Microsoft Is Downloading Windows 10 Without Asking

New submitter christhedj writes with a story at The Inquirer, according to which: Microsoft, having learned nothing from Apple and the U2 album, have started downloading Windows 10 as part of Patch Tuesday for Windows 7 and 8 users. For people on a 32GB flash drive tablet, that's a big chunk of space taken up with something that they didn't ask for. Microsoft admits to doing this, but users are not happy. Way to look needy, Microsoft.

Comments

That was easy

[Nidi62]

I was still on the fence about whether to stick to Windows 7 or upgrade to Windows 10. This just made my decision for me. Looks like I'll probably make the jump to Linux in a few years depending on how well they've got games running on Linux( since that is the only thing keeping me on Windows anyway).

Re:That was easy

[Anonymous Coward]

and another empty threat. you'll be on windows 10 in a few years, you'll see.

Re:That was easy

[mlw4428]

I'll tell you upfront, very very few major game developers are considering Linux yet. They won't until the crowd is there and proves that people are willing to pay money for games. The probably is that your average Linux gamer is a cheapskate or a GNUStallinist who feels that everything should be 100% free and open source. The second issue is that Linux is really a fragmented market to the point where even basic testing and support on the exact same hardware can be difficult. Valve is working on making "consoles" that are setup in a standard way, but the vast majority of PC gamers don't want a console in any form. Is it possible, sure, but it's not likely.

Re:That was easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Dual boot, use windows as a toy - only for games, linux for everything else...
As a bonus, your windows install will get less clogged up with cruft and the games will run better.

Re:That was easy

[Nidi62]

and another empty threat. you'll be on windows 10 in a few years, you'll see.

Probably not. Like I said, I'm really only still on Windows because of games, and with me essentially "growing up" (married, work 8-4 M-F and 1 weekend a month, planning to have kids next year) chances are in a few years I will hardly be playing games anymore anyway. At that point there is nothing left tying me to Windows.

Re:That was easy

[I'm New Around Here]

and another empty threat. you'll be on windows 10 in a few years, you'll see.

That's going to be Windows OS A 10.3 Leaping Panther.

Re:That was easy

[Nidi62]

Valve is working on making "consoles" that are setup in a standard way, but the vast majority of PC gamers don't want a console in any form. Is it possible, sure, but it's not likely.

Since most of my games are through Steam anyway, I am hoping that increased adoption of a Valve console would lead to something of a PC version. I have a work provided laptop for work, so my desktop is for pure entertainment anyway. And the newest game I've bought is ESO anyway. Hell, I only just bought Skyrim for PC earlier this year. All of my purchases at this point are Humble Bundles or Steam sales, most of which are usually a few years old. So I don't need to be able to play AAA titles on release day.

Re:That was easy

[jandrese]

You might be surprised at how healthy gaming is becoming on Linux. The Linux Steam client is helping a lot. I've been playing through Torchlight II and Bioshock Infinite (my backlog is kind of long at this point) on Linux and they just work. No mess no fuss just launch them from Steam and play. In my Steam catalog maybe half of the games are playable on the Linux side, and admittedly the Linux list is heavily weighted towards indie titles, but Steambox has been convincing some of the big name publishers to put in the relatively minimal amount of effort necessary for Linux support.

A lot of it comes down to the engines too. If you build on Unity then Linux support is a no brainer. If you build on Unreal then you probably won't have Linux support, but even that is changing as engine developers are adding Linux build options now.

That said, some big name titles are not getting native Linux versions in the foreseeable future. If you want to play GTAV you need a Windows machine, or really a console because the PC port was so halfassed to begin with. Generally if the Windows version of a game is barely functional they won't have a Linux version either. An exception is apparently Arkham Knight, which had a terribad PC port but somehow is still going to make it to Linux this fall apparently.

Re:That was easy

[mlts]

I'll be on Windows Server 2016 before Windows 10. For someone who knows what they are doing, W2016 is a lot better, just because it ships with all but basic functionality off/uninstalled. Wi-Fi, Cortana, and a UI? All available via features, but not there by default.

Re:That was easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 8.1 helpfully overwrites the boot loader when it's not the MS boot loader. Does Windows 10 still do this?

Re:That was easy

[Nidi62]

I've actually thought about doing this already, just not sure how well it would run on my system, how to set it up, or even what distribution to use (and ask 5 random slashdotters what the best Linux distribution is and you will get about 17 different answers).

Re:That was easy

[kesuki]

http://ultimateedition.info/index.php/gamers/ultimate-entertainment/ the site speaks for itself.

Re:That was easy

[I'm New Around Here]

Correct. I dual boot Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, Bowler, Beret, and Gentoo. I'm planning on adding Slackware for when I just don't feel like doing work.

Re:That was easy

[Nidi62]

You might be surprised at how healthy gaming is becoming on Linux. The Linux Steam client is helping a lot. I've been playing through Torchlight II and Bioshock Infinite (my backlog is kind of long at this point) on Linux and they just work. No mess no fuss just launch them from Steam and play. In my Steam catalog maybe half of the games are playable on the Linux side, and admittedly the Linux list is heavily weighted towards indie titles, but Steambox has been convincing some of the big name publishers to put in the relatively minimal amount of effort necessary for Linux support.

Part of my concern is my existing Steam library and whether or not I would need to repurchase a majority of the titles I already own. I suppose I could Google it or delve into Steam's support/FAQ, but that would take effort on my part and this is still Slashdot.

Re:That was easy

[Anonymous Coward]

"The probably is that your average Linux gamer is a cheapskate or a GNUStallinist who feels that everything should be 100% free and open source."

Do you mean a GNU/Stallmanist?

Re:That was easy

[jandrese]

You buy games, not versions of games on Steam. So if there is a Linux or Mac install of a game you bought on Windows, it automatically appears in your list on the other platforms. Surprisingly, Steam's cloud saves generally work cross platform as well, so you can start a game on Windows and then finish it on Linux, or play a round on the Mac and then go back to your Linux box.

Re:That was easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Am currently running a dual boot Win10 and Linux system. No problems so far. Even have my Dropbox folder shared between the two.

Re:That was easy

[Anonymous Coward]

and another shill. you'll be out of a job in a few years, you'll see.

The fact is that Microsoft is terrified. They know that their time is up and this is the last desperate grab to try to stay relevant.

Re: That was easy

[mattcoz]

You're sticking with Windows 7 because Windows 7 is downloading something without you asking?

Re: That was easy

[guruevi]

Depends on which Unreal engine. Older games on older engines could run on Linux even without official support, usually simply copying and renaming the binary.

If the Unreal engine were compiled for Linux, replacing the launchers would be relatively simple.

It eventually comes down to choice of rendering language. If you stuck to Directx for some reason, you'll be stuck with Windows (or Wine). The growing iOS, Android, Mac and Linux markets can't be reached. If you chose OpenGL, porting is simple.

Re:That was easy

[zwede]

Part of my concern is my existing Steam library and whether or not I would need to repurchase a majority of the titles I already own.

I'm very impressed with how Valve/Steam handles this situation. When you buy a game on Steam you buy it for all platforms. I used to run Windows and had some Steam games. Then I switched to Linux and any games I had that had a Linux port were available to play. No effort required, they were simply there in the Linux Steam client. A few months later another couple of games I had from the Windows days released Linux ports and they just appeared as available/purchased in my Steam client on their own.

Re:That was easy

[CastrTroy]

Let's look at it this way. The Windows Phone market share is larger than the Linux Desktop market share, and the games/apps for phones are considerably less complex than those of their desktop counterparts, for the most part. You still don't see app/game developers latching on to Windows Phone. It will take quite a few more people moving over to Linux for it to really gain any traction.

Re:That was easy

[Penguinisto]

and another empty threat. you'll be on windows 10 in a few years, you'll see.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAaaaa!

(...typed on my MacBook Pro at work while waiting for a build to complete. My MacBook Pro at home says you're full of it too, as well as my Linux home machinery...)

In all honesty, transitioning away form Windows was once a long, drawn-out process. I kept a Windows box around for years because of gaming, and CG applications (3DS Max specifically) that only worked on Windows. However, bit-by-bit, I was able to move my CG tools and gaming habits over to either Linux or OSX (or in the case of CG, I found better that worked on OSX, so I re-worked how I did things to adapt) - with each change, the Windows box became less and less used. It went from a dedicated Windows box, to a dual-boot rig, and eventually, I dumped the Windows partition entirely.

Fast forward to today, where the one and only Windows machine in my possession is an Windows 7 VM sitting on my MacBook. I might start it up once every 8 months or so to fire up an old CG application or tool, but usually I only do it to convert a really old/archived CG file into something I can use in OSX.

In my wife's case, the transition was almost instant: Two years ago, she took one look at Windows 8, and went with a new iPad instead. Eventually she discovered that sometimes she needed a laptop, but I have one loaded with Linux Mint for her that she uses just fine, and has actually come to prefer using it over Windows.

TL;DR - sometimes it's drop-easy to convert (especially for ordinary users who don't do much with a computer), sometimes it takes time (for us crazy people who do a lot of stuff on one.)

Re:That was easy

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll worry about that when my Windows 8.1 support ends in 2023. By that time, I'm betting that SteamOS will have wooed over enough developers that I'll never need to use Windows again.

Re:That was easy

[tepples]

At that point there is nothing left tying me to Windows.

Other than Linux failing to suspend and resume correctly on a laptop.

Re:That was easy

[shaitand]

"Windows OS A 10.3 Leaping Panther"

Leaping Panther is definitely an Apple thing. More likely it will be something like "Data Defender" which streams all your data directly over unencrypted broadcast radio, installs itself and accepts it's own EULA as a "feature."

I mean... if they are going to jump naming convention why not go with the congressional approach?

Re:That was easy

[HyperQuantum]

That's going to be Windows OS A 10.3 Leaping Panther.

You mean more like Windows OS A 10.3 Screaming Monkey...

"Update me! Update me!"

Re:That was easy

[umafuckit]

Start migrating to Linux now and dual boot into Windows for games.

Re: That was easy

[jd2112]

No, Ballmer isn't at Microsoft anymore.

Re:That was easy

[Anonymous Coward]

That does happen on some laptops, not on others. Not that much worse than the situation on Windows, really.

Re:That was easy

[Chatsubo]

On my linux machine I run the native steam client AND the windows steam client via wine (+PlayOnLinux). You'd be surprised how well Wine works these days.

To re-iterate others: You don't need to re-purchase your games to get Linux ports, you already have the game on steam regardless of platform. If you are in doubt, run linux steam from a live-cd and see for yourself.

Re:That was easy

[circletimessquare]

this entire thread sounds like a repost from 1998. not much has changed on this topic in 15-20 years

personally, i think google *may* find some way to kill off windows in 5-10 years

i'm not talking about chromebooks, i'm talking about how android has destroyed windows in the phone market. google is leveraging and will continue to leverage phone dependence to make desktops and tablets something you want the same interaction with, content sharing with, seamless switching, etc.

i'm not saying exactly what that compelling need is, but obviously microsoft can't leverage the desktop to compel people to put windows on their phone. so google *might* be able to do the opposite with some must-have need or want

ps: i'm purposefully ignoring apple. i never owned an apple product in my life. too pricey. we're talking about the masses here, not the middle class of rich countries and the upper middle class of everywhere else. apple is just a luxury brand walled garden, an outlier

Re:That was easy

[LVSlushdat]

When you have an SSD that boots Linux in less than 20 seconds, who the hell *cares* if it doesn't hibernate correctly.. I run Kubuntu 14.04 on a Dell Precision M4400 and haven't EVER hibernated it, as a cold boot is fast enough to not give a shit if hibernation works or doesn't work...

Re:That was easy

[Wraithlyn]

If you want to play GTAV you need a Windows machine, or really a console because the PC port was so halfassed to begin with.

The hell are you talking about? The PC version of GTAV is fantastic. BETTER than the console versions (I have played extensively on both). Higher res/framerate, mouse/keyboard support, video editor, moddable, and no bugs whatsoever that I encountered (or read about in any reviews). It's pretty much a gold standard for how to do a PC port.

The port of GTA4 was the disaster... and they evidently learned their lesson.

Re:That was easy

[poetmatt]

Given the way things are going with wine and for openGL, we could be there already if it wasn't for generally abysmal support for linux drivers. I think Valve pointing out "hey, halflife runs equally well on linux when you freakin support it!" is about the only chance we have of having reasonably up to date linux gaming support in the future.

Re:That was easy

[Anonymous Coward]

At least I fucking hate restarting applications and getting them to the point I want.

Re: That was easy

[malignant_minded]

I have Mint 17 and have intermittent hibernate issues on my T500 with SSD but I agree with the other poster it boots so fast that I don't really care that it fails where as Windows boot times are a crap shoot. You should save your work before hibernating because it is a gamble on any OS just some odds are worse than others.

Re:That was easy

[Immerman]

Actually, I recall hearing that on Humble Bundles at least, Linux users are considerably more generous than their Windows-using peers. The problem is just that they're still a small fraction of the gaming market, and yes, there is a serious fragmentation issue.

Valve's "console" might change that if it ever actually launches, we'll have to see. If nothing else it offers a long-missing de-facto "standard" for a Linux gaming platform, reducing fragmentation. I think you're wrong about its consolness being an issue, because it's not actually a console - it's just a console-style UI slapped on top of an otherwise fully-functional desktop Linux PC, installed on whatever hardware you want. Along with a set of recommendations for "console form factor" hardware. i.e. compact, quiet, and nice to look at. There's not even anything keeping you from installing Windows alongside SteamOS and dual-booting into a perfectly normal PC. The only real difference between a Steam "console" and a normal PC is that it's hooked up to your TV, and as someone who has been using a 40" TV as their primary monitor for a long time I can say it (mostly) works great. And as 4K screens start entering the low-to-midrange market that should eliminate the last major problem of low pixel density.

As for ideology, most of the Linux users I know switched because they were sick of putting up with Window's B.S. (malware, instability, etc), rather than for ideological reasons. Even most of my more hard-core Free Software friends are more concerned with their *infrastructure* being free - OS, office suite, development, etc - i.e. everything they NEED to do their job/have their computer be useful. They pretty much all recognize that AAA games can't realistically be Free, and are perfectly content buying commercial games, just like they buy commercial movies and music. It's entertainment, totally unimportant on an individual instance basis.

Re:That was easy

[argStyopa]

I appreciate your optimism, but trust me: having kids is stressful, and I found that having games as a (less frequent, but still occasional) escape was even more important.

Re:That was easy

[stooo]

No, no, no.
Kids play on Linux now.

Re:That was easy

[rnturn]

``Other than Linux failing to suspend and resume correctly on a laptop.''

Both "Sleep" and "Hibernate" options work like a charm once I upgraded from openSUSE 12.2 to 13.2. Granted, it was hit or (mostly) miss prior to the upgrade but it hasn't failed once since I took the time to update the OS. I have nothing to tie my personal computer use to Windows. Left that atrocity of an OS behind ten years ago.

Re:That was easy

[Idarubicin]

When you have an SSD that boots Linux in less than 20 seconds, who the hell *cares* if it doesn't hibernate correctly.

Presumably people working on multiple documents and/or in multiple applications who don't want to have to restart those applications, reopen their files, and rearrange their windows every time they go from home to office. (Or office to train. Or living room to desk. Or whatever.)

Re:That was easy

[mitzampt]

YMMV, hibernate/suspend is indeed buggy but it will not stay that way ;). And think of various Linux failures as opportunities: the community makes it so that you don't get several Gb of unattended updates unless you ask for it. Any distro that violates that is readily swappable with one that doesn't.

Re:That was easy

[sociocapitalist]

At that point there is nothing left tying me to Windows.

Other than Linux failing to suspend and resume correctly on a laptop.

There is also Apple that resumes just fine. I refuse to buy their mobile products but I'm fine with using the computers.

Re:That was easy

[TheGratefulNet]

yeah, 'saving state' is such an old and outdated concept. I mean, why would we want to checkpoint the status of lots of open files, open browser windows, edits that are not ready to be commited or saved but you don't want to close the file, either. even the cursor position is important to be saved; its all part of 'state'.

but go ahead an argue that saving your status is worthless. in fact, maybe you like to just be forced to logoff and reboot every few hours? hmmm? sound good to you?

Re:That was easy

[mnooning]

You will be much better off waiting a year till the Windows 10 bugs are worked out.

I upgraded to Windows 10 five days ago on one of my Dell GX960 Core 2 Duo machines. Windows 10 will *NOT* drive the HP LP2475w monitor that was working fine with Windows 7 at the recommended native resolution. The lowered resolution it will drive it at is distorted. I had to replace the machine with a different Windows 7 machine. I do not have any monitors smaller than 24 inch, and I do not have any Windows 7 disks, so I sat the trial GX960 on a shelf for now.

Re:That was easy

[greenfruitsalad]

on my previous thinkpad (t61), in windows, hibernate only worked for the first couple of months. at some point after an update it failed completely (suspend worked 75% of time). my favourite windows feature was automagically switching from suspend to hibernate inside my backpack and failing. I'd sometimes come home open a bag and find my computer screaming for cold air. good times.

fortunately, i only kept windows on it for sentimental porpoises (and other sea mammals). In Ubuntu/Debian, I never had the problem. But then again, i almost never used hibernate, only suspend.

Re:That was easy

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the time spent relaunching all programs, windows, etc back to where before? Sometimes you want to turn it off without interrupting your workspace.

Re:That was easy

[tepples]

What about the time spent relaunching all programs, windows, etc back to where before?

I'm guessing LVSlushdat might recommend not using the applications you currently use and instead using competing applications that support automatic saving of "all programs, windows, etc back to where before" on logout and restoration of same on login.

Re:That was easy

[tepples]

No, you're using a make and model of laptop on which suspend and resume happen to work in Linux. There exist other models on which they do not work.

Re:That was easy

[DoofusOfDeath]

I was still on the fence about whether to stick to Windows 7 or upgrade to Windows 10. This just made my decision for me. Looks like I'll probably make the jump to Linux in a few years depending on how well they've got games running on Linux( since that is the only thing keeping me on Windows anyway).

You may find that in a few years, games mean less to you. I found that as I got further from college, had kids, etc. I just had less time for games. So they became less of a deciding factor for OS choice.

Re:That was easy

[FlyHelicopters]

You might... but the number of people who will do that is a small, small fraction of those who will accept the free upgrade...

Give Linux a try now, if you haven't already... it sounds nice, but it comes with a lot of little limitations that have to be worked around or lived with...

There is reason the marketshare is what it is...

Re:That was easy

[squiggleslash]

Just a data point, but my Ubuntu laptop suspends and resumes just fine. But my Windows laptop doesn't and frequently has to be rebooted when that happens.

IIRC my Powerbook used to have similar issues, I think it's just a hard problem for operating designers - who start with operating systems that don't support the feature - to retrofit onto existing systems. I'm kinda surprised Ubuntu does it without problems, but it does.

Re:That was easy

[FlyHelicopters]

this entire thread sounds like a repost from 1998. not much has changed on this topic in 15-20 years

But, but... the "Year of the Linux Desktop" is just around corner, isn't it?

Er... you're right of course, the marketshare of Linux on the desktop hasn't moved much in 20 years, nor will it.

A few people move to it, a few people move away from it, nothing much changes.

Re:That was easy

[squiggleslash]

Probably worth noting that Windows 10 seems to have apps "disappear" and need restarting on an hourly basis, and that's with light load. "Mail" seems to be the worst.

Also - automatic reboots. If there's one thing worse than having to shut down your power-compromised laptop, and then restart it when you're ready to use it again, it's having the device reboot all by itself and lose much of what you've done in the process.

Re:That was easy

[Chris Johnson]

Hey, it's a luxury brand walled garden but it's also not Microsoft. I'm using it and I'm quite happy with it as a rule. Spent a lot of largely trouble-free years on Apple stuff.

My brother's a rightwing corporate programmer and he has recently bailed on Microsoft and is trying much harder than ever before to get into Linux. He's been MS guy for decades. it's interesting to see (encouraging, even). I can't imagine he'll react sympathetically to this news that MS is basically force-updating Windows 10 to people.

Re:That was easy

[FlyHelicopters]

TL;DR - sometimes it's drop-easy to convert (especially for ordinary users who don't do much with a computer), sometimes it takes time (for us crazy people who do a lot of stuff on one.)

And most of the time it is more or less impossible...

OS X and Linux on the desktop are trying to solve problems that people don't have...

That they are "not Windows" is not enough reason to switch to them...

Re:That was easy

[FlyHelicopters]

As for ideology, most of the Linux users I know switched because they were sick of putting up with Window's B.S. (malware, instability, etc)

If your friends are having problems with malware or instability, then the problem is the person sitting behind the keyboard, not Windows...

I honestly can't recall the last time Windows crashed on me, it is solid as a rock.

Malware? Well, I don't get that. Besides running security software, I also practice safe browsing habits, I don't click on everything on my screen, I have ad-block installed, etc.

Keep in mind that if Linux had 90%+ marketshare, it would also have a ton of viruses and malware as well. It doesn't today largely because it isn't being targeted.

Re:That was easy

[Kjella]

and another empty threat. you'll be on windows 10 in a few years, you'll see.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAaaaa!

And sometimes it's just an empty threat. Three reasons I can't switch, I got plenty more. Or rather, I did use Linux as my primary desktop like 2007-2010, it worked more or less but I always needed a gaming box so consolidating some hardware I decided to just run Windows 7. I hoped that by now it'd reach more of the mainstream but no, from July 2008 to August 2015 it's gone from 0.84% to 1.5% desktop market share. Steam got less than 1% Linux users. Those who think they see a shift in the market towards Linux are deluding themselves. Most people who run Windows today will run Windows 5 years from now and with Win7 running out of support most people will upgrade then, if not now.

Re:That was easy

[FlyHelicopters]

You might be surprised at how healthy gaming is becoming on Linux.

No, I'm aware there are a number of games that support Linux to one extent or another...

The problem is... What games are Linux ONLY?

I can think of a long list of Windows only games, but what games do I need to install Linux to run?

The answer is, none... (or at least none that 99% of the people would really care about, there might be one somewhere).

Slashdot is not reflective of the general marketplace, people here love to talk about Linux, but the reality is that it is a very small market with a very small userbase.

Valve has business reasons for trying to support it, they are trying to hold back Windows and the Windows store, which is now their competition. (or might be in the future, I don't see many AAA games in the Windows store right now).

Keep in mind that if Linux ever became a thing due to Value, then it would lose a lot of what you currently like it for, since it can't remain 52 different versions and still be consumer friendly.

Re:That was easy

[Grishnakh]

Then don't get a shitty model. Any business-class laptop will work fine.

Re:That was easy

[FlyHelicopters]

Yep, they delayed the release of GTA V on the PC until they got it right...

I own it, I've played it... rock solid...

Re:That was easy

[Grishnakh]

How is their time up? I'm sure plenty of people here will agree that I'm a giant Linux proponent and MS-hater, but this stuff isn't new, it's just more blatant, but no matter what MS does to piss people off, it has almost no effect on their marketshare for PC OSes. The amount of abuse their customers will accept is simply astonishing. I wish it was legal for them to force even more onerous conditions on their customers as long as they willingly agree to it (by continuing to purchase and use Windows), because it'd be funny to see what they could get away with.

Face it, people are going to bitch and complain about these forced updates, the new telemetry/spying, and they'll still continue to use Windows despite all that. MS could put a clause in the EULA, backed up a Supreme court ruling, that all users have to agree to having their kids sent to indoctrination camps and they'd line up for this, rationalizing to themselves how this is better than switching to another OS because some random application doesn't work there or because their $30 POS inkjet printer doesn't work with it. The EULA for corporate customers could require all profits be paid to MS and CEO pay dropped to $50k and corporations would happily agree to this rather than switch to something else. There's simply no limit to what MS can get away with because no one will leave them; anyone who refuses their terms has already left, and probably did so long ago.

Re:That was easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Virtualization helps somewhat with this. Suspend the VM, run systemctl suspend, and even if the Linux bare metal OS decides not to resume and requires a reboot, the VM still will resume exactly where it left off.

Re:That was easy

[Al Al Cool J]

Other than Linux failing to suspend and resume correctly on a laptop.

YMMV, but I recently switched my Windows netbook to Linux and I can't believe how lightning fast it suspends/awakes now. I spent several days just showing it off to friends and co-workers. Suspend - awake - suspend - awake. It's like magic compared to how it used to be under Windows. This is a machine that under the light edition of Win7 had become so slow, I couldn't even use it to browse Twitter from a fresh reboot. Now it's finally a fully functional computer and not just a toy.

Re:That was easy

[digitalPhant0m]

It's a chicken vs egg issue with Linux. I know plenty of people that tell me: "when my favorite software (or game) is ported to Linux, then I'll switch".
The problem is that vendors are saying "when the user base is there, then I'll port the software".
Stalemate.

The probably is that your average Linux gamer is a cheapskate or a GNUStallinist who feels that everything should be 100% free and open source.

Absolutely untrue. The average Linux gamer/user is on Linux because they don't like Windows, not because they are cheap. Everyone I know that runs Linux as their primary desktop spends quite a few bucks every month on games via Steam (I do too).
Cheapskates are are on every OS, that's why pirating is so prevalent.

The second issue is that Linux is really a fragmented market

Very true. I think Ubuntu has done the best for everyday desktop use, and Steam works beautifully on it. This is probably the best best right now.

Re:That was easy

[Nidi62]

You might... but the number of people who will do that is a small, small fraction of those who will accept the free upgrade...

Give Linux a try now, if you haven't already... it sounds nice, but it comes with a lot of little limitations that have to be worked around or lived with...

There is reason the marketshare is what it is...

All I would need it for is web browsing, maybe watching some Amazon instant video, and games. I can live with running a Windows 7 VM for some games if needed. Not really worried about productivity software, can always (hopefully) fire up my old laptop I still have lying around somewhere.

