Windows 10 Fear and Loathing

Little Ghostman said:

Win 10 is slightly different, because people used to sometimes put linux or another windows on MS has stopped this, if you try and change the OS then you will looes all your files. They have messed people up with one drive as well, promising unlimited storage then suddenly deleting files when they decided against it in the end. I hate this cloud stuff and office 365. I am not a big fan of MS

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Sounds like you are ripe for conversion to the Way Of The Penguin, LG!

spec said:

Why did they go back to Win 7? I see no essential difference between Win 10 and Win7 at the user level (I was a big fan of XP, and Win7- but not Win8)
They are living dangerously. By the way, I understand that Win10 is the most secure of the Win versions so far.

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With Mrs it was an assortment of issues and she just got really fed up and annoyed. Can't remember what but some program in particular she kept having problems and got fed up. With her mum it was generally annoying, but then the network card was rendered non-functional by one of the updates, couldn't revert the update, couldn't roll back or re-install the driver. So faced with the prospect of re-installing the O/S, we put it back onto w7, and stopped the upgrade reminder from coming on.

w8 is a steaming pile of poo.

throbscottle said:

With Mrs it was an assortment of issues and she just got really fed up and annoyed. Can't remember what but some program in particular she kept having problems and got fed up. With her mum it was generally annoying, but then the network card was rendered non-functional by one of the updates, couldn't revert the update, couldn't roll back or re-install the driver. So faced with the prospect of re-installing the O/S, we put it back onto w7, and stopped the upgrade reminder from coming on.

w8 is a steaming pile of poo.

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Oh I see. I can understand that. Nothing intrinsic with Win 10, which is good news.

One problem you can get with any OS update is that Microsoft sometimes loads drivers from its library that are not necessarily optimum for your machine/devices. This is especially the case for video drivers. When I updated a Dell desktop from Win XP to Win7, the graphics played up, but installing the graphics driver that Dell listed for the machine sorted the problem.

I do have a linux machine, I run Kali linux . I also make sure I have linux in a VM on my main pc.

Little Ghostman said:

I do have a linux machine, I run Kali linux ...

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I hadn't heard of that, so I Googled it. Here is what they say:

Is Kali Linux Right For You?

As the distribution’s developers, you might expect us to recommend that everyone should be using Kali Linux. The fact of the matter is, however, that Kali is a Linux distribution specifically geared towards professional penetration testers and security specialists, and given its unique nature, it is NOT a recommended distribution if you’re unfamiliar with Linux or are looking for a general-purpose Linux desktop distribution for development, web design, gaming, etc.

What Linux would you recommend as an alternative to Win XP for a minimalist old Dell desktop? I previously have used text-based Unix.

Hi Mike, yes Kali is for pen testing mainly, I would go for ubuntu linux, look at the different desktop enviroments so you can choose KDE or whatever one you think suits you best. ubunti is alot like windows in its feel but way more stable and more power, its also alot quicker running and will run on any machine thats run xp,

I use kali alot for when I do the wind turbine stuff etc. Also I need it for making sure the server is secure.


https://www.ubuntu.com/desktop

Hi Mike
You can still d/l older distributions which might be more appropriate for your hardware, you can also re-compile software so it is optimised for your hardware. You can also obtain distributions built with older hardware in mind (I don't know which ones but I have heard of such a thing I'm sure) You might also consider one of the BSD's (I have no experience there but might be just what you need)
It's worth knowing that the main resource hog tends to be the GUI and the X server which sits behind it. There are now one or two alternatives to X11, and there are plenty of lightweight GUI's out there to try.
I use Arch which ships almost the most up to date versions of gnu/linux software you can find, has sensible defaults and a really good wiki to help you set things up. It expects you to not be scared of getting your hands dirty (encourages you, even), otoh it's also very user friendly. You just don't get all the hand-holding you have with distro's like Ubuntu (which I used for a long time but got fed up with all the "helper" tools which ultimately get in the way). Arch also loads amazingly quickly.
I also used to have Debian on my very old laptop (400MHz CPU), which tends to be very stable, but also a bit out of date, also lots of room for getting your hands dirty. Loved the Enlightenment (as was) GUI I had on there.
Used Mandrake (now Mandriva since long ago) for a long time too - that was good, easy to use and easy to set up. Actually was a great distro for learning on.
Used Slackware for a few months, got fed up with the "hard man" attitude on the forums. You have to configure everything manually and there is no package manager; I'm just not skilled enough.
Started off (in 1999 maybe) with Red Hat 6.2, which came free on the cover of the first and only edition of a magazine I forget the title of, but it reappeared a year or two later as "Linux Format". I used an early version of Gnome. Had to use a scary tool called fips (first interactive partition splitter) to re-size my Win98 partition to make room for it. Totally dumb tool, very scary. And to think a year (ok maybe two) earlier I'd never even heard of an operating system, didn't know what it meant)
As to GUI's. I'm currently using KDE with the new version of Plasma. I'm not a big fan of all the bells and whistles you can have, though it's very pretty. My favourite "non-fancy" GUI is probably LXDE.
As for speed, if I wasn't using KDE, I would probably be from Grub to GUI in less time than it takes from pressing the power button to get to Grub (ie, slightly longer than POST).
The nice thing about Linux is you can make it what you want it to be.

