Windows 10 Is Making Too Many PCs Obsolete. REALLY???

[DougGuy]

I have been saying this for YEARS!

Microsoft, is actively engaging in a plan that will render your not too old computers USELESS to run windows 10. They FORCED Windows 10 update/upgrades on all of us, now they are FORCING millions of windows users' hardware into early retirement because they won't support the hardware, BECAUSE they want you to go buy newer faster hardware to run Windows with!

This keeps the hardware makers in business, so Microsoft will still have a market to sell their software! It's all a BIG CONSPIRACY!

Well, let me introduce you to the world of Linux, where MANY distributions of this FREE open source operating system have been diligently working their behooties off making linux easier and safer for Windows users to simply flip Microsoft the bird and move on over!

Linux Mint is probably the best of the user friendly distros, it is also the most downloaded of all the various flavors of Linux, it is fast, safe, and runs without issue on your old hardware, yes the same hardware that is no longer supported in Windows 10! You mean theres nothing wrong with the CPU and Motherboard? Wake up and smell the coffee my friends, the time to get away from Microsoft is now and the way to do this is by using Linux.

It is a free download, it runs like you would expect it to run, and the Cinnamon desktop environment is SO user friendly for a Windows user, you can't go wrong. Most of the software you run in Windows will run in Linux once Wine (a Windows emulator, installed in Linux Mint when you get it) is installed, and the list of stuff that won't run in Linux is getting shorter every day. It already does everything that M$ Office does, for FREE, with Libre Office, there are free CAD programs, just about everything you can think of, is free open source in Linux. QuickLoad very happily runs in it and there is more that will also run.
__________________________________________________ _______________________

Windows 10 is making too many PCs obsolete


Windows 10 will be supported until Oct. 14, 2025 — unless your computer has a Clover Trail CPU. Then you’re out of luck.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Computerworld | Jul 24, 2017 4:00 AM PT
computer waste junk pile [DOKUMOL / CC0 via Pixabay]
Credit: DOKUMOL

Opinion by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols


Microsoft released its latest Windows 10 update earlier this year. The name, Creators Update,makes it sound bigger than it is; it’s really a minor step forward. But about 10 million Windows 10 customers have to face up to an unpleasant surprise: Their machines can’t update to Creators Update.

That’s how many poor sad sacks bought a Windows 8.x laptop in 2013 or 2014 with an Intel Clover Trail processor. Any of them who have tried to update their PC with the March 2017 Creators Update, version 1703, had no success and were presented with this message: “Windows 10 is no longer supported on this PC.” Boy, that must have been fun!

Not the end of the road for your three-year-old machine, though. I mean, you could always keep running the last version of Windows 10 on your PC. It wasn’t as if you went directly to a permanent blue screen of death. And anyway, Microsoft eventually backed off some, announcing that, while you can’t update those machines, you can still get security patches.

Now, that’s one giant corporation with a big heart.

I remember when Microsoft was forcing “upgrades” to Windows 10 down our throats. There you were with a machine on the low end of Windows 10 hardware compatibility. You might have had some doubts about making the move to 10, but Microsoft was just so persistent. You must be pleased as punch you surrendered now.

Some people have told me that it’s not fair of me to expect Microsoft to support aging hardware. That’s bull, and I’ll tell you why.

You may have noticed that PC sales have been declining for years. Know why? PCs last for years. I’m still running computers that are over a decade old.

If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. Better still, don’t spend your IT money replacing it.

PCs aren’t smartphones, which die in two to four years. I expect my PCs to last for at least ten years — especially when I’m running desktop Linux on them.

But what do I expect? Of course Windows 10 needs more hardware muscle than older systems can supply. But tell me — I’m serious — what the heck did Windows 10 add to PCs that was worth having? I can’t think of a thing. Windows 7, to me, is still the best version of Windows. Microsoft, of course, wants you off Windows 7.

People tell me, “No, no, we need new powerful hardware to deal with today’s operating systems and applications.”

