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Windows 10's Privacy Policy: the New Normal?
An anonymous reader writes: The launch of Windows 10 brought a lot of users kicking and screaming to the "connected desktop." Its benefits come with tradeoffs: "the online service providers can track which devices are making which requests, which devices are near which Wi-Fi networks, and feasibly might be able to track how devices move around. The service providers will all claim that the data is anonymized, and that no persistent tracking is performed... but it almost certainly could be." There are non-trivial privacy concerns, particularly for default settings.
According to Peter Bright, for better or worse this is the new normal for mainstream operating systems. We're going to have to either get used to it, or get used to fighting with settings to turn it all off. "The days of mainstream operating systems that don't integrate cloud services, that don't exploit machine learning and big data, that don't let developers know which features are used and what problems occur, are behind us, and they're not coming back. This may cost us some amount of privacy, but we'll tend to get something in return: software that can do more things and that works better."
According to Peter Bright, for better or worse this is the new normal for mainstream operating systems. We're going to have to either get used to it, or get used to fighting with settings to turn it all off. "The days of mainstream operating systems that don't integrate cloud services, that don't exploit machine learning and big data, that don't let developers know which features are used and what problems occur, are behind us, and they're not coming back. This may cost us some amount of privacy, but we'll tend to get something in return: software that can do more things and that works better."
We're going to have to either get used to it, or get used to fighting with settings to turn it all off. "The days of mainstream operating systems that don't integrate cloud services, that don't exploit machine learning and big data, that don't let developers know which features are used and what problems occur, are behind us, and they're not coming back.
I, for one, welcome my new overlords.
"...software that can do more things and that works better..."
That's the funniest goddam thing I've read this week.
Citation needed.
Is, in principle this possible - sure.
I would suggest based on past history that you should expect this extra data you have opted to share to leak in ways big and small, from the individual leak, to wholesale compromise of companies databases.
You should expect inadequately tested rolled out drivers to brick certain device configurations until someone skilled can fix it.
You should expect the 'automated' things to be increasingly harder to fix if that automatic service goes wrong.
Increased opaqueness to the general user - random changes in user interface to hide or eliminate features which 'most' users are not using.
And all other sorts of things.
Microsoft et al do not care about the 10% of users that this may make things awkward for - they care about the nebulous users that it may win, or retain by simplifying and making their lives easier.
The few for which life is made hard or impossible - well - maybe for a few months you'll be able to find ways to revert to the old behaviour.
No they won't, because most people seem to enjoy getting shafted hard by Microsoft. I guess as long as you can run Battlefield 4 it's ok to be over a barrel, right?
Trends like these make me weep for what were my favorite open source projects, Debian and Firefox.
Both of them were on the right side of things for so long. They weren't there to take my information for some corporation to consume for profit. They were there to offer software that just worked, and it worked really well.
Firefox was the first to fall. Starting with Firefox 4, it became a total disaster. The performance remained so poor. The UI was progressively molested until it has become unusable. Now they're adding unwanted "features" like Pocket integration that nobody really wants. Just a few days ago we found out that their built-in PDF reader (which should never have been built-in in the first place) had a serious security flaw that allowed attackers to steal our files! Needless to say, I no longer use Firefox, and now use Vivaldi instead.
Debian fell most recently, with the addition of systemd. Before then, I knew I could count on it. I've used Debian for many years, and it has worked flawlessly for me. Then I decided to upgrade my system to Debian 8. What a mistake! My system no longer booted like it should. It would just hang. I'm just an average Linux user. I'm not an expert. So I was totally lost about how to fix whatever this problem was. I searched the mailing lists, and I saw a lot of emails from a lot of other people experiencing similar problems with systemd. I may not be an expert Linux user, but I saw the writing on the wall. After witnessing the decline of Firefox, I knew that the same thing was happening to Debian. So I did what any sensible person did: I found another distro. Well, I didn't exactly find another Linux distro, because I have moved to PC-BSD instead. It reminds me of what Debian was before Debian 8 and systemd: fast, stable, secure, and trustworthy.
It pains me greatly to see what has happened to them. Both Debian and Firefox were so great to me and so many others, for so very long. They protected our privacy, rather than misusing and abusing us. They treated us like we were kings and queens. But times changed, and so did those projects. Their decline has been swift and painful, and I'm so sad to see them go. As a long time user of both, moving to alternatives was painful, but a very necessary thing. I cannot put myself in the position where I am the victim of severe browser flaws or the victim of an operating system that does not reliably boot.
All you have to do to liberate yourselves from your oppressors is to download an ISO and burn a DVD (or flash drive).
....And you've just exceeded the skills of 80-90% of computer users, and the "I don't give a fuck" threshold of 99% of them. Congratulations, chucklefuck! It takes a special kind of mentally deficient egotist to decide that they know how people want to use their computers better than the people themselves do.
When I was growing up, my OS didn't spy on me. It still doesn't, because I run openSUSE.
Tell us what it's doing when you finally do manage to grow up.
Cortana cannot be disabled without breaking Windows. Yes, you can turn all of the settings off, but the process still runs in the background and auto restarts when killed. I even went into the windows group policy settings and forbade Cortana, and it still ran as a process in the background. So, I tried to use powershell to remove it since it was installed as a "modern app". I removed every trace of modern app, including the Windows store, rebooted, Cortana was still there, running the background, consuming 0%-0.1% cpu and using ~35MB of RAM. So, I found out where Cortana was on the file system, killed the process, and renamed the folder, so that it would not be found. And that did work, Cortana never restarted. The only problem was Windows Update stopped working! Yes, not being able to start Cortana prevents Windows 10 from installing updates. I had to run sfc (which fixed Cortana) to install updates, and now the Cortana process is back. Also, when I renamed the Cortana install folder, the search feature of the start menu stopped working completely (no type to search). Magically started working once Cortana was back. I can't believe how deep this thing has its tentacles into the OS, it really is disturbing.
I'd love to run Linux, but it can't...
*Deal with a Cintiq for shit.
*Run Photoshop in any meaningful way. GIMP remains after all this time a deeply inferior piece of software.
*Offer a decent layout package... -This may have changed; I haven't checked recently to see if there is anything workable today. I would imagine there must be, since print agencies all take PDF files and any OS incapable of producing a PDF book layout is a joke...
But honestly, it comes down to this: if I can't run a pressure sensitive stylus in Photoshop or create industry standard press files, then the OS is a non-option, as has been the case with Linux for two decades and counting.
When that changes and is proven reliable, I'll jump to Linux in a heartbeat. Right now I've got a MS workflow which does the job, and I've got contracts to fill.
Sorry, I'm going to have to mark your comment as -1, "Send to evolutionary refuse bin #2".
More people will just move to Linux.
I wish. I've tried to switch to Linux on many occasions (at least 6 that come to mind). Every single time something breaks in a manner that requires a complete re-install of the entire thing, spending hours searching forums for possible causes/solutions, etc. The last attempt was thwarted by Microsoft and UEFI. One thing Microsoft does well is it makes sure that once something important breaks it has tools to recover, at least partially, so the user can continue. With Linux it's luck into a terminal fix or re-install and start over from scratch.
I've never been a Linux expert, but I've used it for a long time because it was stable, it worked, and I knew I could trust it more than I could trust the alternatives. I would even recommend it to family, friends and colleagues. At various times I've set up at least 10 of them with PCs or laptops running Ubuntu, and the feedback was generally positive.
But the situation has changed so dramatically over the past maybe two or three years. During this period of time we've watched as systemd has made its way into every distro, including important ones like Debian (my preferred distro) and soon Ubuntu (the distro I'd use for other people) from what I've heard. I've had some really bad experiences with systemd, where it rendered by system unbootable. While trying to solve these problems of mine I've come to learn that a lot of other people have had similar problems with systemd. I keep reading about how great it is, but it has caused me nothing but problems. I've also read about how awful the earlier systems were, but they never caused me any problem at all! I can't recommend Linux to people I know if it won't reliably boot!
It isn't just systemd that has caused me problems. I was a big fan of the GNOME desktop, back in the 1 and 2 days. But GNOME 3 crushed my enthusiasm. I've actually tried it for over a week at a time to give it a fair shake, but after the week is up I am desperate to get back to some other desktop environment. Everything about GNOME 3 is just awful. It isn't usable, it looks really bad, and it makes me extremely unproductive. Things aren't any better on Ubuntu. I haven't used it much, but I've found their desktop environment to be just as bad as GNOME 3, and maybe even worse. I've been using KDE lately, but it's not very good, either. I can't recommend Linux to people I know if it doesn't offer a usable desktop environment!
Even Firefox, the main Linux web browser, has taken a turn for the worse. The UI is really awful, in many of the same ways that GNOME 3 is awful. I still find Firefox feels really slow, while Chrome feels so much faster all of the time. But I don't want to use Chrome because of its association with Google. For a long time each upgrade of Firefox would break a bunch of my extensions, too. I can't recommend Linux to people I know if it doesn't offer a quality web browser!
I want to promote the use of Linux and open source software. I really do! But it's just something I can't do any longer, because the quality of so many critical components of a typical Linux desktop installation have gone straight to the pits of hell so badly. I'm not going to ruin my reputation by recommending software that will just cause my friends, family and colleagues trouble!
More people will just move to Linux.
Windows 10 just surpassed Linux in Steam installations. That ship has sailed, and it is long since over the horizon.
I have a Linux box and a Windows box, but I don't expect to be anything but the minority there.
Windows is still where it's at for PC gaming, I'm not hearing any bullshit about the Steam Linux library when it's just one slice of the PC gaming pie. And it still comes with PCs. So if you persist in believing that Linux is going to overtake Windows any time soon, you're gonna have a bad time.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Then you're doing it wrong. With linux, all you have to do is stick the install cd into the drive and reboot, you'll get a brand new system. The beauty of Linux is that the system is designed to cleanly separate your files from the system files, and the system partitions can be completely overwritten with a brand new system to make it work again.
