It definitely is. Gedit has been cited already, but what pissed me off more is gnome-terminal: the double click selection behaviour cannot be configured in the GUI any more. You need a CLI command reminiscent of registry manipulations on Windows. Insanity for a terminal. The definition of a tool used by power users...
In places with good public transportation (e.g., Europe), you don't need to drive - you can get around pretty damn effectively with just public transportation.
Americans seem to think that. True if you are in a big city like Berlin or Paris... Anything else... not so much.
Task Manager -> Right click on the offending "svchost.exe" -> Select "Show Services"
(This is from memory, so, might vary a bit)
It now switches to the processes tab, and all services associated with that svchost.exe will be highlighted. You can bet that "wuasrv.exe" (Windows Update Service) will be amongst the ones selected.
Another way to see whether it's Windows Update, is go to the services control panel and stop the Windows Update service. If the CPU usage goes to normal, your Windows Update is messed up. I have given up trying to fix it, and just set the Windows Update service to "disabled" now.
My main OS is Linux any way, so for the really occasional use of Windows, I can live with an unpatched version. This is -of course- unacceptable for people who use it as a main OS.
Interestingly, I have two virtual machines where I did exactly that (This is documented on a few Windows fora, but Windows fora are so low in quality compared to Linux fora that they are very frustrating). Still ended up with a wuaserv.exe hogging a CPU. A Win7 without update is fine, in most use-cases for virtual machines.
as long as the motherboard manufacturer has Win 7 drivers
Often the generic stuff works just fine. In the case of Ryzen on 7 (or XP), I'd just expect to see a few warnings in the device manager. Sure, some stuff might not work (integrated USB 3.x controllers, and stuff like that)... Obviously I'd need to try, but I doubt it won't "work at all".
On the other hand, Windows 7 automatic update has become a clusterfuck any way. So many machines aren't getting updates any more, because one core is pegged by wuauserv.exe. Granted, it's much less likely on bare metal installations, but I have seen it. On single or dual core Virtual Machines, it's neigh impossible to get them fully updated. Especially, when they are low usage VMs just spinned up occasionally for small tasks. I just turned Windows Update off on those.
... but I doubt Microsoft is going to change that anytime soon... or ever.
Do you really think they are in a position to be picky? You can bet that Microsoft is behind this, in some way. Probably like "how would you like your Windows 10 drivers be delayed in certification if you produce Windows 7 drivers?". AMD needs the Windows 10 for the OEMs to even consider the chips, because -like it or not- Windows 10 is here to stay. The OEMs might want to produce Windows 7 machines, but Microsoft is going to bully them as much as they can. Look at Vista or Windows 8. Even if sales were bad with those operating systems, OEMs had to deliver them. Downgrading was just for select business machines.
Regardless... It is not clear whether those chips won't work at all or just will not deliver all functionality (power management, automatic overclocking, etc...). Newer Intel chips also are only supported on Windows 10, but they're still x86-64 chips, so it should run x86-64 code. I doubt Windows 7 will plainly refuse to run on any of these chips.
Windows 7 is EOL in three years. While I personally think it's one of the best systems made by Microsoft (and I'm a full time Linux user), it's doomed, just like XP was doomed. (Oh, and Vista is EOL next month.... Nobody is sad to see that bastard die, except of course for those people who will now be forced to buy a new machine. Like my neighbours: their machine did what it needed to do, but I expect them to come ring at my door somewhere during April.)
Don't need to convince me. I've been very wary about SSDs the last years. I just store my stuff on my server now, which has spinning platters and a spinning-platter backup.
I'm with networkzombie here. Why didn't you set up a backup for her in the first place? You know what my wife has for her 27" iMac? A Time-Capsule. Not the one Apple sold, but simply a Virtual Machine on my server acting as one. It's not even hard to set up (a bit harder now, because you have to run a rather old Debian, but other distros might work: Just Google "debian squeeze time capsule").
Unless your wife doesn't let you touch her machine, you have not much of an excuse.
It's impossible (okay, statistically improbable) that all of his machines have power line problems.
I had similar issues, except I stopped buying SSD after too many failures on totally different machines. Several Kingston, several Patriot, several Trancend, one Mushkin. Sure, none of the highly praised Samsungs. This was - of course - over 5 years ago, so I suspect they really had issues by being too new. Early adopter tax. I fell for it again. It put me off from SSDs for a long time. It's not that I lost any data, but the time lost was significant.
Only in November last year, I've gave them a try again. I got myself a Crucial MX300 275G which had excellent capacity/price ratio back then (something like 75EUR). I decided to give it a hard time and do LUKS full disk encryption. Since I had no problem with it, I decided to upgrade another laptop but the prices had soared significantly. Decided for a 128GB AData SU800. It also will be full disk encrypted. Installed it yesterday, can't say how reliable it is.
Neither of these machine will hold any significant data, because all SSD failures I had in the past were basically "sudden refusal to work at all". One day they worked, the other day: dead.
Well, I was just pointing it out because it's not well advertised. VirtualBox works very well for my needs, but I saw you do USB development, so I really can't compare. There should be VMWare for Linux, though. I don't really use VMWare, but their tools are really good. I used VMware vCenter Converter to convert an existing installation to a vmdk and put it into VirtualBox. Worked like a charm.
