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I'm in the mood for a rant!
David Jenkins - 15/10/13 at 10:53 AM

<rant>
I hate Microsoft. I can't put it any clearer.

I have a laptop with Windows Vista Business - not my favourite OS, but it's acceptable for the amount of Windows work I do (very little). Bought an upgrade pack on special offer to move it to Windows 8 Pro, which seemed to work OK, especially after installing Classic Shell to hide the horrible Win8 interface. Then I found that Intel had withdrawn their Win8 video drivers for my laptop and weren't planning to release any more - my laptop is only about 5 years old. So I then re-installed Vista.

I also hold Intel in contempt.

Yesterday I tried to upgrade Win XP on a virtual machine running on my main Linux PC - failed, because the upgrade process said it couldn't find a file - but didn't tell me what that file was. I tried a new install which worked perfectly - but the registration code wouldn't work as 'it was only for upgrades'. Tried calling the MS helpline, wasted 1 hour talking to an unskilled moron, and I still don't have a working Win8 installation. His closing line was "try again tomorrow, as our system isn't working at the moment" - in other words, he hadn't a clue and wanted to get me off the line.

What pigs me off is that both the XP and Win8 installations are 100% legal, what I was trying to do was 100% legal, but it just doesn't work.

Anyway - that's it for me. I'll leave Vista on the laptop for the odd occasions when only Windoze will do, and I'll stick with Linux Mint for real computing. Sod Microsoft.

Oh - and another thing - my laptop was tied up for 3 hours yesterday while it downloaded and installed 12 security updates. The machine was grinding along while this happened so I couldn't do much else. My Linux Mint OS also received a load of individual updates over the past few days, taking between 1 and 5 minutes to install each one, running at low priority in the background so that I could continue with my work.
<end rant>

Ahhhh - I feel better now...

nick205 - 15/10/13 at 11:06 AM

Be a good customer and buy a new laptop with the OS installed for you

onenastyviper - 15/10/13 at 11:51 AM

quote:
Originally posted by David Jenkins
<rant>
I hate Microsoft. I can't put it any clearer.

I have a laptop with Windows Vista Business - not my favourite OS, but it's acceptable for the amount of Windows work I do (very little). Bought an upgrade pack on special offer to move it to Windows 8 Pro, which seemed to work OK, especially after installing Classic Shell to hide the horrible Win8 interface. Then I found that Intel had withdrawn their Win8 video drivers for my laptop and weren't planning to release any more - my laptop is only about 5 years old. So I then re-installed Vista.

I also hold Intel in contempt.

Yesterday I tried to upgrade Win XP on a virtual machine running on my main Linux PC - failed, because the upgrade process said it couldn't find a file - but didn't tell me what that file was. I tried a new install which worked perfectly - but the registration code wouldn't work as 'it was only for upgrades'. Tried calling the MS helpline, wasted 1 hour talking to an unskilled moron, and I still don't have a working Win8 installation. His closing line was "try again tomorrow, as our system isn't working at the moment" - in other words, he hadn't a clue and wanted to get me off the line.

What pigs me off is that both the XP and Win8 installations are 100% legal, what I was trying to do was 100% legal, but it just doesn't work.

Anyway - that's it for me. I'll leave Vista on the laptop for the odd occasions when only Windoze will do, and I'll stick with Linux Mint for real computing. Sod Microsoft.

Oh - and another thing - my laptop was tied up for 3 hours yesterday while it downloaded and installed 12 security updates. The machine was grinding along while this happened so I couldn't do much else. My Linux Mint OS also received a load of individual updates over the past few days, taking between 1 and 5 minutes to install each one, running at low priority in the background so that I could continue with my work.
<end rant>

Ahhhh - I feel better now...


I went from XP to Mint on an 8year old laptop - there are some minor annoyances most of which are me getting used to the differences.

I just cannot be ar$ed anymore - I want something that works: Windows doesn't. Linux ain't perfect but at least it is free. I can program if I want, connect hardware when I want (within reason) and find special utilities with not as much worry if they are going to infect my computer with some sort of nasty, script courtesy of the nupties at M$ and their lax programming methods.