If You're Not Paying, You're The Product.
Except they will charge for it later, and you will still be the product buying another product.
If i can use all my Windows programs without having to use some convoluted whatever so i can run them sure i will switch. Nothing Linux makes comes close to what is available to windows users. I want my OS to do the work, i don't have the time nor want too nor should I. That,s what a stinking computer is saposta do right? Take all the hard stuff and make it easy. You want to fiddle with your OS? more power to you. But me and a few billion others just don't want too. That,s why Linix is not popular, that's why Linux lost the Desktop OS wars. Ya telling user don't like it??change it yourself looser is going to make a ton of converts right? I hate windows 8 and 10 but i will never switch to an OS that cant even run my programs kinda ok. Gold?silver?Bronze? lol
Jack of all trades,master of none
Those that blast Windows 10 as the anti christ and how they are never going to use ... all from the comfort of their Google Chrome browser on their Google Android phones..
This is not a Android bash but just pointing out the obvious. The real question is the answer to this. As much as many here who are libertarian do you think it is time for laws to prohibit this? The free market appearently is too small to care about this.
Let's say Putin or the next Hitler comes and wants to spy on political opponents? Well it is known all these companies and phone and operating system makers have this data. Use NSA or governmental force and their oprivate keys and now you haqve what you need. Any opposition will be monitored. Kind of scary but I do not think it is too out of the realm of possibilities.
http://saveie6.com/
One more reason not to have windows in your home or business...
... and I just read there are 2 out of 100 and probably 4 million+ Vista users. Still more market share in 2015 than Linux
http://saveie6.com/
that's the year of Linux on the desktop.
Achille Talon
Hop!
Haha, this is the biggest "Linux!!!!" flamebait article... Anyway, yeah, it seems fairly obvious. The trend for years has been a move back to server-side processing and services that are very heavy on collected user data.
The thing is, it's not just Evul Micro$oft spying on you with a telescope - the spying comes wrapped in services that people actually want. For many people it's a tradeoff - they know they're giving their data away, but they're willing to give up a bit of privacy for the convenience that comes with the service. I find that the average person doesn't usually have the same reverence for privacy as the average Slashdotter.
It's already been said, and it'll be said a hundred more times before we let this article go, but yes, Linux and FOSS in general are the answer. We've been going back and forth about the Year of the Linux Desktop, but really, this is where FOSS shines: as a relatively minority choice for enthusiasts. Let people make their privacy tradeoff choice in peace, it's a perfectly valid choice to make if one most of us (myself included) find highly distasteful, and the rest of us can work on and use FOSS to our heart's content.
Coming from the hardware side too, as more of an EE guy than a programmer: OSHW is getting more and more possible. Powerful hardware that is amenable to use in open designs is becoming more available every year. I can jump over to DigiKey and buy an ARM chip that is capable of running Linux and has more computing power than some of my first desktop computers for $20. The chip designs themselves tend not to be open, but they do tend to be quite well documented - the high end is almost always closed and subject to NDA, but there is little pressure to move that line backwards, and as the high end moves forward, the devices available to the OSHW developer get better and better.
I don't think this is the end of computing privacy, I think this is just the logical conclusion of computers (read: the computers in your pocket!) becoming popular, and starting to work the way Average Joe expects them to. Enthusiasts will always be here, and I think this is the start of a new era for them.
Woosh.
You can put /home on a separate partition. This means if the system needs to be reinstalled, you can reinstall the OS without having to replace /home, so all your files and user land settings remain intact.
Of course, you didn't use Linux long enough to learn that, did you?
Holy shit, relax. Sperging out on /. isn't going to change the minds of the vast majority of Windows users. You're acting like this is the most important issue that you are facing when it literally shouldn't affect you in the slightest.
When windows breaks the fix is still typically GUI based. And despite what people say windows is in my experience pretty damn resilient to breaking. The days of win95 blue-screens and reinstalls every few months are long gone.
When linux breaks you often find yourself thrown back into command line purgatory. There's frickin' huge log files to read (when/if you can find them - they seem to move from one install to the next), obscure technical terms to learn, and google will usually throw up dozens of outdated solutions each differing in subtle ways and none of which quite match the problem at hand. Yes you and I can usually stumble through and learn something on the way, but it's rarely a pleasant or quick experience.
And yes, I do in fact use linux because when it works I prefer it, and because I value my privacy. But I'm not going to pretend it's perfect in every way.
Has anyone created a list of all the things one needs to do to change Windows 10 settings towards privacy?
(I know about the Reddit thread, which is full of fail because it tells you to use group policy editor, which does not exist in Home, leaves out items that are mentioned later in the comments, and doesn't describe exactly what each step does.)
When was this golden age exactly?
I was born in the 70s, so maybe I'm too young to remember.
Blocking these domains will make your version of Windows 10 "Unconnected". To Microsoft at least.
dns.msftncsi.com
ipv6.msftncsi.com
win10.ipv6.microsoft.com
ipv6.msftncsi.com.edgesuite.net
a978.i6g1.akamai.net
win10.ipv6.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
en-us.appex-rf.msn.com
v10.vortex-win.data.microsoft.com
client.wns.windows.com
wildcard.appex-rf.msn.com.edgesuite.net
v10.vortex-win.data.metron.life.com.nsatc.net
wns.notify.windows.com.akadns.net
americas2.notify.windows.com.akadns.net
travel.tile.appex.bing.com
www.bing.com
any.edge.bing.com
fe3.delivery.mp.microsoft.com
fe3.delivery.dsp.mp.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
ssw.live.com
ssw.live.com.nsatc.net
login.live.com
login.live.com.nsatc.net
directory.services.live.com
directory.services.live.com.akadns.net
bl3302.storage.live.com
skyapi.live.net
bl3302geo.storage.dkyprod.akadns.net
skyapi.skyprod.akadns.net
skydrive.wns.windows.com
register.mesh.com
BN1WNS2011508.wns.windows.com
settings-win.data.microsoft.com
settings.data.glbdns2.microsoft.com
OneSettings-bn2.metron.live.com.nsatc.net
watson.telemetry.microsoft.com
watson.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
http://init.sh/?p=236
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
I'd usually boot a livecd, mount my partitions, and chroot into my install to fix whatever was broken. Usually, it's something that I did recently, and that I know how to undo. I've had to do that about as many times as I've had to boot from a Windows disk to restore corrupted files, fix the mbr, or some other such nonsense. That's not counting trouble with updates that won't install and can't tell me why or that put the computer into an unbootable state.
In Linux, I can usually trace problems to something that I did. In Windows, I can usually trace problems to something that the OS did. Each system has it's own philosophy of repair. For Windows: Use the Microsoft-supplied tools, and hope that you can get things working well enough. For Linux: Hope that your knowledge or search engine skills are enough to fix the problem. I like the second approach, because it feels like it relies on my own cleverness than it does the engineers that wrote the software.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
its been 20 years since win 95... are you SURE that will happen????
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Then you're doing it wrong. With linux, all you have to do is stick the install cd into the drive and reboot, you'll get a brand new system. The beauty of Linux is that the system is designed to cleanly separate your files from the system files, and the system partitions can be completely overwritten with a brand new system to make it work again.
You're missing the point, I don't want to waste my time re-installing my OS/reconfigure my preferences every couple weeks. When I was a kid and computers were new that was fun but I've got way too much on my plate to bother with re-installs now days. If something breaks, I want the OS to recognize it, fix it, and let me get on with my day without trashing my preferences.
In this regard, then, Microsoft is copying the Google business plan. Facebook, most other social media, Google's Android, Chrome, and Chromebook do what Microsoft is just now trying to do. But it's totally evil, now that it's Microsoft doing it.
I like the second approach, because it feels like it relies on my own cleverness than it does the engineers that wrote the software.
Also takes WAY too much time and you're screwed if no solution presents itself.
Apple, and Microsoft, have always been just as bad.
Linux and FreeBSD both support secure Boot.
FYI it is not an MS standard but an Intel one which is a good thing to prevent rootkits. Anyone can sign a bootloader. FYI I left Linux for good for the desktop back in 2011 with Gnome 3 and the introduction of WIndows 7. Linux to me is a good VM.
http://saveie6.com/
I don't know what type of software you're using, but all my preferences are stored in my home directory, in something that's called a dotfile. They're hidden files in my user area, which don't ever get touched if the system is completely replaced by a brand new install. That's different from the way windows works, as different Windows programs can store user preferences anywhere they like, and then you have to reset your preferences each time you do a clean reinstall.
> If you're taking up Microsoft on its offer of a free upgrade to Windows 10, you should know that the new operating system has a feature, called Wi-Fi Sense, that automatically shares your Wi-Fi passwords with others.
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/windows-10-may-share-wi-164057617.html
I move desktop, my documents, and a few other folders to the D: drive on Windows and get most of the same functionality.
If you are seriously saying home directories is the saving grace of Linux, you just don't understand.
I've been carrying along my home directory and my .fwvm2rc file, along with the critical bits of /etc on my NetBSD systems for years, now, btw. It's MUCH easier to do that on a stable and mature freenix than on a dogs breakfast userland,that runs on top of a Linux kernel.
Gee, I've used Linux for years without having to reinstall. I've spent less hours searching for fixes than I have searching for Windows fixes.
True, Microsoft controls the industry enough to make some things incompatible with some versions of Linux. (Think Trusted Computing locking others out.)
But that doesn't make Microsoft any easier to use than, say, Linux Mint.
In Windows 10, the privacy settings are accessible if you hunt. Just don't expect to be able to use a lot of Windows features if you turn them all off.
Dude probably still installs slackware. How many floppy disks does the XD series take up these days?
Ubuntu 14 was the last one I tried. Upon re-installing, after only a week of use, everything was reset to defaults (I did not attempt to do a clean install). I haven't had to do a re-install Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 (8.0 was a mess). Programs that save settings/need re-installing it's all in the User\%username%\AppData folder (though can be installed anywhere I suppose). Restoring/resetting settings like that is just drag and drop in and out of that folder.