Really? Excuse me if I missed something, but aren’t we moving our applications to the cloud? Sure, if you’re editing videos on your PC, you need power. But I can do 99% of my work on an ARM-powered Chromebook with 2GBs of RAM. So can you, I would bet.

So tell me, Microsoft, why can’t you fully support Windows 10 on these older PCs? They’re not that old, and they can already run the earlier versions.

Admittedly, the first generation of Clover Trail was … odd. The graphic processing units in Clover Trail PCs were underpowered from day one. Still, Microsoft urged Clover Trail owners to move to Windows 10 just as tirelessly as it did those running PCs with a best-of-breed 2015 i7 Skylake processor.

I’m ticked off not just that Microsoft is willing to dump customers. It’s that it is treating poorly people who upgraded in good faith. To my mind, Microsoft made an implicit promise that it would be there for these customers. It has broken that promise, and those customers deserve better.

But, looking ahead, why should I believe that Microsoft won’t dump me, with my powerful, but no longer new, chips, on the next go-round?

Yes, I get it. Microsoft can’t support old hardware forever. But maybe Microsoft should adjust its business model in recognition of the fact that today’s hardware doesn’t become obsolete as fast as yesterday’s hardware did. And maybe, when it introduces a new operating system that demands a lot more from hardware, it should throw in a few new features that make it all worthwhile.

Or maybe you would like me to introduce you to a nice Chromebook or suggest you try, say, Mint Linux on your PC. I think you’ll be a lot happier, and if you’re already running mostly cloud-based applications, you won’t be missing anything by bidding Windows adieu.
Related:



Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has been writing about technology and the business of technology since CP/M-80 was the cutting-edge PC operating system, 300bps was a fast Internet connection, WordStar was the state-of-the-art word processor, and we liked it!


http://www.computerworld.com/article/3209977/microsoft-windows/windows-10-is-making-too-many-pcs-obsolete.html

[Riverpigusmc]

yep. My PC stealth loaded 10 one night, and now my PC will not see the CD drive. HP says nothing can be done

[Idz]

The old folks running unsupported WinXP have discovered the system is much more stable, virus attacks have greatly diminished, and software just works. Most of the problems with computers began when Microsoft and other system managers demanded continuous connection to the internet to allow them to backdoor 'update' your computer. Those same open doors are what hackers use. Most of the updates pushed out are to close the doors to some hack but never to lock the door. We never had hacking problems on the old telephones because they were only connected when you picked them up. What is needed is an operating system and a switch on the computer that you switch on to connect to the internet when you want to and the rest of the time you can work while disconnected from the hackers.

[cuzinbruce]

Windows 10 is the worst piece of maggotware I have ever encountered. Slow, unstable, ***. I have to do a powerdown reboot once or twice a day. The Creator's Update added icons to the start menu for trash like GroovTunes. The picture viewer wants to intrude into everything, organizing collections, albums, folders, without regard for what I want to do. I try to burn the images on a SD card to a CD, Win10 intrudes but doesn't recognize NEF files (Nikon RAW), only jpg's. Still haven't been able to get that done. Crashed it the first week I had the laptop playing SOLITAIRE! Total crash, had to figure out that holding the start button down long enough will finally turn it off, regardless. I had Win7 before. Everything has been changed. Not where it used to be, behind a drop down box, or whatever. Reason is to invalidate everything users had learned on previous systems. And the Acer laptop is total ****. Last one was fine, used it for years. Still having to use it because the new one (new 12/2016) is so miserable. The "Precision Touchpad" is anything but precise. The fools are trying to turn the computer into some kind of iPhone. Using "gestures" to scroll up or down. Tap with one finger to do one thing, tap with two fingers to do other things. But just brush it and it does something you don't want. They did away with the right and left mouse buttons, now part of the touchpad, but don't work worth a darn. And Windows 10 came loaded with all kinds of ****, McAfee (which protects against NOTHING), Amazon, eBay, Skype, a password manager, Windows Office and more. I cold go on and on. Windows 10 is miserable. And the new Acer laptop is total ****. I will NEVER buy anything that says ACER again. The one before was fine but they really screwed up with this one. Enough for now.

