, but, last night's fiasco upgrade of Win 10 - that I neither wanted or needed, but, the Microsoft gods felt my puny opinion didn't count,,,,trashed my laptop.

Rather than try to repair the Windows, I believe now is the time to make a clean break from Microsoft and switch to something else.

Anyone running a Chrome book?
What's a simple easy bulletproof build of Linux?

All I run is a browser (Chrome) and LibreOffice & a few real basic - like picture and mp3 player programs.

Can I run either as a virtual PC?

Mac is out. Too expensive.
thats why I decided to stay with windows 7 rather than go with the "free" upgrade. Win7 has proven to be very stable and seems to work all the time. You very likely have an option to restore the laptop to the "as shipped version of windows. In the BIOS you can find the way to do that depending on the model of course.

[Tom Stenzel]

Hi Rich,

In Mike Circo's post he mentioned a release Ubuntu LTS. The letters LTS stand for Long Term Support. The LTS releases get security and stability updates but not changes in function. If you find one of these works- and it probably will- you will at least have a system you don't have to abandon for a while.

I'm not required to have Windows for any reason either. The big weakness of Linux is games. Since I've had a home computer since '78 I burned out on computer games a couple decades ago. That's what the Wii is for.

Still, all is not swell on the Linux front. Recently the weather applet on my Mate Desktop stopped working. It turns out that the noaa.gov web site was shut down and the function transferred to weather.gov. Ok, swell. Unfortunately the web addresses were hard coded into the libraries. And the old obscure Mate branch isn't being updated for me. I have to fix it myself. It's really simple. All I need to do is:

1. Download the development files with apt-get. No, the ubuntu commands won't work, haven't sorted out what will. Synaptic package manager to the rescue! I think.

2. Find the offending lines with noaa.gov in some *.c file, replace them with weather.gov and a few other changes. At least finding out what's needed for that part was relatively easy to find on the 'net.

3. Compile the resulting mess with a command that looks like it came out of broken typewriter.*

4. Create the installation file (.deb in my case) with another broken typewriter command.

5. Run the GDebi deb installer.

6. Turn the applet on.

(I haven't done this yet so I don't know if it'll all work out)

See? Wasn't that simple? If it all works I now know what the temperature is outside! Yay! Or I could have looked at my outdoor thermometer. But how progressive is that?

;-)

-Tom

* I've taken a C programming course but still can't program my way out of wet paper bag. It takes a mindset I just don't have. But I've found and fixed a few problems in other's programs.

[Rich Riddle]

Here I thought you were talking about windows in houses. I was wondering how you would get around that pesky code that requires them. Convert to a Mac and get over it. Once you do, you won't look back.

[Keith Outten]

I agree with Rich. I made the switch to Apple products several years ago and in spite of the higher initial cost of the hardware I think its cheaper in the long run. Their machines just work and I haven't had one to die or fail to boot up yet. Way less stress using the Apple operating systems, this is worth the price of admission in my book. I keep my systems updated and always wait at least three days before I upgrade, by that time millions of people have proven the upgrades to be sound or Apple has had time to make adjustments when they have problems.

I still own one PC running Windows XP Pro that is in my workshop. It runs my Laser Engraver and my CNC Router but it is not connected to the Internet.
My first iMac has had Parallels installed so I could install Windows 7 on it and use it in my office for CNC and Engraving design projects...but I don't use the Windows side of the machine on the Internet. This has been working pretty good for several weeks now and I really like the large screen and very high resolution of the iMac. Drawing with CAD/Graphic programs is so much easier with a large high definition monitor.

[Barry McFadden]

Now that I'm retired, I no longer need to run Windows.
I've been putting off the switch to Linux, but, last night's fiasco upgrade of Win 10 - that I neither wanted or needed, but, the Microsoft gods felt my puny opinion didn't count,,,,trashed my laptop.

Rather than try to repair the Windows, I believe now is the time to make a clean break from Microsoft and switch to something else.

Anyone running a Chrome book?
What's a simple easy bulletproof build of Linux?

All I run is a browser (Chrome) and LibreOffice & a few real basic - like picture and mp3 player programs.

Can I run either as a virtual PC?

Mac is out. Too expensive.

I don't understand when people say the Win 10 upgrade was "forced" on them. I, like everyone else, kept getting all the reminders to upgrade but I never did upgrade and nothing was forced on me.

[Mark Blatter]

I don't understand when people say the Win 10 upgrade was "forced" on them. I, like everyone else, kept getting all the reminders to upgrade but I never did upgrade and nothing was forced on me.


I didn't either, until my laptop just upgraded without my approval. I had it on one day and it just ran the upgrade, then it said, 'upgraded to Win 10'. I was able to backtrack because I refused to accept the terms of service. I am back to Win 8 which I hate, but am getting used to. I would much rather have Win 7, but also don't want to buy it so I muddle on with 8.

[William Adams]

There was at least one notice pushed out where closing the window was interpreted as a yes.