Problem is, the hipsters are trying to push all this crap into Linux, too.
Pretty soon, I'm sure systemd will be sending all your logs to 'the cloud' because it lets them do some hipster shit that no user actually cares about.
Neither does Fedora, and by extension, CentOS and RedHat.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
I move desktop, my documents, and a few other folders to the D: drive on Windows and get most of the same functionality.
Aside from having to reinstall all your apps after you reinstall the OS, because they stuffed all the important config information in the registry, which you just wiped.
And that's assuming you already know the magic install commands to actually get all your user files onto d: instead of c:.
More people will just move to Linux.
That's what they said in 2001 when Windows XP came out. 14 years later, it still hasn't happened.
I want my OS to do the work
That's why I run Linux. For years and years it's enabled me to be productive.
I've heard the "LibreOffice is lacking x,y,z" and "I can't live without feature x,y,z in Photoshop" many, many times now. If you truly can't live without x,y,z then go ahead and use Windows. Even if it's a simple matter of you like Windows better, go ahead and use it. I don't care. But don't tell me Linux is inferior because it doesn't have some obscure feature not used by 99% of users.
I know Linux on the desktop will forever remain a small percentage of market share. It's simply never going to catch up with the big boys. I'm okay with that, too. The reason, though, is not inferiority. It's entrenchment and market muscle.
If Microsoft started pushing Linux as Windows 12, even if they made zero changes to it, it would take off quickly.
This is not about quality and merit. Not at all.
I've had to do several reinstalls of Windows 7 on a computer that got caught by a bad update and had its boot sequence repeatedly hosed until I was able to ensure that the update didn't get installed yet again. (I haven't checked to see if MS ever did get around to actually removing the update, given that they ended up basically advising people to remove it because it was a ticking time bomb.) It's not just a drag and drop in and out of that folder--I ended up having to back up several to come close to having it all done, and with a few I just gave up and switched to the portable edition because it was less trouble on reinstalling it.
I'm not installing Win10 for reasons that really have more to do with the fact that it's barely been a year since MS inflicted bad patches on me, and I really don't feel like trusting them yet to have properly vetted them before shoving them out. If they want me to be okay with forced updates, having it so that bad updates can be automatically 'recalled' instead of forcing people to manually go in and pry them out would be a good start.
you sound like a dumb fuck that can't tell the difference between your ass and a hole in the ground
You're so eloquent. This "dumb fuck" tests in the 97-98th percentile in WAIS-IV PIQ testing, how about you?
> It’s your own fault if you don’t know that Windows 10 is spying on you. That’s what people always say when users fail to read through a company’s terms of service document, right?
http://bgr.com/2015/07/31/windows-10-upgrade-spying-how-to-opt-out/
If you must use Windows 10, ( believe it or not there is some software that is still Windows only, or would cost a fortune to purchase new licences for another OS, if it's even an option ) just air gap the damn thing.
Load it, patch it to current, get all your software running on it, then deny it internet access completely. You can air gap it, but then you'll need to manually transfer your data over to another non Win 10 system. Use it as a workstation, not an all in one solution.
Or ( what I would do ) is simply put a route map or ACL on the router that explicitly denies access for that machine off the local network or Vlan. Hell, put it in its own VLAN and block the whole damn thing if you have to. Personally, I would disallow any talking between it and any other device on the local network outside of a network connected NAS drive so you can still transfer files. If you gotta get your game on I suppose you could allow very specific connections to very specific addresses, but block everything else.
Use a Windows box for specialized applications, use anything but to connect to the internet.
Best refuge for now.
> If you're taking up Microsoft on its offer of a free upgrade to Windows 10, you should know that the new operating system has a feature, called Wi-Fi Sense, that automatically shares your Wi-Fi passwords with others.
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/windows-10-may-share-wi-164057617.html
From your link: "When Wi-Fi Sense is enabled, anyone you have in your Skype, Outlook or Hotmail contacts lists — and any of your Facebook friends — can be granted access to your Wi-Fi network as long as they're within range. " (emphasis mine)
According to Wankapedia: "A typical wireless router in an indoor point-to-multipoint arrangement using 802.11b or 802.11g and a stock antenna might have a range of 32 metres (105 ft)."
So unless someone in your contact list is within 100 feet of you, there is no problem. And if you are using Hotmail or Facebook you deserve to be hacked, screwed and buttfucked as much as possible.
I also work with Photoshop a lot (with an Intuos though, no Cintiq), as well as InDesign, Illustrator, a bit of Lightroom. Every other company I deal with does the same and uses the same file formats. Linux is pointless for me as well.
But then again, we're an electronics manufacturer and for the most part Linux is useless to us as a desktop OS: .NET or old ones making very heavy use of MFC and other non-portable stuff)
-Our 3D design is done with SolidWorks which doesn't run on Linux
-Our electronic design is done with Altium Designer which doesn't run on Linux
-Most of our existing embedded code bases compile with Imagecraft and IAR only (And Keil for some older products), and some microcontrollers don't even have a GCC port (usable or not)
-We use MS Office as most companies because it's the only thing that really seems to work well
-Our accounting system is Windows-only
-100% of our in-house tools are windows only (either
-Most of our electronics lab tools are Windows-only
-99% of the other 3rd party software we use doesn't work on anything else than Windows
-some of our old ERP system reports even use ActiveX controls which is quickly becoming a pain in the ass (yes, laugh all you want and blame us for a decision made by some manager at another company 15+ years ago!)
I *really* hate Windows 8.x and 10 with a passion (7 seems like it'll the last good version *ever*) but Linux doesn't do 1% of what we need it for on the desktop. Even OS X is very limited in terms of what runs on it. As for servers, we do use Linux for some stuff though (git/svn repositories, simple databases, etc). It works well enough for that and the price is definitely right (no MS licensing hassle either)
This may cost us some amount of privacy, but we'll tend to get something in return: software that can do more things and that works better.
Making it the new normal are we? With self fulfilling prophecies? And always some Madison Ave to give our 'new normal' a little push..
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Even better is to put /home on a RAID device of some sort - mounted via network from a NAS w/ raid, hardware raid on the local machine, or software raid on the local machine
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
It doesn't matter if your OS doesn't spy on you at that point. Linux doesn't run the vast majority of commercial apps so that makes it a non-starter, unless your needs are so limited that even Android would do. Nevermind gaming and what not.
All other operating systems don't require you to become an IT pro to setup and use, and they're far more useful because of what actually runs on them. So shove your elitism where the sun don't shine.
I've never been in a situation where I didn't find a solution, but I suppose that it's a "YMMV" situation...and there have been times on both Windows and Linux where I've gotten the system screwed up enough that it would take less time to just do a wipe+reinstall. I've spent at least as much time trying to find something remotely useful in Microsoft KB articles as I have in researching Linux problems, but I suspect that has more to do with the patterns of abuse that I tend to put my systems through than the OSes themselves.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
"People are happy idiots."
Actually, people are unhappy "idiots". When abusers succeed, that causes others to choose to be abusive. When there are a huge number of people doing many kinds of abuses, people begin feeling that they can't protect themselves, and try to ignore the abuses.
The U.S. government in general, U.S. banks, and the many secret agencies of the U.S. government engage in many kinds of abuses. For example, a side-effect of NSA activities also has the initials NSA: No Sales for America. Companies don't want to buy complicated products from the U.S. because agencies of the U.S. government can go to any U.S. corporation and tell executives that they must accept the insertion of spy products, and keep that secret, or go to prison. Since any complicated U.S. product could have methods of control or spying or worse, it is better for foreign customers to avoid buying anything touched by U.S. companies.
One effect of "upgrading" to Windows 10: Windows Media Center will be deleted.
Another loss in Windows 10: Windows Updates will be forced, in at least one version. Will there be other lost features, now or later? Will Microsoft extend its control over Windows in other hidden or complicated ways? The issue is not whether technically-knowledgeable users will be able to stop forced updates; the issue is that most people won't know how to regain control over their systems. That control is important because often Microsoft has given poorly designed updates that have caused problems on user's systems. See this Slashdot story, for example, Windows 10's Automatic Updates For NVidia Drivers Causing Trouble.
More about Microsoft releasing buggy software: The Slashdot story, Windows 10 Launches, says Windows 10 is "buggier than Windows 8.1, 8, 7, or Vista were on their respective launch days" and "During my testing on a variety of hardware, I've run into a lot of bugs and issues -- even with the version that will be released to consumers on launch day".
(At present, the best way to update Windows 7 is to use Autopatcher, because Microsoft's anti-customer "updates" are avoided.)
Online comments say that Microsoft will try to move Windows to a model that requires monthly payments.
Firefox: Embraced, "Extended", soon to be Extinguished? Mozilla Foundation now gets most of its money from Microsoft. Microsoft pays Yahoo. Yahoo pays Mozilla Foundation to make "Yahoo search" (actually Microsoft Bing search) the default search engine in Firefox. Most people don't have the technical knowledge to know how they've been manipulated, or how to restore the default search engine to Google search.
Thunderbird and SeaMonkey Composer GUIs: Damaged, apparently deliberately. Every time you do a file save, the newer versions of both ask for a new file name, and don't suggest the last one chosen. The damage was reported several months ago, but has not been fixed. Is that another example of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish? People who feel forced away from Thunderbird may choose Microsoft software to replace it. Is that what Microsoft is trying to accomplish?
One effect of abuse is that the abusers become VERY unhappy. For years, people called Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer "Monkey Boy". That reflected the results of Ballmer's constant involvement in Microsoft's abuse of its customers.
Microsoft is amazingly badly managed. The
And new x86_64 computers sold in 2015 without an optical drive that do boot via USB?
Don't get me wrong, Windows is not perfect, not by a long shot. Forced patching is one reason I don't install Win10 - I always wait 6 months before patching to avoid those issues. Linux just needs to do a better job of auto-recovery is all I'm saying.