[Bookworm]

I recently suffered a non-recoverable problem on my 3 year-old desktop. I took it to a local guy, had him put Windows 8 Pro on it.
He tried to push W10 on me, probably because he had it, but I refused.

If it happens again, Linux is where I'm going.

[NoAngel]

I know Apple has their own share of issues but that ain't one of them. Really, didn't you guys learn anything from Vista?

[rockrat]

I had an old Win 8 laptop computer, wife decided to use. It was still NIB and when she started to use it, it downloaded win 10. She has almost thrown it thru the wall at times. My old win 8 laptop seems to keep on plugging along, but I disabled the auto update long ago.

[Tom W.]

So how would someone like me who never saw anything but Windows download Linux Mint? And would Windows still be on my laptop?

[dragon813gt]

I have a Lenovo Ultrabook that's running Win 8.1. My work laptop is a Dell running Win 7. Win 7 is great but doesn't support a touch screen. And for causal internet browsing around the house I really like the touchscreen on the Lenovo. It's useless for any real work but convenient when it's resting on your lap and you're playing catch w/ your 3yo at the same time. He won't leave me alone when I'm home :)

More than anything paying on a monthly basis to use a piece of software is what bothers me. I want to buy it and be done. It's what pushed me away from MS Office into Open Office. Which has more options but isn't as user friendly, at first. MS is shooting themselves on multiple fronts.

I'm sure I will try Linux at some point in the future. And I feel sorry for the people that were either forced or inadvertently upgraded to Win 10. I was not going to let that turd onto my computer strictly because of how intrusive it is. I can't tell you how many things I had to turn off on my step daughters laptop. Win 10 is one big spyware program IMO.

[popper]

I want to buy it and be done. Sorry, Win 3.2 was the last of that. Too many issues that users wanted to fix and lawsuits abound.. MS fixed that by RENTING it to you. Then everybody decided to follow suit. Every time they changed CEO, SW got rewritten. Registry has gotten changes many times.

if you’re already running mostly cloud-based applications The new $maker for MS.
Never tried Cimmeron desktop, big problem with Linux is the failure mode - of the DOS. Maybe fixed in new stuff, node crashes were common on PCs.

[WebMonkey]

Xubuntu is what I like to install for migrating winxp~7 users.
The desktop is very similar in look&feel.
Mint/mate are also in my distro library.
My most powerful PC though still runs 7.
You can see why @
Www.qrz.com and "lookup" kb0wlf

[Handloader109]

Well my desktop downloaded and installed win10 and I couldn't stop it. So far except for allowing intrusions and bu ning thru my internet usage, it's been decent. I would have rather stayed with 7. Best since xp. I've two older laptops running win7 pro. One does ok, other is way slow. But works for a couple of applications... Darn Microsoft!

[dragon813gt]

Sorry, Win 3.2 was the last of that. Too many issues that users wanted to fix and lawsuits abound.. MS fixed that by RENTING it to you. Then everybody decided to follow suit. Every time they changed CEO, SW got rewritten. Registry has gotten changes many times.

I said software, not OS. I understand the OS is going to be updated on a regular basis. But I don't have to pay for these updates. I can refuse them and the computer will still work. No money changes hands after my initial purchase.

Now software like MS Office is being billed on a monthly basis. Don't pay the bill, the program no longer works. Before you paid for the software once and it worked. You got updates for free sometimes. Sometimes you had to pay for it. But the software worked as long as the computer did. This is what I have a problem w/. I don't want updates all the time. I want a program that I paid for that works every time I open it.

[Paper Puncher]

So how would someone like me who never saw anything but Windows download Linux Mint? And would Windows still be on my laptop?

I am not familiar with the Mint version of Linux. I use the Ubuntu version. You can go to https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop the Ubuntu download site and at the bottom of the page in the center there is "How to create a bootable USB stick on Windows" It is a sort of tutorial. By putting Ubuntu on a USB stick you can try it out without changing anything on your computer.

If you decide to load Ubuntu on your computer there is a dual boot option. It leaves windows on your machine and lets you choose which operating system you want to start.