Re:That was easy

[chipschap]

I know this has been a problem with Linux on some laptops. I've experienced it, too. But I've been able to get it working on three different laptops (the number of laptops I've owned in my lifetime) with some effort. Yes, you may say, it should "just work" --- and that's right.

(Does it "just work" on Windows? I honestly don't know, I haven't tried.)

But it is not a fatal failing and can be made to work. Linux offers more than one method of hibernation, and actually, the biggest problem for me has been difficulty recovering the wireless networking after hibernation. But I've been able to work around that, too.

Re:That was easy

[theburp]

Healthy? Hardly. According to Steam, Linux accounts for less then 1% of user now, and that keeps sliding down month after month as the hype over Steam on Linux dies off.

Re:That was easy

[iONiUM]

It's not just that (this happens to me too though). If you read my comments, you'll see I had a very had time installing Linux Mint on my HP laptop. It would have been impossible for most users.

However, last week I booted into Linux Mint 16 again, and tried to run updates, and guess what? THEY ALL FAILED, with error '404' no less. Now, as a developer I know what that means, and I googled and found that basically the ubuntu servers had moved the files for updates because they're too old. Really? Linux Mint 16, and it's dependencies are too old? What the fuck. How does anyone think this is okay?

In the end I had to 'upgrade' to 17, which means you should wipe everything and re-install (this is also totally unacceptable). Instead I followed a guide to update which involved using sed -i on the command line (again, what the fuck?) and then doing apt-get upgrade and update. This mostly worked, except that Cinnamon no longer worked until I uninstalled and re-installed fglrx.

Now, really think about what I just wrote. A new Linux distribution gave me that much shit to install, then update, then upgrade. Does anyone honestly believe it's ready for the 'general' user?

I'm not talking about the fact that it has bugs / errors either, I'm talking about how it handles them. It never once gave me any indication on how to fix things, or try to fix them itself. It always came down to me googling and using technical tools to fix things. Does nobody else think this is unacceptable?

Re:That was easy

[Immerman]

>If your friends are having problems with malware or instability, then the problem is the person sitting behind the keyboard, not Windows...
In many cases I agree. However transitioning them to Linux fixes the problem anyway. Some of that comes down to there being less malware to begin with, some comes down to it being more difficult for them to fiddle with things that should be left alone if you don't know what you're doing.

As for the status of malware if Linux had 90% market share, you might be right, but I suspect it would still be less of an issue than for Windows. We won't know for sure unless/until that day comes - for now we can only draw inferences from the fact that Linux is strongly dominant in the internet/infrastructure/server market, a market that makes for a very lucrative target, but largely doesn't have to deal with incompetent users willfully bypassing their OS's security to install "cool" cursors.

Re:That was easy

[thegarbz]

Yeah because models work universally because of magic secret stuff and aren't at all essentially commodity hardware in a more specific package. Suspend / Resume support is an absolute crapshoot completely independent of price and quality, and the percentage of laptops sold with actually Linux support as claimed by the vendor is in the single digits.

Re:That was easy

[SuricouRaven]

My Lenovo Thinkpad running xubuntu doesn't suspend right. I just set it to hibernate instead - that works fine. Just takes a little longer to wake.

Re:That was easy

[Nidi62]

Cool, thanks. Thinking about setting up a dual boot to see if I would even like/could handle switching to Linux (and also to see exactly what of my steam games are on Linux too). Any advice on an easy to set up distro for someone just starting out on Linux? Assume no CS experience beyond building my own PC and installing/setting it up (because that's all the experience I really have).

Re:That was easy

[Khyber]

"Since most of my games are through Steam anyway, I am hoping that increased adoption of a Valve console would lead to something of a PC version."

So download SteamOS and walk away from Windows for good.

Re:That was easy

[b0bby]

Hmm. I have Mint 17 running on an older Vaio. I have suspend issues but it hasn't bothered me enough to actually look into if it's possible to correct it or not.

Re:That was easy

[flacco]

> Other than Linux failing to suspend and resume correctly on a laptop.

Am I the only one who doesn't have this issue, then? Lenovo T440s.

Re:That was easy

[tepples]

What distro are you using on what brand/model of laptop?

I do not own the laptop in question yet. I am doing research in advance of purchasing a 10 inch laptop. When I searched for Linux support on the ASUS Transformer Book, I got "not working" on Debian, Ubuntu, and Arch.

Re:That was easy

[jandrese]

Ubuntu is kind of the default choice for someone in your situation. It also happens to be the distro that Valve uses for their Steam integration work, so is probably a good choice for you.

Re:That was easy

[Grishnakh]

Now, really think about what I just wrote. A new Linux distribution gave me that much shit to install, then update, then upgrade. Does anyone honestly believe it's ready for the 'general' user?

I don't think any OS is ready for the general user. Have you tried using Windows 8(.1) lately? That sure as hell isn't ready for the general user. Its UI is a complete mess, you have to switch between two totally different paradigms and looks-and-feels just to go configure something in the control panel, and even then you'll find there's not one but two control panels, the Metro one with almost nothing in it and then the regular one which is hidden away and has to be found with a search.

If I stuck Windows 8.1 on my wife's computer, I can only imagine the ranting she'd spew out when she finds out she can't figure out how to do anything. Right now, she's using Linux Mint KDE and the only time I need to provide her any tech support is when the cat sits on the keyboard (usually this just requires typing F11 or F12 to get out of the mode in Firefox the cat managed to get into with its butt). And after this happening several times now, she probably already knows how to do this herself as she hasn't called me to fix anything on her computer in quite a while now, cat-butt-related or otherwise.

Granted, I do tend to keep her computer somewhat up-to-date (she's running Mint 17 now, not 17.1 or 17.2). I did have to upgrade it because of the repos not working in 16 any more. I didn't bother doing a back-door upgrade, I just reinstalled. It's not a big deal; I always put /home on a separate partition on any computer I set up, so switching distros is easy. I don't know why every distro doesn't make this default in their install program.

Re:That was easy

[jandrese]

Bah, that's what I get for going from memory instead of double checking. I was off by a version.

Re:That was easy

[gweihir]

Who ever uses suspend in the age of SSDs?

Re:That was easy

[zwede]

After having tried many distros, my go-to for easy-to-install, everything-just-works is Mint.

Re:That was easy

[BadDreamer]

That's a very general statement, and the general answer is "you are incorrect".

I have three laptops here. All run Linux Mint, with various desktop managers. All of them suspend and resume correctly, without me doing any kind of adjustment to make it work.

I have another laptop, an old Centrino, which sometimes hangs on resume. Since it's only used for occasional surfing, I simply shut it down, and the browser remembers where it was when restarted.

By contrast, I have had more suspend/resume problems with my Macbook Pro. Not many, but more.

Re:That was easy

[Tough Love]

Why wait? Switch to Linux now and run Windows games under KVM with 99.6% of native performance. While gaining a marketable skill at the same time (vm management).

Re:That was easy

[DocHoncho]

I upgraded to Windows 10 from 7, and it left Grub untouched. Of course, it still says "Boot Windows 7," but that's not very important.

I would imagine, however, that doing a full install might mess with the existing boot loader configuration. There are probably other variables at work as well, such as which drive has the MBR, which drive is being used for Windows, etc.

Re:That was easy

[BadDreamer]

If you want so called AAA titles, like one of the endless military fps clones, sure. But a surprisingly large number of indie games are developed on platform neutral toolkits, and come out for Windows, OSX and Linux (and often iOS and Android as well).

And of the larger games, WoW has always worked well on Wine, Valve's Portal and Half Life series runs on Linux, and a few surprises showed up recently in the form of a native ArmA III and War Thunder clients. The only games I sometimes play which do not run in Linux now are Asetto Corsa and DCS World.

Re:That was easy

[Tough Love]

Who the hell modded that troll up? Latest data point for me was yesterday, a drive by install off the standard Ubuntu usb key onto a big name ultrabook of recent vintage came up perfectly with suspend, 3D hardware, and wifi all working perfectly. Five minutes later Windows was gone for good (just click "install Ubuntu") and good riddance.

Hardly worth remarking on the success cases these days, the failures are more interesting. If you have one (which you don't because you're just a random asshole troll reading from a script) then report it and watch that issue vanish too. See, it's fun.

Re:That was easy

[Grishnakh]

That's like saying it's perfectly safe to have sex with a bunch of skanky women as long as you use multiple forms of protection, get tested regularly for STDs, etc. Or, you can just move to this tropical island where all the women are beautiful and diseases don't exist. Hmmm, which would I choose...

Why should a casual user need to invest that much time and effort into avoiding these problems, when they can just use an OS that doesn't have them? On top of that, the UI in Windows (8+) is completely unusable and they all spy on you too. What kind of moron would willingly use an OS that sends all their keystrokes to MS?

Re:That was easy

[Tough Love]

Not that much worse than the situation on Windows, really.

You probably don't have any data on Windows installed by the user on random hardware. I expect that you will find that Windows is way worse than Linux now. For most people, that pain is suffered by the OEM so it's hidden.

Re:That was easy

[iONiUM]

I actually have Windows 8.1 on this same laptop which dual boots Linux Mint 17 (now). There are definitely issues with it, such as the charms being totally undiscoverable, the start menu being full-screen, etc. But it still retains all the things Windows is good at, such as being able to apply updates on 5+ year old OSes, being able to upgrade by simply pressing a button, drivers auto-installing when you plug something in, and problems trying to correct themselves (in addition to the ability to report).

I think re-installing an OS is a big deal, not because it's "hard" in the sense that you can't get the installer, moves the files around, etc., but because it's a pain in the ass, ESPECIALLY when I just did it a year ago. Many people still run Windows 7, and that's 6 years old! Everytime you update you have to re-install everything, re-configure whatever lost its settings, etc etc. It's unnecessary, and it should be required just because your OS is a year old and all the updates return 404...

Re:That was easy

[Ravaldy]

You might be surprised at how healthy gaming is becoming on Linux

1.5% of PC users use Linux. Healthy from the standpoint that the games available work but not a convincing when you look at the numbers. The real question is, what percentage of that 1.5% will actually game? In the current state I would assume less than on PC.

My understanding is that converting a game from one OS to another in a framework such as Unity is simple but the big publishers don't use theses frameworks. So how much work goes into making it happen? I honestly don't know. There's also the issue of support to users. What are the additional complications of having to support an OS with so many flavors and colors?

but Steambox has been convincing some of the big name publishers to put in the relatively minimal amount of effort necessary for Linux support.

What is defined as minimal efforts? If Linux already has DirectX (though that was suppose to have happened by now), then maybe but if not how are games converted over without the supporting library?

Re: That was easy

[GrantRobertson]

Hibernate and suspend are so unreliable on my Win7 laptop that I just stopped using them.

I used to be a network manager, so I know how to fix most things. But I just got tired of messing with it and have up.

Re:That was easy

[CanEHdian]

...you WILL be on Windows 10, within a few years.

Say can you do me a favour and type the following in shell?

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:microsft/win
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gwx

Thanks mate!

Re:That was easy

[FlyHelicopters]

All I would need it for is web browsing, maybe watching some Amazon instant video, and games. I can live with running a Windows 7 VM for some games if needed. Not really worried about productivity software, can always (hopefully) fire up my old laptop I still have lying around somewhere.

Then by all means, give it a try, nothing is stopping you...

Just keep in mind that if you're angry with Microsoft over Windows 10, that doesn't make Linux a good solution. It just means you're angry with MS.

Re:That was easy

[FlyHelicopters]

On top of that, the UI in Windows (8+) is completely unusable

Ahh, no it isn't... I've had Windows 8.1 on multiple machines for some time now, it works just fine. Boots right to the desktop, don't even see the start screen.

Most of those machines are on Windows 10 now, very nice overall.

they all spy on you too

I don't think the word "spy" means what you think it does... They collect usage information to improve the quality of their product. Knowing that XYZ program is run on 42 million PCs means that they need to add it to their testing suite for new releases. Knowing that ABC program is only run on 300,000 machines means they don't.

Knowing how their customers use their OS improves the future quality of the OS. This is a "Good Thing".

Re:That was easy

[Forever Wondering]

You might be interested in dual boot.

When I did this a few years back for a new system I got, it had Vista. I then installed Linux over it. The Linux distro installed grub and found the Vista install and it became a choice in the grub boot menu. Later, I installed an upgrade version of Win7. It didn't touch grub or Linux, so now I've got a full dual boot system. I boot Linux by default, and override at the grub prompt for Win7 for games [or turbotax :-)].

Re: That was easy

[UnsignedInt32]

From my experience, it worked on most of hardware I've used before with Windows. The biggest problem I experienced is that it took forever to hibernate and resume, to the extent simply shutting down was much quicker.

Re:That was easy

[FlyHelicopters]

Why should a casual user need to invest that much time and effort into avoiding these problems, when they can just use an OS that doesn't have them?

First, there isn't exactly a lot of time and effort involved in Windows these days. Don't browse to unsafe sites, don't click on everything that pops up, and leave Windows updates running.

Second, Linux is not plug and play for the average consumer, far from it. You have a biased view, simply by being on SlashDot in the first place, however... you can give a Windows 10 USB stick to my mother and she could install it on a bare metal computer. You put it in a USB slot, turn the computer on, it installs. When it finishes, all the drivers are installed, she logs into her MS account, it asks "do you want to set this up like your old machine?", she says yes, it then looks just like her old machine, complete with Windows apps and Start menu.

It doesn't get any bloody easier than that.

Re:That was easy

[macs4all]

Does nobody else think this is unacceptable?

I do. That's why I use OS X. All the fun of UNIX with none of the hassles of Linux, and none of the spying of Windows (and what little non-anonymous "spying" there is (Spotlight Suggestions and iTunes Library Details-Sharing), is easly turned off via GUI switches).

Re:That was easy

[macs4all]

I don't think any OS is ready for the general user.

Funny; in your long-winded rant, you didn't once mention OS X.

Re:That was easy

[Darinbob]

"Many games" are on several platforms, but not necessarily the games everyone wants. Sure, tons and tons of games on smart phones, but all of them utter crap. Steam Machine is a dream, it will have a small subset of Steam games but it will be a long time before it has enough higher quality games that people will pay attention. Most PC games in the last ten years are tied heavily DirectX, and they just don't work as well when running under WINE.

Re:That was easy

[macs4all]

And if you're using a laptop that's not a ThinkPad or a Dell Latitude, turn in your geek card now.

Is that why you see so many MacBooks at "Geek" events?

Re:That was easy

[rastos1]

The second issue is that Linux is really a fragmented market ....

(I'm no proponent but,) Did you see what systemd wants to achieve?

Re:That was easy

[eth1]

I'll tell you upfront, very very few major game developers are considering Linux yet. They won't until the crowd is there and proves that people are willing to pay money for games.

IMO, very very few "major" game developers are putting out anything worth buying anymore, anyway. All of the AAA titles seem to be watered down for the lowest common denominator, and riddled with bugs that never get fixed. I spend way to much time gaming, and have been exclusively playing indie titles or games from smaller studios for the last 2-3 years now, and still have a "waiting list" because there's just so much good stuff out there if you care to look. Not all of them support Linux, but enough do.

Re:That was easy

[Anonymous Coward]

This decision has not only cost some users much valuable disk space, but in the case of one of my clients, $400 or more in internet bills. Some users are connected to the internet by 4G cell USB modems. One of my clients on such devices doesn't use the computer or internet much except to check email etc. When ever they turned on the Windows 7 PC, Microsoft Windows 10 attempted to download. Every time they shut off the PC and started it, this process would start over causing their bandwidth on their cell modem to not only hit the cap, but exceed it by 300%. Microsoft should be responsible for these overage charges! I've since turned off automatic updates on all my client PC's and instructed them to update what they need until they want to install Windows 10 upgrade.

Re:That was easy

[Overand]

I'd be more into this gripe if my Windows 7 laptop didn't bluescreen 1 out of every 3 or so times it tries to resume from hibernation.

Re:That was easy

[Overand]

My Win 7 laptop suspends and resumes great. It hibernates great too... 2 out of 3 times. Those other times it bluescreens when it tries to resume. Soooo... yeah, kinda hard for me to get behind this gripe.

Re:That was easy

[Kavonte]

So Linux only works properly on old hardware, don't expect it to work on anything recent. Thanks for setting us all straight!

No, that's not it at all. The age of the laptops is irrelevant and simply a consequence of the fact that anyone who has a lot of laptops they can install Linux on likely has those laptops because they are too old to otherwise be useful.

The actual reason this person has had success with suspend and hibernate is just a simple matter of statistics. There is a 50% chance that suspend and hibernate will work on any given laptop. So for five laptops, we can calculate that the chance of success on all of those laptops is just 1 in 32. Thus, anyone who sees suspend and hibernate work on five laptops is likely to assume that the success rate must be much higher than 50% for it to have worked five times in a row.

However, on Slashdot, one might expect to find many more than than 32 people who have installed Linux on five laptops. Thus, to find one person who has never had any issues after installing Linux on five laptops is absolutely to be expected. Indeed, if we assume that there are hundreds of people on Slashdot who have installed Linux on five laptops, then if we don't hear from more of them who have had no issues with suspend and resume then we must assume that the success rate is actually less than 50%.

Re:That was easy

[cyberchondriac]

Weelll, you say that now. I stopped playing games for years, and thought I was done with them. Then my son grew older, and discovered Skyrim. So then, I discovered Skyrim. The next thing I know I'm replacing the graphics card and the power supply to support it in my computer. Since then I've bought Doom3 and Rage, older era stuff my card can support (I bought the latest GPU my mobo could support). I'm trying to quit again, it's too much unproductive (but fun!) time spent.

Re:That was easy

[yodleboy]

did you update your graphics drivers? I don't know what NVidia build came with Windows 10, but I couldn't get one of my screens to come up until I downloaded and installed latest directly from NVidia.

Re:That was easy

[yodleboy]

"The amount of abuse their customers will accept is simply astonishing"

I'd just like to point out that MS is rarely the innovator these days in egregious privacy invasions, telemetry and so on. What they have done is to see how little protest the supposed 'good guys' like Google and Apple receive for doing the exact same thing and decided to play along. Don't hate on them for learning the lesson too well. If anything, at least with MS, you WILL find out about it sooner rather than later, whether through the efforts of MS haters or MS's own release and patch notes. Not sure I trust Google and Apple to be less secretive.

Re:That was easy

[Forever Wondering]

The first step is to find the disk space for the Linux distro. If your current system has multiple partitions you can repurpose one if you can move the files off it (e.g. move D:\games to C:\games). You'll probably need to burn a bootable CD with a partition editor. It will grow/shrink partitions [adjusting the filesystems as well]. gparted is one.

Linux works best with a small /boot partition [say 2GB]. It needs a root partition [to future proof, I recommend 60GB]. A swap partition that is [minimum] 2x the size of physical ram. And a /home partition [make this "all the rest"]. You can get this by shrinking an existing big Win partition that is [say] 10% full. You then create the four partitions from the free space you just created. Or, you could also just add a new SATA disk and put all of the Linux partitions there.

The one caveat: Be careful with disks that are >2TB as the /boot partition must be in the lower part of the disk due to limitations with the partition table entries in an MBR (BIOS) boot block. I'm assuming you have a BIOS based system (vs. UEFI) and that your boot block is an MBR. All UEFI systems use [mostly] GPT partitions that don't have that restriction. Some BIOS also support GPT, but converting an MBR to a GPT requires a tool.

When installing grub [the linux boot loader], it replaces the boot loader in the MBR block with grub's. This is fine, because on a pure Win7 system, the boot loader in the MBR just looked for the the "active" partition, read the first block from that partition and transferred control to it. This "second" boot block on the Win7 C: drive will then read the first N blocks from that partition [the "real" win7 boot loader] and transfer control to it.

The first partition of any MBR disk starts at block 1024. That means that blocks 1-1023 are unused. The grub installer places grub's "second stage" boot there. Grub's MBR boot will read block 1 and transfer control. The block 1 boot will read in 2-1023 and transfer control to it (the "real" grub loader). It is this "real" third stage grub loader that will give you the boot menu, etc. When you select "Win 7", it will read the first block of the Win7 partition and transfer control to it. Win7 won't know the difference from this point on.

Further, note that even if you add a second Linux only disk, the MBR block will be the one with the lowest SATA slot number (e.g. 0). So, if your Linux only disk is slot 1, the MBR changes will still be on slot 0. grub should handle this just fine, but If you're squeamish, you could swap the cables so the Linux add-on disk is slot 0, but now the Win7 C: partition is on the slot 1 drive and I honestly don't know if the Win7 boot loader is smart enough to handle this.

Before you proceed, you must create a full win7 backup. I use MS's backup tool. Use the tool to create a "system recovery disk" [a CD]. Tell the tool to "create a system image" during backup and be sure to configure it to backup all your partitions. Note: You must use an external [USB] disk as the backup media. Do not use an internal SATA drive for this [unless you disconnect it after the backup]. I had a disk wipeout, and I was able to restore everything. So, if you make a mistake, you're covered.

As to distros, I use Fedora, but I've been doing this for a while. I configured a system for a friend who was non-technical and chose Ubuntu. I added an extra root partition and put Fedora on the second. Ubuntu had some issues and eventually even my non-tech friend decided on Fedora. Mint or Arch are also good choices. YMMV, so others can probably give you better advice on choice of distro.

The CD based installers for most distros are smart enough to look at all partition tables on all disks and not mess with any Win* partitions they find and will add the Win* bootable ones as grub [boot loader] menu entries [at the bottom].

Re:That was easy

[Technician]

I can tell when an unexpected reboot happened in Windows. On a dual boot machine, it boots into the other OS by default.

Re:That was easy

[leonbev]

It's funny that you mention that issue, as Windows 10 doesn't restore from sleep mode on my laptop after I upgraded it from Windows 7. Apparently it has been an issue for a lot of users.

Re:That was easy

[hairyfeet]

Nvidia graphics? Seen that one a lot at the shop, for some reason the Nvidia driver doesn't initialize the memory on resume and shits itself. i bet if you gave us the logs we could find what the problem is, its usually a VERY simple fix but you have to know which third party driver is shitting itself.

FWIW you might want to look into one of the AMD APU lappys, been selling those at the shop and none of them seem to have any issues with suspend nor hibernate, its one of the reasons I won't let go of my 2011 netbook (the others being size and battery life, makes it great for service calls) because the AMD APUs just don't give me the troubles the Nvidia ones do.

Once I finish moving I'll probably put on Win 10 on the netbook (promised another sites users I'd run those "STFU Win 10" anti-spy programs and then do a network analysis) and we'll see if it still holds true but on Win 7 at least? AMD APUs make for pretty solid laptops that suspend and hibernate pretty easy.

Re:That was easy

[shutdown -p now]

Probably worth noting that Windows 10 seems to have apps "disappear" and need restarting on an hourly basis, and that's with light load. "Mail" seems to be the worst.

It's not a Win10 thing, it's a "buggy app is crashing a lot" thing.

Re:That was easy

[Grishnakh]

This is certainly true. However, I will point out that what many people do with their phones is a little different than what they do with their PCs. I don't keep any financial documents or stuff like that on my phone, for instance. This is especially true for a business or government computer.

Re: That was easy

[Yosho]

The solution to this is really simple: build a gaming PC that has nothing but windows and your games on it. Have a second PC running Linux that you use for everything else.

Re:That was easy

[tepples]

Find an ASUS Transformer Book, put on "the standard Ubuntu usb key", and see if you can get suspend to work.

Re:That was easy

[tepples]

People who want to come back to where they were with documents open for editing rather than a blank desktop, and people who want to load web pages in tabs and read them while offline riding the bus to or from work.

Re:That was easy

[Ol Olsoc]

At that point there is nothing left tying me to Windows.

Other than Linux failing to suspend and resume correctly on a laptop.

Other than Microsoft's telemetry reading everything on your computer, other than them forcing updates on you that break things.

I mean seriously, if you are trying to make a reliability of operations argument, don't even use Microsoft as a positive comparison.

I have 10 pro. Despite telling Microsoft to wait on updates, it just barrels right in and updates anyhow. And a whole lot of folks in my arena - emergency comms - are finding that updates break their machines. And only after a couple months it's the same old Microsoft. So it's now like you have to buy the Enterprise version to make certain your computer is protected from them. And I don't even trust that.

And its a real pity, because 10 works very nicely for the most part. But the telemetry and lack of respect for your user settings - even on W10 Pro are real killers. One of these days, they are going to bitch up a huge number of computers.

Re:That was easy

[Ol Olsoc]

yeah, 'saving state' is such an old and outdated concept. I mean, why would we want to checkpoint the status of lots of open files, open browser windows, edits that are not ready to be commited or saved but you don't want to close the file, either. even the cursor position is important to be saved; its all part of 'state'.

but go ahead an argue that saving your status is worthless. in fact, maybe you like to just be forced to logoff and reboot every few hours? hmmm? sound good to you?

You seriously work that way?

Re:That was easy

[Ol Olsoc]

Just a data point, but my Ubuntu laptop suspends and resumes just fine. But my Windows laptop doesn't and frequently has to be rebooted when that happens.

Yeah same here. I've had many more laptops that won't wake from suspend or hibernate on Windows than on Linux. Worst problem I have now is Docky won't resume. A docky problem, not Linux.

Re:That was easy

[Ol Olsoc]

Other than Linux failing to suspend and resume correctly on a laptop.

YMMV, but I recently switched my Windows netbook to Linux and I can't believe how lightning fast it suspends/awakes now.

The suspend issue is really old news by now. I haven't had it in years. But some folks are still really pissed off about FDR yet.

Re:That was easy

[epyT-R]

Considering how unreliable ACPI and friends are, regardless of OS, you should be saving regularly.

Re:That was easy

[Ol Olsoc]

What the fuck. How does anyone think this is okay?

In the end I had to 'upgrade' to 17, which means you should wipe everything and re-install (this is also totally unacceptable).

Wow you set that one up and beat the shit out of it nicely.

TEll me exactly why you had to wipe your computer to install Linux 17 on it?