Absolutely. I've borked my share of Windows installs over the years. I have run into problems that didn't have solutions. In all my attempts I never made it 30 days on a Linux system without having to re-install.
For many laptops, all the hardware is basically from Intel. Intel writes amazing open source drivers. There are exceptions I'm sure. My first working WiFi adapter that didn't require external configuration was the on-board Intel one.
Stick with 7
Take a look at duplicity -- it's what I use for backups. It's built on top of rsync, but with a lot more intelligence layered on top. It supports full and differential backups (with a sane default strategy), and can place backups in many places (another directory, another machine via ssh, another machine via rsync, ftp, Amazon S3, etc.).
Which "more things" can Windows 10 do that say Windows 8 or Windows 7 can't? Apart from spy on you I mean.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I think I speak for all of us when I say, "Fuck this shit".
I'll stick with WIn 7 until my PC dies, and then I'll probably move to some popular Linux distro.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
As a former windows developer, I can tell you it's not even remotely like that. There are at least 5 different historical standards for where user data should go. But I'm done with all that, so if you feel it works for you, go ahead and enjoy your system. Ultimately you're better off wrestlng with a system if you are confident about understanding it.
Personally I like the simplicity of more modular systems where data and apps don't mix, I've replaced OSes for years while keeping my personal /home intact.
The only speed bumps tend to be when apps I use deprecate old capabilities, and I have to figure out why an old setting I've always used now works a bit differently in that app.
Don't get me wrong, Windows is not perfect, not by a long shot. Forced patching is one reason I don't install Win10 - I always wait 6 months before patching to avoid those issues. Linux just needs to do a better job of auto-recovery is all I'm saying.
And I'm saying that my experience is that Windows isn't as easy to do that as you make it sound. If it was, I'd have been merely annoyed by having to reinstall Windows ~3-4 times in a row on the same machine, because I'd have been able to use it without much trouble...until the forced patch hit again.
I had nowhere near the same problems with the Linux boxes I've run, though I'm probably going to try to stay away from systemd until/unless it settles down to doing its job and only its job.
He's not doing it wrong. Not even 6 months ago I installed Linux Mint on my HP envy laptop, and it took me 2 days to get it fully working. Why? Partially UEFI, partially bugs in the installer, and mainly no network driver (had to compile my own with a manual patch). This doesn't even include having to install new drivers to ensure it doesn't overheat, nor the fact that "suspend" still doesn't work.
You can read about my experience here http://forums.linuxmint.com/vi..., but quite frankly nobody cares (no replies....). Until it really is "insert CD and go" for ALL computers (is an HP laptop so weird??) then Linux will never be mainstream. Sorry.
Then you are doing it wrong. That's not a problem with Linux instead it's PEBCAK.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
As an IT professional, the only way I could use this would be if Microsoft provided me with appropriate documentation on their PCI compliance status regarding all this information they're collecting, which they will never do, since those documents would be legally binding.
Anybody who accept credit cards is walking in to a mindfield with Windows 10.
The last attempt was thwarted by Microsoft and UEFI.
It's too bad you bought such a locked-down system. It's almost like you would have benefited from doing some research ahead of time if you planned to go to Linux.
One thing Microsoft does well is it makes sure that once something important breaks it has tools to recover, at least partially, so the user can continue.
Since Vista or so they've gotten pretty good at repairing. I had to roast too many XP installs to trust the recovery tools.
With Linux it's luck into a terminal fix or re-install and start over from scratch.
Not really. All the user configuration is stored in the home directory, as others have pointed out, so you're hardly starting over from "scratch". If you are intelligent about editing configs, you will create include files in the .d dirs when possible, and then it's easy to save your site-specific configurations of the OS as well, if there actually are any. Often, there really aren't, aside from fstab entries describing your filesystems.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Until it really is "insert CD and go" for ALL computers (is an HP laptop so weird??) then Linux will never be mainstream. Sorry.
A lot of laptops aren't "insert CD and go" for Windows. If you don't have the official disc which re-images your system, you can't even install them without slipstreaming drivers into the Windows CD. Sorry.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Then you are doing it wrong. That's not a problem with Linux instead it's PEBCAK.
Funny how it's never Linux's fault.
The last attempt was thwarted by Microsoft and UEFI.
It's too bad you bought such a locked-down system. It's almost like you would have benefited from doing some research ahead of time if you planned to go to Linux.
I wasn't planning on it, I bought the system and hated Win8 so much I tried installing to Win7Pro got part way through the install and it froze up every time. Tried installing Linux next, failed to do anything but boot the livecd. Most likely this particular model's UEFI.
With Linux it's luck into a terminal fix or re-install and start over from scratch.
Not really. All the user configuration is stored in the home directory, as others have pointed out, so you're hardly starting over from "scratch". If you are intelligent about editing configs, you will create include files in the .d dirs when possible, and then it's easy to save your site-specific configurations of the OS as well, if there actually are any. Often, there really aren't, aside from fstab entries describing your filesystems.
My experience has been that the configs are either corrupted & replaced or overwritten with defaults on re-install. At best I'd get some settings restored others lost or everything was lost.
Programs that save settings/need re-installing it's all in the User\%username%\AppData folder (though can be installed anywhere I suppose).
Yes. Exactly. Especially that last parenthetical comment. Windows programs can store their settings anywhere whoever wrote it decides that they should because Windows was designed to be used by only one person, or, at least, with all users running from the same account, so that it didn't matter where things were stored. Linux, OTOH, has always been designed as a multi-user OS, even if most of today's desktops and laptops only have one user account. That's why all of your private configuration is stored in hidden files in your home directory so that they don't conflict with anybody else's configuration. It also means that you can easily find out if a problem's caused by a bug or a config issue by creating a new user, logging in to that account and seeing what happens.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Just because it hasn't happened to you doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
I've migrated myself back in 98. I've migrated other people. It's been getting easier to migrate people since Ubuntu Dapper which came out 9 years ago.
I'm going to migrate my wife to it, probably this week. She's fed up with 7, hates 8.x and read about the privacy stuff for 10. As a social activist, she wants no part of the "give everything to the cloud" stupidity.
Speaking of which, after analyzing what passes for a privacy policy for 10, it is completely HIPAA non-compliant. It basically says "we don't guarantee that your data won't leak from our servers, so enjoy your $50K fines and lawsuits." HIPAA covers not only hospitals and doctors, but other health care workers as well, including private contractors that do hospice and elderly care at the huge wage of $15-$17/hr, who simply /cannot afford/ to hire someone to harden their Windows laptops. 10 is a fucking nightmare for HIPAA - unsafe at any speed. Windows is the Corvair of OSes.
--
BMO
Linux! It's called Linux you fucking morons. And I don't mean Ubuntu "not smart enough to configure Debian" Linux.
It's always entertaining to me to watch as the toy unix users lord it over each other as to which distribution has the smartest users.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Do more things for whom? Works better for what purpose?
Is this finally the year of the Linux Desktop?
I mean, just how far do companies like Microsoft have to push before people really start refusing, en masse, to participate?
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
It is perfectly reasonable to refuse Windows users access to your wi-fi. Do so, and let them know why.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
... MS does this every so often. Its why even numbered OS's are shitty. Just wait for windows 11.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Other people don't have the same problems as you do. Occam's razor suggests that the problem isn't Linux, rather, in this case, the problem is the user.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
I wasn't planning on it, I bought the system and hated Win8 so much I tried installing to Win7Pro
Well, it can happen to anyone. I got a gateway lt31 series, garbage. My own fault. I made assumptions about AMD and OSS that were unwarranted. Luckily it was cheap.
My experience has been that the configs are either corrupted & replaced or overwritten with defaults on re-install. At best I'd get some settings restored others lost or everything was lost.
You'll typically have to re-enter network settings, but customizations to the GUI and whatnot will stay with you. You do have to reinstall all the same packages; there are various ways to handle that, but the easiest is just to record what you install so that you can install it again.
It's not entirely unusual to break your Linux install a few times while learning, but it's relatively rare these days.
I suggest the latest Linux Mint, if you choose to take another stab. I find it to be least offensive out of the available Linux distributions, and with good hardware support. It's worth a go, anyway.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Pretty much. Its about applications and for "IT pro's" its probably about what they have to support in the workplace as well. I love linux on the server, (LTS releases ONLY), but on the desktop? Last time i tried it was all about lack of software, and length of configuration time for something I am less familiar with.
With linux there is 1 program that one guy maintains that does what you want in one way. If you want variety, hey just program that shit up! On windows, there are tens to hundreds of programmes that do what you want, no coding required. Some pay, some free, the best ones are open source of course.
So I guess I am not sure what desktop linux users complain about. Android is the most popular phone OS, and OSX is UNIX... So pretty much everywhere is *NIX already in 2015. I can name a dozen popular open source tools that I use every day, so even the linux philosophy has thoroughly permeated many windows users. (windirstat, thunderbird, putty, filezilla, dban, rufus, firefox, notepad++, vnc, media player classic, vlc, xibo... and many more)
The only reason that there are not more desktop linux installs is that MS and office are considered business standard. Business people (including most IT people I have met) like that most of the technology works out of the box and is point and click, thus saving time and headaches. Office workers want the os that they are familiar with from work, at home. You would need to retrain the entire world for that to change, and no ones going to pay for that.
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Where I work, we now just have a VM for each project, with whatever OS it runs on, and use X-forwarding to run the apps on the local desktop, whatever it may be.
Oh, except I forgot, the hipsters are going to kill X-forwarding, too.
It doesn't matter if your OS doesn't spy on you at that point. Linux doesn't run the vast majority of commercial apps so that makes it a non-starter, unless your needs are so limited that even Android would do.
The vast majority of people use their computer for web-browsing and simple word processing, and have no need for those 'commercial apps' that Linux lacks.
All other operating systems don't require you to become an IT pro to setup and use, and they're far more useful because of what actually runs on them. So shove your elitism where the sun don't shine.