[DougGuy]

So how would someone like me who never saw anything but Windows download Linux Mint? And would Windows still be on my laptop?

First thing you would need is the Linux Mint OS on a bootable USB drive (IF your laptop supports booting from USB!). A couple of ways to do it. The easiest way is to go downlod an app called Etcher https://etcher.io/ which is so simple to make a bootable USB stick with it's sick how easy it is. You can download the portable version of Etcher, run it, select the Linux Mint .iso file, select the USB stick, and click FLASH and it does the rest.

What Windows are you running on it now? You would need to know if it is a 64bit machine or 32bit. Most newer stuff is 64bit and will easily support booting from USB. If it has more than 3GB of ram in it, it is a 64bit system because 32bit cannot address more than 3gb.

Anyway, you would download the Linux Mint iso, burn it to USB as I described, boot off the USB and you can run Linux in a live version without writing anything to your hard drive or changing anything at all, it will run a full blown Linux Mint operating system from ram.

If you want to then install Linux Mint, you can opt to install it so you can use both Linux and Windows, or you can take Windows completely off the drive, (not recommended just yet).

What I do, is get a separate solid state drive and stick it in the laptop and load linux on it, saving the drive with windows on it in case you want to go back.

[waksupi]

yep. My PC stealth loaded 10 one night, and now my PC will not see the CD drive. HP says nothing can be done

Happened to me, too. I restarted in safe mode, removed all the W10 files, and blocked it from future updates. Worked fine.

[nicholst55]

I installed Win GWX Control Panel, and it blocks all that Windows 10 nonsense. It runs seamlessly in the background, and automatically blocks all Win 10 'updates.'

[GhostHawk]

My wife and I each have an Asus T100 convertable tablet running win 8.1.

After our backup Win 8 laptop upgraded to win 10 while it was supposedly shut down I installed never10 on both our systems.

The latest release of Win 10 won't allow you to install software from anywhere other than MS or the App store.

I have played off and on with varius Linux distro's for 20 years but the fly in the oinment was always direct x. Linux simply could not run the games windows systems could.

I am hoping this has or will change soon. Getting tired of Microsoft.

[TexasGrunt]

I've got a 4 year old Asus ROG laptop. It's updated to Win10 and I have no problems with it. The best version of Windows in years. IMHO Windows 8 sucked. There's a big reason there was no Windows 9.

I do two things with my computer. Surf the web, and play either Diablo 3 or No Man's Sky. I also play a bit of Civ VI and a couple of other games.

I have a feeling most problems are due to the carbon keyboard interface.

[kayala]

I went to OSX about 6-7 years ago, never looked back since.

[Smoke4320]

.

I have a feeling most problems are due to the carbon keyboard interface.

very good :)

and also known as ugly bags of mostly water

[Soundguy]

IMHO.. XP was their best OS.. and it lasted a LOOOONG time.. and had EASY hardware requirements.

BUT.. you can't keep making money if you sell OS's that 15 year old computers can still run... you have to CREATE turnover..

[mold maker]

It's the optimum example of planned obsolescence......

[Bookworm]

First thing you would need is the Linux Mint OS on a bootable USB drive (IF your laptop supports booting from USB!). A couple of ways to do it. The easiest way is to go downlod an app called Etcher https://etcher.io/ which is so simple to make a bootable USB stick with it's sick how easy it is. You can download the portable version of Etcher, run it, select the Linux Mint .iso file, select the USB stick, and click FLASH and it does the rest.

Anyway, you would download the Linux Mint iso, burn it to USB as I described, boot off the USB and you can run Linux in a live version without writing anything to your hard drive or changing anything at all, it will run a full blown Linux Mint operating system from ram.



Suppose I wanted to do this - download and run Mint off a thumb drive. How big a thumb drive would be needed ?

2 gig ? 32 gig ?

[BrassMagnet]

Suppose I wanted to do this - download and run Mint off a thumb drive. How big a thumb drive would be needed ?

2 gig ? 32 gig ?

I'm in! Me too!

[Tom W.]