Windows will probably die a death because of its inherent legacies - if M$ wants to innovate then it should come up with something new that isn't called Windows and set itself free of the past.

David Jenkins - 15/10/13 at 12:07 PM

quote:
Originally posted by onenastyviper
I went from XP to Mint on an 8year old laptop - there are some minor annoyances most of which are me getting used to the differences.

I just cannot be ar$ed anymore - I want something that works: Windows doesn't. Linux ain't perfect but at least it is free. I can program if I want, connect hardware when I want (within reason) and find special utilities with not as much worry if they are going to infect my computer with some sort of nasty, script courtesy of the nupties at M$ and their lax programming methods.

Windows will probably die a death because of its inherent legacies - if M$ wants to innovate then it should come up with something new that isn't called Windows and set itself free of the past.


I agree totally.

The only reason I was faffing about with the upgrade yesterday is that MS will be ceasing their support for XP in the very near future, which would leave me exposed to hacks etc. Not as though that's a big issue with an occasionally used VM, but I'd rather not leave myself exposed (ooer!).

Peteff - 15/10/13 at 12:18 PM

I put Xubuntu on an ancient laptop just to see what it would do and everything works perfectly. I use windows on desktops but the laptop is now used for browsing and a little games instead of stuck in a cupboard.

Dick Axtell - 15/10/13 at 01:26 PM

quote:
Originally posted by David Jenkins
The only reason I was faffing about with the upgrade yesterday is that MS will be ceasing their support for XP in the very near future,...


Oh, sh**********t!! Madam's laptop runs Vista, but no disc. If I have to expunge XP, which suits all my other software, what will be the most appropriate alternative? From foregoing comments, it seems that Linux has supporters here. Any downsides?

clanger - 15/10/13 at 02:05 PM

wish I knew what you were talking about................

computers, can't live with them, can't live without them now

smartphones will be next..........

Google the light-bulb conspiracy.

always amazes me why the hell a computer needs constant upgrades, fixes, patches blah blah blah.....................you don't buy a car from Henry Ford and then have to take it in for new pistons or the latest gearbox oil every few weeks

onenastyviper - 15/10/13 at 02:52 PM

quote:
Originally posted by clanger
wish I knew what you were talking about................

computers, can't live with them, can't live without them now

smartphones will be next..........

Google the light-bulb conspiracy.

always amazes me why the hell a computer needs constant upgrades, fixes, patches blah blah blah.....................you don't buy a car from Henry Ford and then have to take it in for new pistons or the latest gearbox oil every few weeks


Ever wondered why your computer is technically orders-of-magnitude faster at numerical calculations yet it still takes the same amount of time to boot up?

It is a vicous circle - processor power means more functionality which means more power required which means better processors are needed...simples.

People still tend to do the same things with computers, write email, play games, watch videos, it's just that the formats get more and more intensive.

Remember when Flash first came out how *long* it took for webpages to load?

At that time it was due to the bandwidth of the connection that was the bottleneck, it took *ages* to download all the data (what ever happened to the Flash/NoFlash Website Options?)

With the advent of broadband, lots of Flash, HTML5 etc can be used and it is the processing power which can become the limiting factor.

It is much easier to force the user to "upgrade" their hardware if the software runs slower.

Oh, and you virtually never hear of an argument to download/buy a software "upgrade" because it will run faster on your old hardware do you, that would be an anathema to the industry as a whole.

David Jenkins - 15/10/13 at 03:03 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Dick Axtell
From foregoing comments, it seems that Linux has supporters here. Any downsides?


The main thing is the learning curve... if you're really used to Windows then getting the hang of what Linux is about can be daunting. However, once you get over the fear factor and actually have a go you will find that it's really easy.

The simplest way is to go to the Linux Mint download site here and get the version marked "cinnamon" - just put your mouse over "32-bit" or "64-bit" (according to your needs) and click. You'll see a long list of download sites - select a UK one and wait for it to download. This will give you a very large ISO file, which you will have to put onto a DVD as a disk image (don't just copy the file).

You can then boot from this disk and try out Mint - it will be slow because it's running from the disk, but it won't harm your Windows installation. If you like the look of it you can then install, but it will over-write your disk - a big decision). Alternatively you can set it up to "dual-boot", which means that you can choose Windows or Linux just after the machine boots up. You'll need a large hard disk for this option though.