Not directly related to any particular post in this thread: few days ago in a computer shop I was offered a laptop with Win 10. Was also licensed Office available? Yes; the options:

A license, for a somewhat small value, valid just for one year. From then on, I would need to renew it yearly at a cost, of course.

A license, valid "forever" (I should have to read about, to be really sure) paying more than 3x the above.

Why is that all smells more and more fishy?

If it smells like a fish...it is probably rotten.

The same ploy is commonly used in the US to get people to sign up for low-cost Internet and so forth. Who cares how much the company earns for the first year. After that, you are hooked and dinner for someone else.

John

For my job I relay on Win-based software that I happen to use quite efficiently. I took the pain to learn all tricks I could to work reliably and quickly (both aspects, matter a LOT to me).

I feel reluctant to attempt working on a Linux environment (uncharted waters 100% for me).

Some weeks ago, I tried to translate a rather simple Excel macro to Calc (Open Office). What a frustration!!!
It demanded to start learning a pile of strange names plus a new everything. Discouraging.

I am in pretty much in the same "boat" (no pun intended). I have used WordPerfect and QuattroPro since the DOS versions. Transitioning to Office 2007 that runs on Win7 has been difficult. That is the other major reason I like to own the license rather than rent software. You have an argument for non-obsolence of your license. Just FYI, Adobe (I have AI and Photoshop CS3 from 2007) gave me a real hassle last time I updated my hard drive. It took me almost a week to convince them to let me re-register. Adobe never acknowledged my e-mail, but suddenly, my programs began to work.

John

throbscottle said:

...
The nice thing about Linux is you can make it what you want it to be.

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But therein lies the rub... My head is spinning from all of the acronyms you just used in that post...

MikeMl said:

I hadn't heard of that, so I Googled it. Here is what they say:
Snip

What Linux would you recommend as an alternative to Win XP for a minimalist old Dell desktop? I previously have used text-based Unix.

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I use Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. Check it out

This discussion about operating systems, and legacy software/hardware is interesting, and it is true that often upgraded software is not as good as the previous version: Win8 compared to the stalwart Win7 for example. And when the Office suite moved over to context sensitive menus that was a big mistake in my opinion. For example Draw in Word became almost impossible to use.

Although, to a fist approximation, my system is up to date I still have a soft spot for the old stuff. Word Perfect, for example, was a nice word processor and I was not pleased to be forced by the company to change to Word. Luckily all my Word Perfect files translated over OK.

One program that I have always hated is Outlook and it seems to have got steadily worse with every update. I'm currently running Outlook 2013 and it is practically unusable. I have read books and reconfigured and all that stuff, but when someone in the know said it is a difficult program, especially with an IMAP email account, that was the last straw.

So I have a question: what does everybody use as an email client and what is recommended? I am currently favoring Mozilla Thunderbird which is not the a absolute slickest but it is a sort of industry standard after Outlook I understand.

spec

I have done some little programs and know about the high level stuff: structure, documentation, object orientation, etc. Like most people, I started with tiny basic and ended with one of the Microsoft basics. Then C came along so I moved over to that, then C++, and then C#.

I still have soft spot for C, and really like its unfettled freedom. C++ was a paradigm shift, but once you got a handle on all the bull words like object orientated design, compartmentalisation, polymorphism, inheritance, and so on it became much easier to figure, especially when you realise that most of the design techniques had been used by hardware engineers for years. Insubstatiation was a word that the softies made a big thing of, and when I heard that word being bandied about I was greatly impressed and thought it would be way beyond me to ever understand. Even reading the lengthy books on Object Orientated Design (OOD) didn't help because, like the early books on semiconductors and computing, they were full of BS and waffle. But then I released that the word only means an instance of, I had to laugh.