As computer dumb as I am I'm worried that I'd screw something up. If I can try it on my wife's older laptop first, I'd feel better. It's about 5 years old and is a 17" HP that had windows 10 installed and then put away into a closet somewhere.....

[Traffer]

I am a semi-retired Certified PC Technician. I skimmed through all the posts in this thread. No one mentioned the worst part of Windows 10. It is the ultimate spyware. Real spy-ware. When you use Windows 10 with the automatic settings on, not only is every keystroke you make recorded, BUT, they can run it through their many data analytic algorithms. When Windows 10 politely asks you if you want them to help you with their various assistance tricks, what they are really doing is gaining more, deeper and complex information on you. I believe that all this information goes directly to the NSA. It is stored and ready to give them more information about you than you can imagine. They could TELL YOU when you go to the bathroom if you use the computer a lot. They can easily build a psychological profile on you. In my opinion, THIS DATA MINING IS WHAT WINDOWS 10 WAS DESIGNED TO DO. I still use Windows 7. It is bad enough. There are many programs and tutorials out there to help you keep the unwanted Windows 10 off of your computer although I do not think they are trying to ram it down your throat anymore. You could also erase the operating system on a new Windows 10 computer and load Windows 7. I have the software to load every Microsoft operating system back to DOS. I tried to load Windows 95 on a computer a couple of years ago. It was so fast it seemed like everything was instant. However is cannot be set up to run on a modern machine. Nor can Windows 98 or 2000. Most machines will run Windows XP but it is quite a task to get them set up on a newer machine. I believe that Windows 7 is the best operating system Microsoft has come up with. I have tried Linux a few times. I am just too set in my ways to switch to it. But if I was younger I would definitely be using some flavor of it. This is an article that shows some of the ways in which Windows 10 can use your info. However it is written in favor of Microsoft and tries to manipulate the facts to make it look like they are benevolent. Microsoft, Google, Facebook and the like are not benevolent organizations. They are predatory.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a9465/nsa-data-mining-how-it-works-15910146/

[OptimusPanda]

Just download the linuxmint iso and burn the image to a DVD. You can use it live if you want. I prefer the cinnamon desktop myself, it's quite familiar for those fresh off Windows. Everything pretty much works for simple tasks. Games are another matter (some run well with wine others not).

[Bookworm]

Just download the linuxmint iso and burn the image to a DVD. You can use it live if you want.

Okay. This may make sense to some, but not me.

I understand "download the linux mint...", but "iso" ? Do you mean "OS", or "operating system" ?

Burn the image to a DVD ? I understand how to burn a DVD, what do you mean by image ?

Run it live ? Huh ?

[RGrosz]

I've worked with Windoze for years. Used to be a phone tech for a cow-spotted compute company till they let me go. Been working with Linux for almost as long. Running an old flavor on a 486 computer at home off a DVD for years to play games on. Would go with Linux all the way except some of the genealogy programs have no GPL equivalent and I'd lose all my data. There are pry some other stuff too. Pry do it one of these years anyway.
Rob

[kayala]

Okay. This may make sense to some, but not me.

I understand "download the linux mint...", but "iso" ? Do you mean "OS", or "operating system" ?

Burn the image to a DVD ? I understand how to burn a DVD, what do you mean by image ?

Run it live ? Huh ?

ISO in context of download is short for ISO 9660 image a bit by bit copy of an optical disk. DVD writing tools usually have an option to "write an image", so after you download ISO and burn it to a DVD - you would have a complete OS on that DVD and you can boot your computer from it.

[TexasGrunt]

IMHO.. XP was their best OS.. and it lasted a LOOOONG time.. and had EASY hardware requirements.

BUT.. you can't keep making money if you sell OS's that 15 year old computers can still run... you have to CREATE turnover..

You also can't support new hardware with a 15 year old OS. There's limitations as to what can be done.

Best OS I ever used was AmigaOS 3.5.

[Bookworm]

ISO in context of download is short for ISO 9660 image a bit by bit copy of an optical disk. DVD writing tools usually have an option to "write an image", so after you download ISO and burn it to a DVD - you would have a complete OS on that DVD and you can boot your computer from it.