There's also a version of Mint that you can run from within Windows, but I've never tried that.

As you can see, the language is daunting in the beginning, but really none of this is hard - do it once and you'll see for yourself.

(If you can't make your own DVD, send me a U2U with your address and I'll post you one)

[Edited on 15/10/13 by David Jenkins]

britishtrident - 15/10/13 at 03:31 PM

Mint Linux has few downsides and many advantages.
For me the only downside is that Mint for funding reasons have allied themselves to the truly dreadful "Duck Duck Go" search engine which is very difficult to remove from the default Mint Firefox installation, I also encountered a lack of cooperation and outright hostility in the Mint forums for even raising the topic. Mint now offer instructions for removing it BUT they don't remove it entirely as it will still appear if you type a search query directly into the addressbar. it took a bit of digging with Firefox about:config to completely get rid of it.

FuryRebuild - 15/10/13 at 03:36 PM

Macs all the way. Far less hassle in the walled garden

David Jenkins - 15/10/13 at 03:42 PM

Macs are good - but I'm not prepared to pay the price premium.

David Jenkins - 15/10/13 at 03:46 PM

quote:
Originally posted by britishtrident
Mint Linux has few downsides and many advantages.
For me the only downside is that Mint for funding reasons have allied themselves to the truly dreadful "Duck Duck Go" search engine which is very difficult to remove from the default Mint Firefox installation, I also encountered a lack of cooperation and outright hostility in the Mint forums for even raising the topic. Mint now offer instructions for removing it BUT they don't remove it entirely as it will still appear if you type a search query directly into the addressbar. it took a bit of digging with Firefox about:config to completely get rid of it.


I just have links to Bing and Google in the toolbar, and use those directly for searches - although I do use "The Duck" occasionally.

onenastyviper - 15/10/13 at 04:24 PM

quote:
Originally posted by FuryRebuild
Macs all the way. Far less hassle in the walled garden


I take it no one from Apple has seen "The Lorax" yet?

The Venom Project - 16/10/13 at 08:07 AM

Buy an Apple product, problem solved, no more issues, no more drastic releases of dreadful operating systems. To date they only customer friendly operating system's have been

Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows XP
Windows 7


All re-designed, all needing countless hours of learning.

Apple OSX since its release is basically the same operating system experience, with updates adding features, never totally re-designing something. Bought Apple 6 years ago. Never looked back, although I have to deal with Windows on a daily basis as it's my job.

Apple all the way. Whilst maybe not the leaders of the latest technology, when they do release something, it generally works straight out of the box.

Worth paying the extra in my opinion.

Fuck Windows, Windows is shite.

scudderfish - 16/10/13 at 09:18 AM

I used to sing the praises of OSX, using it since 10.2 days, but then they brought out 10.7 and I just didn't like it. It felt like they were trying to make it more like iOS and needlessly dumbing it down. My main desktop is still of 10.6.8. I put Mint on my Mum's PC and the amount of times she calls for computer help has dropped dramatically.

big-vee-twin - 16/10/13 at 11:20 AM

My son works for Microsoft and uses Ubuntu

iank - 16/10/13 at 11:33 AM

The problem I have with Mac OS-X (and to a lesser extent Windows in all variants) is if something goes wrong you get minimal information on how to fix it (if there isn't a clicky button to press in a menu somewhere you have no chance). If you try and ask a question on a Mac forum be prepared to get called an idiot for it not working properly and having the temerity to complain. The best is when you have a networking problem (dropping out randomly every few hours or so) is muppets telling you to buy a new router -despite it working properly with every other bit of hardware in the house. At least on the windows forum someone will have worked out some random looking junk to stick in the registry to fix it.

Linux (Arch for me) just works properly.

scudderfish - 16/10/13 at 11:49 AM

One of the hidden treasures on OSX is Console.app which shows all the UNIX level logging going on in the system. It's been useful a few times to get info on why an application refused to start, or just what corporate VPN software is doing to the firewall to cut me off from my internal servers. I expect it to be gone from later versions