Instead I followed a guide to update which involved using sed -i on the command line (again, what the fuck?) and then doing apt-get upgrade and update.

I'm beginning to get a pretty good idea why some folks have so much trouble.

This mostly worked, except that Cinnamon no longer worked until I uninstalled and re-installed fglrx.

Now, really think about what I just wrote.

I have. You read like that guy who purposefully failed a Tesla, then complained about it. Nobody should have to do any of the stuff you write about to update their linux machine.

A new Linux distribution gave me that much shit to install, then update, then upgrade. Does anyone honestly believe it's ready for the 'general' user?

Yeah. My wife, who is the least technical, least patient, computer user I've worked with, managed to update without a hitch. She certainly didn't do it the way you attempted to do it

I'm not talking about the fact that it has bugs / errors either, I'm talking about how it handles them. It never once gave me any indication on how to fix things, or try to fix them itself. It always came down to me googling and using technical tools to fix things. Does nobody else think this is unacceptable?

I think maybe you just shouldn't use linux at all, or ever again. I'm not certain of why you had the issues you did, perhaps trying to force a windows outlook on Unixy systems, but your update process was bizzare to say the least. It's probably no comfort, but your experience isn't anything I've ever found or had to do in working with Linux.

Re:That was easy

[Ol Olsoc]

No, you're using a make and model of laptop on which suspend and resume happen to work in Linux. There exist other models on which they do not work.

And just to make certain. Every laptop that has ever been produced works perfectly on windows suspend/resume.

Right?

Re:That was easy

[Ol Olsoc]

Yeah because models work universally because of magic secret stuff and aren't at all essentially commodity hardware in a more specific package. Suspend / Resume support is an absolute crapshoot completely independent of price and quality, and the percentage of laptops sold with actually Linux support as claimed by the vendor is in the single digits.

I've worked with a lot of Dell laptops over the years which once they suspend, they won't wake up. You have to reboot them.

But I guess its only a fatal issue when it's a linux laptop?

Re:That was easy

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're playing with or against your son then it isn't unproductive time.

Re:That was easy

[mykro76]

Linux already has far more games than PS4 (460) and XBone (290) combined. There's 1450 titles on Steam alone, plus exclusives on other stores and then there's a mountain of open-source games, more than a few of which are commercial quality. I've been gaming on Linux for years but its really taking off at the moment. So you could always check it out now :)

Re:That was easy

[gumbi west]

Try OS X? Shutdowns are essentially irrelevant for application states. The only exception I've run into is an interactive session with an interpreted language. But event that isn't universal if you're willing to let click buttons (annoying) to let it save it's state.

Re:That was easy

[unixisc]

I was still on the fence about whether to stick to Windows 7 or upgrade to Windows 10. This just made my decision for me. Looks like I'll probably make the jump to Linux in a few years depending on how well they've got games running on Linux( since that is the only thing keeping me on Windows anyway).

The submitter's post makes me wonder whether Microsoft can pull it off even on the most barebones of tablets. For instance, I recently took my Winbook w/ a 32GB flash drive to the Microsoft store for them to upgrade it - couldn't cleanly do it myself. Had I bought a Winbook w/ 16GB flash drive, it would only have run Windows 8 - there's no way Microsoft could have upgraded it to 10

Re:That was easy

[unixisc]

I was still on the fence about whether to stick to Windows 7 or upgrade to Windows 10. This just made my decision for me. Looks like I'll probably make the jump to Linux in a few years depending on how well they've got games running on Linux( since that is the only thing keeping me on Windows anyway).

On the games thing, the next PC I buy, I'll fire it up w/ SteamOS, and then run Civ V on it.

Re:That was easy

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd go further and say if it brings fun and happiness into your life, then it's not unproductive. Mental well being is a good thing.

Re:That was easy

[thegarbz]

Err no it doesn't. Windows 10 in my experience since release to market is no less stable than previous windows. It certainly doesn't make apps disappear and last time I rebooted was the last windows update about a week ago.

Speaking of windows does NOT randomly reboot. Windows reboots to install updates on a schedule you define. Defined there schedule and don't leave open files during that period. It's not that difficult.

Re:That was easy

[bingoUV]

Three reasons I [winehq.org] can't [winehq.org] switch [winehq.org], I got plenty more

There are handicapped/disabled people in the world. Some can't see, some can't speak, some can't run, some can't learn easily, some can't switch away from MS windows. That is fine.

But I haven't seen most such people threaten to see, speak, run, learn easily or switch away from MS windows. So if a reasonable person is threatening, chances are that he is not disabled from carrying out his threats.

Re:That was easy

[Cley Faye]

That's the situation that is changing, fast. Along with a lot of indie titles, some (granted, not most) recent AAA titles also have Linux support. I'd give Arkham Knight as an example, but seeing how the windows release has gone I'd rather cite Borderlands, Witcher3 and Valve games, along with X-Com.

For someone that can "only" play a few hours a week, Windows is already not a requirement anymore.

Re: That was easy

[Z00L00K]

That's even worse - imagine a forced reboot in a presentation where you are alotted 15 minutes and the reboot takes 20.

Sorry, come back next month.

Re: That was easy

[Z00L00K]

Lenovo or Dell aren't geek computers.

True geeks assemble their computers from parts.

Re: That was easy

[Z00L00K]

More specific on Android devices.

Re: That was easy

[Z00L00K]

I can't update to any later Nvidia driver because they have stopped supporting my graphics card.

Re:That was easy

[righteousness]

I've never had automatic reboots since upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10. Although I don't deny that they probably do happen, it seems Microsoft has managed to reduce occurrence of automatic reboot in Windows 10 compared to earlier versions of Windows. I wonder what's different between your computer and mine that you seems to get so many automatic reboots.

Re:That was easy

[sabbede]

The quality of MS's behavior in this instance aside, there's really no good reason not to go to 10. It's free and far superior.

Re:That was easy

[cyberchondriac]

I would agree, but I never said we were playing together.. unfortunately, I'm playing solo 97% of the time. He didn't really get into Skyrim that much, he stopped just before killing the first dragon; he's more into Minecraft and Garry's Mod, which is great, but not my cup of tea. We've played some Quake and a little Portal MP though, and I agree, that's not a waste of time at all. I bought him L4D as well, but he lost interest in about 45 minutes. Most of my gaming is single player campaigns.

Re:That was easy

[Toshito]

20 seconds compared to instantly on my Lenovo Windows 7 laptop (without any resuming problem for the last 3 years, and still using a good old spinning drive) I'd call that an eternity.

I never use hibernate, I just close the lid and toss my laptop in the bag. When I need it, I open the lid and I'm instantly resuming what I was doing. The battery is good for a day or two at sleep, who needs hibernate?

Waiting 20 seconds for a reboot and having to reopen everything every damn time would be very annoying.

Re:That was easy

[nashv]

As a recent migrant from Linux BACK to Windows, I have found that Windows 10 is actually a lot more productive.

My experience with Debian based distributions is that there are very few things that Linux does better than Windows when it comes to the graphical user interface. I did realise that when it came to dropping to the command line , Linux does everything better than Windows.

Combine that with the fact if you include games, and the tons of peripherals that come with proprietary drivers (including graphics cards, laptop bioses and motherboards), Windows does on the aggregate MORE than Linux does, it just made sense to go back to Windows. Most OSS that Linux has is also available for Windows. I cannot see any incentive to move away from Windows.

Re:That was easy

[Cederic]

Is that SO BAD now ?

Several gigabytes of unwanted network traffic? Yes.

If I want to install Windows 10 I'll fucking download it. Until then, get your shitty fucking software off my network and off my storage.

Re:That was easy

[macs4all]

Why would he? He wasn't talking about toys.

So you consider OS X, which is a fully POSIX-Compliant, Certified UNIX (something NO Linux will EVER be) OS a "Toy"?

Wow. You Slashtards ARE ridiculous.

Re: That was easy

[macs4all]

Lenovo or Dell aren't geek computers.

True geeks assemble their computers from parts.

So, a Macintosh isn't a "Geek" computer; but a Hackintosh is?

Oh, and how's that "Assemble a laptop from parts" Project coming?

Go back to 1990, fucktard. I've built many a white-box computer myself; and so I know that the level of "Geekiness" it takes is just above someone who can plug a network cable into a router.

Call me when you can DESIGN a motherboard; not when you can mailorder some stuff that someone else recommended in an article, plug in all the clearly-marked, impossible-to-plug-into-the-wrong-socket cables and twist some Phillips screws. Wow! I R A Geek!

Please! There is Ikea furniture that's harder to put together than a typical tower computer. And you think THAT makes you a GEEK?!?

Whatever.

Re:That was easy

[Azarman]

Some information for yee below most of the damage has already been done. Also SteamOS is going to save us gamers. I already moved my gaming box to Ubuntu, Windows boxes are now considered insecure because I cannot update, and EoL

Remove the following updates (if installed already) Disable windows updates as these are marked as important

KB971033 Description of the update for Windows Activation Technologies
KB2952664 Compatibility update for upgrading Windows 7
KB2990214 Update that enables you to upgrade from Windows 7 to a later version of Windows
KB3021917 Update for Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program
KB3022345 Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry
KB3035583 Update installs Get Windows 10 app in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1
KB3044374 Update that enables you to upgrade from Windows 8.1 to a later version of Windows
KB3068708 Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry
KB3075249 Update that adds telemetry points to consent.exe in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7
KB3080149 (update for CEIP and telemetry)

Run cmd as administrator
sc stop Diagtrack
sc delete Diagtrack

- Task Scheduler Library

Everything under "Application Experience"
Everything under "Autochk"
Everything under "Customer Experience Improvement Program"
Under "Disk Diagnostic" only the "Microsoft-Windows-DiskDiagnosticDataCollector"
Under "Maintenance" "WinSAT"
Media Center" and click the "status" column, then select all non-disabled entries and disable them.

*services.msc: "Remote Registry" to "Disabled" instead of "Manual".

Re:That was easy

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Given this article, he may be on Windows 10 next Wednesday.....

Re:That was easy

[macs4all]

All that is good in OS X was lifted from open source software. Apple didn't do anything but slap a crappy Fisher-Price interface on top.

And EVERYTHING in Linux was RIPPED-OFF (reverse-engineered) from UNIX. Now what?

I think you owe a LOT of UNIX Devs (who's work DIRECTLY lives on in OS X) a big, fat apology!

And BTW, by definition, you can't "lift" ANYTHING from OPEN SOURCE software, unless you violate the terms of the licensing. And I'm SURE that Apple hasn't done that, or there would be FOSSHeads aplenty citing example after example of same in EVERY Apple-Oriented Slashdot article.

And finally, I'd MUCH rather have that "Fisher-Price" UI than what MS is foisting, or the "well, maybe the next revision will be better" F/OSS Linux interfaces. Any of them.

Re: That was easy

[Z00L00K]

Reality: I built my first computer from actual ICs on a wire-wrapped board in the 80's.

Re:That was easy

[Splintercat]

Ubuntu gives you an option to do an in-place upgrade through their upgrade gui, and it's worked just fine for me the several times I've used it.

Under Linux Mint it's been a bit trickier, but not really that bad. I wish they handled the in-place upgrade stuff a bit better, but on the flip side the rest of the OS works really well for me and has many of the tweaks I'd normally apply to Ubuntu already done. With Mint 17 you actually can upgrade in-place to the point releases which seem to be tracking some upstream changes.

While I find the short support times annoying, I find it acceptable that a short term release becomes unsupported quickly. The LTS releases from Ubuntu get security patches for 5 years, and you don't have to pay them any money for the service.

Also whining about having to use the command line is like whining about having to drive stick instead of automatic. Automatic is pretty easy, but once you learn it, driving stick is not much more difficult and many people actually enjoy driving that way.

Re: That was easy

[macs4all]

Reality: I built my first computer from actual ICs on a wire-wrapped board in the 80's.

I'm not talking about something with the power of an Apple 1; and neither were you. But now you want to move the "Geek" goalposts, ok.

I have been a paid embedded designer for nearly 40 years, since around 1978. If you count every microcontroller and microprocessor-based project I have designed and built from scratch, it would number in the many dozens, and would stretch back to 1978 or '79.

Now what?

Re: That was easy

[i.kazmi]

Hi, any chance one of those laptops was a HP envy with an insyde firmware? I've already tried swsusp, uswsusp and tuxonice along with trying various quirks modes and changes to various config files to no avail. The system always reports that it hibernated successfully but randomly throws a kernel oops on resume. It happens often enough that hibernation is unusable. I have kubuntu 15.04 with the 4.0.4 kernel. Any help/pointers will be appreciated

Re:That was easy

[jandrese]

Healthy as in popular titles are available on Linux and work without complaint. You don't have to find some obscure file on an FTP site somewhere, copy specific files off of the Windows DVD and then mess with weird X settings to get games working anymore. You just open up Steam and click "play".

Re:That was easy

[iONiUM]

Not sure if you're stupid or retarded. Let me break it down for you:

• - I installed Linux Mint 16 1 year ago, I had troubles installing it. Let's move past that though.
• - A few days ago, about 1 year after installation, all updates stopped working with an error 404. Does this not seem wrong to you? Do I really have to continue past this? No professional software should ever give 404 errors to a user, and it shouldn't even happen to begin with.
• - As such, I need to make the updates work. Things I could do include: opening a sources file with a text editor, upgrading the OS, replacing the OS
• - I opted to 'upgrade' the OS, because I don't want to have to re-install everything. Is that not unreasonable?

Unlike most people on here, it seems, I have shit to do that doesn't involve having to deal with my OS every year. Thankfully with windows, I install it, and 6 years later it's STILL WORKING (I have not formatted my win7 desktop box in 6 years) and successfully getting updates, and when I buy a fancy new keyboard, "just works" with that too. Still don't get it?

Re:That was easy

[iONiUM]

A good analogy, which is funny because my car is manual. Linux Mint offers no way to upgrade in the UI, at all. Showing 404 errors to a user is not acceptable either.

It's not that I *can't* do it, obviously I did. But could my mother? The same person who's been using Windows 7, and Windows 8 successfully for years? She's never had to open a command line, a text editor to edit dist source files, and never had a problem outside of "where can I download this program."

I'm simply trying to convey to those who love Linux why it's not being adopted among the non-tech community, but all I get back is "you're stupid", or "it works fine for me you're an idiot", or "that's how it is." I just find it amazing that everyone is okay with Linux' lack of intuitiveness *outside of the tools*, and lack of UI standardization.

Re:That was easy

[Darinbob]

Recent games though. The state of the game industry means that new AAA games are usually utter crap anyway.
Just like Hollywood, there's a huge emphasis on graphics and voice acting rather than substance, a hard deadline which means ship it before it's ready, and too many sequels. These are games desgned to be played once, played for a week, then move on and dump your money into the next thing you hope will be good.

Re:That was easy

[dddux]

Exactly. People should know that creating a separate /home partition is pretty essential if you want to retain your documents and program settings between OS upgrades, and upgrading every two years or so is highly recommendable anyway. I did it 3 times already on my Thinkpad, from Debian Squeeze, to Debian Wheezy, and recently to Debian Jessie. It left all my program settings and all the documents on the /home partition intact. So never install everything on one partition in Linux if you're planning to upgrade or change the OS later. You should at least have a separate /swap, /home, and the main OS partition.

Re:That was easy

[Gob Gob]

Other than Linux failing to suspend and resume correctly on a laptop.

Only happens to me on Windows on my dual boot laptop. I wonder if that makes this comment +4 Insightful too...

Re:That was easy

[tepples]

So I'll ask about another make of PC in the same form factor class (10" detachables). Reports show that an Acer Aspire Switch is no better.

Re:That was easy

[tepples]

The new laptops that I have considered this year (ASUS Transformer Book, Acer Aspire Switch) in the size range that I am considering (10") suspend correctly in Windows but have reports of epic failure in Ubuntu.

Re:That was easy

[rtb61]

Then I would suggest you stop using windows because I have found it will never do it reliably. It is such a hit and miss thing, it becomes a real pain to use because a miss requires a reboot and even worse can be data destructive in it's failure, so really not a good idea. All it takes is one bad recovery from suspend and you can end up with real big problems.

Of course, pretty neat job M$ PR=B$ units, shifting the discussion from M$ stealing customers bandwidth and running up quota limits and creating over charges for customers with caps on their internet to a discussion about Firefox and suspend. NO it is not appropriate for M$ to arbitrarily steal from customers in order to promote a product that people do not want, M$ Anal Probes 10.

Re:That was easy

[Ol Olsoc]

Not sure if you're stupid or retarded. Let me break it down for you:

Well, since yuou've descided to go with the insults, let me break it down for you.

If you are having a metric ton of trouble, and others are not......

You have the issue, not me, and not all all the others who don't have your issue.

You aren't doing it correctly, that much is clear from your posts.

You are using an obsolete version of Mint, and if you installed it a year ago, it was obsolete when you installed it. Are you likewise pissed off about no more updates for XP, or no direct seamless upgrade fom XP to Windows 10?

Because that is exactly your complaint.

Use a long term supported package, here's a list of them in mintland - http://www.linuxmint.com/oldre... along with the obsolete versions, of which yours is one.

There might be a clue in all this for you, although I fear you won't take it.

Re:That was easy

[macs4all]

LOL! Neither Linux nor BSD are reverse engineered from UNIX, they are UNIX-like.

This is why you use a Mac. You don't understand technology. Literacy doesn't seem to be your strong point either since you don't even understand the definitions of the word "lift".

St. Linus says he was trying to emulate UNIX, or rather, minix. The definition of reverse-engineering is, in essence, to create something that emulates the operation of a prior thing, but without using the actual design documentation (I.e., source code in the case of software). Otherwise, it is simply plagiarism, or, in the case of copyrighted works, copyright infringement. Frankly, I don't know the copyright status of all the UNIX bits that are emulated in Linux; but at the very least, it Linux the very definition of "reverse engineering". Here's a pretty dispassionate discussion on the topic of Linux' heritage. It calls Linux a "UNIX Clone". In my book, that means it must've evolved primarily from either Frank plagiarism, or at the very least, reverse-engineering. Spin all you like; but that's the short and long of it.

As far as "not understanding technology" just because I enjoy using Macs, it seems that I have to "defend myself" against this Slashtard meme on a semi-weekly basis; to the point where I have simply saved-off my by now "canned" response, to wit:

I'm really getting tired of this /. meme. Perhaps I just need to publish my resume as part of my User Profile...

Not to sound big-headed; but the short story is that I am an Embedded designer with almost 40 years of paid hardware and software development experience on a wide variety of microcontroller platforms, from 6502 to ARM9 Cortex (and many others in between), mostly in Assembly and C. Although I have done quite a wide range of applications, my forte and first love lies in real-time process control. So, to say that I have done more than my fair share of fiddle farting around would be an extreme understatement. Oh, and BTW, some of that Development, including software development, CAD for schematic capture and PCB development, some LabView stuff (BTW, LabView was for years a Mac-Only system), and other stuff was done on Macs.

But, because the Embedded market has in recent years devolved into little else besides chasing contract work (which doesn't work well when you have a house and family to drag all over the country), I currently am employed doing Windows Application Development for a small local company. This also means that I do a fair bit of Windows Server admin stuff on pretty much a daily basis. Oh, and BTW, I am also a Certified SQL Server admin.

So with all due respect, you don't know anything about my credentials. Now you do.

Care to retract your fallacious and misinformed generalization regarding Mac Users?

Oh, and does this also mean that the plethora of people who show up at hacker conferences sporting Mac laptops also "Don't understand technology?" Or are you going to claim that they don't count, just because they dual-boot a Linux Distro on their MacBooks?

Oh, and as far as the definition of "lift" in this context? Essentially, it is a synonym for "steal". To take without permission. Much like Linux was "Lifted" from UNIX.

As I said before, Apple "lifted" NOTHING from Linux, nor from any Open Source project. In fact, they have CONTRIBUTED quite a bit back to the F/OSS "Community". Would you like to see a list?

Re: That was easy

[macs4all]

If you count every microcontroller and microprocessor-based project I have designed and built from scratch, it would number in the many dozens

I love how vague you leave that with no proof. I'll interpret that to mean you slapped together a few simple breadboard timers and/or clocks. You know, the kind of stuff that many children have done.

As WC Fields once said "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit."

I am just getting tired of having to "defend" against this bullshit; to the point that I saved off my by now "canned" reply, to wit:

I'm really getting tired of this /. meme. Perhaps I just need to publish my resume (which, unabridged, runs about 7 pages) as part of my User Profile...

Not to sound big-headed; but the short story is that I am an Embedded designer with almost 40 years of paid hardware and software development experience on a wide variety of microcontroller platforms, from 6502 to ARM9 Cortex (and many others in between), mostly in Assembly and C. Although I have done quite a wide range of applications, my forte and first love lies in real-time process control. So, to say that I have done more than my fair share of fiddle farting around would be an extreme understatement. Oh, and BTW, some of that Development, including software development, CAD for schematic capture and PCB development, some LabView stuff (BTW, LabView was for years a Mac-Only system), and other stuff was done on Macs.

But, because the Embedded market has in recent years devolved into little else besides chasing short-term contract work (which doesn't work well when you have a house, and family to drag all over the country), I currently am employed doing Windows Application Development for a small local company. This also means that I do a fair bit of Windows Server admin stuff on pretty much a daily basis. Oh, and BTW, I am also a Certified SQL Server admin.

So with all due respect, you don't know anything about my credentials. Now you do.

Re:That was easy

[kmoser]

I've almost never had Windows resume correctly on any machine. It always screws something up, requiring a reboot. Either the sound no longer works, or it doesn't recognize some other peripheral, or something like that.

Re:That was easy

[iONiUM]

So when I installed Mint 16, by going to their page and getting it, I did it wrong? Good one. I don't really care, windows won, and now nobody because its all mobile. Linux has its uses, but not on a regular person's desktop.

Re:That was easy

[Ol Olsoc]

So when I installed Mint 16, by going to their page and getting it, I did it wrong? Good one. I don't really care, windows won, and now nobody because its all mobile. Linux has its uses, but not on a regular person's desktop.

Download an obsolete version then bitch about it. Then bitch about not getting updates for an obsolete product.

Hey, no problem fellow. Your level of competence in computing is simply awesome. Yahoo comment boards might be a good place to work with your peers.

Re:That was easy

[discowriter]

No, he'll be on Linux. This kind of crap is going too far and Microsoft comes across as a huge hypocrite after criticizing Google. Linux actually has plenty of games on it and the developers themselves will get sick of this garbage and be even more open to Linux and getting it more support ~ the kind of support Apple and Microsoft refuse to give it because it goes against profitability for them. Like totally open standards that don't trap anyone. Programs and formats that work across platforms with zero obligation ~ are platform agnostic. Microsoft has pushed too hard, and although this might not be the last thing they get away with, it is noticed by all the informed people who actually make informed decisions about computers. To everyone else, it might as well be more malware, and those are the kind of dots Microsoft is connecting here. They're the disease-infested and doing this they're indulging the role even further. I don't think it will take a few years. The hardware is already there for great computers but Microsoft has done decidedly little to improve technology or computing lately. Linux is a step up and will improve dramatically should they become popular. Because while hardware manufacturers can write open source drivers, Microsoft's existence wholly depends on being able to sell software ~ not their hardware. Microsoft is skeezy that way, and their neediness is coming out the worst now that there are so many better options. Instead of increasing interest, they've made all their competitors look more trustworthy. Microsoft is showing its true colours for everyone in the world to see. Linux is just waiting there, slowly but surely improving. And when average, uninitiated people get used to it, nothing Microsoft does can ever turn them back. Ever. Microsoft doesn't know how to make truly great software so much as better-looking and easier software, specifically because people are used to it and have already invested so much of their habits, experience, and education into it.

Re:That was easy

[tepples]

The instructions on the last page link to this gist that states that you still need to compile your own GRUB to boot, compile your own kernel to get the keyboard working, and buy and connect a supported USB NIC in order to install Git and the driver for the built-in WLAN adapter.

Re:That was easy

[Wolfrider]

--I got tired of Linux Mint's seeming inability to do a proper upgrade as well, and switched to XUbuntu 14.04-LTS after the last go-round of not being able to do an apt-get upgrade anymore on Mint. Much happier now, you might want to give it a try. :-)

Re:That was easy

[beastofburdon]

Personally, I plan to make my Win7 install locked down from the internet with a small whitelist of sites it can access. Like steampowered.com, skyrim nexus, and basically only sites required for my games to work. Notice how no Microsoft sites were not mentioned.

Re:That was easy

[Ravaldy]

Yes but you are looking at it from the point of view of the user. I'm suggesting the publishers need to be motivated to do this and a fraction of the 1.5% of PC users may not be enough UNLESS we see something like the steambox pickup.

Re:That was easy

[iONiUM]

Linux Mint 16 was obsolete early last year? It was released on November 13, 2013 (http://www.tecmint.com/linux-mint-16-installation-guide/). I have no idea what your point is. I installed it last year, then this year (1 year later) updates didn't work. I don't know any other OS which no longer supports updates after 1 year, let alone shows a '404' when this (if it ever) occurred. Do you still not get it? I don't know how else I can explain this to you. It's like talking to a 5 year old child who thinks he knows everything, except I assume (hope) you're older than that.

Re:That was easy

[Ol Olsoc]

Linux Mint 16 was obsolete early last year? It was released on November 13, 2013 (http://www.tecmint.com/linux-mint-16-installation-guide/). I have no idea what your point is. I installed it last year, then this year (1 year later) updates didn't work. I don't know any other OS which no longer supports updates after 1 year, let alone shows a '404' when this (if it ever) occurred. Do you still not get it? I don't know how else I can explain this to you. It's like talking to a 5 year old child who thinks he knows everything, except I assume (hope) you're older than that.

It's really kind of pathetic, but you just do not take telling, and you are so damn dense that a person that takes the time to educate you, gets nothing but abuse.

Thes are the supported versions of Linux Mint:

http://www.linuxmint.com/downl...