Ahhh....the light comes on ! Thank you.

[TexasGrunt]

my hp workstation ran for 15 years before I needed to replace it. I suffered a virus and removal required reinstalling the system.. Sadly I only had the oririginal software, and the only way to get the final version that worked for so long would have required criminal action.

Bought a pc with windows 7. runs like a champ.

10 is supposed to be going to a monthly subscription service soon. you buy a pc, spend 200 for the privilege of having windows, plus a monthly fee to use it.

Ya gotta tell the WHOLE story.


On Tuesday, Microsoft confirmed that it would—though just for enterprises at the moment. Beginning this fall, Microsoft will offer Windows 10 Enterprise E3, a special enterprise tier of Windows 10 that will cost $7 per user per month.

At this time home users won't be paying monthly.

[Soundguy]

You also can't support new hardware with a 15 year old OS. There's limitations as to what can be done.

Best OS I ever used was AmigaOS 3.5.

Depends on the hardware. If there is a driver available.....

[Der Gebirgsjager]

I use 8.1. My computer started with periodic offers to install 10, then began scheduling times to install 10, and once was in the process of doing so when I caught it and stopped it. Then I installed "Never 10" which I read about right here on this forum---no more trouble at all for well over a year. Don't know what I'll do if and when this computer wears out......

[dragon813gt]

At this time home users won't be paying monthly.

"At this time" being the key words. Don't think for a minute that they won't it. If they switched to a monthly subscription you will see a huge number of people switching to Linux or Apple. More so than are currently already doing so.

[FredBuddy]

Early this spring, I saw one of DougGuy's posts about replacing windows and since my pc was acting strange I decided this was the time for a new one.

I took his description of the setup to a mom & pop shop in Loudenville, Ohio and sat down with Art, the owner and asked if he would build one for me.

He hesitated because he had no experience with Linux, but agreed to do it and also put win 7 pro on too. I had been adamant that win 10 was not an option. He was quite pleased with the end result.

When I reported back to him that I easily adapted to Linux mint cinnamon and it had everything windows had, he started to think about rehabing some older machines he had laying around.

Like many members here, I'm an old retired guy with some pc skills, but not enough to tackle the whole job. In the end it cost me under $500 for a new machine with the aformentioned stuff loaded and I am one happy camper.

DougGuy's advice is right on target,

[DougGuy]

I will tell you a good story or two... All the jokes about "All the wife sees is the back of his head" cause hubs is on the computer all the time.. In the 90s I played in bar bands and hung out with some biker bros, but we as a band stayed away from mingling with them beyond drinking and playing some of their functions. Meanwhile feds busted them on some bigtime stuff, wife at the time says "I was NEVER SO GLAD to see you at that computer!" If I hadn't had the PCs to keep me interested, I could have easily been wrapped up in the sting. +1 for the computers feeding the tinkerer's brain..

I tried every OS that was out at the time, having a multi boot machine with 6 OSes loaded on it that I could boot into at my fingertips. It was fun, it was a learning curve, and it both pushed me to excel at it and kicked my a$$ at the same time. Eventually I taught myself to tweak and strip down and streamline M$ products so they would run fast and be stable. I made a LOT of good money doing these custom configurations, going as far as cloning an image of the boot drive and hiding it on a hidden partition or a separate drive, then when Windows messed up, like it was certain to do, I could unhide the image and overwrite their boot drive and rescue the system and have it back to the exact condition it was in when I made the image. This worked great and I still do it even with Linux, I keep a duplicate SSD drive with the version of Linux copied to it so I can recover in just a few minutes with no lost data not even a picture or text file.

So.. Currently older hardware is dirt cheap to be had, I saw some super fast quad core Intel processors on ebay for $50! A guy can go out and buy a used motherboard combo, with cpu, fan, ram, video card, etc, for dirt cheap and it runs FAST as it did new when each piece cost hundreds of dollars. This is a goldmine for someone wanting to try out Linux b/c Linux will run for YEARS on that same $69 motherboard/cpu/ram combo that isn't good enough to even run windows 10.

