Computer operating systems

[DickieG]

Or were you using a Windows machine and hit the keyboard with your head in frustration?

Windows, frustration, rubbish, three words that go together, like you Jim the only time I use a windows computer at home is for Lexia

[CitroJim]

Windows, frustration, rubbish, three words that go together

A new version of Ctrl, Alt, Delete

I still have to earn my money using Windows but luckily it's just a tool to display the results of my work and I don't touch Windows itself thank goodness...

Seriously, looking at the latest OSX and the newly released Linux distros they do leave Windows trailing a mile behind. It'll be interesting to see if the new Windows 10 can catch them up.

The other massive problem with Windows in my eyes is it is so vulnerable to every scam and plish going. It's no fun trying to clean up a badly infected Windows machine at all. In fact I've converted a few of their owners to the joys of Linux

When you have a well stuffed Windows PC that crawls along at the speed of an arthritic sloth the blinding speed of a good Linux distro can be very compelling... And in my experience people have little difficulty in making the switch to something like Ubuntu...

[myglaren]

Just seen that Android has been targeted by malware.

The Beeb.

Android users are being warned that several popular apps that were on the official Google Play store appear to have contained hidden code that made malicious ads pop up.

Security firm Avast said that one of the apps involved - a free version of the card game Durak - had been downloaded up to 10 million times, according to Google Play's own counter.

[CitroJim]

I thought for a moment it was going to be Tapatalk they'd targeted but then again they needn't have bothered as it's malware anyway following it's latest update...

[Zelandeth]

I really need to start thinking about where I'm going to be going next for my desktop which is still running Ubuntu 10.04LTS (I think...). Know it must be approaching the end of support now. Ubuntu I won't touch with a barge pole after they foisted Unity or Gnome 3 on us, and to be honest I've never really managed to wrap my brain around KDE. Gnome 3 while slightly more sensible than Unity, has some key design features which I find really annoying.

Most likely will be Mint (insert current iteration version here) as I've had pretty good luck with that on my laptop, which has been running 14 for a couple of years now. I like what they've done with the MATE interface - read emulating the appearance/functionality of Gnome 2.x reasonably closely.

Windows 8 I have thankfully managed to avoid too much contact with, though one of my housemates does have a machine running it. Generally any encounters I have with the thing result in me wanting to hurl it out of the nearest window within 30-60 seconds of starting doing whatever I am!

Having said that, I get along with Windows 8 in general better than I do with any version of Office with the "Ribbon" interface. I can pretty well guarantee that whatever they did during the design testing phase of that stupid thing it did not include running it past someone who's slightly autistic. The main thing it reminds me of is the interface used by Protracker back in the 90s, which had a giant button bank covering a significant portion of the top part of the screen which changed depending which function you had selected. At least it was consistent in its layout though, so was easier to follow!

Two things generally throw me off - a mass of meaningless icons and inconsistent layout. Oh...wait...the two things which define the Ribbon!

Think if I had to pick a favourite of the systems I've used it would probably have to be XP or Windows 2000. They both just quietly got on with what you told them to do without trying to be too clever and predict what coloured socks you want to wear a week on Tuesday. For all its limitations, I enjoyed 3.11 as well, and had a system running that alongside a horrifically hacked together Amiga right up until I ended up on XP when I started Uni and basically had to relent and get something that could run the software they threw at me!

Still have the Amiga somewhere mind you, and the Windows 3.11 box (running on a 100MHz 486 DX4 with whatever the maximum amount of memory you could have under that OS - the thing used to fly, especially as most of the active bits of the OS and major applications were thrown into RAM on startup). Need to dig them out sometime.

[CitroJim]

Have a look at Ubuntu 14.04 Zel. It's good I use it...

Also, look at Fedora 21. I use that too and it's pretty good.. Runs Gnome...

I saw a Tech. Preview copy of Windows 10 the other day. Looks slightly promising, almost like a combination of Win7 and Win8. Looks like Mr. Gates has listened to some of the criticism but how much is still to be seen...

Windows lovers are already getting moist about it...

I'll be sticking with Linux...

[myglaren]

Have a look at Ubuntu 14.04 Zel. It's good I use it...



