Our household recently got a new computer with Windows 10. I knew the moment I saw the technomagical commercials about it on TV that I would hate it. Calling programs “apps” now? Having some fake Siri on by default? This is a desktop machine, assholes. We don’t even have a mic plugged into it. But of course, that’s not the worst part.
Restarting the computer to do updates with ZERO WARNING. And the updates taking ten times as long as in Win 7. We started this computer before noon and couldn’t use it for HOURS. Microsoft, I hate you so god damn much. I just hate Macs like 15% more, so keep up the good work. You just might drive me away yet.
If anyone wants to advocate for the libertarian penguin OS or otherwise platform war here, as long as your invective isn’t too ad hominem (against corporations and technology is OK), get into it. Sometimes people can learn something useful from those conversations, and it might be cathartic to gripe about the bastards who make our machines suck.
Also if anyone has a good set of bare minimum mods & setting changes to make Windows 10 cool, holla.
Hey GAS (is that an appropriate greeting? Please advise if not.) I feel your pain.
I was a long, content(ish) user of Windows XP. When the support plug was pulled, being a cheapskate, I went through the exercise of installing a dual boot with Ubuntu (14.04 LTS had just been released to much fanfare). I had a fair amount of pain doing so, primarily because I was using an older machine, and my video hardware was poorly supported.
Then my husband got me a new machine for my birthday (likely to reduce my swearing around the kids). I took a deep breath, shoved Windows 7 into a small partition (100Gb), installed Linux Mint and made Linux my primary boot. I’ve never looked back with any sort of fondness. There are definite drawbacks, and I would likely boot into Windows 7 if I played games outside of my Steam account, but there are real pleasures as well (e.g. no need to run an anti-virus package).
I won’t rattle on here (unless requested), but I will say that a lot of common applications have LInux versions or reasonable replacements.
GAS is coo, probably better in all caps than lower case. Re: common applications, the most important to me would be an internet browser (of course), Photoshop, and maybe a 3d program like Blender? Anyhow, I tried that there GNU Image Manipulation Program with the ableist abbreviation on for a walk and did not like it. Anybody know of digital art programs that work with Linux?
Worth reading: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/07/30/windows-10-privacy-settings/
Thanks! Very worth reading. Ugh.
The browser is easy–Firefox, Opera, Chromium and many others are available. If you’re test driving Linux Mint (which is easy to do), just select the “Software Manager” icon and you can search for packages and read the various reviews that have been submitted.
A photoshop replacement is tougher, as I’m only a casual user for image editing; GIMP does look to be the most popular. Mint is distributed with “ImageMagick”, but I didn’t like it at all.
I don’t use a 3d package.
One cool trick is that you can burn a Linux Mint image to either a DVD or a USB stick, boot from that and take it for a test drive without mucking up your existing Windows installation. I believe it’s also possible to install additional software onto a USB drive, but it’s been too long since I used this sort of sandboxing so I won’t swear to it. This page looks helpful for creating a bootable USB drive. This is the download page for Linux Mint.
A few notes. I recommend Mint for those that like the Windows XP style of desktop presentation and operation. Others will no doubt recommend other Linux distributions (there are many); I personally don’t care for Ubuntu’s desktop, but it is another distribution with a strong user base.
Thanks for the extensive info. I’m not likely to do that myself soon (not very tech savvy, focused on other stuff atm), but might be someone else reading this goes for it.
For the shared Windows 10 desktop computer in our house, my spouse’s work laptop, and my Dad’s computers, I installed the “Start10” replacement for the Windows 10 start menu after upgrading. This made the upgrade much easier for the family computer users that I support.
This provides you with a start menu that looks like the Windows 7 version … it’s a very low-cost add-on from Stardock Software:
https://www.stardock.com/products/start10/
They make a similar product called “Start8” for Windows 8.
Oh no! I’m about to upgrade to Windows 10 this coming Wednesday. I’ve been running Windows Vista and I haaaate it – I was hoping 10 would be better. *sigh*
Now I’m sad.
My wife should be better at responding to this because she is using her Kubuntu system for internet and her photos. Gor her photos she uses:
– Darktable
– Gwenview, which now also supports raw formats so sh eno longer need to convert her photos for browsing them.
– GIMP, her biggest problem with it is that it only supports a liumited number of colors (16 bits I think.
– Photoshop 7, which is gratis and I installed it a month ago. Didn’t hear her complaining yet, maybe she is not using it. You can install Windows programs on Linux systems when you have installed WINE (WINdows Emulator). I remember it took me longer to install than expected, about 2 hours. There are pages and youtube videos that explain how to install the different photoshop versions on Linux.
More welcome information, thanks to all. silver @8- I get machines rarely enough I can skip versions and never had Vista. For me the jury’s out on which is worse or better. Might be once the dust settles and fixes are made (particularly 3rd party fixes), 10 isn’t too bad. It’s just a headache out of the box for at least some of us.
Automatic
annoyancesupdates is only possible with an internet connection. Reportedly, “auto updates” can be turned off (and also reportedly, it still happens even after it’s turned off).I still use 7 and likely won’t waste my money on 10. If I don’t switch permanently to linux, my long term solution will likely be having two computers. One with windows will be for documents and work but unconnected to the internet, and the other a linux machine solely for web browsing. And if having two is unsustainable, there’s always bootable linux on a flash drive.
If one is weighing the Windows 7 / Windows 8 vs Windows 10 decision, here are two factors to consider:
(1) Windows 7 will continue to receive security updates until 14 January 2020. Windows 8 will continue to receive security updates until 10 January 2023.
(2) The free Windows 10 upgrades will be available until 29 July 2016.
So … if you’re planning on using a Windows 7 computer after January 2020 or a Windows 8 computer after January 2023 and want Windows security updates, the free upgrade to Windows 10 makes sense.