I've always had problems with USB in VirtualBox on Linux
Have you tried the closed VirtualBox extension pack? Either go download them here (second bullet point), or if you use Ubuntu (like I do), just use the provided package that provides a downloader: "virtualbox-ext-pack".
Highly qualified worker programs in the EU. Took Luxembourg, but it seems many EU countries have this (look at the left hand side drop-down). Link goes to Luxembourg, because that's where I live. It requires "at least five years specialised professional experience", but I'm pretty sure the PhD part of your experience counts for that.
I understand you don't want to continue in Physics, but you might want to try to get a foot in the door around here first. We happen to have a very young university, that's always hiring. Profiles like yours sound like something they might want to hire. Look here.
Did it complain about the graphics drivers not being compatible? You can work around that, I don't remember how, but Googling the message was enough to find a relatively straightforward solution.
You can still upgrade using the assistive technologies workaround. Still works, just did it last week on a second hand laptop I acquired. It came with 7, I upgraded to 10, to secure the license and then installed Linux. I don't use Microsoft, but I do not want to remove the choice for anyone who might get the machine after me. (That future person can now use 7, 10 and any free operating system).
I built a J1900 based desktop for my mother in law. I personally wasn't all that convinced for desktop usage of that one. The N3150 and the J1900 are quite comparable. I used to run Ubuntu desktops on Atoms (notably the 330, D425, and the D525), but it turned out the graphic chipset got less and less well supported over time and they became slugs. That's where my dislike of anything Atom based comes from. From what I know the newer Celerons get true Intel Graphics, which is why I tried the J1900 for my mother in laws machine. Perhaps it's just the 4GB RAM and it using a classic HDD, but I wouldn't like to use it on a daily basis. (Turns out, neither does she... so, meh...)
Of course, for firewall any modern Celeron will do. I guess that the Atom based ones even have an edge because they have more cores. Depending on what deamons you run, that might turn out better than Core based ones that are pretty much all Dual Core without Hyperthreading.
I know it's unpopular here in slashdot, but Celerons are awesome. Well, awesome to a certain extent. You need to know what you use them for. First of all, you need to know there are two types of Celerons. Those based on Atom technology and those based on Core technology. Guess which ones you want to avoid? Yes, indeed.. You don't want the Atom based ones.
Fortunately, in the mobile space, this is easy to determine. Look at the model number: if it starts with a letter, it's based on Atom. Just don't buy it. However, if it starts with a a number (may, but not must have a trailing letter), you are looking at Core based Celerons. Those are actually, very good. They make decent desktops for light users. Sure, you're not going to do some heavy CAD/CAM on them or high-end gaming, but for someone doing Office work they are fine. I have a user running a database on it (for specialized software related to his farm), and I have a Celeron running as a Xen host with a few light-use VMs on them. Works fine.
For desktop Celerons, I am not completely sure how to identify the lame Atom ones. From what I remember, if the model number starts with a "J", avoid them.
Now, of course, the described laptop is an Atom based one... So, I wouldn't buy it.
All the governments (Okay, all Western countries governments) of the world. Microsoft has them by the balls. Even suggesting anything else doesn't come over well...
I have an optimus laptop (Dell L502x) and run Ubuntu 14.04 on it. No issues. Installed just fine with the intel driver (Duh!). I do have the proprietary drivers installed now, but it works fine. Switching from Intel to NVidia and inversely does require a login/logout. Not very practical, but good enough if you really really really need that NVidia card for a game.
All you need to fix this, is put humans between the SAP system and the rest of the backend. A few mindless data-input jobs and a license for each of them is - by definition - going to be cheaper. Call it a "human license firewall" if you want.
Slashdot Mirror
Anybody know what software they use?
It definitely is. Gedit has been cited already, but what pissed me off more is gnome-terminal: the double click selection behaviour cannot be configured in the GUI any more. You need a CLI command reminiscent of registry manipulations on Windows. Insanity for a terminal. The definition of a tool used by power users...
Can you actually still do anything, or have all useful features been removed?
Americans seem to think that. True if you are in a big city like Berlin or Paris... Anything else... not so much.
(This is from memory, so, might vary a bit)
It now switches to the processes tab, and all services associated with that svchost.exe will be highlighted. You can bet that "wuasrv.exe" (Windows Update Service) will be amongst the ones selected.
Another way to see whether it's Windows Update, is go to the services control panel and stop the Windows Update service. If the CPU usage goes to normal, your Windows Update is messed up. I have given up trying to fix it, and just set the Windows Update service to "disabled" now.
My main OS is Linux any way, so for the really occasional use of Windows, I can live with an unpatched version. This is -of course- unacceptable for people who use it as a main OS.
Interestingly, I have two virtual machines where I did exactly that (This is documented on a few Windows fora, but Windows fora are so low in quality compared to Linux fora that they are very frustrating). Still ended up with a wuaserv.exe hogging a CPU. A Win7 without update is fine, in most use-cases for virtual machines.