I'll be sticking with Linux...

Same here.
Use both Ubuntu Utopic Unicorn and Mint Rebecca.

Had a new printer to install last week. around 30 seconds each for Ubuntu and Mint, 5-10 minutes for Win 8.

[Ben82]

Well I've only gone and started dual booting Ubuntu 14.04 with Windows 8.1. Had it for about a week so far.

Main reasons for dual booting were:
1) cygwin started to feel sluggish a lot of the time, and linuxy things I wanted to try out failed miserably.
2) Considering I was using cygwin a lot for work along with Cross platform programs. And had a VM which was effectively running LXC for "sub-VMs", it seemed like just running a Linux Distro was the right thing to do.

Went for Ubuntu 14.04 for the main reason that searching for my laptop model for running linux it was pretty much the only one that came up. (my laptop has a UEFI BIOS and has a warning stating not to reinstall the OS). It did also come up with a Hackintosh guide but considering with that the built in ethernet and wifi both don't work, it was not a wise option

Also whilst I probably could have tried Mint, I didn't really want to go for an OS trying to appeal to Windows converts, as with that I would probably be sorely disappointed, and not really give it enough of a go.

My thoughts? Overall... really good, Linux has come a long way since I last used it as a main desktop OS (last time was back when Gentoo was the cool kid in town so 2002-2003ish at a guess), and can see it is much more accessible than it used to be.

That said, there are still things that can really screw you over. Trying to install the latest NVIDIA driver for the Optimus setup in my laptop, either from the installer or the ppa, would cause meltdown, after entering in the password Unity etc would refuse to load, nothing to say something was wrong either, just would sit there with the backdrop, the other login options I had did the same too. Getting everything working again, was part guess work and part googling in Links from the CLI. Something that your average joe would not be able to handle, and something that Windows said goodbye to in Vista, where graphics driver issues were handled with a fallback, and it actually telling you what was wrong.

Audio management is a bit on the frustrating side, having pulseaudio installed seems to have made some developers lazy of actually being able to select output devices (specifically Skype and I've seen it elsewhere too) Skype is the most annoying as I want the ringing sound to be coming out of my laptop speakers and the comms via the headset, something that has only just returned in the Windows version of skype, after what seems like a long hiatus. Annoying thing is the option is there in the Linux one, but you can only select PulseAudio to handle it. Skype also doesn't seem to send different IDs to pulse audio for both types anymore, so can't even configure it within the pulse audio configuration.

Having to install something so my iPhone would charge when plugged in was a bit on the bizarre side.

As above didn't want a Windowsy feel to it, so Unity is a semi-good-fit, I have customised it so the launcher for the most part is hidden away, and I use cairo dock for app switching. This still allows me to use my windows key muscle memory with Dash for launching some programs. I did try Gnome Shell but something isn't working correctly with it, and icons aren't showing etc, but I had pretty much decided by then that I like the setup that I had customised.

I've also upgraded the kernel to 3.18, which I think one of the highlights was improvements to suspend and hibernate, and it doesn't disappoint, hibernation speed is ridiculously fast, and suspend is practically instant.

Firefox (maybe just the dev edition on linux) seems to have an issue with the gifv format.

Still plenty I want to sort out. My CTRL+Shift+1,2,3,4 shortcuts for uploading varying screenshots depending on what number is pressed. I know I script it with Shutter, but it's just actually doing it Want to find a gmail client I like (though that's not an exclusive issue to linux as I've gone off the Thunderbird and Outlook style clients), for windows I did find Mailbird which I really liked, but it's constant IO read writes had me concerned for my SSD, and for battery life. At the moment I use Geary, which is OK, but isn't entirely perfect.

Oh I did try to run the fedora 21 installer from a USB stick, it paniced when it couldn't finish bringing X up for some reason. I gave up trying to go down that path anyway, since I figured Ubuntu would be a good way to test the waters anyway.
Happy to hear any recommendations for what to install in Ubuntu

[CitroJim]

Pleased Ubuntu 14.04 is finding some favour with you Ben. I know it's a bit of a sea-change after Windows but it's worth it in the end... It would take something very special to happen to Windows now to make me forsake Linux... I like how Linux generally treats you as a mature adult rather than some little kid who needs constant nannying as Windows is wont to do.