Are you seriously suggesting that Joe Clueless could install and setup Windows? From a Windows retail disk? Finding all the drivers he needs to update and installing them?
Good one.
"Aside from having to reinstall all your apps after you reinstall the OS, because they stuffed all the important config information in the registry, which you just wiped."
Hey guys, check this noob out! He installs programs that relies upon a registry in the first place in Windows!!!!!!
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Uh, you do know how the Windows Logo certification works?
Device makers have to follow Windows driver model, not the other way around. There's literally nothing specialized about laptop hardware. In windows it's quite often a simple .ini change and suddenly the hardware is recognized by an OEM driver package. That's how I get new GPUs working on Windows XP, especially on laptops.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I have plenty of the same problems. PulseAudio is a piece of laggy shit. Most of the programs I use, the Linux alternatives FUCKING SUCK. The filesystem nomenclature and readability is near incoherent garbage and symbols unless you're some guru - where's your goddamned PLAIN FUCKING ENGLISH FOR THE REGULAR USER, NERD? Your configs are scattered all over the fucking filesystem for various things, and any attempts to make them remotely accessible in a GUI format, all-in-one or individually, are all wrecked failures. EVEN REACTOS RUNS WINDOWS PROGRAMS BETTER THAN LINUX.
And then it's MORE than the operating system - it's the attitude of Linux users like you - "That's not a Linux problem." You're right, it's the problem of YOU. You and your Linux ilk have ZERO HUMILITY. And it shows any fucking time someone tries to get help for something - "RTFM." I can't read your shit symbol-laden non-English chickenscratch, Doctor Binary. Get off your fucking high horse, and write something in plain legible English for once in your life. NO FUCKING TECHNICAL TERMS. If you can't make something for the layman to understand, YOU HAVE ZERO FUCKING BUSINESS SELLING IT TO THE LAYMAN.
And since Linus can't be bothered to get you assholes to write legible plain-English manuals, that makes him just as worthless, as leader of this whole goddamned thing. You don't think of the users, or your future users. You only think of yourselves when you do this shit.
If you people used your brains and bit your goddamned pride, you'd have found a way to merge ReactOS into Linux and you could blow Windows straight the fuck out of the water.
But I doubt you can pull your heads out of your collective ass long enough to even get that far.
Even MenuetOS beats your ass hands down, and it's a fucking BABY project.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
You found one thing you don't like, and avoided thinking about everything else?
I call BS...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
"This may cost us some amount of privacy, but we'll tend to get something in return: software that can do more things and that works better.
Well, crazy a** stupid. First, one should prove that what they expect us to give up is less than what we can expect to gain. We are _very_ far from that, oh, so very far it's not even funny. Also, I call bollocks on the quoted line of reasoning - what history has taught us repeatedly, so many times over, is that giving up our freedom and privacy for that "something in return" is not worth it.
And well, let's be honest, is Win10 really worth giving up anything? At all? Bleh.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
A lot of laptops aren't "insert CD and go" for Windows.
That's true. In reality, most laptops are just "go" for Windows, because it comes preinstalled and Just Works(TM).
And that is why Microsoft win, and why despite the valid concerns about Windows 10 most people are still going to use it eventually unless (a) a massive campaign of average-user education takes places, and (b) average users then care enough about things like not controlling their system or having their privacy eroded to make an other choice, and (c) another viable choice exists.
For better or worse, there is little evidence that any of those three things is going to happen any time soon, never mind all of them.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
So, approach the thing more intelligently. I've broken Linux. Many of us have broken Linux. Yeah, it can be a pain in the ass to repair it - many of us have just given up and reinstalled. Reinstall only takes a half hour, or less, but repairing the damage that I've caused out of stupidity can take days to repair.
Two routes to solve most of the problems, include: /home. In half an hour, I'm pretty much where I started out when I fucked the system up.
1. put your home folder on a different hard drive than the OS. Many times, I've simply reinstalled, and pointed the installer to my separate drive, and told it NOT TO FORMAT
2. Install your favorite distro, then install VirtualBox. Do all your stupid shit inside of a virtual machine. Extra benefits - you can install MULTIPLE VM's. Do all of your online banking from one machine. Do all of your online gaming from another machine. Do your general browsing in another. Experiment with the operating system in another machine. Keep another separate machine for your employer's crap. Just look at all that redundant security - your boss can't install an application that will discover that you like to dress in drag, because his stuff doesn't even share the same OS that you use to troll the gay forums.
Windows is so damned stupid a choice, I can't imaging why so few people see that.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Actually, a LiveCD is a brand new system each and every time you reboot. TAILS relies on that fact.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Ubuntu is to Linux as balogna is to meat.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
GUI based like "regedit" ?
Let's face it, both systems are just too complicated and utterly unsuitable for the average user... You can't expect people with zero knowledge of computing to manage updates, install software etc.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
It's not all about market muscle, even if this is a big part of the problem.
There is an area in which Linux is really lacking, which is "computer administration for dummies". Incidentally, the people who will be in the deepest trouble are home users, who are the administrators of their own computers, but have never learnt how to do that.
Grandma can use Linux: she will have a locked-down setup installed by her computer-savvy grandsons, and she only wants to go on the internet and print a few things.
Office users can use Linux, as their desktops are administrated by IT. Here the problem will be more about the OSS ecosystem. Almost every business uses "niche" software or "niche" features that are crucial to their operations.
But home users, who are always installing programs and configuring small things are in trouble. Let's say I run OpenSUSE... I can use YaST to configure my system. Or I can try to use the "system configuration" panel in KDE. Or I can use an independant KDE utility which will be happy to interfere with YaST settings, or will have absolutely no effect. Or I can use a command-line utility written in ncurses that I read about on the internet and was installed by default on the system (e.g alsamixer or others...). Or finally, I can hack directly the configuration text files, hoping that they have not been deprecated by a newer system.
If you know Linux, you will probably skip every of those steps to go to the final one, as it is the most reliable way to administer stuff with UNIX-likes. However, not every home user is either able to do that, or willing to learn that.
Let's compare the situation to Windows now, where you can go for 10 years with your home computer without even knowing what the registry is.
Sorry yourself.
If you really purchase the laptop for Linux usage, it doesn't take long to check the list of supported hardware to make sure everything works. My attitude is that if the vendor doesn't support Linux, they're not gonna get my money. Works way better than buying random crap and then blaming the OS. Thinkpads particulary are fantastic for Linux.
For BABY projects, I rely on the wife.
The rest of your post seems to be a rant on "WHY ISN'T *NIX AS EASY AS WINDOWS?"
The answer to that might be, *nix isn't as easy to exploit as Windows is, and we like it that way.
" If you can't make something for the layman to understand, YOU HAVE ZERO FUCKING BUSINESS SELLING IT TO THE LAYMAN."
Yet, more than a billion laymen are happy running Windows, which they can't claim to understand. Somehow, you're failing to make sense. Want to start all over?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Because users are not locked in to those products, they are easy to avoid and/or widely known alternatives exist.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Current versions of Windows were never "designed" to be single user. Sure the older Windows 3.x and 9x lines were single-user, but XP was based on the NT architecture which was multi-user from the get-go.
Linux programs can store their data and settings pretty much anywhere too (anywhere they have access to), but the vast majority do store them in someplace sane. However, there is a lot of really bad Windows programs out there that store things in stupid places. That is hardly the OS's fault however, and no mainstream apps do. The registry for user preferences, and AppData (or what the program thinks is the Program Files directory, which the OS remaps to Program Data or AppData depending). It's really not all that different.
Some applications do store things in the registry during install (they COULD just put them there on first run if they don't exist, which makes a LOT more sense), but again, that's up to the application to do. Perhaps it is time for Windows to actually start enforcing applications to stop doing stupid things rather than cave to allowing badly written apps to continue to function.
Or have it turned off for you.
Seriously. The fact that this *can* be turned off in the enterprise version shows that there is nothing in Windows' archictecture that requires it.
As long as each and every MS Windows installation makes one administrator when one installs it, one can turn all those things off (or de-install them).
When I say "one", I don't mean the "average user" of course. It would take 'em (myself included) months of intense study to figure out how to do that (and they won't have the time, the interest, the aptitude, or the stamina for that). The good news is that they probably won't have to.
For computer-literate people there will probably be utilities / batch files to take care of Microsoft's pre-installed "tattleware" for you.
For complete end-users I also foresee a market for something like an "add-on control panel" that shows every (known) piece of "tattleware" on MS Windows and allows you to switch it off (or even de-install it). A seperate piece of software that works as a Windows "service" can ensure that this user "policy" is enforced every time Windows boots plus, say, at 2-hr intervals.
Fuck you
I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you
I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you
I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you
I won't do what you tell me
Translation: I do *not* intend to just "get used to it", and Peter Bright can kiss my shiny white gluteus.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Probably less than Win 8.1.
Just a wild guess, I haven't checked.
https://i.imgur.com/94GFNGX.jp...
Mastering the English language is fucking easy: all you have to do is to put an f* word in every fucking sentence.
Windows 10 had more users as a fricking BETA than Linux has had in 22 years so...yeah I'd say the users have decided long ago that Linux is a "do not want". Remember that for most of its life Linux has been $0 while its cheapest competition was $100 a pop and you couldn't give it away so what does that say about YOU, when you can't even get anybody to take your product for free?
While I think Windows 10 is the equivalent of the spyware that comes with a "free"program on Sourceforge the simple fact of the matter is Linux is broken. its been broken for the past 22 years, it'll probably be broken 22 years from now. this is why the hairyfeet challenge, which asks Linux to do such "hard" tasks as "update yourself without dying", has lasted for 8 years without a single consumer distro passing, its because Linux is broken and its driver model is frankly worse than Windows 98s VXD driver model.
