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So it's happened; mom's venerable Dell has bit the dust and I'm being called on to find her a new laptop. Everything I've seen here and elsewhere says Windows 10 is a privacy nightmare and we're trusting Microsoft's forced automatic updates to not break the computer. Dell is still offering computers with Win 7 and 8.1, but Microsoft is pushing the OS upgrade hard and heavy. I'd love for her to let me set her up with Linux but she's devoted to Google Picasa (Google not porting their apps is another rant) and I'm not sure how often she's going to be calling me with some Windows only program she needs. And then there's Apple, which makes my fingers itch to type, but it's looking better and better. So, what is the collective wisdom of the Soylentils*?
- Is windows 10 really not that bad and just roll with it.
- Is Linux finally ready for Grandma?
- Stick with 8.1 and turn off all the updates?
- Shell out the cash for a Macbook?
*Irony duly noted.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday November 03 2015, @01:37PM
You can stop the Windows 10 upgrade more easily than that. Uninstall update KB3035583, and-- this is the crucial part-- blacklist it in Windows update. However, I would still see if I could switch her over to Linux. As others have pointed out, WINE is a strong possibility for those must-have Windows only apps. But really, better to move her over to open platforms. Ditch Word and its proprietary file format, and use LibreOffice. Thankfully, Flash is fading away, it's gradually losing its must-have status, and if there's some flash game website she can't live without, the last version of Flash that runs in Linux likely can run it. One caution is to be sure the new hardware is reasonably powerful, in part to compensate for the sometimes slower performance of WINE over native Windows.
MS has their ways of making it painful not to upgrade, as everyone should know. The old upgrade treadmill is still alive and kicking. Want to use the latest version of IE? Sorry, Windows 7 is no longer good enough for that. MS is still up to their tricks of slipping major changes into the security updates, as the whole "Get Windows 10" program and its obnoxious persistence and nagging amply shows. They can't be trusted to keep security updates about users' security, they keep expanding the scope.
(Score: 1) by SDRefugee on Tuesday November 03 2015, @02:21PM
Since I'm a retired sysadmin, I've set up quite a few local older folks with XUbuntu, in most cases when their older machine, still on XP, got choked up with malware and we discovered that they didn't have any recovery disks. Many of those people had me on their speeddials for help prior to the upgrade, and now I rarely hear from them. In the case of a needed Windows program, I've found that if the open-source version of Wine won't handle it, a $30/year copy of CrossOverOffice usually will. Lately, since Windows 10 has come out, I've also done some upgrades on brand new i5/i7 systems from big-box stores, that were infested with spyware, namely Windows 10.. A couple of these people had heard about the spy-ware aspects of Windows 10 and asked me about it, where I showed them some of the traffic analysis done on Windows 19, and both people told me to get rid of it. Since both had previously had older systems with XUbuntu, they knew what to expect with Linux and wanted to waste NO time getting Windows 10 off their new systems..
America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday November 03 2015, @06:33PM
People using windows most of their adult lives are more at home in KDE.
It could be they've stopped calling you because they've just stopped using the machine.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by joshuajon on Wednesday November 04 2015, @03:46PM
In my experience XFCE is a lot more intuitive than KDE when coming from Windows. One launcher menu and a taskbar is what these people need. NOt friggin "Plasma active activities" whatevertf those are.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday November 04 2015, @07:19PM
You don't have to use those, and the default install doesn't come with any.
Don't get me wrong, I like XFCE4, but KDE is far more powerful while at the same time easier to use.
I use it daily on OpenBSD, and any instance of Ubuntu.
Especially for new users, it presents a much more familiar interface, especially if you use classic style launcher (menu).
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by joshuajon on Thursday November 05 2015, @01:57PM
I'll admit I haven't used KDE in a few years. I remember being somewhat confounded by some of the UI elements though. It may have changed considerably since that time though.
My limited experience with Cinnamon also suggests that may be a good option for those making the transition from Windows.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Common Joe on Tuesday November 03 2015, @07:13PM
I did that, but it did not work on my wife's machine nor mine. That little bastard kept coming back.