I seem to have rambled off the point. What I would like to ask is what do you all use C, C++, or C#. I must say that I find C# and the Microsoft Net Framework with its excellent tools and comprehensive libraries really good, much better than the C and C++ days.

spec

MikeMI - X is short for X11, or X11 R6, which is just the server on which nearly all linux and bsd desktops run. It's a network enabled graphical server.
BSD - Berkeley Software Distribution - it's another free Unix clone with a more relaxed license than Linux. OSX is based on it
LXDE - Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment
KDE - K Desktop Environment
GUI - Graphical User Interface, but surely you knew that?
POST - Power On Self Test - another one you probably already know
GRUB - GRand Unified Boot Loader (which has largely replaced LiLo - Linux Loader)

Spec - I learned BASIC on a Commodore 64 when they were going out of fashion and I could finally afford one (also a bit on my dad's ZX80 which he built from a kit. Bit of history - it couldn't do floating point division, you had to write a program to do long division for that!)
I've messed around with bash scripts and some perl, learnt a bit of C from a book but never put it into practice, learnt a bit of VBA so I could do really fancy spreadsheets and Access databases, also used it to make Outlook do something it doesn't have a function for (forget what). Also learnt enough WSH to write a script that pulled a "message of the day" from a file and loaded my main programs more ready to use than just putting them in the startup folder). Also read Cobol for Dummies so I could understand what it was (fascinating). Couldn't get my head around Python. Learnt to write simple pic assembler.

I liked Outlook, you could do a lot with it - this was before MS buggered up the UI of the suite so nothing makes sense anymore. I used it in one of my jobs to log my activities when the bosses were getting snooty about how we were spending our time, since it has a logging function.

I don't use a mail client anymore. I just use web-mail. If I get a mail I really need to keep I'll just copy it to a file. Something that almost never happens. I don't use a file manager either unless I'm looking for pictures. All my other file management I do on the command line with my friends ls, cd, mv, grep, mkdir, rmdir, and on very rare occasions, find. Gets confusing when I have to use the equivalent DOS commands for work occasionally.

atferrari - can't you just use an older version of the Office suite? Also works well on Linux using WINE (stands for "Wine Is Not an Emulator")

spec said:

what does everybody use as an email client

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I use Thunderbird to manage a mix of POP and IMAP accounts. It works for me.

throbscottle said:

I learned BASIC on a Commodore 64 when they were going out of fashion and I could finally afford one (also a bit on my dad's ZX80 which he built from a kit. Bit of history - it couldn't do floating point division, you had to write a program to do long division for that!)
I've messed around with bash scripts and some perl, learnt a bit of C from a book but never put it into practice, learnt a bit of VBA so I could do really fancy spreadsheets and Access databases, also used it to make Outlook do something it doesn't have a function for (forget what). Also learnt enough WSH to write a script that pulled a "message of the day" from a file and loaded my main programs more ready to use than just putting them in the startup folder).
Also read Cobol for Dummies so I could understand what it was (fascinating).
Learnt to write simple pic assembler.

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Interesting throb

throbscottle said:

Couldn't get my head around Python.

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Oh dear- that is a worry I was intending to learn Python to do some Arduino etc programing

throbscottle said:

I liked Outlook, you could do a lot with it - this was before MS buggered up the UI of the suite so nothing makes sense anymore. I used it in one of my jobs to log my activities when the bosses were getting snooty about how we were spending our time, since it has a logging function.

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It is reassuring to know that others are not fond of Outlook- I could just imagine the type of programers that have been at work on it

throbscottle said:

I don't use a mail client anymore. I just use web-mail. If I get a mail I really need to keep I'll just copy it to a file. Something that almost never happens.

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Hmm- I see

throbscottle said:

I don't use a file manager either unless I'm looking for pictures. All my other file management I do on the command line with my friends ls, cd, mv, grep, mkdir, rmdir, and on very rare occasions, find. Gets confusing when I have to use the equivalent DOS commands for work occasionally.

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I use File Explorer, and its ancestors before that, as my primary interface mostly. So to open any file: Word, Photoshop, Excel, etc I just double click the file or right click and open with. All my user files are stored in sub folders under one overall folder.

Cheers

spec

alec_t said:

I use Thunderbird to manage a mix of POP and IMAP accounts. It works for me.

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Thks Alec. I will have to investigate T-Bird further.

spec said:

Oh dear- that is a worry I was intending to learn Python to do some Arundo etc programing

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I was not aware you could program the Arduino (I'm assuming that's what you meant) with Python. In fact, I'm still pretty sure you can't. Were you thinking of the Raspberry Pi?