If you’re planning on getting rid of your Windows 7 computer before January 2020 or getting rid of your Windows 8 computer before January 2023 and you’re OK with your current version of Windows, there may be no reason to upgrade.
For what it’s worth, I’ve done 4 Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 upgrades and all have upgraded with minimal fuss (my dad’s desktop and laptop computers, spouse’s work laptop computer, household shared desktop computer).
With a free or low-cost app that give one back the Windows 7 start menu (e.g. Start10 or Classic Shell), the change to Windows 10 from WIndows 7/8 isn’t that drastic. And if you don’t want to bother with Windows 10 and don’t require Windows for software compatibility reasons, there are plenty of excellent Linux distros you can replace Windows on your PC (I’ve been using Ubuntu since 2007 — it’s a solid and user-friendly distro).
Windows 10 is microsoft’s idea of how to solve system administration. As usual, Microsoft appears to have assigned this problem to an intern with no experience.
I’ve been a professional IT type since 1984 and have seen systems come and go. What a lot of people don’t seem to realize is that Microsoft could suddenly dwindle to a nub and get absorbed into a software graveyard like Oracle. Cloud computing and BYOD can both be seen as corporate response to the cost of desktop system administration. Cloud and BYOD are trumesque protest votes but they are still protest votes.
Some Old Programmer @ #1 Nailed it.
Linux, stable, efficiently uses resources, not burdened by reams of useless crap, controllable, open source, internally consistent, free. There are a lot of good distributions but Mint, base on Ubuntu, makes it easy to try it and, if you like it, transition. There is a learning curve but also a lot of sources of advice and support.
Linux, with an extensive list of legacy drivers and efficient use of limited memory, is great for breathing life into older PCs. A machine that can’t run Windows 8 or 10 might still be a sweet browser and e-mail machine. It won’t be running the latest video games but it can still do real work and fills the need for a whole lot of younger and older users.
Great American Satan @10
Thank you for the kind words! I will hold out hope that it cannot possibly be any worse…
‘like Blender’ is, indeed, Blender on Linux based systems. As long as the graphics hardware is well supported, this should work.
This is great. Lots of useful information in one place, all I have to do is hit up my blog for it. Gracias y’all.
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Seconding Classic Shell to reimplement any of the older start menu styles. It’s free.
I had to do a bunch of specific Win10 tweaks manually, of course. Like removing the built-in apps that refuse to uninstall normally. (I didn’t use that particular guide at the time, but it looks better.)
Out of fastidiousness, you may want to create a local administrator account. Win10 really wants you on their cloud, depending on an internet connection and Windows Live just to log in. (and depending on them if you ever need to reset your password, boot disks only reset local accounts)
Anecdote: Someone once had me fix their laptop when their kid changed the password and forgot it, and the email microsoft would’ve sent the new password to was forgotten. My internet was seriously intermittent that weekend, which was lovely. After some extreme measures, I managed, but I had to abandon their live account. IIRC… Knoppix disk to replace an accessibility exe with a copy of cmd.exe, so I’d get an admin prompt at the login screen. Create a new local account. Take ownership and move all the files from one account to the other.
* After sleeping on it, I realized my anecdote involved Win8. *shudder*
Aww. Sorry about that. Thanks for your information just the same.
Most graphics programs that run on unix-like systems are also built for Windows. So, you can try any of them, like Gimp (it’s what you are used to — i don’t like PShop 🙂 )or Inkscape (vector graphics). Something “like Blender” would be… Blender. There are lots of others, if you just do a search for open source graphics programs, you’ll probably find tools or suites to do what you like in a manner that is comfortable and familiar for you.
As for Win10, this helps
http://www.downloadcrew.com/article/33968-win10_spy_disabler
but i haven’t done a lot of other research into keeping them out once you have the system the way you want it. I know a few that stripped out tons of stuff and ended up with a giant update like you, that put everything right back, all the extra dreck and the app store.
There is also this
http://www.classicshell.net/
Have been almost exclusively ubuntu flavored on my personal machines since ~2007; started with plain ubuntu+gnome then really liked fluxbox but eventually settled on Xfce. I’ve been using Xubuntu 12.04 since it was released and will upgrade to 16.04 when it gets released next month. VLC for media, firefox for internet, and nautilus for file browser. Have Wine installed for occasional nostalgia gaming trip and for netflix.
Last week I upgraded parent’s ~2009 Dell to Win10 from the much loathed Vista via Win8 install on a second hdd. Hard to believe there was something worse than Vista, but Win8 sure managed that. Disabled all the cloud/sharing crap during install and created only a local account, so not quite as much to worry about privacy-wise and I just ignore all the apps. Shortly thereafter I broke down and installed Win10 on an SSD in one of my machines because my netbook came with Win7 Home (that was immediately erased, but still had valid product key sticker) and have not found any CAD/CAM programs on linux that live up to expectations. Have not been using it long enough to know how bad it might be (only use it when necessary for CAD/CAM), but at least it is not lagging as much as Vista was and not as terrible as Win8.
F @21 – thanks for the warning about updates. MattP @22 – Sounds like for my purposes Blender will work fine if I switch.
I’ve been using Linux a very long time. A lot of the info above is useful. For non-technical users if you want Adobe Photoshop on Linux, yes you can use the WINE project. But you can also use Crossover from codeweavers.com if you prefer more polish. No videos required, installation would just require typing “Photoshop” into a search bar and selecting the version. From there it’s essentially just pointing it at the Photoshop installer (the thing you’d use to install it on windows), using default values and agreeing to licenses as it otherwise automates downloading and installing dependencies.
Crossover costs money (after a free trial period) but you’re paying for convenience and last I knew they were the biggest contributors to the WINE open source project, which powers Crossover.