Surprised Fedora 21 panicked as it's normally very well behaved.. Gnome on Fedora is even less like Windows than Unity is but it has a lot of benefits once you 'get' what it's up to.. I use Fedora and Ubuntu about equally these days and I'd be quite happy to live with either.

I'm also branching out into other Unix-like OSs now and busy getting to grips with OpenBSD for professional reasons... That's almost proper Unix!

I'm surprised at your comments on Thunderbird. It is the email client I keep coming back to. I have tried others but nothing quite cuts the mustard for me like Thunderbird does.. I'm just very disappointed it's not available on an Android device so that I could have it on my tablet. I like none of the Android email clients to be honest...

For webmail I use Squirrelmail. That's a pretty good all-rounder too but needs a few options installed to make it really usable...

[Ben82]

I have tried giving Gnome Shell a try in Ubuntu, but it seems to also be having issues. Icons seem to be missing, and it just doesn't seem right. I don't know whether it's because I told it to keep using lightdm rather than switching to gdm (from a quick google at the time, lightdm does everything gdm does, but is very lightweight). But I'm rather happy with Cairo-Dock, I may even look at investing some time to be able to remove most of unity in favour of the docks cairo dock provides, and just have that as my login selection.

With Fedora it could of course be something to do with the USB stick I was using, it was only a 1Gb stick so space was very tight on it, I probably could have tinkered about more to get it working, but by then Ubuntu was already installed and working pretty much out of the box, so didn't give it too much more thought.

On Thunderbird, I could possibly start using it again, but I've used it and it's commercial spin-off Postbox (which has much better support for gmail), for over 10 years, and it kind of just feels like I want something fresh and new

[myglaren]

Mentioned elsewhere that I installed a new printer recently and how simple it was.

My wife (doesn't live with me) was here today to hook her wireless printer up to her laptop (Win8).
Spent several hours, including deleting multiple old installations and actually following instructions instead of winging it as I usually do and failed miserably.

Picked my laptop up and her printer was printing and scanning wirelessly in less than two minutes (Linux Mint Rebecca). No discs, no downloads, just worked.

How anyone gets anything done with Windows8 is beyond me. Supposed to be quick and it's like treacle. And so counter-intuitive.

If I hadn't read other peoples accounts of their trials with it I wouldn't have got much beyond switching the laptop on.

In the end threw in the towel and printed via USB. Then it refused to draw in photo paper

[Ben82]

I think that mostly comes down to the printer manufacturer Steve. The HP Photosmart printer/scanner thingy we have here, if you google the make and model on the the printer itself, and download the driver for it you from HP themselves, it does not work at all. Downloading a driver with a similar model number gets it working.

HP LIP, which seems to be an "all-in-one" driver package, for most of their printers, was quite refreshing from past years of having to set up CUPS, which if I recall the last time I used it wasn't as painstaking as it used to be, but still was more hassle than it has been in Windows.

[myglaren]

Bugger, half page response and I inadvertently shut Firefox down

Oh well!

[CitroJim]

How anyone gets anything done with Windows8 is beyond me. Supposed to be quick and it's like treacle. And so counter-intuitive.

That's because you use Linux Steve... Most don't so they have no clue as to how it can be done far better... Ignorance is bliss...

[Ben82]

Well I think I've done my first thing in Linux that isn't possible in Windows (at least not with the hardware and version of Windows I have).

Bonded my laptop's ethernet and wireless connections, with the ethernet set as the primary. In short means the NIC and Wifi share the same MAC address, and the kernel decides essentially which one is responding on that MAC address on the network.

In simple terms means no disconnections and reconnections if I unplug or plug in the ethernet cable (which I do quite frequently throughout the day atm, as I'm trialling working at a standing desk, and still have to sit down for a while during the day). it gives me a lot more freedom, can be downloading a huge file or so, and still unplug the network cable, and it'll happily just carry on downloading it on the wifi, and to boot, if I plug it back in again, it'll start using the ethernet again.