Does Linux look nice OOTB? Sure it does, but once the user finds that none of their programs run and the OS breaks on update what you see is people return it in droves because if an OS can't run the programs you want, or requires you to learn pages of CLI (on another PC, you DO have a spare, right?) just to deal with the broken WiFi and shitted on GPU drivers when you update it? Then it might as well be a paperweight.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I wonder if some anti virus packages don't get "suspicious by heuristics" with some of the Win10 components, given the fact it does pretty much act like a infected windows machine, by displaying unwanted ADs and logging user data without his knowledge or consent.
There is a serious problem. What is one of your contacts has a seriously malicious intent? They can park a car with tinted windows across street, and then access your LAN, which is a huge privacy AND security issue. At once, this feature of Windows 10 not only compromised privacy, but also the security of your entire home LAN. There will be a million interesting ways to exploit it. In fact, you don't even need to be a friend with the target. You simply need to be friend of his friend, and all will be good as long as the friend of the target has once visited targets home and cached his wifi network password. The possibilities are limitless. Would you like to snoop around on your boss or do you want to stalk your ex? Want to snoop around on their LAN? Find unsecured PC, SMB shares, or media servers? Well now you can, thanks to Microsoft.
I think MS will be eventually sued for that.
He didn't say "live CD"--he said "install CD".
Although, now that you mention it, many Linux "live" CDs also can act as installers as well.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I'm not a computer programmer or a software professional. Still I have not touched or used a windows system or installed windows on my personal / work computers for last 9 years. I was using Ubuntu for about 6 years and Ubuntu Gnome for another 3 years. I have no problem making excellent presentations, writing reports, documents (libreoffice), editing basic images (gimp), editing music (audacity), making basic 3d animations (blender), video editing (openshot/cinerella), making brochures (scibus) or even setting up my own server (apache). Everything is damn easy (software center /apt-get). I enjoy gaming sometimes (gbrainy/majongg/wesnoth/supertuxcart etc).
I don't install flash and youtube works. Over the time other video websites have automatically started working without flash.
Life continues and without privacy issues, security issues and hassle of maintaining an up-to-date antivirus, life is much better.
That's weird because I've re-installed Windows twice on this laptop, and once on my Netbook, and in both cases it was put the CD in and 80% of things work, let windows update run and now 100% of things work.
Additionally, if it did not, fixing it is just inserting a factory CD or downloading drivers as you said, not re-compiling a kernel.....
Other people don't have the same problems as you do. Occam's razor suggests that the problem isn't Linux, rather, in this case, the problem is the user.
It's not the users fault when the user doesn't edit config files, doesn't run terminal commands, doesn't do anything but change some GUI based settings and installs a few programs from their app store and the result is the OS either fails to boot or becomes so unstable as to be unusable.
Are you joking? Windows is very much a multi-user environment. The system can create new users in User\%username%\ folders which are specific to the user and has a default "All Users" folder which has default settings/access permissions which tells these new users what programs they have access to when they are created.
Ubuntu is to Linux as balogna is to meat.
The most consistent, bland, can't screw it up kind? Yet it always screws up.
Device makers have to follow Windows driver model, not the other way around.
What do you imagine that this sentence means? A driver model is the way the drivers function, not the way they are managed. I have personally had to go through this process before, so I don't know what the hell you are arguing about. If you haven't, then you don't have the experience to even make a meaningful contribution to this conversation, not that this ever stops you. Hell, if you even want to install Windows XP on a typical notebook in AHCI mode, you're going to need the iastor (or whatever, but usually, iastor) drivers slipstreamed into the disc. You need that just for Dell Vostro 1500. Sure, you can change to AHCI mode afterwards, but then you have to diddle the registry and generally do stupid shit that frankly brings it into "more of a PITA than Linux" territory. These problems aren't actually restricted to notebooks, either. That's just where I've run into them the most.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I was thinking more along the lines of pablum. You can feed balogna to a beginning toddler, whereas feeding him steak might be a waste of time. When the little guy's teeth are fully grown in, then you can give him real meat.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
That's weird because I've re-installed Windows twice on this laptop, and once on my Netbook,
The plural of anecdote is not data. Are you new?
Additionally, if it did not, fixing it is just inserting a factory CD or downloading drivers as you said, not re-compiling a kernel...
Statistically nobody has had to re-compile a kernel for driver support in ages. When you're getting off into driver support that esoteric, you're getting into territory where Windows just flat doesn't support the hardware — for a lot of hardware, there simply is no driver which can be installed on Windows newer than XP! So complaining that you are able to get driver support in exceptional circumstances by recompiling the kernel while in Windows you're just fucked sideways and have to buy new hardware is some ignorant bullshit at best.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"Hell, if you even want to install Windows XP on a typical notebook in AHCI mode, you're going to need the iastor (or whatever, but usually, iastor) drivers slipstreamed into the disc."
Three notebooks here. Not a single one uses AHCI mode. All running SATA. I don't use NCQ or hot-swapping/plugging. I go into BIOS and turn on legacy mode. XP installs JUST FINE. No drivers required.
" I have personally had to go through this process before"
What, once in your lifetime? I do it daily. I take Win7/8 machines and get them loaded with XP every single day, with every single piece of hardware working. Do you not know that with the advent of WDDM and UNIFIED DRIVER ARCHITECTURES (thank you nVidia for starting this trend) the days of specialized hardware under Windows are almost entirely gone? The only thing that stops it is software written by the companies, and that's such a minor workaround as to be NOWHERE NEAR as difficult as a Linux install. It's almost ALWAYS as simple as modifying the .ini file to get the OEM driver package to recognize the hardware. That's it.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Sigh...you don't REALLY believe the shit you are shoveling, yes? Because if you were to stop 10 random Windows users on the street none of them have ever seen regedit much less know what that even is! hell for over a year at the shop I kept coming across HP PCs that didn't even HAVE a "run" command, somebody at HP must have flipped the wrong switch on their image and it didn't have it by default in the start menu...know how many users I had ask me to stick it back? NONE, not a single one even knew it was gone!
While Win 10 may be nothing but spyware in OS clothing even the worst Windows can be run 100% with nothing but the GUI, and as I've pointed out a million times you can't even start Linux without the shell as like Win98 with DOS Linux simply cannot function without it. I can remove all access to CMD, completely disable it, windows runs just fine and the users never will notice...can you use chmod to disable the shell and even get Linux to boot? No? I rest my case.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
"The days of mainstream operating systems that don't integrate cloud services, that don't exploit machine learning and big data, that don't let developers know which features are used and what problems occur, are behind us, and they're not coming back. This may cost us some amount of privacy, but we'll tend to get something in return: software that can do more things and that works better."
.. and MICROS~1 SPYWAR~1 is not getting on this mainstream operating systems ..
Said Peter Bright, a longtime Microsoft booster ref
"The answer to that might be, *nix isn't as easy to exploit as Windows is, and we like it that way."
BWAHAHAHA oh you're straight-up fucking kidding yourself. Go take a look at the BILLION smartphones running Android (Linux) which are extremely vulnerable to all kinds of shit.
https://blogs.sophos.com/2015/...
Even sophos says you're full of shit.
Heartbleed and Shellshock were too easy.
"Yet, more than a billion laymen are happy running Windows, which they can't claim to understand"
Windows can write their shit in plain English for a regular user to understand. Linux manuals? 95% of the ones I've come across might as well qualify for a guide to neurosurgery written in binary. No documentation on what symbols mean what or do which function?
It seems as if plain English is non-existent in the Linux community. Your own failure to understand the basic plain English I just spoke is a prime example of this, with your own cherry-picking of my quote proving this even moreso. I stated "Get off your fucking high horse, and write something in plain legible English for once in your life. NO FUCKING TECHNICAL TERMS."
Apparently you can't understand from my words that THE TYPICAL AVERAGE USER doesn't want all these technical terms thrown at them in a manual. This is why most people don't read a fucking manual in the first place.
Until you get your manuals sorted and in the sort of plain English like you were supposedly taught in Elementary school, Linux isn't going to go very far.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Oh, and with more in relation to your *nix isn't as easy to exploit as Windows is"
Linux Servers' Entropy Pool Too Shallow, Compromising Security - TOP ON SLASHDOT'S FRONT PAGE RIGHT NOW.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Vegetarian so I wouldn't know lol
I've pretty much dismissed much of Android, because the damned phones are compromised before they leave the factories, and further compromised by the carriers who purchase them. Android isn't being sold to the public, so much as Android is being sold to the surveillance community.
I did understand the "typical average user" bit. And, I've pretty clearly stated that the "typical average user" needs to fucking grow up. If Mr. and Mrs. Typical can't understand the toys they are playing with, then they shouldn't be using them.
Funny thing about *nix exploits - damned near all of them are patched within days or weeks. Sure, there are some that remain unpatched after years, even decades, but those are the exceptions that prove the rule.
Proprietary software? As often as not, the proprietor won't acknowledge the exploit. If acknowledged, the exploit may or may not be patched, someday. If patched, the patch may or may not leave your machine in an operating condition.
I'm remembering WinXP SP2 which left my Athlon XP based machine stuck in a rebooting cycle, indefinitely. I don't recall what they hell they were trying to patch now, but the patch was a dismal failure for anyone who had an Athlon XP chip. That wasn't the first, nor the last such Microsoft update to utterly hump the camel.
Honesty requires that I admit that Linux isn't immune to humping the camel. Right now, I am unable to boot to the newest kernel available through Debian. The 4.2 kernel has failed to boot repeatedly - first the Liquorix kernel, then the Siduction kernel, then a kernel that I compiled myself. THANKFULLY, Grub allows me to choose to use an older, proven kernel, so I'm not stuck in an endless rebooting cycle.
Now, maybe you don't see a difference between proprietary patching, and open source patching. But, to me, it's a huge difference.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
It's entrenchment and market muscle.
No, it isn't. The reason Linux hasn't caught on in the desktop market is that is simply not accessible to non-developers. That has always been the reason, and it utterly astounds me that after twenty years so many Linux fanboys still don't get it.
