Thread: Changing Windows

Originally Posted by p38arover

I've tried Linux several times but keep coming back to Windows. I can't get comfortable with Linux

your not the only one. i use linux daily in my job. every server we run is linux.
for my desktop, its windows, as its everyone in the team except for one person who runs windows in a VM.

over the years ive dried dozens, probably close to 50 linux distributions. and i always come crawling back to windows. linux just doesnt have a distro that makes me go wow.

Well I have been fiddling this morning and found that I can see public pictures etc on the Ubuntu, and I have found and mounted a printer driver for a network printer HP 3110 and printed.It printed even though windows was not opened with my password on the printer server which surprised me.

It all seems painless and it has made the EEEPC actually useful and probably a bit faster than my old HP Compaq Presario C793 running Vista Home Basic and Trend Micro. The Trend Micro 2015 seems to slow the machine down heaps.

I wonder if there are any mapping programs available like Mudmap as I have a bluetooth GPS which should work on the EEEPC but is not "approved " by Apple so will not work on my Ipad 1, and it is only written for Ios 6 onward anyway.AGGGH.
Pity we poor people who cannot afford the latest and greatest but rely on hand me downs and gifts.
Regards Philip A

Originally Posted by PhilipA

Pity we poor people who cannot afford the latest and greatest but rely on hand me downs and gifts.

I can afford it but I hate throwing out perfectly useful stuff.

However, I think I have to bite the bullet and toss out my old Toshiba Satellite 4030CDT laptop as the power supply has died. I could probably adapt something. This laptop runs Win 2000 (the only late Windows that I can get to run in the maximum 192kB of memory the Toshiba will accept). The laptop has been monitoring my solar generation and power consumption for the past 4 years. I have a few other laptops but no power supplies.

Originally Posted by vnx205

A tiny number of people need to stick with Windows.

A lot of people think they need Windows, sometimes because they are completely unaware that there is an alternative. Some of them have heard of Linux but think it is for geeks or that they will lose all their old files.

Unless you run some very specialised programs such as an expensive accounting package or a very powerful photo manipulation program, there is a very good chance that you would be able to do everything you need to do with Linux. That is especially true if your computer is a few years old.

If the only important files you have are some documents, some spreadsheets, some Powerpoint presentations, some music, some photos, and some videos, then there are Linux programs that can handle them.

I have had to help someone recently who has an Apple computer of some sort. He says he is saving the documents as Word files and they do have a docx extension. The Windows/ Microsoft Office based computer that he then has to open them on won't open them. Open Office on a Linux computer opens them automatically with no problems whatsoever.

If most of your computer needs involve browsing, sending and receiving emails, tidying up photos, organising photos, writing documents, creating spreadsheets and things like that, then there is no need to pay for a newer version of Windows and certainly no need to buy a new computer.

Have you considered Linux or are you one of the very tiny minority of computer users that have a genuine need to stick with Windows?

Linux still has a lot of hardware limitations. I've found older versions are still available for older hardware, but trying to get repositories to work is beyond the average computer hack.

I will get there eventually, but it's far from easy.

I worked out why the EEEPC was so slow last night.

It was downloading 51! updates, then today took a couple of hours to install said 51 updates then another while to configure said 51 updates.

I had to reload UBUNTU as somehow I buggered up installing it and the boot would now not recognise the USB. So now I am waiting to reboot using UBUNTU once again.

I just shut it down an hour ago and now it is installing 19 updates before it will shut down.. It's now at 12 0f 19 . I suppose that is is the penalty of not using a computer for 6 months , and having auto update enabled.

BUT it sure makes you think of how many attacks there are on Windows that they need 70 updates to counter vulnerabilities in about 6 months.

Regards Philip A

My XP laptop is dual boot - XP and Ubuntu.

It was originally bought with XP SP1 in 2003 but has been upgraded to SP3.

In XP SP3 it is painfully slow - to the point of being almost unusable. Yes, I have tried reformatting and reinstalling XP.

With Ubuntu, it is still quite quick. Too bad I have no use for it as a Linux machine except to try to learn Linux. I still need it for XP.

I don't want to start a "my operating system is better than your operating system" debate. I am interested in people's experiences with Linux.

If I can learn about something that either prevented someone using Linux or simply dissuaded them from using it, then that might be useful for me to know if I am recommending Linux to a friend. If I know what stops other people, it might help me work out whether suggesting trying Linux is advisable for a particular person.

Dougal, when you say that Linux has a lot of hardware limitations, especially with older hardware, that surprises me. All of my hardware is fairly old and all of it was actually someone's cast off equipment. That has been the case for the last 15 years or so. My graphics card is very ordinary. I have a Brother HL-2040 laser printer and a Canon MP450 multi function printer and every Linux distro I have played with has recognised them immediately. I didn't need to download anything to get then to work.

I suppose that it only takes one bit of incompatible hardware to create a problem and I suppose if my particular hardware works then naturally I don't see that there is a problem. If I do have a problem, then it doesn't help much to know that someone else had no problems Do you know of some specific examples of hardware that creates a problem?

I often hear people say that they tried Linux and didn't like the way it did things so they went back to Windows. Is that just because Linux is different? Anything different is likely to seem worse at first, but when you become accustomed to it, then it might actually be just as good or better. Remember the recent thread about indicator stalks on the left on European cars and on the right on Japanese cars?

I am not doubting people's experiences and their reasons, but could some of those people give me a couple of specific examples of things that turned them off Linux; either things that could not be done or things that were much harder to do.

There are certainly some programs that some people need to use that really only run satisfactorily under Windows. However the range of Linux programs available is increasing all the time. Maybe there wasn't a suitable alternative five years ago, but maybe there is now. Is it the case that sometimes people expect to find the exact equivalent when all they really need is something that will do the job they need to do?

Once again, can someone give me some specific examples of tasks they need to do that can only be done on Windows programs. I don't mean highly specialised tasks. I am more interested in tasks that ordinary home computer users might have to do.

I am conscious of the fact that the tone of this post looks as if it is developing into a criticism of anyone who isn't sufficiently enlightened to see the benefits of converting to Linux. I apologise for that, but it was often the easiest way to put my questions into some sort of context.

I am not trying to convert you. I am genuinely interested in learning more about Linux and knowing something of other people's experiences with it is part of that.

Originally Posted by p38arover

My XP laptop is dual boot - XP and Ubuntu.

It was originally bought with XP SP1 in 2003 but has been upgraded to SP3.

In XP SP3 it is painfully slow - to the point of being almost unusable. Yes, I have tried reformatting and reinstalling XP.

With Ubuntu, it is still quite quick. Too bad I have no use for it as a Linux machine except to try to learn Linux. I still need it for XP.

Your laptop may be more powerful than my desktop computer, but I would have thought that given the age of your machine, another distro based on Ubuntu might be a better choice.

My computer happily ran Ubuntu for several years and I seem to be part of a rather small group that quite likes Unity. However I had to run the 2D version and when they dropped the 2D version, my graphics card just couldn't cope. It was just too slow.

I tried Lubuntu and everything was back up to speed, but I came across LXLE and found that for a number of reasons it suited me better. It is based on Ubuntu, so I still do almost everything the way I used to.

Have you tried one of the distros aimed at lower spec machines or is your laptop very powerful for its age?