That would be 2, 13, 17, 17.1, and 17.2

Not that Linux Mint 16 is not on that web page

Now go here:

http://www.linuxmint.com/oldre...

Linux Mint 16, code name Petra, package base Ubuntu Saucy, has been officially obsolete since July 2014. Says so right on the Linux Mint website. Go tell them it is still supported.

Anyhow If you can't rake any telling, far be it from me to educate you. I hope you are just a troll. TTFN

Re:That was easy

[iONiUM]

Take a telling? Is that English? If they don't support it, why was it the link I was brought to from their own home page a year ago? You can use the wayback machine to see it. I stand by everything I've said, and I've noticed you continue to dodge the fact that showing a end-user 404 errors when trying to update is wrong. Why didn't it just tell me exactly what you said?

Re:That was easy

[Ol Olsoc]

Take a telling? Is that English?

Its a colloquialism.

Long version is I'm "telling" you something that either through stubbornness, or inability to grasp what I'm telling you, you simply refuse to accept it.

If they don't support it, why was it the link I was brought to from their own home page a year ago?

You can still download Linux Mint1.0 beta.You can download every version of Linux Mint. The Linux world is not Windows - pretty much any version of any flavor of Linux is still available, including Mint 16. And Mint 16 isn't a Long Term Support (LTS) release now. http://www.linuxmint.com/oldre... shows us that the oldest LTS version is Mint 13, supportted until April 2017 - Next up is the Mint 17 and 17.x series, supported until April 2019

There is also an LTS version names "Betsy", but that's oriented toward experienced and "adventurous" users. I'm no certain I'd recommend it to anyone personally except for experimenters.

You can use the wayback machine to see it. I stand by everything I've said, and I've noticed you continue to dodge the fact that showing a end-user 404 errors when trying to update is wrong. Why didn't it just tell me exactly what you said?

I don't even care why you got 404 errors. It's not dodging your question, its pointless. its just another symptom that there were no longer updates available for Mint 16. And that's just how it works.

If I were to analyze what happened to you, I'd say you downloaded a package that was nearly obsolete at the time you downloaded it. That's no crime. If you aren't familiar with the Linux ecosystem, it can happen.

But your reaction is all wrong. Instead of allowing that you might have made a mistake, you've decided to indict the whole ecosystem rather than say "Oops!

All I'm saying is that your complaints are all due to being pissed about downloading an obsolete - or nearly obsolete - system, and expecting it to be supported after it is obsolete. Myself and a whole lot of other people don't have that problem. Why? Because we are using supported versions. And when 17 goes obsolete in 2019, we'll just move on to another supported version - what we won't do is complain about no updates any longer for 17.

Because your problem is only a problem for you, and your expectation of support for an obsolete package, and insisting that you were somehow misled.

But to accept any of that, you would have to take some telling.

Re:That was easy

[iONiUM]

My reaction is that I went to the page and clicked 'download', posted several times about all the issues I had, and finally was told the reason (thank you, you are right). And, instead of getting a message that this happened, I get an awful message. Furthermore, 'upgrading' isn't really possible the way I would want it to be (like it is on OSX and Windows).

Lastly, I've never, ever gotten a version of Windows or OSX that expired within a year and gave cryptic messages when trying to update, and also been unable to directly upgrade it.

All of these issues combined, in addition to the community often being sarcastic towards me, has indeed made me very angry about "Linux" as a whole.

Re:That was easy

[zwarte piet]

Hibernating used to work on my i3 laptop with Linux Mint 17.1 KDE edition but stopped doing after an update. Didn't notice right away, I usually just use sleep.

Re:That was easy

[zwarte piet]

Sleep works correctly... close the lid and your laptop's state will be saved till the battery runs out 10 hours later.

Re:That was easy

[BootNinja]

how is this any worse than "Something happened"? lack of useful error messages has historically been a hallmark of windows.

Why do they need to?

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't they already backported all their spyware to 7 and 8 and forced it down users' throats as "critical security updates?"

Re:Why do they need to?

[Z00L00K]

Someone had a list of KBs to uninstall to get rid of the spyware.

Re: Why do they need to?

[monkeyzoo]

2 of the 4 KBs are not be displayed :P so it is impossible to uninstall them...

Can anyone provide more info on this?
Is it true? The list of KBs I know to avoid are:

KB3022345 - Created a new Windows service called the Diagnostics Tracking service. (RETRACTED)
KB3068708 - Update to 3022345.
KB3075249 - Enhanced the User Account Control (UAC) feature to enable it to collect more information from the elevation prompts.
KB3080149 - Update to 3022345/3068708.

But it's true I tried to uninstall them and only saw 2 to uninstall and hide. I thought however that it was because some were updates/replacements of previous ones.

Re: Why do they need to?

[monkeyzoo]

Correction: It seems I did manage to uninstall and hide 3 of the above, except KB3022345, which was "retracted," so maybe that's why?

Re: Why do they need to?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cetero censeo Carthaginem delendam esse

ftfy

Re:Why do they need to?

[RogueyWon]

Pretty much. They've also more or less completely rebuilt Windows Update on Win7 and Vista machines. The new version of Windows Update is doing all kinds of new activities, some of which includes nasty telemetry stuff, all of which involves a huge amount of hard drive churn every time you boot up. If you have an SSD, it should get through this in a couple of minutes. Users with mechanical drives have been reporting up to 40 minutes of constant disk churn in some cases (and reports of BSODs for some users during this process as well).

Re:Why do they need to?

[Badooleoo]

Just run a batch file

https://github.com/WindowsLies...

Re: Why do they need to?

[Trax3001BBS]

2 of the 4 KBs are not be displayed :P so it is impossible to uninstall them...

Can anyone provide more info on this?
Is it true? The list of KBs I know to avoid are:

KB3022345 - Created a new Windows service called the Diagnostics Tracking service. (RETRACTED)
KB3068708 - Update to 3022345.
KB3075249 - Enhanced the User Account Control (UAC) feature to enable it to collect more information from the elevation prompts.
KB3080149 - Update to 3022345/3068708.

But it's true I tried to uninstall them and only saw 2 to uninstall and hide. I thought however that it was because some were updates/replacements of previous ones.

KB3035583 this came out Apr 4th 2015 and when I blocked updates, it's a persistent update as you can't hide it. Can be found at Windows/System32/GWX, the information it gathered can't as it left 24 hours after it's install, unless you have a decent HOSTS file as I did.

Arrogance?

[Intrepid imaginaut]

This is way beyond arrogance, this is tantamount to installing malware on my computer. So now I have to go through all my windows machines checking and uninstalling "patches" for... ever?

Re:Arrogance?

[red crab]

That's just tantamount to installing an upgraded version of malware that is already running on your system. Not that bad.

Re:Arrogance?

[Anonymous Coward]

So now I have to go through all my windows machines checking and uninstalling "patches" for... ever?

Turn off windows update service and don't care? You can do that in 7 in less actions than it takes to get first time to BIOS on a laptop with pre-installed 8.1 nowadays.

Re:Arrogance?

[gstoddart]

Good luck figuring out which ones are safe to install.

Microsoft has promoted them to the point where they show as "Important" and claim to be for the stability of the OS. Unless you literally check every patch on the web to figure out if it isn't related to Windows 10 it's almost impossible.

They're going to shove this turd up people's asses no matter what it takes.

Apparently this is how Microsoft envisions the future ... sending a big "fuck you" to their customers and telling them they don't have a choice in how Microsoft runs things, and are re-defining who actually owns the machine.

Re:Arrogance?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you tell me how much the Microsoft astroturf team is paying per post these days?

Re:Arrogance?

[Cro Magnon]

What about the people with full hard drives? I don't want to get warning messages about HD space, just because MS DLd a big OS on my old and rather full HD without my permission.

Re:Arrogance?

[LVSlushdat]

If you're already using 7 or 8/8.1, you're getting the same "telemetry" crap shoved down your throat, unless you take the time to research and remove those "updates" doing this bullshit, and THEN you have to trust MS to NOT put them back despite your removal/hiding them.. "Trust" and "Microsoft" are two words that have NO business together.. And if you think *this* is "way beyond arrogance" wait till you actually RUN Windows 10.. To defang/castrate it from all of the spyware "features", you have to visit regedit, gpedit.msc, to disable/remove this sewage.. Even after alledgedly disabling some of the worst of the lot, namely Cortana, you *still* have a Cortana process running, that cannot be killed... I'm a retired Windows support tech/network admin who retired in 2010, and moved all of my home systems to Linux in 2011. I've installed/tested Windows 10 on a spare "burner" machine simply to be familiar with it when friends/neighbors ask me about it or want me to help them with it, when it inevitably pukes its guts.. I used/supported Windows from Windows 3.11 (1991) to XP/Windows 7 (2010) and I'm DONE with any Microsoft product and thats my advice to anyone who asks.. Those who continue to use Windows are now members of the largest botnet in history. sending ALL of your business to Microsoft... I might as well go ahead and say it "FUCK YOU MICROSOFT!"

Re:Arrogance?

[LVSlushdat]

Really.. There is sure a LOT of Astroturf around these parts.... MS always did have a lot of shills...

Re:Arrogance?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's worse than that. Microsoft has also decided that they're going to stop posting details about patches. Check out the patch notes for Windows 10 updates (like KB3081452) and all you'll get, and I'm quoting verbatim for that update, is:

August 27, 2015, compatibility update for upgrading to Windows 10

Summary
This update makes improvements to ease the upgrade experience to Windows 10.

What does that mean? Not a clue. But that's the entirety of the upgrade notes. Everything else is instructions on installing the patch. What does it fix? Does it add new "telemetrics?" Does it fix any bugs? Microsoft won't say!

Windows 10 is without a doubt the worst version of Windows since Windows ME. If you thought Windows 8 was bad, just wait until you try Windows 10! Explorer locks up constantly, breaking the Start menu and the desktop. The Nvidia drivers are the most unstable thing ever, and have only recently been fixed to the point where they just get restarted constantly rather than hard-locking the OS constantly. The Start menu search is now broken and finds a random subset of the installed programs. Cortana search will "find" documents on your computer ... but then not provide any way to open them. Windows 10 "tablet" mode provides no method of opening the software keyboard while "desktop" mode does.

Windows 10 is just completely, hilariously broken, to the point that Windows 8 seems amazing by comparison.

Re:Arrogance?

[Anonymous Coward]

And that unwanted forced Win10 download sucks up how much of my bandwidth cap?

Re:Arrogance?

[Anonymous Coward]

You joke, but people actually found out about this because Windows Defender quarrantined the download as malware. :D

Re:Arrogance?

[ericloewe]

Funny how nobody complains if a tablet, phone or console demands an OS update to continue functioning (unless significant features are removed), but if it's Windows, it's "malware"...

You want to complain about the automatic download? Fine, that is stupid. I was also surprised by the aggressiveness with which Windows 10 was pushed - I ended up accidentally upgrading sooner than I wanted when I thought I was just "reserving" the update.

Re:Arrogance?

[sconeu]

Nope. I ALWAYS disable that customer experience crap, and I got offered two of the three telemetry updates last time I ran Windows Update.

Fortunately, I knew enough to not accept them, and to mark them as "hidden".

Re:Arrogance?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, go easy on Microsoft! I am a stockholder...!

Re:Arrogance?

[0123456]

of all the reasons why this is an annoyance, you went for "it takes space on my hdd" ?

Um, my Windows box has a 120GB SSD for the boot drive. I do not want Windows 10 on that machine. I sure as hell do not want it wasting 10% of the space on that SSD.

Nor, for that matter, do I want it hogging the network sucking down a 10GB file in the first place.

This just proves that Microsoft has gone batshit crazy.

Re:Arrogance?

[Grishnakh]

There's nothing crazy about it. MS can abuse its users however it wants, and they'll keep coming back for more. Just look at all the posts above ridiculing the idea of moving to Linux.

MS could push a required update which grabs users' private photos and posts them on a public website for the world to see and people wouldn't stop using Windows. They could openly push an update which grabs users' login credentials and any financial information it can find and then sell this info, publicly, to Russian hackers and people would continue to use Windows. Nothing will convince people to abandon Windows, nothing.

Re:Arrogance?

[tom229]

Windows 10 is already spyware. Nothing is free.

Re:Arrogance?

[tom229]

Also this.

Re:Arrogance?

[Darinbob]

All the updates seem to have the same titles too. "Important update to Windows 64-bit systems" or "Important driver update to Windows 64-bit systems", or stuff like that (I can't check actual titles at work without having internet explorer). This is how the stealth update for the Windows 10 advertisement/malware showed up on everyone's computer, which required that you learn the actual update number so that you could disable it.

Re:Arrogance?

[Darinbob]

Well, Windows 8 wasn't that bad for me, and 8.1 was better. The big flaws were the stupid metro interface and removal of a usable start menu; the smaller flaws are just dumb microsoft things you find in every release. As far as desktop goes though, it's crashed much less then Windows 7 for me, takes up less memory, has some improved apps, and doesn't have that windows 7 glossy look.

Re:Arrogance?

[Darinbob]

I've never had a phone demand an update to continue functioning. They ask to update, and I get the opportunity to say yes or no, and even if I say no they continue to work.

Re:Arrogance?

[Bathroom Humor]

I have Windows 10. I like it (aside from the privacy violations and horrible lack of settings).
How do i disable and remove the worst of this cruft? I have turned off the Windows Update service (I can turn it on manually if I want to check). Is there a website that can describe the process for me?

Re:Arrogance?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck figuring out which ones are safe to install.

Microsoft has promoted them to the point where they show as "Important" and claim to be for the stability of the OS. Unless you literally check every patch on the web to figure out if it isn't related to Windows 10 it's almost impossible.

They're going to shove this turd up people's asses no matter what it takes.

Apparently this is how Microsoft envisions the future ... sending a big "fuck you" to their customers and telling them they don't have a choice in how Microsoft runs things, and are re-defining who actually owns the machine.

100% Exactly correct.

http://www.technobuffalo.com/2013/08/22/nsa-windows-8-exploit/
http://www.technobuffalo.com/2013/07/11/microsoft-gave-the-nsa-direct-backdoor-access-to-outlook-skype/
http://winsupersite.com/windows-10/how-stop-windows-10-upgrade-downloading-your-system
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/195592-with-windows-10-microsoft-could-move-to-a-subscription-based-model
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/205320-microsoft-windows-10-will-be-the-last-version-of-windows
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GU5uv28a3I
http://techrights.org/2015/07/31/vista-10-anticompetitive/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwRYyWn7BEo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gghj03J_ri0
http://localghost.org/posts/a-traffic-analysis-of-windows-10
http://www.ghacks.net/2015/08/28/microsoft-intensifies-data-collection-on-windows-7-and-8-systems/

THIS.
https://gitlab.com/windowslies/blockwindows
Use the hosts file. If you want to update anything (you probably never will want to again) just rename it to hosts_disable while you check each and every KB update Microsoft wants to push on you. Anything you don't absolutely know you need... hide it and forget about it forever. When you're done rename hosts_disable back to hosts ... enjoy your life. The internet is safer than Microsoft's OS now.

Basically imho turn off your automatic updates.. but they probably already installed their keystroke logging garbage 2 days ago on "patch Tuesday". Anybody whose been too busy or just aren't savvy enough to what's going on in the world... You just got robbed. You've been had. You're the new global botnet. You were treated like the Microsoft sheep you are.

Check all KB's before installing, you probably won't need any updates in the future if you are on 7/8/8.1 if you only use Windows for trusted sites and games. You shouldn't use Windows for anything but games at this point, and even that's a risk.

Linux. distrowatch.com
Use Oracle Virtual Box virtual machines, or multi-boot it. Simple, fast, free, fun, and more secure even by default. You can lock Linux down including read-only encrypted boot media.

If you never noticed before there is "Secure Boot" in your UEFI. It is a Microsoft lie. You will need to disable it and enable "Legacy Boot" instead. Microsoft tried to block installing other operating systems, esp. Linux, while claiming it was to prevent malicious code from infecting your firmware or boot sectors. Nah. They lied. There is nothing secure about "Secure Boot". To install Linux on a newer machine you will have probably have to simply disable that dickmove setting in BIOS/UEFI. If you are going to use Linux in virtual machines look for youtube videos. It is easy. Basically just disable hyper-v and enable vt-x extensions and you're good to go. Read the Virtual Box install how-to's or watch the videos, including Guest Additions section.

Re:Arrogance?

[Z00L00K]

So the every other version still holds:
NT 3.1 - Toy version so it don't really count.
NT 3.51 - Meh, but not many suffered from it.
NT 4 -OK
2000 - Meh. (not really bad, but not really good either)
XP - OK
Vista - Bad like a bitch on PMS.
7 - OK
8 - Bad like a bad LSD trip.
8.1 - OK
10 - Bad because it rapes your integrity.

Re:Arrogance?

[Z00L00K]

"Proven"???

I have never admitted any permission to such a feature.

Re:Arrogance?

[Arterion]

Actually, upgrading to Windows 10 should free up disk space. A full install of Windows 10 takes up less disk space than Windows 8.1. It also eliminates the need for a recovery partition.

http://arstechnica.com/informa...

Re:Arrogance?

[hucker75]

Why wouldn't you want the latest windows? I have no problem with this at all.

Re:Arrogance?

[ericloewe]

They may not demand it explicitly, but yearly API changes that are not backported to older versions have nearly the same effect.

Re:Arrogance?

[martinfb]

Agreed! Think about it: the 800-pound gorilla that is Microsoft is doing the same social engineering that hackers do. Mind you, the intent is not necessarily malicious, yet it IS intended to keep you HOOKED to the Microsoft model, with obvious plans to ultimately guarantee them your dollars, at least down the short road. Mind you, still, Microsoft is a business, and that means they should make money. How much and when SHOULD be a bit predictable by the consumer. It sucks being strapped into purchases that tax one's budget. And THAT is what the unethical part seems to be!

You *will* upgrade!

[GeekWithAKnife]

These are not the upgrades you were looking for.

Nothing to see here.

Move along.

Waiting for it to update without prompting

[mark-t]

If this is running as part of regular Windows Update, I'm curious to know whether or not this is going to just start installing the update to windows 10 without asking the user at some point.

That will be *VERY* interesting....

Re:Waiting for it to update without prompting

[denis-The-menace]

They've installed stealth updates before.
They are arrogant enough.
Why not?

Re:Waiting for it to update without prompting

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe Microsoft is going to prompt to update, but they want the update to be instantaneous. They hope that users will click "yes" by mistake, and if the update is prefetched there's no opportunity for users to click "cancel" on the progress bar.

Re:Waiting for it to update without prompting

[Barsteward]

Every time there was an update, the Window 10 update was also automatically ticked. I've been unticking before the installs take place but now i cannot remove the tick so i log off and close the lid so it doesn't update. I wonder when they'll stop me doing that.

Re:Waiting for it to update without prompting

[houghi]

Why not? Because they will be punished. Oh, wait. They won't. Fined? Nope. Loosing more customers than they gain? Nope.

In fact what would be the reason from their point of view for NOT doing it compared to doing it. They gain more by doing it and so they do it. Simple.

Re:Waiting for it to update without prompting

[Anonymous Coward]

If you go into the old desktop styled Control Panel -> Windows Update, you can choose to uncheck and hide the Windows 10 upgrade. If *shouldn't* show up again after that.

Re:Waiting for it to update without prompting

[bobbied]

You can turn off the Windows 10 update icon that shows up in the task bar by uninstalling the update that installed the program and then disabling the update so it won't get re-installed. Hopefully that will keep the button clicking mistakes down...

Re:Waiting for it to update without prompting

[SkunkPussy]

I've never been offered windows 10, curiously (or maybe fortunately).

Re:Waiting for it to update without prompting

[kevmeister]

If this is running as part of regular Windows Update, I'm curious to know whether or not this is going to just start installing the update to windows 10 without asking the user at some point.

I made the mistake of allowing the installation of new Defender signatures yesterday and what should appear but "Windows 10 downloading"! Looks like updating anything will trigger the download. I was VERY annoyed.

Re:Waiting for it to update without prompting

[geek111]

If they're going to do that, they could have Windows Update just download and install Debian Jessie for me... Save me the trouble of wiping Windows 10 at least.

Re:Waiting for it to update without prompting

[mark-t]

My point being that if downloading it is being done without the user asking for it, then why not the full install?

Re:Waiting for it to update without prompting

[kheldan]

Shamelessly riding the coattails of the first score 5 post in this thread to say: Fuck you sideways with a rusty chainsaw, Microsoft. Now they're forcing Win10 on everyone? Fuck you, fuck you, FUCK YOU. I'm one of the still-on-XP guys, was considering 7 at some point.. now, when the box finally dies and I have to build a new one? It's definitely some flavor of Linux. Also, it's official now: Computers are no longer Any Fun At All. Authoritarian, totalitarian bastard corporations like Microsoft have ruined it for good. Who knew that at some point in my life I'd be pining for Z80 processors and CP/M 2.2 and hardware I build from bare PCBs on up with my own two hands and a soldering iron (hell, I designed a fair portion of some of the first computers I had).

Bastards.

Re:Waiting for it to update without prompting

[mark-t]

Well, they aren't doing that.... *YET*.... For the moment, it seems that they are just downloading it. This is certainly very serious all by itself, impacting users with limited bandwidth or disk storage, but even that is nowhere near as bad as the notion that this may be making it ready to do a full install of Windows 10 without prompting the user beyond "updates are available, install and restart?"

Re:Waiting for it to update without prompting

[kheldan]

The problem is that the average end-user is going to have the default settings for Automatic Updates, which I believe is to download and install all 'recommended' updates, am I right?

Re: Waiting for it to update without prompting

[kevmeister]

They won't because they REALLY, REALLY need you to accept the EULA.

Lawyers trump marketing every time.

Re:Waiting for it to update without prompting

[cbhacking]

Are you running Enterprise edition? It doesn't get the offers to upgrade. Not from 8.0 to 8.1, and not from 7 or 8.1 to 10.

Re:Waiting for it to update without prompting

[Grishnakh]

Exactly. What's the downside of abusing their customers? None. No one's going to actually abandon Windows because of this, they'll just whine about it and continue using Windows with spyware updates applied, and scoff when someone suggests they switch to another OS.

Personally, I don't think they're going nearly far enough. They should sell users' personal data to the highest bidder, and publish private data (photos, etc.) on public servers so people can laugh at private photos (make sure everything is tagged so you can look up photos by someone's name and address). What would anyone do about it? They're not going to stop using Windows, that much is clear.

Re:Waiting for it to update without prompting

[Darinbob]

Microsoft has figured out that they can do whatever they want with impunity. Governments either are afraid and drop cases (US) or their judgements are ignored long enough that they are moot (EU).

The only thing that is working right now is the decline in Windows users; too many outside of corporations are just not interested anymore, they'd rather use a phone. Microsoft realizes that their monopoly is finally being broken up from the grass roots and is scared, which is why they are pushing this 10 so hard because it's supposed to tie the phone and desktop and console together.

Re:Waiting for it to update without prompting

[Darinbob]

A lot of companies have similar strategies. The require you to have the credit card on file even if you're using a free part of their service; which means the "convenience" of one click purchases will be accidental often enough.

Re:Waiting for it to update without prompting

[MachineShedFred]

It had better not, or anyone on Time Warner / Cox that is using a CableCARD will no longer be able to use their TV service, as they killed Windows Media Center, and there is *no* other PVR software I'm aware of that can get around these cable systems abuse of the CopyOnce flag.

Fucking sons of bitches.

Re:Waiting for it to update without prompting

[SkunkPussy]

home premium!

Re:Waiting for it to update without prompting

[Barsteward]

thanks. checked it again today and it now allows me to untick the box

Re:Waiting for it to update without prompting

[0123456]

They've lost a lot more customers than that. Many people I know who used to use Windows desktops or laptops at home now use iPads or Android tablets instead. Other than the company's ancient burner Dells for business trips, I now see more Mac laptops than Windows among the people I know and work with.

The only market Microsoft still own is the business desktop, and their recent behaviour is only going to accelerate the move away from Windows there, too.

Re:Waiting for it to update without prompting

[Z00L00K]

Sooner or later they will do the same thing there.

Re: Waiting for it to update without prompting

[Z00L00K]

That depends on what the original EULA did say.

Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are running Windows in 2015 then be prepared for the OS to own you!

Data Plan Blew Up

[coop247]

My in-laws live in middle of nowhere Pennsylvania and had tried HughesNet for a few years but didn't like it. I told them to get one of the little wireless routers from Verizon, and they easily keep under their 2Gb limit.

Last month she's calling me wondering how in the world she could have gone over her limit, and how they are going to charge her $30 and this and that. After some investigation, turns out it was Win10 downloading.

Yeah, thats some shit right there.

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[Anonymous Coward]

Same thing happened to me. I don't game or stream and am just a poor college dude, so I just tether my laptop to my phone for internet. I blew over my cap because of this. If I had known about it or had the option to delay, I would have gone to a wifi hotspot for the update. Microsoft really must have their head so far up their collective asses to not consider there might be any reason to give users a choice on if and when they download Windows 10. It just goes to show how Microsoft is out of touch with how people are actually using computers... "gee I have high speed internet at home so everyone else must have it too!".

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[halivar]

In this particular case, the villain is the greedy asshole ISP with the arbitrary data cap.

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[coop247]

Shows with their Xbox idiocy too. They wanted "always on" this generation and are already talking digital only games for the next one. Not everyone has a 1GB fiber pipe you idiots.

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[tomhath]

You want unlimited? Pay for unlimited. It's the customer's choice.

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[willworkforbeer]

...Verizon, and they easily keep under their 2Gb limit. ... [now] have gone over her limit, and how they are going to charge her $30 and this and that. After some investigation, turns out it was Win10 downloading.

And now M Night Shyamalan has optioned the movie version of Windows 10: The Bandwidth Rapist.

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[halivar]

No, it's not. It's determined by whether available local ISP's offer unlimited plans, and whether that "unlimited" really means "unlimited" (which it usually does not).