Often the generic stuff works just fine. In the case of Ryzen on 7 (or XP), I'd just expect to see a few warnings in the device manager. Sure, some stuff might not work (integrated USB 3.x controllers, and stuff like that)... Obviously I'd need to try, but I doubt it won't "work at all".
Regardless... It is not clear whether those chips won't work at all or just will not deliver all functionality (power management, automatic overclocking, etc...). Newer Intel chips also are only supported on Windows 10, but they're still x86-64 chips, so it should run x86-64 code. I doubt Windows 7 will plainly refuse to run on any of these chips.
Windows 7 is EOL in three years. While I personally think it's one of the best systems made by Microsoft (and I'm a full time Linux user), it's doomed, just like XP was doomed. (Oh, and Vista is EOL next month.... Nobody is sad to see that bastard die, except of course for those people who will now be forced to buy a new machine. Like my neighbours: their machine did what it needed to do, but I expect them to come ring at my door somewhere during April.)
Don't need to convince me. I've been very wary about SSDs the last years. I just store my stuff on my server now, which has spinning platters and a spinning-platter backup.
Which boils down to: Don't buy SSDs on a budget. HDDs are fine on a budget. Confirms that i've been doing it right.
I am price conscious and I did the same with disks. No problem whatsoever.
Sorry, it's just really a bad argument.
However, wouldn't that reflect in odd behaviour in all electronics? That would stand out, no?
Unless your wife doesn't let you touch her machine, you have not much of an excuse.
I had similar issues, except I stopped buying SSD after too many failures on totally different machines. Several Kingston, several Patriot, several Trancend, one Mushkin. Sure, none of the highly praised Samsungs. This was - of course - over 5 years ago, so I suspect they really had issues by being too new. Early adopter tax. I fell for it again. It put me off from SSDs for a long time. It's not that I lost any data, but the time lost was significant.
Only in November last year, I've gave them a try again. I got myself a Crucial MX300 275G which had excellent capacity/price ratio back then (something like 75EUR). I decided to give it a hard time and do LUKS full disk encryption. Since I had no problem with it, I decided to upgrade another laptop but the prices had soared significantly. Decided for a 128GB AData SU800. It also will be full disk encrypted. Installed it yesterday, can't say how reliable it is.
Neither of these machine will hold any significant data, because all SSD failures I had in the past were basically "sudden refusal to work at all". One day they worked, the other day: dead.
Well, I was just pointing it out because it's not well advertised. VirtualBox works very well for my needs, but I saw you do USB development, so I really can't compare. There should be VMWare for Linux, though. I don't really use VMWare, but their tools are really good. I used VMware vCenter Converter to convert an existing installation to a vmdk and put it into VirtualBox. Worked like a charm.
Have you tried the closed VirtualBox extension pack? Either go download them here (second bullet point), or if you use Ubuntu (like I do), just use the provided package that provides a downloader: "virtualbox-ext-pack".
I understand you don't want to continue in Physics, but you might want to try to get a foot in the door around here first. We happen to have a very young university, that's always hiring. Profiles like yours sound like something they might want to hire. Look here.
Good luck.
Did it complain about the graphics drivers not being compatible? You can work around that, I don't remember how, but Googling the message was enough to find a relatively straightforward solution.
You can still upgrade using the assistive technologies workaround. Still works, just did it last week on a second hand laptop I acquired. It came with 7, I upgraded to 10, to secure the license and then installed Linux. I don't use Microsoft, but I do not want to remove the choice for anyone who might get the machine after me. (That future person can now use 7, 10 and any free operating system).
Of course, for firewall any modern Celeron will do. I guess that the Atom based ones even have an edge because they have more cores. Depending on what deamons you run, that might turn out better than Core based ones that are pretty much all Dual Core without Hyperthreading.
Fortunately, in the mobile space, this is easy to determine. Look at the model number: if it starts with a letter, it's based on Atom. Just don't buy it. However, if it starts with a a number (may, but not must have a trailing letter), you are looking at Core based Celerons. Those are actually, very good. They make decent desktops for light users. Sure, you're not going to do some heavy CAD/CAM on them or high-end gaming, but for someone doing Office work they are fine. I have a user running a database on it (for specialized software related to his farm), and I have a Celeron running as a Xen host with a few light-use VMs on them. Works fine.
For desktop Celerons, I am not completely sure how to identify the lame Atom ones. From what I remember, if the model number starts with a "J", avoid them.
Now, of course, the described laptop is an Atom based one... So, I wouldn't buy it.
All the governments (Okay, all Western countries governments) of the world. Microsoft has them by the balls. Even suggesting anything else doesn't come over well...
Cool. I'll try that! Thanks :-)
I have an optimus laptop (Dell L502x) and run Ubuntu 14.04 on it. No issues. Installed just fine with the intel driver (Duh!). I do have the proprietary drivers installed now, but it works fine. Switching from Intel to NVidia and inversely does require a login/logout. Not very practical, but good enough if you really really really need that NVidia card for a game.
All you need to fix this, is put humans between the SAP system and the rest of the backend. A few mindless data-input jobs and a license for each of them is - by definition - going to be cheaper. Call it a "human license firewall" if you want.