[Curt Harms]

Rich, for a fairly simple and painless transition, take a look at Mint with the Cinnamon desktop. Mint is built on Ubuntu's LTS. Benefits of Mint include more codecs for multimedia, a 'sane' user interface and may have better hardware support. Zorin is another distro that is supposed to be good for refugees from Windows but I've never used it. The linux model is quite a bit different than the Microsoft ecosystem. It has its advantages and disadvantages. It sounds like your usage is similar to mine and I haven't needed to start Windows in months except to install updates. I still keep an updated Windows install for the occasional need such as updating a Garmin GPS.

The most frequent problems seem to be hardware support, particularly WiFi. The reasons are too complex to get into here but older hardware is likely to be easy to get working, the newest shiniest stuff may be impossible. A live USB distro is a good way to get a taste for how a distro looks, feels and works with your hardware. It is limited in that it can't be updated and data is not persistent between restarts unless persistence is enabled. Even then there are limitations. There is another way to get a fully functional operating system without installing to a hard drive. It's possible using Ubuntu or Mint's installer to install to a suitably sized flash drive. There are still limitations on speed and durability but you can install hardware such as printers and save data just like to a hard drive. If you want to be safe, create a live USB using something like Unetbootin or Rufus for Windows - there are several programs that do the same thing - then unplug your hard drives. Insert the live USB and a blank flash drive of at least 16 GB. The Live USB drive should boot, click the 'install' icon. That assures you won't mess with your existing setup. You may have to mess with your boot order in BIOS. Oh, and machines that came with Windows 8 or later use UEFI by default. Ubuntu & Mint should work with UEFI and Secure Boot but many disable Secure Boot and use BIOS compatibity mode. Apparently UEFI is implemented differently by different manufacturers, sort of like the early days of IBM clone machines.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I don't understand when people say the Win 10 upgrade was "forced" on them.Let me clarify that a bit.
Yes - I did do the "upgrade" from Win 7 to Win 10.
My reasoning was this - Win 7 has been out long enough that I'm probably going to outlive it. OTOH, Win 10 has a good shot at outliving me.
Sort of a lame reason, but, after spending ~ 22 years in the computer/IT field, I know how screwed you can get if you get too far behind in the "upgrade" department.

Anyhow - when I did the Win 10 upgrade, there was no mention of the fact that all Windows updates would now be mandatory and you had no way to turn them off.

I'd just bought a new waterproof MP3 player to take to the pool with me every morning & after messing around with it for a bit, I got the Win 10 to see it when I plugged it in and I transferred some MP3 files to it.
That was the other day.
Later that night, Microsoft pushed down some mandatory new build of Windows 10 & when I got up in the morning, I was greeted with a screen that said 91% finished with updates, don't turn off your PC.

When my PC finished it's update, none of the USB devices worked & I had some .Net 3.5 error message and a bunch of other problems.
I uninstalled the update and went for my morning swim.....
When I returned, my laptop's screen said "91% finished with updates, don't turn off your PC"...grrrrrr.....the stupid thing updated itself all over again.

So - while I had the option to upgrade to Win 10 or not, once done, you lose the ability to turn off updates & Microsoft has a very, very, very, very poor track record of putting out stable and working updates.

Anyhow - my current laptop is six years old & the motherboard has been blinking out every now and then. It's time for a new laptop & it's time to say good bye to Microsoft and Windows.

[Greg R Bradley]

If you worked in IT, I'm amazed you would "upgrade" from Win7 to Win10. You didn't fall for the Win8 debacle, why run Win10? I'd just go back to Win7 and keep running it. If you eventually are forced to Win10, buy a new computer with it installed.

My recent high end HP Workstation ships with Win7 pro installed like almost all high end computers. The new one I installed last weekend at a customer did also. I'm reluctantly installing Win10 for a customer today where that user was naive enough to have ordered a Win10 consumer laptop and their CPA called me in to save them from themselves. I had to order a new business computer, that came with a Win10 license/disks but had Win7 Pro installed.

I simply love Macs also and use an iPhone and carry an iPad with technical documentation. Apple does a great job and the underlying OS in all OSX releases is Unix. Linux is OK but if you are comfortable with Windows, why change to Mac or Linux?

If you want a new laptop with Win7, just go to HP Business website and order one. HP consumer stuff is junk. Designed for people that think places like Best Buy sell computers.

[Kev Williams]

My engraving business is in my house. All my equipment is in my signature. In the office I'm using a perfectly good HP laserjet printer, and 2005 Quickbooks. I run several graphics software and machine driving programs. To keep my business running, I have many 'brick walls' concerning computers that I can't get around.

Short version is I'm running 1 Win98se computer, 5 XP computers, a win7 laptop that came with the fiber laser, and a win8 with thankfully, a very well-working XP virtual machine that keeps the win8 computer out of the trash can. (the XPvm on the same exact computer works 3 to 5x faster than the Win8 does)

The only way I could actually run my business with NO XP's or the win98 would be to replace 10 of my 15 machines, and do without my favorite graphics software. Yeah, that's an economically viable solution. :mad:

And I seriously doubt that Linux, Ubuntu or pretty much any other OS could be a 'one-stop' system capable of running everything. And, like I got time to learn to use something totally new...