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[LVSlushdat]

No, sparky.. they are only ONE of the villians in this story.. MS is the most egregious villian of this story.. To force a nearly 4GB download down EVERYones throat is so far beyond arrogance it isn't funny... Despite the fact that lawyers are the only ones who profit from class action lawsuits, I strongly suspect there needs to be one in this case.. Everyday I'm more glad that I quit using Windows in 2011, although I'm still gonna get asked to support it by my neighbors/friends who just can't get their lips off the Microsoft tit...

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[amorsen]

You do know that HughesNet is a satellite ISP, right? There is no viable business case for unlimited satellite internet at anything more than 9600bps or so. You are sharing a much-less-than-gigabit connection between tens of thousands of users to get the average price down enough to make it affordable. A typical user who transfers 100GB a month will ruin it for everyone.

I have seen quite a few impressive graphs where business DSL lines were filled to capacity for hours after the Windows 10 release. This is great news for most ISPs -- sure it means an extra cost of bandwidth short term, but it is going to put switching to fiber (or draconian QoS, more $$$) into the minds of many managers.

Satellite ISPs are going to lose out. They make a bit of money short term because of the bandwidth charges, but they will shed customers because most customers hate unexpected bills.

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[tepples]

A lot of these ISPs don't offer unlimited, and these users had no advance notice that unlimited would be preferable with their present usage pattern.

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

No, in this particular case, the villains are both. Greedy asshole ISP with arbitrary data cap and stupid asshole software company with braindead decisions.

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[david_thornley]

I pay for a cell data plan with several users, and I like to look over the bills, so I know more or less how much certain people use it. A 2GB plan would be insufficient for me, but not for the other people on the plan. (A 4GB plan would be good enough for me, provided nobody decided to ram a multi-gigabyte update through it.)

Not everybody has your usage patterns.

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[nnull]

One of my buddies business had a problem with this with his measly 1.5mbit line (Yes, that's all you can get, telepacific is terrible with a high cost). He had 50 computers downloading Windows 10 without anyone's consent. It was hogging up all the bandwidth and he was unable to even use his email. When I took a look at it, you could do nothing to prevent it other than blocking it in the firewall. Windows was showing nothing (Not even showing in Windows update that it was downloading something) and turning off BITS did absolutely nothing to stop it (It would magically force it back on). I had to put a firewall rule to block this update.

Microsoft Windows is behaving more like malware than an update.

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[t0y]

If the connection is metered you should've configured it that way. For wifi, windows assumes it's not metered but you can change it. http://windows.microsoft.com/e...

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[DoofusOfDeath]

They don't need it to work well for every possible customer. They just need it to be the most profitable strategy overall. Your real problem here, I think, is that their interests are not aligned with yours.

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[praedictus]

My data plan for the 4G home wifi hub (no cable available in this part of the bairro) has blown its cap for the last months, and I have been blaming family members for downloading YouTube videos on their cell phones. Turns out my work laptop has been downloading the Win 10 update without telling me in the background, I see the hidden folder has roughly 5.6 gB of files, so I would be blowing the cap for the next 2-3 months if this continues. (Only 2 gigs cap then it goes down to old-time dialup speeds). NOT cool.

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[Grishnakh]

How are they out of touch? Why shouldn't they do this? Why should they give a rat's ass about your data cap charges? What are you going to do, switch to another OS? No, of course you won't, you'll just bitch about it on the internet and continue to use Windows and pay for Windows when you buy new PCs.

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[Grishnakh]

MS is the most egregious villian of this story.. To force a nearly 4GB download down EVERYones throat is so far beyond arrogance it isn't funny...

No, it IS funny, because no matter how much abuse they suffer these Windows users just won't give it up. It's funny to see how far MS can push it. People are whining about this stuff left and right, but are they actually voting with their feet? Hell no, they're sticking with Windows. So why should MS care about their complaints?

although I'm still gonna get asked to support it by my neighbors/friends who just can't get their lips off the Microsoft tit...

Why are you enabling them? Any time someone asks me for help with Windows I tell them I don't use it and don't know much about it.

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[Darinbob]

It's all the mentality at corporations these days; assume all the customers are hipsters, they've all got fat pipe ISPs, they're instagramming all day long, and they love putting everything in the cloud, so they'll never notice a 10gb download. Or they'll put a data cap on they phone customers and then preconfigure their phones to automatically update every application and do backups and replication to the cloud, and charge all of that against the data cap. In reality though, most people in the US have bandwidth issues.

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[Darinbob]

Most consoles are there for the kids really. There are a few serious gamers in the console crowd, but the bread and butter market are those who want something cheaper/simpler than a computer. They're often in houses that don't even have reliable internet, the console is a one time buy and then the games are rented or borrowed or gifts from the grandparents. Even in the middle class houses I can see the big arguments about why is the internet down again and then they find out junior is downloading 20gb for the latest game that will only be played for a week before it's old news.

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[Darinbob]

If only Microsoft would tell people about this feature. Or maybe include some instructional guides with Windows installations like they used to do. The average user does not know any of this stuff. If you don't know it exists how do you know to go look for it? Windows 8 had a radically different usage than earlier Windows and it did not include any help at all about how to navigate around it (took me twenty minutes to figure out how to shut it down); they did add a few tips in the first update though.

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[Darinbob]

You can easily keep within 2GB data cap. Just stick to email. If you do some web browsing you *must* use adblock and noscript, and don't go to image heavy sites.
Remember we still have a sizeable percentage of America still using dialup.

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[Darinbob]

That's a big flaw I see in Windows, OSX, Linux, and some smart phones. You basically can't tell what's using up your resources. Windows can be bad there because so much falls under a couple of executables doing most of the disk writes or net usage, so it's a common question online to find out if "services" or "host" is a virus or not. Android has a nice feature to show which processes are using the most data, though I did have a problem for awhile when so much was coming from Android itself.

OS makers, including Linux distributions, want to turn the operating systems into black boxes and don't like customers asking too many questions about what's going on. That's fundmentally at odds with data caps or low bandwidth internet.

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[shutdown -p now]

If the ISP advertised the cap in advance, I don't see how they're at fault in any way.

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[Z00L00K]

Never make such an assumption that people will understand the need to "configure it that way". It's outright rude, especially when you have to consider that there are many older people using computers and that don't know anything about what they can click OK on or not.

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[tepples]

I don't know about your internet, but I pay for a RATE not an AMOUNT. When Comcast changes that (in October?) then I'll have a (bigger) complaint. I pay for a RATE; if they want to put caps on it without my consent, that is breach of contract in my mind.

Comcast doesn't use "contracts". In fact, it has been running TV ads in response to bundles offered by the newly merged AT&T and DirecTV, and these ads slam AT&T for locking the user into a 2-year contract. But what the ads don't say is that this gives Comcast the flexibility to get all its subscribers onto a new set of terms within 30 days.

I realize I'll have to take my business elsewhere as no lawyer is going to fight for me pro bono publico. Hopefully, CenturyLink will have Prism in my area soon so I can drop Comcast completely.

And if not, you're stuck with sat or cell, which offer an even smaller AMOUNT.

Re:Data Plan Blew Up

[vandamme]

Linux Mint is a less than 1 GB download. Just sayin'.

Metered connections ?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about when you are on a metered connection (such as mobile broadband) ?

This could cost you a fortune. Any chance Microsoft could be held liable for their customers communication costs ?

Re:Metered connections ?

[thewolfkin]

What about when you are on a metered connection (such as mobile broadband) ?

This could cost you a fortune. Any chance Microsoft could be held liable for their customers communication costs ?

Yep, that happened. Let's see if coop247 tries to take them to court.

Re:Metered connections ?

[cbhacking]

Of course, Microsoft will just respond with "You should have used the 'Metered Connection' feature built into the OS, which prevents large background network usage and lets you control what gets downloaded automatically" and move to dismiss.

Re:Metered connections ?

[sabbede]

And they'd be right to do so.

Where should I send MS my ISP overage bill?

[denis-The-menace]

When I go over my cap this month because of MS' arrogance, Who should I send it to?

Re:Where should I send MS my ISP overage bill?

[Z00L00K]

I smell a class action suit.

Re:Where should I send MS my ISP overage bill?

[I'm New Around Here]

Send it to Microsoft's Public Relations Manager. First tie it to a brick, and aim real high for his office window.

By the way, address it to the manager personally. He's a grumpy old guy named Mr. Wilson.

Re:Where should I send MS my ISP overage bill?

[ColdWetDog]

Those are your socks.

Re:Where should I send MS my ISP overage bill?

[gstoddart]

Oooh ... a class action lawsuit ... know what you'll get? A fucking voucher for a copy of Windows 10.

Besides, the EULA probably says you have to agree to arbitration. It probably also says you can't do that either.

Ain't it grand?

Re:Where should I send MS my ISP overage bill?

[Minwee]

No, that's just the guys downstairs smoking up. The end effect is about the same, so it's an easy mistake to make.

Re:Where should I send MS my ISP overage bill?

[bondsbw]

And they'll ask you how many times you sued Internet ad companies.

Many folks who do not use ad blocking software use more than 5GB every month in just downloading ads.

Re:Where should I send MS my ISP overage bill?

[Nukenbar]

Don't worry. You agreed to it somewhere in the 500 Terms of Service boxes you clicked yes to installing windows in the first place.

Re:Where should I send MS my ISP overage bill?

[Khyber]

"Besides, the EULA probably says you have to agree to arbitration"

I didn't read nor sign an EULA to this forced upgrade. Guess what that means?

Null and fucking void.

Re:Where should I send MS my ISP overage bill?

[cbhacking]

You're using a metered connection without using the "Metered Connection" feature built into Windows (which blocks large background downloads)? Pay the overage for your own foolishness.

Analyse this paragraph, please

[I'm New Around Here]

Read these two paragraphs from near the end of the article.

Whether you believe it's to avoid fragmentation or to spy on you depends on how much pot you smoked in college,
but it now appears to have gone from 'over keen' to 'needy' and you have to wonder why and whether it's going to
blow up in the company's face.

It should be enough of a clue that over 10 percent of Windows machines are still on XP and Vista,
while there's over 40 percent more of the market on 7 than on 8, to be able to tell that people don't like to assume.

What does the second paragraph actually say?

Even if we take out the middle, it's strange.

It should be enough of a clue to be able to tell that people don't like to assume.

Please help me become enlightened.

Respectually,

The New Guy.

Fed up of Microsoft?

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to take the "last measure" against them.

Re:Fed up of Microsoft?

[Z00L00K]

I don't think that they get that at all, for all that we know they have a daily lemonparty at Microsoft.

Abandon those anachronistic founding father ideas!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

"Well, we're just gonna install all the spyware Windows 10 has onto your 7 or 8 systems, anyway, which the NSA can invade our computers for without a warrant, so no rational reason is stopping you from upgrading to 10 now!"

Windows update forcing me to 10

[areusche]

I spent the last few days battling with Windows Update which was forcing me to Windows 10. I have no desire to install the updated OS. Courtesy of the folks at Sevenforums I found that uninstalling these updates KB3075851, KB2952664, KB3021917, KB3035583, KB3068708 and deleting the $Windows.~BT (and / or) $Windows.~WS was able to remove the forced update. Windows update refused to search for any other updates requiring me to run the Windows 10 updater.

Rant mode: fuck these forced updates, cryptic KB updates that don't really tell what they're doing, CHANGING KB numbers after I block the other bad updates, and any OS that hasn't been out for over a year. I am NOT your lab monkey.

Re:Windows update forcing me to 10

[monkeyzoo]

Any idea which of yesterday's patches is to blame for the new download? I had previously blocked:
KB3022345
KB3068708
KB3075249
KB3080149

But I still got the new download yesterday!!

I agree! TOTALLY pissed off about these bullshit secretive "security update" messages that are just unwanted bloatware, perhaps even spyware.

Re:Windows update forcing me to 10

[RavenLrD20k]

I think at this point MS has finally made it where the risks of running Windows Update and getting files and features I don't want have outweighed the supposed benefits of keeping my system secure through Windows Update. No more updates, and Windows 7 is the last MS-OS I allow in the house.

Re:Windows update forcing me to 10

[Gaygirlie]

Maybe areusche is a gamer? Linux is still a bad choice for gamers, there's no getting over that.

Re:Windows update forcing me to 10

[TheGratefulNet]

just disable windows update entirely, take a good clean backup of your system, use linux for real browsing and put windows beyhind a trusted hardware (box) firewall, not letting it get out (whitelist only, level access).

I disabled win updates almost a year ago, back when the ftdi driver was broken (on purpose) by the colluding MS and ftdi corps. after that, I fully disabled the MS update service, purged all unsafe updates and went thru the services list to turn anything that even looks odd, off.

windows update is now a roulette wheel. I hate that and won't tolerate it. if I have to restore from a backup, at least that's not a big problem and I know I won't get any more 'surprises' from MS.

windows is unsafe to be on a public network. not even sure its good to have on a captive private lan, either. but certainly, leaving windows on a public net connection is just asking for abuse.

funny- its now MS that abuses its own userbase. the hackers are now less of a worry to many of us.

Re:Windows update forcing me to 10

[Chris Johnson]

You realize this is becoming harder to do, than keeping a Linux system working? And I'm a Mac guy with no special reason to advocate for Linux.

It just seems like the funky details of resisting Windows 10 are starting to look more like bleepy gearhead console incantations just like if you had a non-working Linux system and had to hunt down the messy details of what parts to adjust.

Except that in your case it's enemy action, not entropy.

Re:Windows update forcing me to 10

[DoofusOfDeath]

I am NOT your lab monkey.

No, you're their bitch. There's a difference.

Re:Windows update forcing me to 10

[Jim3535]

Why do you think they made updates unavoidable in Windows 10?

It was also highly suspicious when they just started listing KB numbers instead of giving any info about what each update is. It seems an obvious move to make it much more difficult to tell what you are actually installing; presumably so they can sneak stuff through that people would normally question.

Re:Windows update forcing me to 10

[n3r0.m4dski11z]

Thanks for the list. I had two of the updates, however i am not seeing any hidden or $ folders on my hard drive at all. where specifically are they located? the root of c:\? Perhaps when i initially uninstalled the nag windows update i protected myself?

Re:Windows update forcing me to 10

[devslash0]

I only had to remove one update - the original KB3035583. But there is more that needs to be done by the user. The major goal is to remove it from the Task Scheduler and to delete all that already sits on your hard drive. Unfortunately all those WSX-related tasks are owned by the system and require a good deal of work in PowerShell to get removed.

Re:Windows update forcing me to 10

[monkeyzoo]

I long ago uninstalled and hid KB3035583 also to hide that annoying toolbar icon, but I still got the new Windows 10 download yesterday. :/

FUCK YOU MICROSOFT!!! Apparently, I need to put serious planning now into migrating to another platform before Win7 EOL's.

Re:Windows update forcing me to 10

[cas2000]

Linux isn't a *bad* choice for gamers these days. Windows is still better for games - not because they work better but because there are more games available - but Linux isn't bad.

There are many games available natively for linux, e.g. from gog or steam or the humble bundles. Many more will run perfectly well in wine - *most* windows games do. *some* games won't run at all on linux, either natively or with wine.

I'm a linux user who spent many years running windows game in wine, then built myself a Win7 box out of spare parts about 5 years ago (after upgrading my main linux box) just to play the windows games i'd bought on steam that wouldn't run in wine - i bought an ATEN kvm switch so i can share the keyboard, mouse, and monitor. I do most of my gaming on that windows box now, but am thinking of turning it into a steam box.

I use that win7 box for *nothing* but gaming, I rarely even open a web browser on it, just run the steam client and games. I don't even buy the steam games on it (i buy them in a web browser on my linux machine) because there's no way i'll ever trust a windows machine with my credit card or paypal account or any of my financial details.

I have no interest at all in upgrading to win10 or letting microsoft spy on me....microsoft's repeated attempts to force that shit on me is just making the idea of converting that box to a steam machine far more attractive: Linux + Steam + Wine will suffice for 95+% of my gaming "needs" - and i've bought hundreds of steam games over the years (some of which i haven't even got around to playing yet) so i can just ignore the remaining 5%.

ps: why don't i just install the steam client on my main linux machine and play games there? i have done so, but i don't play games on it often because game devs are morons who will happily write code that crashes the machine - i don't give a damn if my win7 game console crashes and has to be rebooted, but i really don't want to have to reboot my linux box and lose months worth of "context" in opened windows and running apps.

Re:Windows update forcing me to 10

[Z00L00K]

funny- its now MS that abuses its own userbase. the hackers are now less of a worry to many of us.

Even more interesting is if the hackers are able to pick up the "telemetry" data transferred from your computer and make use of it.

Re:Windows update forcing me to 10

[jwhitener]

At work, I know we have a windows update server that all our other servers look it for updates. The windows update server downloads everything, but then you can set a policy that says only push the security updates. Don't update anything else.

I assume a home computer can be pointed to a windows update server on the home network as well?

Re:Windows update forcing me to 10

[devslash0]

Well, if you want me to, I can have a look at your system using TeamViewer or any other remote assistance tool and try to do what I did in my system (change ownership and access rights to selected folders and files, remove it from Task Scheduler, delete all WSX files and disable KB3035583 permanently in your Windows Update panel). It's always easier to try than to migrate, isn't it?

Re:Windows update forcing me to 10

[RavenLrD20k]

Might as well click the "Check for Updates but let me choose whether to download and install them" option, it's cheaper than trying to run your own update server where you're having to do exactly the same thing of going through the KB's and making sure Microsoft isn't trying to slip some spyware into it (A couple of noted spyware KB's were loaded in as a security update). If you've got a home network of several windows boxes and you want to manage the updates that are installed on all of them, that's when you want to use a local Windows Update server to be able to control what updates get pushed to several systems at once. Still have to review each update, but you only have to do it once as opposed to going to each individual computer and clicking off each update you want. The click once to configure all is what makes the Local Windows Update server attractive in the enterprise, but generally more expense than the average home user wants to deal with.

Re:Windows update forcing me to 10

[monkeyzoo]

Thanks for the offer to help, man.
But I meant to migrate off Windows for the future once I can't run a Windows 7 PC under security maintenance anymore. That looks to be the last version of Windows I can tolerate running due to the disastrous nature of Windows 8 and the intrusive nature of Windows 10.

As for this PC, I've deleted the folder again and blocked several updates and all seems good enough for now.

We'll be here to help

[raymorris]

> Looks like I'll probably make the jump to Linux in a few years

Those of us who have been Microsoft-free for decades will be here to help whenever you're ready. Only if you're a Windows expert, they'll be a little bit of a learning a learning curve. For example, if you edit the registry manually on a regular basis, there's no registry on Linux. If you DON'T delve into the internals of the OS, you may hardly notice the difference, other than that you don't have to worry about software license keys anymore.

My main tip to make transitioning simple:
Don't ask "how do I run [brand name of software] on Linux?"
Instead I ask, "How do I [accomplish task] on Linux?"
As an example, it's much easier to do basic and moderate photo editing in Gimp than it is to buy Photoshop and get it running on Linux.

Re:We'll be here to help

[gstoddart]

Yeah? And my existing iTunes library? My tax software? The software to keep my GPS up to date? The home design software I used when I needed to file a building permit?

I've used Linux off and on since Slackware 0.99 in 1993 ... and there still remain gaps in some places where you find it's not possible to ditch Windows because there's still pieces you need.

There just always seems to be a couple of things you still need, and for which the open source alternatives are either non-existent or absolutely terrible. At a certain point, building something which almost works from a kit ceases to be enjoyable.

And it's those places which put me back to having a Windows machine as my main machine.

Re:We'll be here to help

[flacco]

I listen to music, use software to do my taxes, and design floorplans without Windows or Mac.

We have different definitions of "to need".

Re:We'll be here to help

[tepples]

And my existing iTunes library?

Because iTunes Store dropped FairPlay digital restrictions management for music in 2009, your existing iTunes music library works in any AAC player for X11/Linux.

My tax software?

Individual tax returns can be prepared on HRBlock.com, and you have to re-buy the software annually anyway to account for annual changes to the tax code, so you can just buy the one that works best in Wine.

The software to keep my GPS up to date?

A GPS application for a phone can be updated within the phone, and a standalone GPS ought to be able to be updated by copying a file to it through USB mass storage or MTP.

Re:We'll be here to help

[tepples]

Instead I ask, "How do I [accomplish task] on Linux?"

I can phrase my questions in this form:

How do I find a new 10.1 inch detachable laptop that correctly supports unmaximized windows, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and suspend in X11/Linux? I've read horror stories of suspend not working on the ASUS Transformer Book. I tried Ask Ubuntu, but it turns out Ask Ubuntu doesn't want "how do I go about finding compatible hardware" questions. I tried Android, but unmaximized windows eluded me there; no one wants a full-screen calculator.

How do I print USPS and UPS postage labels for packages on Linux? The AppDB entry for Endicia DAZzle, the postage software we currently use on Windows, is for a version six years out of date.

How do I develop and test applications for non-Linux operating systems on Linux? I have several users who are unwilling to install Linux on the bare hardware just for one app or to install VirtualBox and Linux just for one app.

Re:We'll be here to help

[ericloewe]

A GPS application for a phone can be updated within the phone, and a standalone GPS ought to be able to be updated by copying a file to it through USB mass storage or MTP.

My, aren't you optimistic...

It's an unbelievable headache to get your average GPS unit updated with Windows (I'm familiar with TomTom), much less any other alternatives you might suggest.

Re:We'll be here to help

[RavenLrD20k]

What, Your phone doesn't OTA update itself? Or are you stuck in 2005 and have a dedicated piece of hardware to use for directions? I can't comprehend why people still buy Germans and the like when they are inferior to cell phones in pretty much every way. Especially since Google Maps updates for free instead of a yearly fee.

I'm not really arguing against your point, but Google Maps is utterly useless if there's not a constant data connection because the Map is updated on the fly instead of stored on the device. If you're out of your service area and reach the edge of your cached map before service is re-established, you could very well wind up lost without a functional GPS. It's for this reason that a lot of less knowledgeable users will still buy a dedicated GPS unit.

If you have enough storage on your cell phone, however, I'd highly recommend installing a good GPS app, like NavFree USA, as you can download the maps to the device and they are always ready to use along with receiving periodic updates. These dedicated GPS apps will never require a data connection during use and will use the location information from the GPS sensor whether you have a data signal or not.

Re:We'll be here to help

[Calydor]

I thought the correct way of asking was, "Lol, Linux sucks, it can't do like Windows can!"

Then you get a massive flamefest explaining at least ten ways of accomplishing that task.

Re:We'll be here to help

[Calydor]

Sigh.

Slashdot, that wasn't HTML code.

Was supposed to say "it can't do [task] like Windows can!"

Re:We'll be here to help

[drinkypoo]

a standalone GPS ought to be able to be updated by copying a file to it through USB mass storage or MTP.

They ought to, but basically none of them work that way. You've got to use the manufacturer's update tool because DRM.

Re:We'll be here to help

[FlyHelicopters]

Don't ask "how do I run [brand name of software] on Linux?"
Instead I ask, "How do I [accomplish task] on Linux?"

"How do I do my accounting on Linux so that I can send my file to my CPA, who uses Quickbooks, so he can have his bookkeeper do edits and changes, and send it back to me and have me open/import it into my file?"

"How do I open Word 2013 files (DOCX) on Linux, make changes and edits, and have them open on a Windows machine in Word 2013 and show up exactly the same as they do on the Linux machine?"

"How do I stream my Amazon Prime music on Linux without a web browser open?"

As an example, it's much easier to do basic and moderate photo editing in Gimp than it is to buy Photoshop and get it running on Linux.

Not if you're already a Photoshop user it isn't... I've tried Gimp, it has major limitations compared to Photoshop. If you do such work on a serious basis, there is really no substitute for Photoshop, which is why for all the moaning and groaning of their move to the cloud and sub based services, more or less everyone went along.

Re:We'll be here to help

[Nidi62]

I'm thinking about maybe setting up a dual boot to see if Linux is something I even want to get into. All I would really need for it would be to run Firefox and Steam. Any advice on how to go about doing it or what distro to use? Looking for something straightforward, easy to use, and doesn't require someone to be a power user or have a background in CS to set up. I figure it's better to ask someone who uses it rather than just Googling and picking one with the most interesting name.

Re:We'll be here to help

[FlyHelicopters]

Because iTunes Store dropped FairPlay digital restrictions management for music in 2009, your existing iTunes music library works in any AAC player for X11/Linux.

Yes, because THAT is the solution... So take your music, import it into another player, set it up... then what happens when you buy more music on iTunes, do it again?

When you buy music on your iPhone, the idea is that it automatically shows up on your computer too. That really doesn't work for your solution.

Individual tax returns can be prepared on HRBlock.com, and you have to re-buy the software annually anyway to account for annual changes to the tax code, so you can just buy the one that works best in Wine.

Some of us prefer to locally install our software. Some of us need a more complex solution than a web site.

Having to change our ways so we can change our OS... to end up, what, doing the same thing a different way, is not an improvement...

A GPS application for a phone can be updated within the phone, and a standalone GPS ought to be able to be updated by copying a file to it through USB mass storage or MTP.

You have a very narrow worldview if you think it is a GPS application for a phone.

Try a Garmin... they do still have uses you know...

Re:We'll be here to help

[FlyHelicopters]

You are, of course, correct...

Some of the Linux users here sound like religious zealots... ANYTHING BUT WINDOWS is their entire game plan, and they'll accept any amount of headaches and workarounds to avoid using Windows.

"Just change your software to something else" is such a stupid response, but it shows the mindset of the Linux faithful.

You buy a computer to run your software, you don't buy software to run a computer.

The OS is not the important part, it is the programs you want to run. You run the OS that your programs need, not hunt down the programs that will support your OS.

The Linux people have it completely backwards.

Re:We'll be here to help

[tepples]

Use Windows in a virtual machine

Which still costs the price of a Windows 7 license and still downloads Windows 10 in the virtual machine without asking.

Re:We'll be here to help

[tepples]

then what happens when you buy more music on iTunes, do it again?

Once you have switched to Linux, you won't "buy more music on iTunes" anymore. Use Amazon.

Try a Garmin

In this comment, raymorris recommended a Garmin plug-in for what appears to be Ubuntu.

Re:We'll be here to help

[RavenLrD20k]

As indicated in the second part of my post... I use NavFree USA for offline GPS.

Re:We'll be here to help

[tepples]

You buy a computer to run your software

Agreed, and I can rephrase my question along those lines.

I want to load Firefox, Python, a text editor, GIMP, GCC, GNU Make, and FCEUX onto a device that fits in my bag. I could use the MinGW versions of GCC and GNU Make or Wine to run FCEUX if needed. I currently carry a five-year-old 10.1" laptop in my satchel, and I want something to replace it once it dies. I prefer the 10" size and require working suspend because I take public transit and want to quickly close it and reopen it when transferring from one bus to another with the state of Firefox and the text editor preserved. I do not want to waste gigabytes of the internal drive on a major upgrade to the operating system that I have not yet chosen to install. Which laptops or detachable laptops of the same size meet these specifications?

Re:We'll be here to help

[Khyber]

"It's an unbelievable headache to get your average GPS unit updated with Windows (I'm familiar with TomTom), much less any other alternatives you might suggest."

1. Remove SD card from GPS unit
2. Plug card into computer
3. Download upgrade software onto SD card
4. Insert SD card into GPS device
5. Turn it on.

It's been that way with every TomTom, Garmin, and other GPS unit I've used. What shitty unit are you using that requires Windows to update it?

Re:We'll be here to help

[DutchUncle]

I [do x,y,and z] without Windows or Mac. We have different definitions of "to need".

Congratulations. Did you have any installed base? any investment in peripherals? any need to be compatible with someone else (required whether or not you LIKE what they use)? If not, you're fine. But don't ignore the real issue of vendor lock-in (or standards lock-in) that people have already been forced to accommodate. As a similar example, consider changing away from the standard light bulb sockets and see how far you get.

Re:We'll be here to help

[b0bby]

I can't comprehend why people still buy Germans and the like when they are inferior to cell phones in pretty much every way.

I run Waze for 90% of my navigation. However, I still have a Garmin. The main reasons:
- I travel to areas with no cell/data service on a regular basis (~10 weekends a year). Until Here for Android was released, the options for offline maps were pretty crappy; the Garmin just works.
- The "find me the nearest Starbucks" type stuff on the Garmin is fast, needs no data, and is easy enough that I can do it while driving. With Waze et al, it can be a lot more steps, and my wife doesn't like messing with that when I'm driving. It doesn't have everything, but I really only use it to get to a Starbucks anyway.
- It's always there, and turns itself on when the car starts. If I want to use my phone for Pandora or whatever, I still have my directions.
- It was ~$120, and I have lifetime maps and traffic. So why not have it?

Re:We'll be here to help

[RavenLrD20k]

Google Maps being used as the example in the AC's post that I initially replied under. Google Maps' inferior handling of offline cases can be used as an argument FOR purchasing an independent GPS unit. As I initially stated, I wasn't arguing against his argument per se... but he needed to use a better application as an example of why the phone is superior to standalone GPS. As a turn-by-turn navigation app, Google Maps is a pathetic offering compared to other available apps.

Re:We'll be here to help

[ericloewe]

The TomTom Go units used to require a crazy mess made up of a USB driver, a Win32 application that calls their website, which requires a browser plugin, which all had to be started in a very specific sequence. The process is then managed through said website.

For Windows 8, they simplified this by eliminating the browser plugin. The whole thing still feels like it's running in a browser behind the scenes, though, and the driver needs to be manually installed, even though it is included with the application and is signed.

Re:We'll be here to help

[Grishnakh]

Tax software has all moved to the web.

Re:We'll be here to help

[FlyHelicopters]

Once you have switched to Linux, you won't "buy more music on iTunes" anymore. Use Amazon.

And that, right there, shows the backwards thinking of Linux users...

Change your life to cater to the OS, rather than the OS cater to your life.

Perhaps the user doesn't want to leave iTunes, perhaps they are happy with their iPhone/iPad/iPod.

Re:We'll be here to help

[Grishnakh]

How do I print USPS and UPS postage labels for packages on Linux?

I can answer this one.

For USPS, you have two options:
1) Use PayPal. It has USPS labels built in; you pay out of the funds in your PP account. You don't have to pay for any kind of monthly service unlike Encidia/Stamps.com.
2) Use USPS.com. It doesn't let you print first class package labels however.

For UPS, you have two options:
1) Again, use PayPal like above.
2) Use UPS.com. Anyone can get an account there, so why would you pay for a 3rd-party service for it? This is the preferred method too, since you don't have to pre-pay for labels. Like FedEx, UPS doesn't charge you for shipping when you have an actual account with them, until you actually ship it. That means you can print out labels all you want, but until they are attached to a package and then scanned in by UPS personnel, you pay nothing. So you don't have to worry about, for instance, getting a refund for a label you never shipped. This also means that you don't really have to be accurate about weight: you get charged based on how much the package actually weighs, not how much you claimed it weighs when you made the label, so it's not a problem if you screw up and say it's lighter than it really is (which with the USPS can result in it being returned to you for "insufficient postage"). At the end of the month, you get a bill from UPS for all your charges.

How do I develop and test applications for non-Linux operating systems on Linux?

This is a problem with any OS and dev environment. How do you develop and test applications for MacOSX on Windows? Answer: you don't (not normally at least, Mac devs usually use Xcode). You always have to separately develop and test your application on the target platform. If it's a desktop GUI app, you could use Qt and do most of your development with that, and then compiling for other platforms is pretty easy, but you'll still need to test on every platform you target, just like with any kind of development. If you're into .NET and C# you can supposedly use Mono to develop, but again you'll have to do final testing for Windows users on a Windows box (and I have no idea how or if this would work for Mac).

Re:We'll be here to help

[Grishnakh]

So you're OK with MS forcing telemetry updates on your PC which send all your keystrokes to MS servers?

Just how much abuse does it take for you to abandon that platform?

Re:We'll be here to help

[FlyHelicopters]

I want to load Firefox, Python, a text editor, GIMP, GCC, GNU Make, and FCEUX onto a device that fits in my bag.

That is a very specific and unusual set of applications...

But fair enough... remind me why those don't run on Windows 10 again?

---

You say you want the 10" size, but it sounds like you'd be a good candidate for a Microsoft Surface Pro 3.

If that is more than you want to spend, how about this:

http://www.amazon.com/Dell-11-...

$379 for a touch screen dual core machine with 2-in-1 features (it is a tablet and a laptop).

Re:We'll be here to help

[FlyHelicopters]

Force feeding? Lord you have some bias...

Windows 10 is superior to Windows 8 and MS is giving it away for free.

I'm sure there is someone, somewhere, due to some strange set of specific circumstances, that needs to stay on Windows 8.

Except for HIM, everyone else should take the upgrade and go to Windows 10. This is the most painless, easiest, and trouble free Windows upgrade I'd ever seen.

I have never, ever done an upgrade before on my main production machine. I've always clean installed. Frankly, I used to clean install every year or two, just to keep Windows running nicely. This time, nope... My Windows 7 install was 5 years old, it had a LOT of stuff added and removed over the years, several hardware changes including a motherboard change.

Windows 10 upgraded right over it and if anything, it runs better than Windows 7 did. Not a single problem, and I've got a LOT of hardware attached to that machine. 4 printers, 3 monitors, a dozen hard drives and SSDs, and multiple other USB devices. Everything worked perfectly at the first reboot.

I've since upgraded another dozen machines, ranging from a Core2Quad testing machine to a several year old AMD laptop to a HP touchscreen tablet. Total number of problems upgrading a dozen machines of various ages and hardware? Zero.

I've been doing this a long time, since before Windows 3.0. I'm sure someone, somewhere has had a problem with Windows 10, but I've never seen an upgrade go this cleanly.

It is almost "Apple like" in the way it... wait for it... "It just works..."

Get over your anger and try it, you might discover that you like it. :)

Re:We'll be here to help

[FlyHelicopters]

So you're OK with MS forcing telemetry updates on your PC which send all your keystrokes to MS servers?

I am, actually... that doesn't bother me because MS isn't sitting there watching me type and caring about me specifically. They also aren't trying to steal my CC info or hack my computer.

They are asking for more information so they can improve future versions of Windows. This is a "Good Thing".

If I did anything special or secret, if I did something that competed with Microsoft, then yes, I'd turn some of that stuff off and setup a hardware firewall to completely block MS telemetry info.

Since I don't, I don't care.

Just how much abuse does it take for you to abandon that platform?

It isn't abuse, and that you would use such a term implies a bias that you're unable or unwilling to look past.

The Tech Preview had that stuff turned on and it couldn't be disabled, but in the released version, it can be. Either at install or later.

http://arstechnica.com/informa...

Plenty of places on the web talk about how to turn off the keylogging and other tracking stuff, if that bothers you.

Where it WOULD be abuse and wrong is if MS hid it in such a way as to try and do it without telling you, and then did things with the info that hurt you.

Since they don't, and don't, it isn't abuse.

Re:We'll be here to help

[Toshito]

Thanks for the tip.

So, how do I accomplish the task of running Photoshop on Linux?

Re:We'll be here to help

[Khyber]

Tom Tom Go 300. Download update from Tom Tom website, copy to card, plug into Tom Tom, turn on Tom Tom. Done.

I've never had to do anything else for any other Tom Tom with removable storage.

Re:We'll be here to help

[tepples]

perhaps they are happy with their iPhone/iPad/iPod.

For a satisfied user of iOS looking to switch from Windows, I recommend a Mac.

Re:We'll be here to help

[FlyHelicopters]

For a satisfied user of iOS looking to switch from Windows, I recommend a Mac.

So would I, if they had reasonably priced Macs to pick from.

Since they don't, that really isn't a choice for most people.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/produ...

I'm typing this message on the above laptop. I paid $349 for it from Amazon.

It has a nice Core i3 CPU, 4GB of RAM, 500GB HDD (which I swapped out for a 512GB SSD for $131), a 1080p 15.6" display, a DVD burner, and many hours of battery life. It also isn't too heavy, comes with Windows 10 already on it (no upgrading!), and for anything other than games or serious image/video editing, is plenty fast enough.

What Mac would compete with this machine?

None.

Exactly, that is why Mac doesn't have much market share either.

Re:We'll be here to help

[RavenLrD20k]

Go away shill. On a story thread about Microshit's latest bullshit and you think ANYONE with brains is going to go for a WinPhone? I'd go for an iPhone before I go WinPhone...and I wouldn't be caught dead with an iPhone.

Re:We'll be here to help

[tepples]

If that is more than you want to spend, how about this

Thank you for recommending the Dell Inspiron 11 convertible. I've added it to my shortlist.

Re:We'll be here to help

[0123456]

Yeah, that's why Windows totally owns the tablet market. No-one's willing to dump Windows lock-in to buy a device from Apple or Google.

Back in the real world, most of the 'lock-in' is in people's heads. It's not that they MUST RUN WIZZYWORD 2000, which is only available on Windows, but that they can't be bothered to learn anything else without a good reason to switch.

Re:We'll be here to help

[bingoUV]

That's ok. You have a certain disability - you can't switch away from MS windows. Some of it is due to making choices in the past without a data migration plan (or a bad plan) to switch to an alternative some day - e.g. getting an iPhone and/or buying significant amount of music with iTunes. Some of it might be due to specific life situations.

But many others have other disabilities - blindness, deafness, learning disabilities. They have to live with it, you have to live with "Microsoft Downloading Windows 10 without asking".

Re:We'll be here to help

[FlyHelicopters]

Wouldn't you rather run an OS that respects you, instead of exploiting you as described in the article?

No, I'd rather run an OS that runs my programs.

Today, that is Windows.

Rest assured, I get it, it would be nice if we had a real choice in desktop OS options. We really don't. But installing and putting up with the troubles of Linux won't change that.

Re:We'll be here to help

[DutchUncle]

You're conflating two incompatibilities. Replacing one desktop (or laptop) with another is one thing; getting a tablet is different because nobody expects to plug their accessories or printers into a tablet quite the same way. Plus by the time tablets became common the need for network-attached independently-intelligent devices had become so prevalent that the infrastructure was there. There are still industrial and other control computers out there running XP or 95 or older, which wouldn't be so strange-looking if they were embedded systems with customized OSes that nobody even knew about.

Re:We'll be here to help

[zwarte piet]

I have a Windows xp installation on VirtualBox for that. Several of them in fact, each dedicated to the task at hand, started as clones. They don't take much space or other resources.

Re:We'll be here to help

[zwarte piet]

1) not removable. 2) connect tomtom to computer using usb cord 3) go to tomtom website. update plugin not available for your device. No downloads offered. 4) sigh, boot into windows

Re:Do the users have the license for this?

[jandrese]

Win 7 and Win 8 users automatically get a copy of Win 10 for free. So you're only pirating Win 10 if you're already pirating Win 7 or Win 8.

Assholes ..

[gstoddart]

I'm so damned glad I've not allowed automatic updates. I'm seriously contemplating never applying a damned update to my Windows 8.1 desktop ever again.

Microsoft seems to have simply decided that the user has no choice in the matter, and that Microsoft is going to manage your computer for you.

Throw in all of the telemetry and other shitware they've been putting into the OS and Windows is rapidly becoming very hostile to the people who actually own the computers.

They're really acting like a bunch of assholes in how they're handling this damned update, and making it harder and harder to tell what is a "real" update and what is just shit they've put in for their own purposes.

What part of "this is my Windows 8.1 machine, I am not interested in Windows 10, fuck off and go away" is so hard to understand? Don't keep sneaking it in via stealthy means ... because if you have to do this shit behind people's backs, you should take that as a sign nobody wants it.

Re:Assholes ..

[Anonymous Coward]

What part of "this is my Windows 8.1 machine, I am not interested in Windows 10, fuck off and go away" is so hard to understand?

They understand. They don't care. To them, you aren't a customer, you're a data point. Data to be collected, collated, and sold. They will upgrade your computer because that is in their interest. They will track everything you do because it is in their interest. Your interest is irrelevant to them. You won't be assimilated, but your data will be.

Personally, I don't think Microsoft should be the first up against the wall, come the revolution. Second or third will do just fine.

Re:Assholes ..

[Godwin O'Hitler]

Where can I find a good list of which services to stop (or which to keep), please?

Re:Assholes ..

[PW2]

I already decided to not update any of my Windows computers ever again -- they are all offline computers used for content generation -- I use a Linux computer for content uploading, Apple computers for FB, email, banking and tablets for everything else; as the family IT guy, people near by me are not likely to be led to purchasing a Windows PC;

I'm really surprised that HP, Dell and others haven't pulled Microsoft aside and told them to 'stop it!!' and 'fix this!!'

Re:Assholes ..

[Godwin O'Hitler]

Many thanks.

Re:Assholes ..

[Z00L00K]

HP, Dell and the others get paid by Microsoft to promote Windows.

Spyware

[Anonymous Coward]

When I saw win 10 offered for free, I knew it was poisoned with something. MS is trying to force it on the world. It's clearly not ready for release yet it is being forced on the user base.

We already know it is spying on users but I'm guessing its far worse than we realize.

Got to have win 10 running on as many computers as possible before whatever the next false flag "scare us into submission" event happens.

Windows 7 is my last Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

By the time I really can't use Windows anymore I expect Steam or someone to have pushed game publishers to offer more than token support for Linux.

I dual boot Linux and use it a bit more than Windows now. And unlike some Linux users I'm actually buying games for Linux, instead of waiting for them to be open sourced. (that'll be a long wait)

Been doing this for few weeks now

[X.25]

I had to travel recently, so I took a laptop with clean Windows 8.1 Pro install.

At my destination, I've purchased a SIM (they only had 1GB data packages) and put it into the 3G/wifi router I carry.

I powered the laptop, connected to Internet via said router, checked few things, then went away for few hours.

When I got back to apartment, my data package (and Internet connectivity) was killed because Microsoft idiots decided to start downloading Windows 10 even though I have explicitly closed/rejected all the 'offers'.

Those retards did not take into account the possibility that not everyone running Windows is on unlimited broadband data package. Great planning there.

At home I did a plain install of 8.1 on another computer, and same thing happened - even though I explicitly rejected everything related to Windows 10, idiots made it so download starts anyway. I had to 'hide' the Windows 10 in Windows Update in order to stop it from being downloaded.

Re:Been doing this for few weeks now

[Anonymous Coward]

You're "supposed" to set the connection as "metered" which will prevent Windows from downloading any updates at all. (Or at least it's supposed to. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if it turns out that it doesn't.)

Not surprisingly, while marking a connection as "metered" in Windows 8 is trivial (right click on the network and choose "set as metered"), it's nearly impossible to do it under Windows 10. You have to go to Settings, Network Connections, Advanced Options, and then there's a "metered" option hiding somewhere in those options.

Of course, if you're using Windows 7, you're screwed. The "metered" setting is a new Windows 8 feature, and can't be done in Windows 7.

Re: Been doing this for few weeks now

[mattcoz]

Isn't there an option to not download updates on a metered connection? I know there is in 10.

Re:Been doing this for few weeks now

[amorsen]

It is really annoying that "metered" isn't something that the network can announce. Can we get it in IPv6 Router Advertisements please?

Re:Been doing this for few weeks now

[phayes]

My Home Win7 VM tells me that I CANNOT update to Win10 because the VMWare display adapter is incompatible with Win10 (until/unless I upgrade to the latest VMWare this is exactly what I want). Here's hoping that Win10 hasn't stealth downloaded anyway.

Re: Been doing this for few weeks now

[tepples]

I think the ability to mark connections as metered was new in Windows 8.

Re:Been doing this for few weeks now

[cbhacking]

Agreed on that, yeah. You'd think the cellular, etc. providers would be all over it too, given all their complaining about heavy data users. Of course, it might cut into their revenue streams from people going overhead because they forget to limit the usage.

Re:Been doing this for few weeks now

[Z00L00K]

So you found the magic key here - install some hardware that isn't supported by Win 10 and it won't consider a forced upgrade for now.

Re:Been doing this for few weeks now

[Cederic]

That'll be 1.4 billion smartphone users, just to get us started.

Or maybe there's another definition of 'stupid motherfucker' that we should use?

Re:Been doing this for few weeks now

[Espectr0]

If you use plain old ethernet cat cable you can't set a metered connection

1-800-sue-em

[ThatsNotPudding]

She will be a perfect, unassailable test case in the airtight class action lawsuit Data Cap Victims v Microsoft Corporation.

We need to publicly call out Microsoft

[acoustix]

I think the most effective way to approach this is to take to social media and call out Microsoft. What gives them the right to push an unwanted upgrade to my computer without my consent? You're planning to upgrade my computer, without any knowledge of how it will affect my software and hardware that has specific requirements.

Can you imagine what will happen to small business running specialty software and hardware that isn't support on Windows 10 yet? What about the data plans of it's customers? We're talking about potentially millions of dollars that consumers will be charged in data overages.

I have already taken to Twitter to start my bitching. And I don't tweet very often. We need to make this painful for Microsoft.

Re:We need to publicly call out Microsoft

[Khyber]

I've done the same. This unplanned upgrade hosed two production systems of mine, after spending two months getting everything set to actually work on Windows 7.

Hosed my music production machine and the machine used for coding my game project.

Re:We need to publicly call out Microsoft

[DoofusOfDeath]

What gives them the right to push an unwanted upgrade to my computer without my consent?

You may want to watch the South Park episode regarding software EULA's.

Re:We need to publicly call out Microsoft

[acoustix]

You may want to watch the South Park episode regarding software EULA's.

Yeah, but that was for evil Apple. Who would have thought that Microsoft would be evil too.

Yes, that was sarcasm.

Ok, I'm outta here

[Opportunist]

Seems I have to abandon Windows earlier than anticipated.

Anyone know a good PCB layouting software for Linux? And how well do games run these days?

Re:Ok, I'm outta here

[denis-The-menace]

Switch but run your "PCB layouting software" in a windows VM.

Then block that VM's MAC address and IP at the firewall!

Re:Ok, I'm outta here

[Immerman]

Try WINE as a first step, it allows you to run most Windows programs on Linux without problems so you can keep using most of your preferred software.

As for games - I recall hearing that many Linux-native games actually run 5-10% faster on Linux than their Windows-native versions run on Windows. Alternately you can usually run the Windows version through WINE if a Linux version isn't available(so I've heard, haven't tried it myself), but I think you typically take a modest performance hit. I seem to recall there was also a commercial WINE alternative (fork?) focused on gaming with better performance and compatibility.

Re:Ok, I'm outta here

[TheGratefulNet]

eagle runs on linux. I've heard rumors that there are hacked versions of eagle for linux..

kicad is getting a lot of attention and its free.

Re:Ok, I'm outta here

[sglow]

I do a lot of work with the gEDA tools (gschem for schematic capture, pcb for layout). Not quite as polished as the commercial packages, but free and open.

In particular, I like the fact that all the file formats are open as ASCII based. Very handy for tracking changes in designs.

http://www.geda-project.org/

Re:Ok, I'm outta here

[Immerman]

If you find a VM that runs 3D games decently please let me know - everything I've tried has atrocious 3D performance.

As for everything else - if you're trying to keep Windows from spying on you, putting it in a VM isn't going to help a whole lot - nothing that setting up a decent firewall on your router wouldn't do at least (well, assuming most of your computer usage is Windows programs). And if you're jumping ship because you're sick of supporting an abusive monopoly then a VM won't help at all - in fact it will likely make things worse since you'll need a full-price retail or OEM copy of Windows, In addition to the $20 or so that went to MS for the pre-installed copy that was probably pre-installed on your computer.

Re:Ok, I'm outta here

[Immerman]

Ah, I hadn't realized virtualization had advanced to that point. Thanks for the tip, I'm now finding lots of guided to VM gaming. Sadly they would require a completely new machine with VT-d support so aren't going to be relevant any time soon. Still, it's a feature to keep in mind for the next upgrade.

Considering the source..

[bsdasym]

Is this actually verified by anyone? I have two Win7 machines, desktop and laptop, and both are set to automatically download but not install updates. Neither one has had this update show up. If it's legit, where's the KB # to go with it? Right now it's just more unverified inquirer nonsense and a dogpile. Status quo in other words.

Linux users bid higher for Humble Bundles

[tepples]

The probably is that your average Linux gamer is a cheapskate

If this is true, then in the pay-what-you-want Humble Bundles, why have X11/Linux gamers paid more on average per person?

Re:Linux users bid higher for Humble Bundles

[qbast]

Because that's pretty much the only game released for Linux that year?

Re:Linux users bid higher for Humble Bundles

[Anonymous Coward]

Or because people who use Linux understand computers better than people who use Windows and therefore have higher paying jobs.

Re:Linux users bid higher for Humble Bundles

[mlw4428]

I'm curious to see the data set that you're pulling from. Generally it's a small percentage of Linux users who actually pay for software, most prefer to use Open Source/free software.

Re:Linux users bid higher for Humble Bundles

[jwdb]

Go check the humble bundle website any time there's a deal on. They post statistics versus OS, and most of the time Linux comes out on top in terms of how much they pay. I'll admit I haven't checked the last few bundles, though.

Most Linux users probably do use free software, but that doesn't make them cheapskates, and HB's stats in fact show the opposite: when there's software that's *worth* paying for, Linux users voluntarily pay more.

Re:Linux users bid higher for Humble Bundles

[RogueyWon]

And most Humble Bundles are filled with indie shovelware or commercial games whose sales-potential has long since slipped into irrelevance on Steam/Origin. They are not a proxy for the "proper" commercial games market.

Re:Linux users bid higher for Humble Bundles

[mlw4428]

You're also only suggesting one store which sells primarily indie games. Indie devs are willing to target other OSes, often because their games are not as complex (speaking from a game dev point of view) they have the flexibility to choose different platforms. That's also a single store, Steam shows a great level of detail showing how small the Linux platform is. The sales aren't there. That's been the common theme that I've heard during the round table discussions in the past and it's an image Linux needs to shrug off. There's also the entire argument that DirectX is perceived to be a better supported and better liked graphics platform than OpenGL. For PC gaming of course.

Re:Linux users bid higher for Humble Bundles

[moronoxyd]

The data set is pretty much every Humble Bundle that contains games for Windows and Linux (which is most game bundles).

Let's have a look at one currently running bundle: https://www.humblebundle.com/w...
Average purchase: $2.82
Average Windows: $2.71
Average Mac: $3.25
Average Linux:$3.89

So Linux users are willing to pay 40% more than Windows users on a pay what you want scheme.

Re:Linux users bid higher for Humble Bundles

[tepples]

I'm curious to see the data set that you're pulling from.

Citations: Geek.com (2011); Softpedia (2012); Humble Bundle (October 2014)

Generally it's a small percentage of Linux users who actually pay for software, most prefer to use Open Source/free software.

The business case for developing free software for productivity has not historically extended to video games.

Re:Linux users bid higher for Humble Bundles

[argnn]

So Linux users are willing to pay 40% more than Windows users on a pay what you want scheme.

Linux users that purchase games publicly are willing to pay more. That's because they're actively trying to make a point, it doesn't represent the average.

Re:Linux users bid higher for Humble Bundles

[FlyHelicopters]

So Linux users are willing to pay 40% more than Windows users on a pay what you want scheme.

Boy, that sure sounds good...

So I guess if I release my new AAA game for $60 on Windows, then Linux gamers will be willing to pay $100 for it, right?

Right?

Re:Linux users bid higher for Humble Bundles

[gmack]

Much of the problem has been the quality of Linux ports in the past with some of them being so bad that it's just easier to keep a Windows machine around if you are into gaming. You can't just port a title by compiling against the Wine libs.

Also even Steam's store makes being on anything other than Windows to be an absolute nightmare. If you sort by OS you cannot sort by any other category. Want a Linux RPG? You get to either search by "Linux" and sort through a ton of FPS and other crap. Or search by RPG and have to scroll past a ton of Windows only titles. Basically, Once I find a game I want to play, I find the experience on par with Windows. But quite honestly, if someone doesn't tell me about a good Linux game they like, I can't be bothered to hunt for them and so Steam has made a lot less money from me than if their store was actually functional for me.

I also can't be bothered to keep a Windows machine around anymore, I gave my last Windows machine away when I realized I hadn't booted it in 3 months and that was for updates.

Re:Linux users bid higher for Humble Bundles

[mlw4428]

I haven't had a chance to view the one reply from Tepples, but based on your information I'm wondering if the data set is valid. I guess when most people talk video games coming to Linux, they mean so from a AAA title or a top studio. I'd be curious to see statistics showing sales numbers when the cost of the game jumps over $40. My own experience and bias leads me to think that the number of Linux purchases drops significantly.

Re:Linux users bid higher for Humble Bundles

[jwdb]

I'm arguing against OP's characterization of Linux users as tightwads, and never suggested that Linux had a large market share (will freely admit that's not the case). Don't know why you're suddenly going off in a different direction.

Which update to uninstall?!?!

[monkeyzoo]

I had previously uninstalled and hidden the following:
KB3022345 - Created a new Windows service called the Diagnostics Tracking service. (Retracted)
KB3068708 - Update to 3022345.
KB3075249 - Enhanced the User Account Control (UAC) feature to enable it to collect more information from the elevation prompts.
KB3080149 - Update to 3022345/3068708.

However, I still got the new massive download yesterday. Which update is to blame and needs to be uninstalled? The article doesn't say!

Re:Which update to uninstall?!?!

[Badooleoo]

here: https://github.com/WindowsLies...

Known this for a month

[wbr1]

I do not know which KB kicks it off but you will get a windows.bt folder on your main OS drive with about 22k files in it. We saw it as failures for our backup customers, as the folder is locked from file level and shadow copy access and our backup software logged the failures.

For people with little storage it makes no sense, but I have not seen it perform this operation on a machine with very limited space. Otherwise it is just a pre-download so that installs proceed faster when a user decides to go. I have much less of a problem with this than the telemetry issues.

Re:Known this for a month

[Megane]

To be specific, the folder is named "C:\$WINDOWS.$BT", has the hidden attribute set (so DIR /A to see it), and it is over six. fucking. gigabytes. I'm happy I wasn't on a low data cap connection. Classy act there, MICROS~1!

I had previously set Windows Update (about two months ago?) to "download updates and ask me to install them", and found that it was set to "automatically install updates". I wonder if there's any chance that another update changed this setting over the past few weeks?

I've removed and hidden all the KB updates named in this thread, deferring restarts until I was finished, and half an hour after telling it to restart it's still "Preparing to configure Windows. Do not turn off your computer." Since this is just a gaming laptop, I'm willing to go without games for a few hours while this crap uninstalls.

Not that I trust hiding the KB updates... one of the optional updates waiting for me was Silver(b)light. I tried to hide it but it just kept coming back. Yeah, now I'm putting it on "check for updates and don't download". I want to stay on Windows 7, capiche?

Completely redesigning the game for touch

[tepples]

The Windows Phone market share is larger than the Linux Desktop market share

It may also be easier to port a Mac game to X11/Linux than to port a Windows game to Windows Phone. An existing OpenGL engine for OS X will likely work on X11/Linux with few changes. Porting a mouse and keyboard game to Windows Phone forces the developer to completely redesign the input system for a 5" touch screen and, if the game is real-time, rebalance all game interactions for the limits of touch input. Porting a Mac game to X11/Linux does not, as both platforms use a mouse and keyboard.

and the games/apps for phones are considerably less complex than those of their desktop counterparts

Are touch-driven games for Windows Phone "considerably less complex than" touch-driven UWP games for Windows 8.1 and 10? Is it hardware power, or is it touch input?

Re:Completely redesigning the game for touch

[ericloewe]

"port a Windows game to Windows Phone"

Step 1: Come up with touchscreen interface for your game and program it along with mouse and keyboard.
Step 2: In Visual Studio, compile as a universal Windows application.
Step 3: Publish.

Performance issues aside (phones will never match desktops), porting to Windows on phones has become trivial.

Re:Completely redesigning the game for touch

[tepples]

completely redesign the input system for a 5" touch screen

Come up with touchscreen interface for your game

What I appear to have failed to get across is that "[c]om[ing] up with touchscreen interface for your game" is often easier said than done. How would a game similar to, say, Mega Man or Street Fighter series be made enjoyable with a touch screen?

Re: Completely redesigning the game for touch

[tepples]

I played Mortal kombat X on my iPhone.

According to this page, it uses taps and swipes for attacks. But what does it use for moving your kombatant around? I don't own a phone made by Apple, nor am I in the market to buy one any time soon, so I can't try it for myself.

Re:Completely redesigning the game for touch

[ericloewe]

Spare the bullshit. Windows Phone 8 devices will receive Windows 10 Mobile.

The WP7 to WP8 transition was poorly-handled, but probably necessary.

Re:Completely redesigning the game for touch

[ericloewe]

Strictly speaking, only the menus need a touch interface, since (hardware allowing) USB OTG allows for Xbox 360 (and Xbox One, but those are less popular) controllers.

It limits the audience, but it was already limited by the nature of the games.

Re:Completely redesigning the game for touch

[tepples]

It limits the audience, but it was already limited by the nature of the games.

Just because your audience is already limited by the genre (non-endless-running platformer or fighting game) doesn't mean you have to limit the audience even further with a choice of platform. If a game plays well with a keyboard or a gamepad, then your first port targets are going to be platforms that ship with a keyboard or a gamepad. External gamepads, such as MFi gamepads on iOS or HID, Xbox 360, or MOGA gamepads on Android, probably have a smaller market share than even the PlayStation Vita.

Re:Completely redesigning the game for touch

[stooo]

WM6 to WP7 transition dumped the entire user base
WP7 to WP8 transition dumped the entire user base
For WP10, they say they "work with the manufacturers to support most devices" ...

Windows 10 is a default optional update

[mikeca426074]

I have all my Win 7 computers set to let me manually select updates. Now every time a patch comes out, the Win 10 optional update is automatically selected, and I have to go to a different list from the important updates to de-select it before installing updates. Win7 also stopped giving me a reminder in the lower right that updates were available. Instead it changed the default start menu from switch user to shutdown, which will also install updates including Win 10. All of this seems to be designed to trick the user into installing Win 10 without realizing it.

Re:Windows 10 is a default optional update

[Barsteward]

i've had the same issues with my girlfriends machine. Microsoft Windows is a pox, i must get my girlfriend off Windows and onto Linux then i'll have total piece of mind.

Re:Do the users have the license for this?

[SkunkPussy]

As I understand it you get a free licence locked to 1 machine. But the windows 7 licence I bought is for any machine (but I can only install/run one copy). So that would be a retrograde step.

Xbox One port

[tepples]

If you stuck to Directx for some reason, you'll be stuck with Windows (or Wine).

A DirectX game will run on Windows, Windows Phone, and Xbox One. (In fact, DirectX is where the X in Xbox came from.) If your game is designed for use with a gamepad, especially multiple gamepads, you might see more sales on Xbox One than on iOS, Android, OS X, and X11/Linux combined.

Re:Xbox One port

[JasterBobaMereel]

"A DirectX game will run on Windows, Windows Phone, and Xbox One"

That is it will run on Windows, Windows, and Windows ....

Re:Do the users have the license for this?

[bondsbw]

You can download it and install it but it is not activated. It is still considered pirated.

Re:On other news...

[mark-t]

And that's relevant to the issue I was challenging how, exactly?

Re:On other news...

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

WHOOOOOOOOSH!

Not sold

[TheCarp]

I have been pretty annoyed by the popup already. I have not upgraded, in fact, I built this system from new parts within the past 6 months, then went out and got new copy of OEM windows 7 and installed it. I put 7 on here intentionally FFS.

I have seen absolutely nothing to convince me I might want anything in 8 or 10. I know I will eventually have to update, but, windows is for gaming. I don't do serious work in windows. I want to run into as few errors as possible because fighting errors is part of my day job.

Why I never accept security updates

[frovingslosh]

One time, years ago, I got a new laptop and deferred accepting the "security update" for over a month while I learned the details of my new laptop and new Win XP OS. When I did accept the security update I could no longer access the Internet from Linux. This was particularly strange since I was running Linux from a Knoppix Live CD, and I even confirmed that the CD had not changed (both by checking the md5 and by making another CD). What I eventually tracked down was that the "security update" had changed the EEPROM on my built-in NIC so that it wouldn't work properly under Linux any more (all modern NICs use EEPROM to store information including the MAC address). Windows bypassed what was done and it could still access the Internet.

As Windows is that only malware that successfully has been able to do damage to any of my computers that I couldn't undo, I no longer allow Windows to do the automatic updates. Some say that I'm foolish. This article indicates otherwise.

Re:Why I never accept security updates

[Wolfrider]

--Thanks for that. I strongly suspect this is what happened to an older dual-core PC I was using to test Win10 before the general release - both NICs suddenly stopped working under Linux, the internal one and a PCI card. Incredibly annoying, especially when the Win10 preview EXPIRES and then REFUSES TO BOOT with a cryptic error message. Bah. Win10 is only on 1 machine I own (upgrade in-place from Win7), and that's where it's going to stop!!

Re:Why I never accept security updates

[frovingslosh]

I'm not certain that you saw the exact same thing as I did, although the two may be related. In my case it was years ago and while that (and some later Knoppix releases) were unable to access the Internet after booting, eventually Linux seemed to learn what Microsoft was up to and corrected the problem. After they did I could run later copies of Linux without problems.

To give you a little more info on the issue, as I said NICs have EEPROM to store the MAC address of the device. That makes it easy for the manufacturer to create thousands of NICs all with unique MAC addresses. That MAC address does not take up all of the EEPROM, there is space left, and my NIC (and I suspect most or all others) used remaining space to store configuration parameters. That way you could configure how you wanted the NIC to operate, things like speed and duplex mode. What I found was that, while the MAC address had not changed, these configuration parameters were now meaningless garbage and the NIC was coming up in a state that couldn't talk to anything else. Windows was ignoring the configuration parameters in the NIC and setting it's own, so the NIC worked OK (although you lost the ability to configure how you wanted the NIC to behave in hardware and had to do it in Windows if you wanted anything other than the default). I also found that I could force a reset of the NIC and then configure the NIC parameters under Linux on the failing Knoppix CD, and was thus eventually able to use that disc, but with a lot more hassle that it used to take. Before the "security update" I had booted and run Knoppix on the network many times without any issues.

Laptop gone poof

[scsirob]

Our housekeeper had a Win7 laptop which ran so-so. Win10 downloaded automatically and nagged for install every boot. She finally clicked OK. Laptop thrundled for an hour, rebooted, screen went black, never came back. Each attempt to boot turns the screen black. No recovery, no backup.

She got a Chromebook and couldn't be happier. Thank you Microsoft.

mp3, TaxAct, garminplugin, SweetHome 3D

[raymorris]

> Yeah? And my existing iTunes library? My tax software? The software to keep my GPS up to date? The home design software I used when I needed to file a building permit?

I'd be glad to answer those questions.

> My existing iTunes library
Seven years ago, iTunes started selling music without DRM, so you can just copy your music files to any device, running any operating system. If you bought DRM music, Apple will charge you $25 to liberate your library, or you can cheat.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

> Tax software

Since tax preparation software is only used once before it's replaced with the new version, I stopped downloading and installing it. Instead, I use TaxAct.com. It works well. For book keeping and accounting, I use Gnucash.

> The software to keep my GPS up to date?

Which GPS? For some, you simply copy the update to an SD card and put it in the GPS - the PC software doesn't really do anything. Some Garmin devices are easiest to update by using PC software. If you have one of those, you might want garminplugin:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:andreas-diesner/garminplugin
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install garminplugin

> The home design software I used when I needed to file a building permit?

Looking for this?:
http://www.sweethome3d.com/

You didn't really say what exactly you mean by "home design software", so I guessed at what you might need.

Re:mp3, TaxAct, garminplugin, SweetHome 3D

[tepples]

Seven years ago, iTunes started selling music without DRM

Perhaps gstoddart has a big pile of movies, TV shows, and books.

Just one word:

[fredrated]

Fuck you Micro$oft.

Re:Just one word:

[Cro Magnon]

That's 3 words.

One little shark

[MrKaos]

• one little shark
• swimming in the sea
• one little shark
• watching Fonzie
• one little shark
• examining his skis
• one little shark
• swimming in the sea

Re:Bloating chicken

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop using monospace to post you fucking idiot.

Re:A pox on you all.

[RogueyWon]

Pretty much my entire PC games library is Windows only. If you think that is "some bullshit reason" for sticking with Windows, you are sadly deluded.

Session restore

[tepples]

But how fast do the applications that you had open restore their state after you restart and log in again? And does your web browser restore the pages that were open in tabs after restarting the computer, even if you are offline when you restart?

Re:Session restore

[Ol Olsoc]

When you have an SSD that boots Linux in less than 20 seconds, who the hell *cares* if it doesn't hibernate correctly

People who want their sessions to be restored correctly. Or which web browser will correctly reopen pages that had been opened in tabs, even if the machine is offline when the user logs back in?

Weird. I can shut my Mac down and everything will reopen exactly where it was - if I want it to. Just a little checkbox - Do you mean the superior Windows system cannot do that?

Re:Session restore

[bingoUV]

Firefox. Just set it to load tab only on click after restore.

Though if you are not suspending/hibernating, just connect to network *before* starting the browser?

Re:Session restore

[tepples]

Though if you are not suspending/hibernating, just connect to network *before* starting the browser?

My point is that lack of suspend breaks my workaround to save the cost of a cellular data plan for my laptop. Often I come out of suspend while riding public transit, and buses in my city do not offer Wi-Fi.

Re:Session restore

[tepples]

I can shut my Mac down and everything will reopen exactly where it was - if I want it to. Just a little checkbox

Does Safari restore open web pages after your Mac restarts, even if your Mac is disconnected from the network after it restarts? If so, I'll add a MacBook Air to my short list.

Re:Session restore

[Ol Olsoc]

I can shut my Mac down and everything will reopen exactly where it was - if I want it to. Just a little checkbox

Does Safari restore open web pages after your Mac restarts, even if your Mac is disconnected from the network after it restarts? If so, I'll add a MacBook Air to my short list.

DIsclaimer - I'm using an iMac

I tried your query, with the exception of disconnecting from the internet, I restarted the computer and checked to "reopen windows" when logging back in. Here's what happened:

Mail and Safarit re-opened, and having some 8 tabs opened, it saved those tabs in my history upon restarting. So I opened them, and there they were.

It was paying attention, because I have it normally set to clear history when I quit Safari.

Your needs appear to be a tad esoteric.

Re:Session restore

[bingoUV]

Often I come out of suspend while riding public transit, and buses in my city do not offer Wi-Fi.

You haven't defined "correctly" in your statement "which web browser will correctly reopen pages". So everyone is interpreting it differently. In general, if a computer does something, it is by definition "correct" unless user specifies exact correct behaviour.

From your other replies in this thread, it seems you want the page to show the content as if internet is active, even though internet is not active. In this, Linux beats MS Windows handily (and Firefox beats Internet Explorer by a small margin)

1. Firefox desktop has an option to save a page to "pocket". Which does what my guess of your badly stated requirement is - save the page content to be viewable offline.

2. Firefox Android has something similar.

3. It is a million times easier to "Print to PDF" in Linux as compared to Windows. Out of the box in main distros for last 15 years. This beats screenshots by a wide margin because screenshots work horribly for scrollable web pages

Re:Session restore

[lott11]

the would be OPERA!

Re:Session restore

[lott11]

like said OPERA and VIVALDI https://vivaldi.com/download/ they both will work on all OS. and they both will retain the web page and at the spot that you left off.

Windows 10

[jeffmflanagan]

Yesterday morning I had a migraine. In the afternoon I let one of my PCs "upgrade" to Windows 10 after I reinstalled Win 8. I'm not sure which was worse.

At least the PC managed to roll itself back to Windows 8 when the 10 install failed. This was on a simple Asus motherboard, clean Win 8 install, AMD APU, no expansion cards, and only a KB and mouse connected to USB.

yeah, several good options. For you, one best

[raymorris]

I know what you mean about hearing different opinions. Asking which is the BEST distribution is a bit like asking which is the best car. You probably want to know which is the easiest/ best FOR A NEWBIE. That's like asking which vehicle is best FOR A HANDYMAN, it narrows down the choices considerably.

If you focus on the opinions which actually seem to answer the FOR A NEWBIE question, two or three choices will get the modt votes. Ubuntu and Mint will be suggested, and maybe CentOS. None of those is wrong! Any of three would be good.

    I would suggest that for initial setup you get some help from a friend who uses Linux, although there are eady installation guides for all of those distributions. If you DO get some help, the "best" choice for you is whichever of the three above that your helper is most accustomed to. I install CentOS for people because I can most easily answer CentOS questions over the phone. If your friend uses Ubuntu, he or she will be bedt able to help you if you also use Ubuntu.

You may also see Fedora suggested. Fedora is designed for people who want to always be on the cutting edge, updating regularly, and don't mind dealing with rough edges on new software. It's good for some people, but not the best choice for newbies .

Re:yeah, several good options. For you, one best

[FlyHelicopters]

I would suggest that for initial setup you get some help from a friend who uses Linux

If I need help from a friend who uses Linux, then what the frack am I moving to Linux for?

Windows is easy to install and use, no help required. Clean installing? Stick the USB stick or DVD in the drive, boot up, it installs.

That's it.

Windows finds all the drivers, even sets the screen resolution correctly. Sign in with a MS account and it offers to set itself up as another computer you have already used.

It couldn't be any bloody easier.

Then which non-dud 10" laptop?

[tepples]

All reports I've read state that ASUS Transformer Book detachable laptops fail to suspend under Linux. Which non-dud 10.1" laptop should people buy instead?

Re:Then which non-dud 10" laptop?

[Grishnakh]

Try a Thinkpad.

Re:Then which non-dud 10" laptop?

[tepples]

Google result for 10 inch thinkpad is $878.99 on Amazon. What this tells me is that your suggestion for Linux-compatible hardware costs three times as much as Linux-incompatible hardware in the same size class. This can be spun as one advantage of Windows over Linux.

Re:Then which non-dud 10" laptop?

[Grishnakh]

Then get a used one. It's not like computers are getting significantly faster any more. Why would you want some POS laptop made of plastic anyway, when you can have one with a magnesium frame? There's a reason business-class laptops cost more: they're made a lot better, and don't fall apart in a year with regular handling. My Dell E64xx laptops all work great with Linux, are made of magnesium and aluminum, can handle rough treatment, and look much nicer and have far better keyboards than that consumer-level crap. Consumer laptops are completely unusable because the keyboards are so bad; only Thinkpads and Dell Latitudes have usable keyboards.

Re:Then which non-dud 10" laptop?

[tepples]

Then get a used one.

I would if it were warranted and, more specifically, warranted for use with Linux. That's why I bought a Dell Inspiron mini 1012: it shipped with Linux and a warranty. It's just that those are discontinued.

Re:Then which non-dud 10" laptop?

[Grishnakh]

Huh? How so? I'm advocating for quality products, not fashion accessories. Did you miss the part about quality laptops being able to handle rough treatment?

Re: Recovering from suspend

[hackwrench]

Even though I tell Windows 10 to do nothing when the laptop is closed it still acts groggy when I have it closed for awhile and open it back up.

Session restore

[tepples]

When you have an SSD that boots Linux in less than 20 seconds, who the hell *cares* if it doesn't hibernate correctly

People who want their sessions to be restored correctly. Or which web browser will correctly reopen pages that had been opened in tabs, even if the machine is offline when the user logs back in?

Manual says Suspend/Resume: Not yet working 0/10

[tepples]

Which manual should I read: the manual for the laptop, which gives only the instructions for Windows, or the manual for the Linux distribution, which says Suspend/Resume: Not yet working 0/10?

Sueing Microsoft for damages!

[burni2]

That's the way to break arrogance!

usps.gov, Mono, same testing

[raymorris]

I'm not a hardware guy, so I'll lave the first question to other people.

I print my mailing labels directly from ups.com and usps.gov. UPS has pretty decent account management on their web site.

I write Windows programs using Mono, which is .Net on Linux. If you write Windows software for a living, and have spent thousands of dollars on Microsoft development tools, you probably want to keep Windows. One of my best friends is a professional Windows programmer. He uses Windows at work, and only at work.

You can of course test your Mono/.Net software on any Linux. That's advantageous because it helps ensure that you aren't relying on an API that is specific to a certain version of Windows, or at least let you know when you are. If you choose to do testing on specific different versions of Windows , you will of course want to use those versions of Windows , regardless of which OS you use for development. Whether you develop on Windows or Linux, virtual machines make sense for testing on six different versions of Windows. CentOS, and probably other distros, makes virtualization easy with virt-manager, a point-and-click GUI for installing and running virtual machines.

Re:usps.gov, Mono, same testing

[tepples]

I print my mailing labels directly from ups.com and usps.gov.

So how do you automatically paste package weights from your scale and shipping addresses and declared values from your order manager into ups.com and usps.gov, how do you specify that labels shall be printed on a label printer instead of the computer's primary plain-paper inkjet or laser printer, and how do you automatically copy the tracking number and postage amount back out into your order manager? That's what it would take to get several packages per minute out the door. Our current application communicates with Endicia DAZzle and UPS WorldShip through XML files.

You can of course test your Mono/.Net software on any Linux.

Will an application tested on Mono for Linux necessarily work on .NET Framework on Windows? I thought there were subtle implementation differences that could break an application if a developer inadvertently relies on unspecified or undefined behavior.

virtual machines make sense for testing on six different versions of Windows.

And all these six different versions of Windows need six different licenses and will try to download five different copies of Windows 10 without asking (except for the one that's already Windows 10).

Re:usps.gov, Mono, same testing

[raymorris]

> Will an application tested on Mono for Linux necessarily work on .NET Framework on Windows?
> I thought there were subtle implementation differences that could break an application if a developer inadvertently relies on unspecified or undefined behavior.

The subtle implementation differences between versions that break unexpectedly are exactly what developing first on Linux will prevent. You won't use some fragile thing specific to a certain version of Windows, with a certain version of MS Office installed along with a specific version of IE. You're forced to either use standard interfaces in the standard way, or EXPLICITLY add a platform-dependent section for those cases where you need to interact deeply with the OS. To put it another way:
If it works on Windows 7 and Vista, it _might_ work on Windows 8. If it works on Linux and Windows 8, it'll almost surely work on Windows 7 too.

> automatically paste package weights from your scale and shipping addresses and declared values from your order manager into ups.com and usps.gov,
> how do you specify that labels shall be printed on a label printer instead of the computer's primary plain-paper inkjet or laser printer, and how do you automatically copy the tracking number and postage amount back out into your order manager?
> That's what it would take to get several packages per minute out the door.

If you're doing several packages per minute, that sounds like more of a shipping appliance than a desktop. If you're happy with your current shipping appliance, by all means keep using it. If not, I haven't researched existing high-speed shipping systems that run on Linux. I could implement those things you've described in a couple hours using Perl. I see that both USPS and UPS use Linux/Unix internally, so their systems are of course quite compatible.

Re:On other news...

[mark-t]

Do you even understand the point of citation? I'm guessing not, because what you're saying makes absolutely no sense otherwise.

Why should I cite someone who has not established credibility for their claims in the first place?

What is shovelware?

[tepples]

And most Humble Bundles are filled with indie shovelware

What makes a game "shovelware" to you?

They are not a proxy for the "proper" commercial games market.

But they are how new developers enter the "proper" commercial games market and bring their lack of Windows-only mentality with them.

Re:What is shovelware?

[RogueyWon]

Shovelware? Try the pseudo-8-bit-retro-sprite-art-roguelike-zombie-crafting-survival games that spam the Steam front page daily and seem to make up 75% of the Humble Bundles (with most of the remainder being elderly franchise titles pushed out by a mainstream publisher, usually as promotion for a new entry in said franchise which will go nowhere near such a bundle.

And the major studios are not failing, for the most part, to produce non-Windows PC games because of a lack of experienced developers. They are refusing to produce them because almost everybody who tries finds that the returns don't justify it. The decisions over which platforms to port a commercial game to are not made by coders, but by businessmen.

The indie scene these days increasingly looks like a toxic swamp filled with egomaniacs who don't have the discipline to pay their dues working for an established studio, but who want to grab some kickstarter funds to put out their oh-so-unique special artistic vision, which either fails before it gets to release, produces a dull piece of hipster garbage of no interest to anybody outside of a very niche community, or, more often, produces yet another pseudo-8-bit-retro-sprite-art-roguelike-zombie-crafting-survival game.

Re:What is shovelware?

[Grishnakh]

The indie scene these days increasingly looks like a toxic swamp filled with egomaniacs who don't have the discipline to pay their dues working for an established studio, but who want to grab some kickstarter funds to put out their oh-so-unique special artistic vision

Have you been living under a rock and missed all the stories about the horrible work environments at the established studios like EA? Who wants to get lousy pay and be expected to work 100 hours a week? On top of that, gamers seem to complain a lot that the games published by places like EA are all boring, buggy, and derivative. How many more Madden games do we need? Maybe most of these indie games are crap too, but I can see why developers would want to pursue that avenue instead of "paying their dues" working for a shitty, abusive company like EA. And personally, while I haven't tried any, I'd much rather play a pseudo-8-bit-retro-sprite-art game than any typical modern EA game; thanks for the tip, I'll have to check these out.

Re:What is shovelware?

[RogueyWon]

And the problem here is one of supply and demand. Or rather, that the supply of people who want to work in the games industry vastly outstrips demand for developers. So developers get treated like disposable assets.

The indie gaming scene is not a wonderful, exciting alternative. There are a handful of genuinely talented small studios, most of whom have been around since before the start of the present indie boom, and a lot of millennial narcissists burning through either mommy and daddy's savings or a pile of kickstarter funds they have no ability to manage. As they do so, for every hour they spend developing, they spend three in reddit and twitter bitch fights. That Gamergate shitspolosion? It came from the indie scene and mostly stayed in the indie scene (none of the established developers wanted to be anywhere near it). A product, on both sides, of the rampant immaturity and narcissism that characterise the indie gaming subculture.

And while all that was going on, AAA gaming was getting interesting again. Shadow of Mordor, Alien: Isolation, Bloodborne, Witcher 3, Metal Gear Solid 5... all of those are well executed games, with high production values and, crucially, more creativity and new ideas than anything that's come out of the indie scene over the same period. Outside of Call of Duty and Battlefield, the days of the 6-hour corridor shooter are basically over in AAA gaming.

The issues with working practices at some AAA studios are real, but indie gaming isn't the solution. It's just a path to impoverished parents and ripped-off kickstarter backers. Ultimately, we don't need so many people working in the video games industry. Until we stop pushing people into it as a career and start giving a reality check to teenagers who want to make games for a living because they really enjoy playing them, the problem for those working in the industry won't go away.

Re:Watching updates like a hawk now.

[spiffyspiff]

stuff it.

i've just given up and pulled the network connection from my win7 vm: it won't be phoning home any more.

i'm not going to sit here wading through loads of kbs trying to work out what to switch off all the time....

Tap Scroll down Save new offline map

[raymorris]

For a little while now you've been able to save maps of your intended area in order to use Google maps offline. Turn-by-turn directions offline are coming soon.
http://trendblog.net/google-ma...

Seeing this "$Windows.~BT" hidden folder now

[TheDarkener]

I usually install "Optional" Windows updates as part of my preventive maintenance routine with my clients. I was taken off guard when I saw this suspicious looking folder. After a second of research I found it was the Windows 10 install files, which I never asked for (my clients always defer things like that to me).

Along with some other questionable optional Win7 updates as of late (like the one that tracks you akin to Win10), I'm wondering whether I need to research each individual update now before installing it. Fuck, Microsoft. Why do you have to make my job even more time consuming than it already is just keeping your damn OS running correctly?

A-ha!

[tekrat]

THIS explains why Starbuck's WiFi is maxed out!
I thought someone was downloading porn.

I turned it off

[AndyKron]

I turned off Windows updates. I don't trust Microsoft anymore.

Re:Manual says Suspend/Resume: Not yet working 0/1

[tepples]

Then which distro should I use instead of Xubuntu on a Transformer Book? Google asus transformer book linux suspend brought this disappointing result: "suspend not working at all" and "Reboot doesn't work either, seems like acpi is broken." Likewise Debian has "Sleep / Suspend: Error (Couldn't get it working)".

And last Win boxen convert to Linux in our lab

[WillAffleckUW]

Sayonara!

Re:Bloating chicken

[jfbilodeau]

But I'm a developer. I work in monospace!

...but if it pisses you off, I'll go back to plain text.

...as soon as Slashdot fixes the Options dialog that is broken for me right now...

Re:Tap Scroll down Save new offline map

[RavenLrD20k]

Umm...that's Great if I'm just reading the map without data...but If I need turn by turn in the meantime? I'll stick with a GPS app that already has that feature enabled (there's several).

Call me crazy, I disabled Windows 7 from updating

[blind biker]

....on all my computers. In fact, I did that quite some time ago, when the first rumors of MS installing malware started circulating. I did that encouraged by one of my laptops on which the Windows 7 had updates disabled for years, and I got no viruses, malware, or other unwanted software. It seems that your computer's safety is almost entirely a question of common sense and not falling for social engineering tricks.

I should add that I have ClamWin Antivirus running on all my machines, including the one that didn't have updates for years. It's the most lightweight, least intrusive AV I've ever seen, and I highly recommend it.

Re: Do the users have the license for this?

[Bing Tsher E]

The term Microsoft uses is that the free Windows 10 update 'consumes' the older Windows 7/8 license when the upgrade is made.

Microsoft Has to do this..

[Striikerr]

Microsoft has to do this in order to boost figures which they spread around via marketing. Look how many times Windows 10 has been downloaded by users! Have a look at THIS headline as proof..
The Appeal of Free: 75 Million Users Download Windows 10 in First Month

Obviously the intent here is to inflate their numbers and make the deployment look better than it really is. While I have no doubt that many are taking advantage of the free upgrade option (which apparently expires in a year or so), not all who download are going to install (shoveling the upgrade onto systems) or stick with it.

Re:Microsoft Has to do this..

[sabbede]

That's just silly. The first month was over before this happened, so there's nothing bullshitty about that number.

And have you used it? I've been running it since it's release and regret nothing. Simply put, it's far superior to the previous versions. It sounds to me like you simply don't like Windows and want reasons to support your opinion. Which is fine, you don't have to like it. But you should really just say that instead of trying to come up with reasons to make yourself feel superior for having that opinion.

Re:Microsoft Has to do this..

[Striikerr]

Microsoft has been pushing out downloads to users so that number will include these pre-staged downloads for later installation. My comment was aimed at the fact that Microsoft is essentially opting in everyone to Windows 10 and pushing the files onto their devices. They do this (in part) to be able to showcase the large download numbers and tell the world that the uptake on Windows 10 is exceptional. The fact that they are reporting number of downloads and not total installed base further solidifies this position. These upgrades should be opt-in and not automatically downloaded to every computer which has automatic updates enabled as those were for security and stability updates, not full operating system updates).

As for my opinion of Windows, I do use Windows 7 (disliked Windows 8) and I support a work environment which has Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 computers (along with various versions of Server). I did not say that Windows 10 sucks, I said that Microsoft really needs this to be a success and will use every tool at its disposal to do so and that starts with marketing (via boosting the number of downloads which implies actual installs). I do not like this approach but understand why they are doing this and for some people, it will help them to upgrade as they probably want to do. I am not storage or bandwidth constrained so it doesn't impact me as it may others. It's just this philosophy of shoveling it onto every device possible is pretty disingenuous when they market those figures as an early sign of success.

Re:Microsoft Has to do this..

[sabbede]

Whether or not this move means they changed it to opt-out, it was expressly opt-in during the reported time frame.

Steam recommends Ubuntu

[raymorris]

I'll give you two answers. First, I'll point you to my reply to the same question a few hours ago:
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

In that reply I said that Ubuntu is a good choice for newbies. Since Steam is important to you, the fact that Steam officially supports Ubuntu LTS is an additional good reason to choose Ubuntu.

Suppose that in a couple of years you've really gotten into Linux, understanding what is going on under the covers. Ubuntu (which is good for newbies) is descended from Debian, and SteamOS (currently in beta) is also built from Debian. So I'd expect that over the next year or so Steam support on Debian will become very good. Debian is targeted more to advanced users.

So if web browsing and Steam were my main interests, I'd use Ubuntu now. After a while, if you want to change, I'd consider changing to Debian (or even SteamOS).

Re:Steam recommends Ubuntu

[Nidi62]

Thanks. Sorry, never saw your reply, it got buried.

Restoring Firefox session while offline

[tepples]

When Firefox starts: Show my windows and tabs from last time

This saves only the URL in each tab, not the contents of the page in each tab. If I restart the computer, log in, and launch Firefox while offline, all the tabs will say "Problem loading page".

Re:Restoring Firefox session while offline

[zwarte piet]

There is a function in Firefox to not try to load the restored tabs till you activate them. I recommend it. I hate about chrome that 5 youtube videos start playing at the same time whenever I start the browser.

Re:Restoring Firefox session while offline

[tepples]

There is a function in Firefox to not try to load the restored tabs till you activate them.

The trouble is, if I use shutdown with session saving instead of suspend, when I activate the tabs, I will be offline.

Tell Windows it's a capped connection

[cbhacking]

Should have been using Win8.1's "Metered Network" feature. You can mark a network as metered (just right-click on it in the network list) and then Windows won't use data on it without your authorization, including downloading updates. In fact, it's one way to block Win10 from downloading unwanted updates.

Re:Tell Windows it's a capped connection

[bigmadwolf]

That's all very well but is the average Joe or Jill going to know to do that?

Re:Tell Windows it's a capped connection

[Ramadog]

That option is only for wifi. There is no option to set ethernet as unmetered and the ms faq explicitly says ethernet can not be set unmetered. I found the same using usb tether which I use in preference to wifi hot spot. Both win 8.1 and 10 will happily set a wifi hot spot on a metered mobile phone connection as unmetered.

Not only arrogance, also incompetence and ABUSE

[Futurepower(R)]

"Windows 10 is just completely, hilariously broken, to the point that Windows 8 seems amazing by comparison."

I agree, except that I wouldn't use the word "hilariously". My own characterization:

Microsoft is shockingly poorly managed. My Slashdot comment explains Microsoft's control over Firefox and Mozilla Foundation. That control may explain why the user interfaces of Thunderbird and SeaMonkey have been damaged in recent versions.

Yahoo is badly managed. From that story "Marissa Mayer's second-in-command 'leaves with $109m' on being fired from Yahoo after just 15 months". An incompetent executive got $109,000,000 for leaving a short job.

As I said earlier, Microsoft has a LONG history of being badly managed. Quotes: Steve Ballmer is "Monkey Boy" and, from a May 12, 2012 story, "Without a doubt, Mr. Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today."

Re:On other news...

[gweihir]

Well, yes. In some cases. If the user did not prevent it. And then these users could pretty easily de-install that crapware again. And while systemd is an abomination, it is still FOSS and can be analyzed for what it does, quite unlike the MS-supplied malware.

Re:And... FUCK YOU for burning up my data plan!

[ledow]

Next time, stick a up-to-$50 device/software in there somewhere to monitor and limit and thus make sure it can't happen again.

Hell, you might even have spotted it earlier and stopped it before it became a problem.

Small Claims court.

[Overzeetop]

Just file there. Though the filing fee will likely cost you more than your overage charge, you can always try.

Still arrogant...

[Simulant]

...after all these years.

Way to earn our trust.

sleep seems to work though

[Chirs]

I don't use hibernate on my linux machine, but it sleeps just fine. Most of the time that's sufficient.

Are they sharing over lan?

[devslash0]

I have not confirmed this myself but a long-known IT support specialist told me a few days ago that Windows 10 is sharing it's installation files with other computers on your LAN. That could be yet another reason why they download the files regardless of your settings. It's now become a proper malware I guess?

Not happening for me

[jonwil]

I uninstalled the nag thing pushing me to upgrade to Windows 10 and I haven't gotten any of the big space-hogging Windows 10 stuff.

It's a matter of getting order info in and out

[tepples]

For USPS, you have two options: [...] PayPal [or] USPS.com

How well does either of these options integrate with other order fulfillment systems? For example, does the user of PayPal.com have to manually match up the package's receipt with the transaction number on PayPal.com, key the weight from the scale into PayPal.com, and then copy and paste the tracking number from PayPal.com into the fulfillment system? And how well does it work with Amazon purchases, which don't go through PayPal payment? Currently DAZzle lets us use XML to get the addresses and weights in and get the tracking numbers out without having to manually copy and paste every order.

Use UPS.com. Anyone can get an account there

We have an account. Currently UPS's WorldShip application for Windows lets us use XML get the addresses and weights in and get the tracking numbers out without having to manually copy and paste every order.

Re:It's a matter of getting order info in and out

[Grishnakh]

What order fulfillment system are you using?

Anyway, unfortunately the answer is no. When you have a big system with multiple components are designed to run on one OS, it just isn't going to be trivial to switch to another OS; all the components have to have versions for the new OS. You only asked about USPS and UPS shipping, so I just pointed out that it is possible to print those labels that way, but integration with other software is a whole other can of worms.

Honestly, the USPS really sucks about doing any kind of integration. They seem to be actively against it; they have some "webtools" APIs, but that's just to get some address-correction information and the like, not for purchasing and printing postage. For that, they only want to work with third-party vendors like encidia.com and stamps.com (which I hear is a big scam), as well as PayPal (which works through Pitney Bowes, not directly through the USPS). UPS is better I believe; from what I hear, they have an XML API you can use with their site, if you want to roll your own.

Re:It's a matter of getting order info in and out

[tepples]

What order fulfillment system are you using?

For a while we were using Stone Edge, then we went to one custom web-based system, and now we're considering another. Stone Edge had its own built-in UPS functions, but it likewise required DAZzle to be installed in order to print USPS postage. Over the years, strict dependence on Windows has been cut down to this one application of turning a PC into a shipping appliance. It's a Python script that runs on Windows and communicates with running copies of DAZzle and WorldShip through XML.

Re:Do the users have the license for this?

[Megane]

Do you actually trust Microsoft to get that right?

Forced reboots

[tepples]

That is a very specific and unusual set of applications...

Each of which has a use in my retro video game development workflow.

• Firefox: Read documentation and participate in discussion
• Notepad++ or gedit: Edit source code
• GIMP or other bitmap image editor: Create graphics for an application
• GCC and Python: Build and run custom data conversion tools
• GNU Make: Decide which files need to be retranslated when making changes to an application under development
• FCEUX: Run the application

Why 10 inch? For use while riding the bus to and from my other job.

But fair enough... remind me why those don't run on Windows 10 again?

They do run on Windows 10 and Windows 8.1 and Windows 7. In fact, one of them (FCEUX) requires Windows or Wine in order to activate the debugger. One drawback of Windows 10 is that you can't opt out of all telemetry. Another is its forced reboot policy, which causes loss of open documents, loss of unsaved changes, loss of loaded web pages until next Internet connection. And the drawback of older Windows is eating up 4 GB of SSD space for a copy of Windows 10 should an administrator decide to install it. Or should I file bugs against each GUI application that I use to request that the developer implement session saving?

Re:Forced reboots

[FlyHelicopters]

"Indeed. While what this article reveals is somewhat disconcerting, a lot of what MS mentions in its privacy policy is stuff that the product needs to function as intended (i.e. OneDrive, various Live Tile apps / etc) and people are just fearmongering the hell out of it."

That is a quote from one of the comments below the article you linked to. I think it is a fair point, much of what Windows is doing is providing the connected online services that come with Windows, that didn't come with Windows 7 before it.

---

I suppose part of the difference is that I've simply accepted a 24/7 connected online world and that to have the rich services provided for free, tradeoffs have to be made. One of those is that my computers will be talking to MS computers on a regular basis.

Honestly, I don't have a problem with this.

That being said, if you want your computer to NOT talk to MS, then yes, I'd agree that should be an option, with the understanding that you'll lose a lot of function of Windows due to things like OneDrive, Cortana, live tiles, etc. not working without it.

But perhaps MS doesn't want to offer that option, or they are trying to make it harder to obtain to push everyone to being connected. Well, they are a for profit business, I can't fault them for that.

This reminds me of my Mother, who is happy with her old feature flip phone and doesn't want to change. She fought tooth and nail leaving Windows XP, wasn't happy about it at all. She has Windows 7 on her computer now and doesn't want Windows 10. Not because she is afraid of it or cares about the telemetry, but because she doesn't want change. The very concept of OneDrive hurts her brain. She is 71 years old, so frankly she's done making changes and that is of course her choice.

But technology moves so quickly, it can be hard to just put the brakes on and say, "ok, I'm happy here, I'm getting off the wagon". Which was fine to do before 24/7 online everything. Your 386DX-25 can continue right on happy running DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.1 until the end of time and it doesn't care that it is 2015 and the world moved on.

But that isn't really true of more recent versions of Windows on more recent computers that expect to see an Internet connection.

Re:Forced reboots

[tepples]

if you want your computer to NOT talk to MS, then yes, I'd agree that should be an option, with the understanding that you'll lose a lot of function of Windows due to things like OneDrive, Cortana, live tiles, etc. not working without it.

There's a big difference between Windows communicating with application service providers that the user has made an explicit choice to trust (OneDrive, Cortana, and publishers of live tiles) and the browser's phishing filter sending every URL you visit to an organization that works closely with the MPAA.

Well, they are a for profit business, I can't fault them for that.

The problem is that each PC manufacturer is also "a for profit business," and many PC manufacturers have made a business decision not to cooperate with operating system businesses other than Microsoft.

This reminds me of my Mother, who is happy with her old feature flip phone and doesn't want to change.

I too use a flip phone, mostly because smartphones still cost much more per month to operate.

Re:Forced reboots

[FlyHelicopters]

There's a big difference between Windows communicating with application service providers that the user has made an explicit choice to trust (OneDrive, Cortana, and publishers of live tiles) and the browser's phishing filter sending every URL you visit to an organization that works closely with the MPAA.

From your own link:

Torrent trackers freak out over perceived Windows 10 anti-piracy measures

Based on extremely thin evidence, several private torrent trackers believe Microsoft is setting up for a big piracy crackdown in Windows 10.

---

Well let me know if it turns out to be true, as it stands, it seems like a lot of fearmongering...

That being said... If you're downloading stuff you shouldn't be, why are you complaining? Stop that crap, it is stupid.

The problem is that each PC manufacturer is also "a for profit business," and many PC manufacturers have made a business decision not to cooperate with operating system businesses other than Microsoft.

Two points.

1. They have tried it, multiple times... I know Dell twice in the past 15 years has tried selling systems with Linux on it, and stopped due to various problems.

2. What other "operating system businesses"? Linux isn't really a "business", more a loose collection of various builds of varying degree of compatibility.

And thus you have the problem. If HP or Dell goes and sells a PC with Linux on it, ok, what flavor? Lets say it is Linux Mint. Fine, then the customer downloads a program that is meant for Ubuntu. Now what happens when it doesn't work?

http://www.skype.com/en/downlo...

Lets say the HP Linux customer wants to install Skype. Which version does he download and install on Linux Mint?

I see multiple versions listed there, including TWO versions for Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and OpenSUSE, and one marked Dynamic.

If you go to the Windows page for Skype, there is one button to click and no choices:

http://www.skype.com/en/downlo...

Because it knows what to do. That one button works for Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, and 10.

Re:Forced reboots

[FlyHelicopters]

I too use a flip phone, mostly because smartphones still cost much more per month to operate.

$30 a month for unlimited everything is too much?

https://www.metropcs.com/30-ph...

Re:Forced reboots

[tepples]

From the linked page: "Limited time offer, not valid in Indiana." I live in Indiana.

Re:Forced reboots

[FlyHelicopters]

Somewhere there was a *woosh* heard...

You of course missed the point, but that's ok...

You guys have fun beta-testing Windows 10

[leftie]

I'll wait for a few updates to make it stable and all the software I use day to day has been migrated over.

wrong

[bingoUV]

NetworkManager has no clue about "most things", especially none about suspend/resume.

Re:Watching updates like a hawk now.

[spiffyspiff]

yeah, i get what you're saying, killing the net connection sounds pretty severe.

but now, it can't phone home even if i missed uninstalling / not installing some kb's (and i probably did). Any other existing backdoors / telemetry / bit-torrented windows downloads / unauthorisd activity / snooping etc etc etc are all dead in the water too.

and i can still download the security essentials signatures myself on the linux host when i feel like it.

in retrospect, i can't really see any downsides and i wish i'd done it earlier.

things have come to a bit of a sorry conclusion when you have to effectively abandon an OS because it is actively working AGAINST YOU, and you -really- can't trust it AT ALL.

Re:Bloating chicken

[Z00L00K]

Sorry - I don't have mod points today.

Re:That would be UPLOADING

[Z00L00K]

What? You must check what you mean.

Uploading - it's something that you send from your computer to a server on the net.
Downloading - it's something you get to your computer from a server on the net.

What M$ do is to trick your computer to download crap from their servers. Much like malware.

240p art style; paying dues

[tepples]

pseudo-8-bit-retro-sprite-art

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you appear to claim that 240p is not a viable art style. The fact that these are making it onto GOG and Steam shows that enough people like it or at the very least tolerate it. Is the 240p art style bad objectively, or is it just against the preference of RogueyWon?

The indie scene these days increasingly looks like a toxic swamp filled with egomaniacs who don't have the discipline to pay their dues working for an established studio

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you appear to claim that starting a video game studio in your home town is the wrong way, and leaving your support network behind, moving to another state, and joining an established studio is the right way. If so, an established studio needs some way to choose the most skilled candidates for an interview, especially if that involves flying the candidate out to the studio's office. So how should a candidate for a job at an established studio demonstrate his skills other than through completing a game?

Re:Data Plan Blew Up - so blame the victim?

[Cederic]

They *could* sue for that in small claims court, but the fees would be higher than the recovery absent punitive damages.

Curious. In the UK you just add the admin cost of the small claims process to the amount claimed.

Offline is the important part

[tepples]

with the exception of disconnecting from the internet

This is the key difference. When I resume my laptop on the city bus, it has no Internet connection.

Mail and Safarit re-opened, and having some 8 tabs opened, it saved those tabs in my history upon restarting.

Firefox also restores open tabs when it is restarted. But if the PC is offline when a tab is restored, the tab is restored as "Problem loading page" instead of being correctly restored from cache.

Your needs appear to be a tad esoteric.

I prefer the term "thrifty". Suspend allows me to save $500 per year by not subscribing to cellular Internet.

Re:Offline is the important part

[tepples]

Why don't you just save whatever pages you want to read on the bus to your local drive?

Does each browser have a built-in function or extension to save all pages currently open in tabs to the local drive? If so, I will. If not, because such a built-in function or extension does not exist.

Re:Offline is the important part

[tepples]

But can Opera and Firefox do foreach (all open tabs) { save the page in this tab; }?

Borderline derivative work cases

[tepples]

That being said... If you're downloading stuff you shouldn't be, why are you complaining?

I know to avoid The Pirate Bay and similar sites that flagrantly disregard copyright. But not all sites are quite as obviously infringing as those, and I don't see how a non-lawyer can precisely determine what he should and shouldn't be downloading. When people purchased a download of the song "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams from Amazon, Google, or iTunes, how could they know they were downloading a song that turned out to be infringing (Gaye v. Thicke)? And how can someone downloading a copy of Emacs tell whether the M-x tetris function in Emacs infringes the copyright in Tetris ? And is Nintendo planning to go after users of RomHacking.net, which contains a commentary on the program of Super Mario Bros. ?

Or in practice, does an end user have little to worry about when visiting sites that aren't bright-line infringers?

What other "operating system businesses"?

I was primarily referring to Canonical Ltd., which maintains the Ubuntu operating system.

Later on you refer to binary incompatibility for proprietary applications among different distributions of X11/Linux. This is something that Valve has been trying to solve with Steam Runtime.

Re:Borderline derivative work cases

[FlyHelicopters]

Or in practice, does an end user have little to worry about when visiting sites that aren't bright-line infringers?

^ This... You can always come up with a fringe example, but lets be honest, it is people going to The Pirate Bay and downloading "The Hurt Locker" or "The Avengers" that have to worry.

I was primarily referring to Canonical Ltd., which maintains the Ubuntu operating system.

Later on you refer to binary incompatibility for proprietary applications among different distributions of X11/Linux. This is something that Valve has been trying to solve with Steam Runtime.

Keep in mind that Valve is also a private, for profit company. If they ever get a decent share of the OS market going, they'll end up in the same place MS is. Gabe isn't some angel on wings come to save us all, he is a person, like all other people, running a business.

My example with Skype is meant to show the problems with trying to offer something besides Windows. It isn't as simple as saying, "Install Linux", when even basic programs like Skype require a half dozen different versions, and maybe none of them run on Linux Mint (a version often suggested for new Linux users).

What happens if Intuit were to offer TurboTax in a Linux version? How do they support that? What versions and what binaries do they have to provide? What a mess.

It isn't just a matter of having Linux get above 2% desktop marketshare. It could be 10% tomorrow, but if that share is split among 10 different versions of Linux, you're going to be hard pressed to have more than 1 or 2 of them supported. Then everyone starts running the "supported one" and you end up with only a single choice again.

Anti-virus should be picking this one up...

[kcorey]

Isn't this the classic definition of a "trojan"?

Meh. So much for Microsoft doing things differently.

-Ken

I'm trying to buy compatible HW

[tepples]

buy hardware compatible with Linux

That's what I did last time, and that's what I'm trying to do this time. It's just that I'm having a heck of a time finding a new 10" laptop, convertible laptop, or detachable laptop that is compatible with Linux. The ASUS Transformer Book sure isn't.

Re:Call me crazy, I disabled Windows 7 from updati

[almechist]

....on all my computers. In fact, I did that quite some time ago, when the first rumors of MS installing malware started circulating. I did that encouraged by one of my laptops on which the Windows 7 had updates disabled for years, and I got no viruses, malware, or other unwanted software. It seems that your computer's safety is almost entirely a question of common sense and not falling for social engineering tricks.

I should add that I have ClamWin Antivirus running on all my machines, including the one that didn't have updates for years. It's the most lightweight, least intrusive AV I've ever seen, and I highly recommend it.

I basically did the same thing long ago on my Sony VAIO laptop running Vista. Hell, I never even installed SP2! And you know what? The computer still runs fine, maybe a tad slower because of 7 years accumulated Windows Rot, but I've never had any problems with viruses, or now that I think about it even so much as a single problematic BSOD, which is pretty amazing. The funny thing is that Vista was so hugely reviled in its day, but now I'm really glad I never tried to upgrade or downgrade, since Vista seems to be the last version of Windows immune from the current round of MS mal-loading. The lesson I guess is that proper security-minded behavior by the user counts for more than the OS or even the virus scanner. Don't do dangerous things online, it's that simple.

Anytime a program wants to go to automatic updates, I make sure the setting stays on "notify me first". And when a program decides that that option will no longer be offered, well, that program ceases to be updated on my machine, forever. Note that I'm not advising anybody to do as I have done, it's admittedly potentially dangerous, but it's worked for me, so far.

That's no better than a "virus"!

[iq145]

NO ONE has the right to download anything onto anyone's PC without prior permission!

Re:Bloating chicken

[zwarte piet]

Nice font man...