The other thing that makes it really cheap and easy to implement, is the cost of SSD Solid State Drives, I can get a 128gb Sandisk at Walmart for $49 bucks, take it home, download a Linux .iso file, burn that file onto a USB stick with a free program called Etcher, boot off the USB and run a full blown version of Linux just from the USB loading it into ram, -OR- I can click an icon on the desktop that will begin the steps to install Linux to the $49 SSD I brought home from Walmart. It's that easy.

Now when I get bored, I go to a site called Distrowatch and I look and see what the latest Linux release is, and if it sounds interesting I will download it and burn it on USB, then load it onto one of the 5 or 6 SSD drives I keep laying around, just to see it run and see if I like it. I have a second computer that I use for this, and they call this process "Distro Hopping" where you go from one distro (distribution) of linux to another and another. So this second computer I call it my "hop box" and I run copies of Linux Mint, Fedora, openSUSE, Arch linux, Ubuntu, and I learn the various flavors of linux in this way.

They are mostly the same at the core, and each "family" will use the same software packages, same core commands, so if you have 20 different linux versions that all are "forked" off of Debian, then you know your way around the system already if you learn basic Debian commands and such, the differences become minimal. Same with Fedora, it comes from RedHat, so all the commands and software packages for redhat work for Fedora.

Linux Mint is the leader of the pack when it comes to making Linux user friendly and EASY for windows users to migrate over. We bought my 85yr old Mother a new Dell at Best Buy, took it home and wiped Win10 off, installed Linux Mint, she loves it. She hated windows 10 because of all the updates and bloatware installed that she didn't use and couldn't turn off or uninstall.

I guess you could install Linux Mint to a USB thumb drive however on older hardware it may run excessively slow, or you could buy an SSD drive and disconnect the windows drive, load linux onto the SSD and give it a try. You can dual boot, that is install linux "beside" windows on the same drive but unless you are fairly computer literate, it would help for you to either have someone help you to do this, or use a separate drive to install linux onto so you can keep it searate from windows.

Did I forget to mention that Linux (all flavors) is FREE? Thousands of software packages and applications, FREE. Libre Office, a full fledged office suite that does everything M$ office products do, FREE. Libre Office will run on windows too! Err, until windows 10's latest "Creator's Edition" invalidates it and says you can't run it.

[dragon813gt]

Libre Office will run on windows too! Err, until windows 10's latest "Creator's Edition" invalidates it and says you can't run it.

They really did this? They are slowly dying by thousands of self inflicted cuts. I realize they're a company that needs to make money to stay open. But invalidating competitors software is a poor move. I'm sure the EU will bring another antitrust lawsuit against them for a move like this.

[GhostHawk]

I have one of those little single board computers, Azulle 160$ at Amazon.
Comes with Win 10 on it. Setup was a snap, it has 2 USB ports, a 2 and a 3, plus a lan port. Which I like because it can run on my home lan instead of tieing up wireless.

Plugs into the big screen. Set it up, played with it, installed software. Like Firefox, Irfanview for images, Foxit PDF for pdf files.

One of these days I am going to download a recent copy of Mint and see if I can figure out how to do a dual boot.

I have a pretty hefty sized micro SD card for it for extra storage. And if I wanted to I could I am pretty sure find a USB adapter for a SSD. Or I have an adapter that would let me move any one of my 3 SATA drives from my old desktop and hook that up.

For the price it beat all the work it would take to reeducate myself on building a desktop from scratch. I did it for 20 years but when I quit doing high end gaming I pretty much lost the need for a new system every 3 years. Got old, fat, lazy.

And the hardware and the chipsets got so so much more complicated.

Even if I can not manage the dual boot. It makes a good backup for my little Asus Convertable tablet. I used to be this die hard full size desktop guy but boy when I fell I fell hard.

Now my desktop puter gets turned on only when I have a big casting session planned.
So I can have music or youtube in the background.

Win 10, yeah you can learn to get around in it. But Win 7 was still my favorite.