I won't ever part with my XP's, because I can't, and because I won't. I refuse to give Bill Gates the keys to my house. Now, I CAN make 32bit win7's work if I have to, but-- I don't have to. One of my favorite things about running XP? No updates, no tracking BS, no issues period. For what I do with a computer, It simply WORKS. Not exactly how I hear win10 described...

[Dave Anderson NH]

As point of information, I just purchased a new Dell laptop since my old one was starting to croak at 7 years old and besides, I always hated Vista. I was able to buy it with Windows 7 installed and they give you the disc and license to install Windows 10 (Fat chance). My current problem is convincing SWMBO that 10 should not be installed on our shared desktop in the home office. She doesn't want to "get behind" as has been pushing me to install it. I've become amazingly deaf and forgetful recently.:D

[Larry Browning]

Let me chime in here with a different story. I have had zero problems with windows 10 and the upgrade from Windows 7 and 8. In fact, I know of no one in my immediate circle of friends, and I know a whole bunch of computer geeks, that has had even a single problem with Windows 10. I actually love Windows 10, from the fast boot times, to all the little extras like file history backup. My computer has never run as smooth and fast as it does now. My perception, is that the overwhelming majority of win 7 & 8 users have had the same experiences as me. I do know that some people have had legitimate and serious problems, but those are actually rare when compared to the total number of upgrades.

Just my 2 cents. Your mileage may vary, but my experience has been very good!

[Pat Barry]

I installed the Win 10 upgrade in two laptops as soon as they were available and the ONLY ISSUE I hae had in well over a year or whatever its been is that it keeps somehow loading BING as my default search engine into Firefox. I can't stand BING - I'm not sure if I should blame Bill Gates for that or not. Otherwise the initial Win 10 install and all the updates have been virtually transparent and totally uneventful.

[lee cox]

I'm stuck with Windows 10 for business but I swear as soon as I truly retire, I am giving it the heave ho.

Someone once said, "People don't want computers, they want computing." That is, people don't want to mess with updates, registries, drivers and all that other nonsense. They just want to write emails, surf the web and do work. I couldn't agree more. I find it maddening that some simple, real world, issue takes me into a never ending tunnel system of Knowledge Base articles that tell me to change this or that registry entry, uninstall and reinstall stuff and who knows what else.









In that sense, Apple has it right. Yes, their stuff is expensive and you are locked into a closed eco-system. But that tight control means that you get stuff that works more seamlessly.

My Windows computer always needs a bit of tweaking. My iPad just works and has never made me say bad words. I have no experience with Linux. I hear it's somewhere in between.

Another reason Apple software works so seamlessly is they drop support for older hardware and expect you to buy new. Every few years you need to change hardware to stay current.

A lot of times people start having problems besides mixing hardware from different vendors is the hardware becomes to old for optimal use but is still supported so they blame Microsoft.

[William Adams]

Apple's average for operating system upgrade support was ~5 years last time I checked --- a few machines have gone longer (ISTR 7 years for some) and some model of MacBook Air only got 4 and a half years. Even when one can't install a new OS, one can continue to use the machine using the last OS which it ran (which these days is mostly Snow Leopard 10.6.8), just w/o security patches (and no nagging about being out-of-date).

I updated my Toshiba Encore 2 Write 10 to Windows 10 in time to get the Anniversary Update --- wanted the new Maps app, and was feeling optimistic that the machine would last long enough that Windows 8.1 being EOL'd would matter. The new features are nice, but the constant pushing out of updates is annoying (been considering setting my home connection to metered and just allowing updates to run on a schedule of my choosing). I've also begun having power issues where the machine won't wake up and has to be reset (I suspect these are now updates having problems rebooting --- did have one cable and its replacement go bad which was an interesting bit of troubleshooting).

Really wish there was more choice in the computer world, and that there was more support for alternatives. Miss things such as Tron, QNX, NeXT/OPENstep (yes, I know it became Mac OS X, but it's not the same), &c. Wish there was better support for HWR in Linux, and that someone would do a machine w/ a daylight viewable display.

[Gerry Grzadzinski]

Let me chime in here with a different story. I have had zero problems with windows 10 and the upgrade from Windows 7 and 8.


+1
And to add to this, I found Windows 8.1 to be faster and better than Windows 7, and Windows 10 to be faster than Windows 8.1.

I would never upgrade the OS on a PC more than maybe 2 years old, as the hardware is several generations old at that point.

[lee cox]

I had several Win 10 upgrades go fine. No problems. I left a couple of Win 7 machines with Win 7. I had an old laptop which just seemed to old to upgrade so I left it Win 7. I had an old desktop which runs my Cisco "Findit" software which tracks firmware updates for my 6 Cisco devices, 3 wireless, router and layer 3 switch with another switch down stream. The Cisco software would not run on Win 10 when I looked. I the exact same motherboard in another machine which I did convert to Windows 10 and it works fine for a 10 year old. I put Q6600 quad processors in them when they first came out.

I have found no problems running Windows 10. It is faster than Windows 7.