I tried setting up Linux for my Uncle once. He is fairly computer savvy, but not a programmer. Things worked well at first. He could use Firefoxfor the web, and he was already familiar with the UI. OpenOffice took a bit of getting used to, but it served his needs well enough.
Then after a few weeks, my uncle wanted to install some sort of financial software. (I don't remember the exact name.) There was no binary distribution available, so I told him about the terminal and configure/make/sudo make install. Simple enough right? No. He got an error during the build process. Spent hours trying to figure it out himself before calling me. Turned out he needed to install the libxml-dev package. Simple enough for you and me, but how the hell is someone who's never heard of C supposed to figure that out? Install libxml-dev, and then we run into another problem. He ran "make install" without "sudo" and now nothing worked. I spent about an hour trying to explain chmod and octal numbers and the difference between /bin and /usr/local/bin when I realized that it simply wasn't worth it. It was time to set him up with Windows or OS X.
How would this same process have played out on Windows or OS X? Google program, download installer, run installer, done.
Linux is a great OS for you and I. A superior OS, even. But for the vast majority of computer users out there, it is not at all accessible. You simply can't use Linux effectively unless you know how to code.
That's nice to hear and all, but it doesn't fit the reality that I and the GP have experienced. A vanilla Windows install on most laptops is going to be a barely-functional pile of crap until you're able to download the dozens of special drivers required for that laptop's dodgy hardware. Just pray that your network card works out of the box.
Being the local "tech support" in my neighborhood, I've already had a buyer of a new system that came with Windows 10 ask me about the privacy problems with it, having read some of the articles about it in some mainstream website (CNN?).. I handed him a Linux LiveCD and told him to boot from it, and let me know if he liked/could live with it on his computer... Couple days later he came back and said DO IT... and I did.. One less Windows 10 sucker...
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
Three notebooks here. Not a single one uses AHCI mode. All running SATA. I don't use NCQ or hot-swapping/plugging. I go into BIOS and turn on legacy mode. XP installs JUST FINE. No drivers required.
And if your drive is at all modern, you're just throwing performance away. Congratulations! I don't want to do that.
What, once in your lifetime?
That's once more than a user who would be stymied by a simple Linux problem would manage. Most people, when confronted by the need to slipstream a driver, would just give up. They would buy another PC, and then I would get their old one for a song at a yard sale or thrift store.
Do you not know that with the advent of WDDM and UNIFIED DRIVER ARCHITECTURES (thank you nVidia for starting this trend) the days of specialized hardware under Windows are almost entirely gone?
What the fuck are you even talking about? The days of specialized hardware under windows? Yeah, I guess if you can't get a working driver, you can't have specialized hardware under windows. You want to rewrite that sentence to make sense?
It's almost ALWAYS as simple as modifying the .ini file to get the OEM driver package to recognize the hardware.
You have to accomplish this before the install. User is sitting there with a PC with no OS, and a Windows CD, they're just fucked.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Don't any of you use backups? Acronis rocks for this. I used to use Ghost but Acronis is much better and priced very reasonably.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I use Linux Mint on almost everything lately. I call it Linux for Retards - it suits me just fine. If you do not stray from the accepted norm then it is quite stable and will not break. Or, at least, I have only broken it when I did silly things that were not meant to be done. It helps even more if you stick to stuff only in the repositories.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
You can also add to that Chromebooks, which have been selling reasonably.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Yes, I have been reading /. for nearly 20 years. It still has not driven people to the Linux desktop. I use Linux, a lot, but I am not the average user. Maybe you should diversify your news media?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
You see, in theory it may be like this, but in practice it's different.
There are standards, and even if there is not actual standard, there usually is a de-facto standard. Windows desktops are one such standard. Because of good backward compatibility (not perfect but certainly better than Linux or MacOS), Windows software usually runs on a few Windows versions, even if those versions have age difference more than 10 years (quite a lot of software runs on XP and on 10). This creates an expectation. Linux completely has the right to not be compatible with any Windows software (after all, Windows is not compatible with Linux software). However, that creates a difficulty in switching from Windows to Linux. And usually the user does not care whose fault really it is, and assigns the blame to the "new" (to him) option.
An example: MS Office does not run on Linux, but Libre/Open Office is almost as good. However, it sometimes has problems with MS Office file formats. While the blame should go to Microsoft for having poorly documented formats, I, as a user, cannot make MS change the formats or make LibreOffice better support the formats that exist. However, if my clients use MS Office (and its formats), I have to be able to open the files they send me, which means I have to have MS Office.
After all, what can I do to make MS change the formats or whatever? Call Putin and ask him to threaten MS with a nuke unless they change? It's not like Putin would even talk to me.
Linux can definitely be hard to use. Normally it isn't quite that bad.
In exchange, though, you get to not be spied on by your OS maker and whatever governments and partner companies they're friendly with, among many other freedoms.
No one else cares if you use it or not. Except for the companies currently spying on you.
I agree about Linux being fundamentally far better for the entire world. However, it seems that everything in Linux is poorly documented. Microsoft's documentation is very poor, but Linux documentation is considerably worse. That creates a HUGE barrier to using Linux.
Not many people want to spend a week trying to discover how some Linux program works. For example, XBMC, now Kodi, media center.
I'm going to migrate my wife to it, probably this week.
I can't remember a Linux conversion story posted to Slashdot in the last fifteen years that didn't begin with the geek providing a family member with free in-home technical support.
The geek is reluctant to talk about his failures. Those who refused to follow his lead. Those who reverted to Windows out of confusion, anger or disappointment.
Geek talks to geek here. There is almost no chance for the ordinary Windows user to speak for himself --- much less tell the geek where to go when he claims to speak for him.
>Disparaging someone's wife.
Typical NEET douchebag living in his mommy's basement.
Perhaps you should blow me.
--
BMO
As if geeks don't provide family in-house support for Windows?
Fucking really. I could give you a list of non-family members, but why should I? Your message starts from the false notion that Windows doesn't require support.
How about you have a nice cup of shut-the-fuck-up.
Asshole.
Foe me, please.
--
BMO
If this is true and you're not just trolling us, you'd be doing yourself a BIG favor by staying on Windows and leaving Linux strictly alone.. This from a retired Windows/Linux admin that has used Linux since 1995 and Windows since 1991 and VASTLY prefers Linux....
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
Go read two posts up: I, at least, am talking about restoring cautiously from backup. Blind restoring from backup is not bad if you're recovering from a dead hard drive, but not so good when you're having to troubleshoot software.
The reason for the switch to portable editions was for the sheer simplicity of backing them up afterwards--instead of having to attempt to locate where various programs stuck personal settings and profiles were stuck, I could just back up the entire thing, even if that's not my preference. Reinstalling the programs I use is not much of a bother, as I keep copies of the install media even if in the form of burning them to a disk; reconfiguring is.
You can also add to that Chromebooks, which have been selling reasonably.
I would agree. Anything that attaches to "the cloud," without indemnification from the cloud vendor when it comes to HIPAA, is a recipe for disaster.
And we all know what Google and Microsoft think about that.
--
BMO
I'm not trolling, I want to switch to either Windows 7 or Linux very much. The latter just isn't there yet and by the sounds of it systemd has made things worse in the short term. Given the nature of open source it's not surprising either, it's hard enough to keep up with the bugs that are in the default config let alone every combination of settings.
"you losers"
This is what Linux has become. Linus Torvalds does it himself! You give the worst possible interpretation to what people say, and then pretend they are "losers".
Microsoft: Windows Media Center came with Windows 7. It has many areas in which it seems unfinished, but it is easy to use, even for children.
Linux: What Media Center to you recommend? It must have TV schedules and allow recording of over-the-air TV.
Microsoft: Notepad++ is extremely valuable. There are lots of plugins. But it runs only on Windows.
Linux: What editor is as good as Notepad++?
God save us...
Acronis lets you restore files or folders. It works for me.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
New web-based applications run on Linux just fine.
Not on a laptop whose Wi-Fi radio can reach no access points other than WPA2 protected ones whose administrator is unwilling to disclose the pre-shared key to the laptop's user. And not on a laptop being used by the passenger of a vehicle moving too quickly to complete association and captive portal authentication before the vehicle goes out of range. Or have "cloud" applications overwhelmingly adopted "offline first" design already?
So buy hardware which is known to be compatible with linux
If you're the kind of person who likes to look at the screen and touch the keyboard of a laptop or detachable tablet before you buy it, good luck getting assurance from the sales associate that the hardware is compatible with Linux. The last time I checked, System76 and other PC makers that specialize in GNU/Linux were mail-order-only and did not carry detachable tablets.
Never buy a PC that doesn't have full hardware Linux ever support again.
I'm interested. What brand of 10" laptop is good for running Xfce now that netbooks have been replaced with detachables? Or should people expect to use an Android tablet with GNURoot and XSDL if they want Linux on a 10" laptop?
blu ray is a great reason to include a modern optical drive.
Are there any licensed BD video player apps for X11/Linux yet? I say "licensed" because comments to an answer recommending VLC mention the "Host certificate revoked" error message.
Anyone remember LINLOAD?
No, but I do remember Loadlin, which is what they had before LILO (and Stitch), which is what they had before GRUB.
I'm not new, did you see my ID? And "data" doesn't help me with my HP envy, now does it? Is my laptop, which I bought in a store, so "esoteric" that Linux just can't support my network driver (again, feel free to read my review on Linux Mint forums, or by all means grab the same model of HP envy and 'enjoy' it for yourself). Windows has had no issues with drivers for this model *except* multi-touch (thus I said, 80%).
This is the real problem with Linux. I come with a valid complaint that I had to do a bunch of shit including re-compiling my kernel in order to just get it to work on hardware where windows (including re-install) just works, and all I get is a bunch of snarky responses about how I'm a dumbass, about how I should look at the stats on Linux etc etc.
I don't give a shit about "how often Linux 'just works'", this is the second time Linux has personally given me shit when installing, and the response has been identical even when I just had questions: smart-asses like yourself spouting off nonsense about how my machine is wrong, how I'm just not smart enough to use Linux.
But it doesn't matter what I write really, you won't care, and people will keep using Windows for this reason. Until installation, drivers, updates (including OS updates) are as simple as windows (download, double-click) it just can't win.
I'm not new, did you see my ID?
I didn't mean to Slashdot.
This is the real problem with Linux. I come with a valid complaint
Yeah, sure. A valid complaint. But you present it in an invalid way; as evidence that Windows is easier to install than Linux, overall, as if your experience with just a couple of machines were somehow relevant overall. And then you get to cry about how your complaint was not well-received. Why not try filing a support request? That's the appropriate place to complain and expect someone to care, not as part of a misleading statement. HTH, but I'm sure it won't.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If i can use all my Windows programs without having to use some convoluted whatever so i can run them sure i will switch.
I run Xubuntu on my laptop. Installing the package "Wine" in Ubuntu Software Center was enough to let me run the few Windows desktop applications that I do use semi-regularly (FamiTracker, ModPlug, FCEUX debugging version, and NO$SNS debugging version).
Gold?silver?Bronze? lol
What's this supposed to mean? Are these AppDB compatibility labels, with the implication that your particular business-critical applications do not work for you in Wine?
Okay, I have this crazy notion. If Microsoft believes that software that is integrated with the cloud is the future, why don't they publish an API where anyone who wants can provide that service. If I understand correctly, Elon Musk has published information about how to make a charging station compatible with his Tesla cars and anyone with the resources is encouraged to do so. Likewise, why doesn't Microsoft allow us to create our own "cloud" that serves our purposes. (It's a rhetorical question; we know the answer.)
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
If you want to express "the set of Linux distributions that aren't Android or embedded", what's a better shorthand for that than GNU/Linux?
Are you seriously suggesting that Joe Clueless could install and setup Windows? From a Windows retail disk?
Don't need to; that's done for you when you buy a mass-market PC or when you hire a local shop to repair it. True, this difference is ultimately due to a non-technical advantage of Windows related to its overlapping compatibility with the DOS included with most IBM PC 5150 computers and to Microsoft's marketing muscle, but non-technical advantages are still advantages.
Finding all the drivers he needs to update and installing them?
The difference is that for mass-market PCs, Windows drivers are virtually guaranteed to exist. They can be found with enough effort. Some components and peripherals have no acceptable GNU/Linux driver. Vanilla GNU/Linux on a random PC might be limited to VESA (software) graphics, no networking, no Bluetooth, high power use, and/or no suspend.
Programs that save settings/need re-installing it's all in the User\%username%\AppData folder
Provided they're not in HKEY_CURRENT_USER.
Anyone can sign a bootloader.
But who can install the signing certificate into a PC? And who can explain to a non-technical home PC owner how to do so?
Any of them.
Notepad++ is only notable because it fills a niche that isn't otherwise available on Windows: a decent text editor that isn't also an IDE or whatever. Such things are a given in the *NIX world, just like a decent CLI.
Notepad++ isn't anything special in the *NIX world. Nobody will port it because it's basically the same as any of the other programmers editors.
I don't know how to make this any clearer: My problem was not a lack of backups--it was knowing what I needed to restore from the backups.
Putting all the profiles and customizations into a single location would make restoring from backup onto a fresh install--or even moving to a new computer--relatively trivial. This is what the person I was replying to claimed started being normal in Windows around Win7. I was talking about how I knew from experience that it was not true in practice.
If you were telling us about how Acronis has confirmed tracking of where profiles and customization files get stuck, that might be relevant to this thread. (It also would actually be something I'd want as a feature if it works.)
Wondering why somebody talking about restoring from backups after having to wipe a drive due to having to reinstall the OS doesn't have backups, however, is only relevant if you want to give the impression that your reading comprehension in English is not that good.
4 separate times it's been simply configuring options in the GUI that locked up the system/caused oddities/etc and upon rebooting it would only boot directly to a terminal. Once it was downloading a package that nuked everything - not even booting to terminal. Once it was a problem with the wireless card... or at least that's what the log files suggested - never could figure out the problem, just the GUI became painfully slow and I couldn't access the internet.
They do have a sandbox feature that lets you install stuff and then do what you want with it but, alas, they do not track changes. I thought you just wanted to restore applications which, well, I find Acronis handy for but - it means restoring much more than a single application and its settings except in Linux where I can just restore my /home folder. Anyhow, I get you now. I was really curious as to why you'd not just use backups and restore from those. Windows should really use a single folder to keep configuration data. The registry was a bad idea from the beginning. It only got worse over time.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
For years people have made the claim, with a good deal of justification, that people did not have the patience to learn new software in order to switch to a new platform. More recently, though, people have been eased into the idea through their smartphones. People regularly try out multiple apps to access all manner of functionality, and don't think twice about it. I suspect that this attitude could be harnessed by the Linux community, particularly by using the ubiquity of Linux on smartphones to encourage people to install apps they are already familiar with onto a desktop running a free, secure OS that doesn't spy on them. It's not a movement at present, but it's much more doable than in years past. The environment and infrastructure for showing people that linux apps can be just as easy to use as Windows apps is finally in place.
I'm Polish. Only the scots are more obstinate. So, yes.
--
BMO
As a non-Windows user, what are these tools you talk about?
I believe it si more that you already know hos Windows works and not know where to find the tools with Linux.
I went from openSUSE with XFCE to Debian with XFCE and I still hae the habit of trying to things the openSUSE way.
Not because it is worse or better, but because that is what I am used to.
That said, the only thing that stops people from using Linux on their desktop is pre-install. And I mean have it pushed down their throath just like Windows is now.
People will start using WIndws 10 when they buy a new machine and curse because the Icon looks different. The majority of people, even professional users; do not install their own OS. They use what is on their pc when they buy it or what the IT department put on it or what their boss tells them to use.
The few that don't are such a minority that nobody really cares.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Unless it is pre-install, nobody will use it. The times that people where installing an OS are long behind us. Sure: some people will do it, just like some people ride horses, but that does not mean any competition for the car.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I don't have to find the tools in most cases, the OS does it for me. From fixing file system errors on startup to crash reporting taking me to KB articles with automated tools which repair the problem to simple right click->troubleshoot problems which runs through the gamut of potential problems and automatically repairs them. I'm sure repair tools exist in Linux but I'm not going to go chasing them down/figuring out what terminal command I actually need/the appropriate flags/etc. ANGTFTS.
Sure I lose geek points for not being mr hardcore terminal man, I did that sort of thing when I was young and had too much time on my hands, now I just want it to work.
At least in the german privacy terms for win10, they reserve the right to access your private stuff and give it to others. Of course there follows some "if we believe, that ..." terms, but with weasel words like "to prevent damage to microsoft and/or its partners or loss of profit" and such things.
Until it really is "insert CD and go" for ALL computers (is an HP laptop so weird??) then Linux will never be mainstream. Sorry.
I've tried Ubuntu, Bodhi, Puppy, openSuSE, Mint and something else I don't remember on my HP laptop, and they all Just Work (tm)...sound, video, camera, buttons to pull up the calculator and printer. But none of the HP bloatware/shovelware worked any more, boo hoo.
Thanks for the pointer to the /r/PCMasterRace wiki. But in the interest of completeness, let me go through other arguments that peasants repeat:
You mean consoles on the other hand only allow you do certain things. You may also not be allowed to upgrade, mod, change the hardware, software, use unauthorized peripherals as well.
Nor are your opponents, which is the advantage that peasants claim.
And moving from one generation to the next on consoles, the chances of your guaranteed compatibility goes right out the window.
The Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Wii, Nintendo DS, and Wii U run the vast majority of the previous generation's games perfectly. The PS2 and PS3 both run PS1 games, and early PS3 consoles (the ones marked SACD) can also run PS2 games. And consoles have classic games from previous consoles in Nintendo eShop and PlayStation Store. Good luck running Windows 9x games on your Windows 10 PC, when 10 is just one more than 9.*
Nothing stops you from using a PC in the living room
Then what stops these people? Or what changed since then?
* That was a joke.
Though ominously the work's computer I'm having my lunch break on is telling me of a compulsory re-boot, which is may mean the decision has been taken out of my hands.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Notepad++ is pretty nice, but it does not hold a candle to several of the Linux based text editors.
For instance:
kate http://kate-editor.org/
gedit https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Ge...
vim http://www.vim.org/
emacs https://www.gnu.org/software/e...
Like I said, Notepad++ is a good editor, and I use it myself when forced to use Windows, but it does not compare to what is offered in Linux. Also, most things in Linux are well documented. Sadly there are some things that are not, but practically nothing I have ever needed documentation for in Windows has had decent documentation.
I have some small technical details about how Windows 10 is spying on users. I posted it on Reddit but it's already being downvoted by paid Microsoft employees I think. I'll just copy and paste here:
I had something strange happen when I downgraded to Windows 7 in an unsupported way. After trying Windows 10 with a clean install and deciding that it wasn't for me, I undeleted my Windows 7 boot partition and simply deleted the Windows 10 files and copied over my files from Windows.old.
All of my file permissions for my User folder had been changed to allow access for 'unknown user'. After some digging in the settings I found that this matched an account named S-1-15-2-1.
Some quick Googling told me that this was a well known account for the Windows Store: http://answers.microsoft.com/e...
"dax1792 replied on March 14, 2013 S-1-15-2-1 appears to be a new Well-Known SID which is used by Windows 8 with Windows Store Applications. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-u...
Windows 7 doesn't know anything about this, so it's being shown as unknown. This may be an oversight by Microsoft in the way they have deployed Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 7."
So they really aren't kidding about what's spelled out in the user agreement about sharing your personal files! I'm sure that that went directly to the NSA.
We just learned that AT&T has been working hand in hand with the NSA. That they've been working with and manipulating these big corporations. I'm sure that that's how AT&T was fast-tracked for this recent DirectTV acquisition.
Our government has been completely taken over by criminals at this point and Microsoft is surely working with them.