Xp was not bad either if you had a good build. But you could not be sloppy on os and driver install. You got it right tight and solid, or you redid it. And at that I planned a rebuild every year, just cause.

7 was solid and easy. Any one could install it and drivers.

[DougGuy]

They really did this? They are slowly dying by thousands of self inflicted cuts. I realize they're a company that needs to make money to stay open. But invalidating competitors software is a poor move. I'm sure the EU will bring another antitrust lawsuit against them for a move like this.

From what they say about the Creator's Edition, it will only let you install software that came from M$ or from their apps store.


I am pretty sure find a USB adapter for a SSD.

I got one of those they are great for plugging and unplugging an SSD, just like a USB stick! Yes you could install mint to an SSD on a USB adapter. I wouldn't even dual boot unless I was restricted to not having enough drives.

Linux will read NTFS which is what most M$ file systems are, windows will not read ext4 which is what most linux file systems are.

[z28z34man]

I dual boot mint cinnamon 64 and Vista 32 on what was a high end computer when Vista first came out but to be honest I hardly ever even turn on my home PC because my phone can do almost anything I want.

For work I have a high end Dell laptop with an i7 32 gigs of RAM and a 500 gig M.2 ssd on win 7 and use virtual box to run windows xp and dos virtual machines for all the old software I need to run.

The nice thing about virtual machines is it is easy to make backups and if anything goes wrong I can delete the vm import a backup and going again in a matter of minutes.

[Southern Son]

very good :)

and also known as ugly bags of mostly water

I don't understand what most of this thread is saying, I am a computer gumby, however I can spot a Trekky!!!!!!

[TexasGrunt]

https://www.ghacks.net/2017/02/27/windows-10-creators-update-block-win32-program-installation/


It's an OPTION. I can see it being useful in many places.

[Idaho45guy]

I've got a 4yr old Gateway laptop that is my only computer. It came with Windows 8, but then it was updated with Windows 10. It's been dying a slow death ever since.

I have been planning on getting a cheap desktop for a couple of months now, but other stuff keeps coming up. Guy at work said the other day that I should just get a Chromebook. I only use my computer for internet, emails, online bill paying, and writing novels. Any reason I need to avoid a Chromebook?

[z28z34man]

A Chromebook should do everything you need, but I would give Linux mint a try on your old laptop. Linux is a lot less resource hungry than windows and will run just fine on old hardware.

[mold maker]

Sure wish I was 20 years younger and could learn the new tech stuff. I thought when I bought the last PCs they would last as long as I would. Guess I got fooled, or lived past the best by date.

[tommag]

Well, that didn't go right! I had ubuntu on a dual boot, but it wasn't working with Ql or my travel scanner. I made a disc with mint and was able to finally figure out how to boot from it in 8.1. Then I realized I'd have to install it to see if the couple of programs I needed would run. I didn't realize that would format my hard drive. Glad I'd backed up most of my p&l statements on a thumb, and have the ones i hadn't backed up on paper. Now to find the spreadsheet formulas you guys provided to me a couple years ago.... Looks like I'm about to dive headlong into the world of linux!

[Soundguy]

speaking of W10.. boy whatever update is coming down the pipe right now must be huge.. everything is crawling on my slow 1.5m dsl..

[DougGuy]

Well, that didn't go right! I had ubuntu on a dual boot, but it wasn't working with Ql or my travel scanner. I made a disc with mint and was able to finally figure out how to boot from it in 8.1. Then I realized I'd have to install it to see if the couple of programs I needed would run. I didn't realize that would format my hard drive. Glad I'd backed up most of my p&l statements on a thumb, and have the ones i hadn't backed up on paper. Now to find the spreadsheet formulas you guys provided to me a couple years ago.... Looks like I'm about to dive headlong into the world of linux!

Install Wine in linux mint, then QL will run no problem.

[tommag]

Install Wine in linux mint, then QL will run no problem.
I started a new thread. The Linux install stalled and hasn't progressed since last night. I'm in over my head.

[woodbutcher]

:twisted: Looks like
'Monkey Snot" is at it again.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo