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Microsoft Windows 7 or 8.1 users on Intel Kaby Lake or AMD Ryzen CPUs will not be able to download Windows updates.
Microsoft announced some time ago that new silicon as the company called it back then would not be officially supported on Windows 7 or 8.1.
This meant basically that only Windows 10 would support Intel's, AMD's and Qualcomm's new processors, while Windows 7 or 8.1 would not.
This does not mean that Windows 7 or 8.1 won't install on machines running these new processors, but that Microsoft (and the manufacturer) won't offer any form of support for those devices.
A new support page on the Microsoft website suggests that users who run an unsupported processor on an older version of Windows -- read Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 -- won't be able to scan for or download Windows updates anymore.
Users will get the following error message when they run the scan:
Unsupported Hardware
Your PC uses a processor that isn't supported on this version of Windows and you won't receive updates.
It looks like I'll be moving to BSD or Linux sooner than I planned.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday March 19 2017, @01:32AM (41 children)
Funny, that's what I thought too, years ago. Ubuntu 10.10 was my preferred operating system despite it being behind the times, and always Just Worked™...until it didn't. Firefox started hard-crashing with no warning (and no post-mortem, the window would just disappear with no kind of error message or confirmation) and reverting to earlier versions of Firefox or reinstalling the OS didn't correct the issue. I couldn't apt-get anything because of dependency issues, changed or obsoleted repo locations, and unresolvable deprecation problems (come on, this is APT, not RPM!). This all played out over a few years on the exact same hardware, by the way.
"Long-term stable," my ass.
So I tried different distros. Only two, and the both sucked. Mint had a catastrophic GRUB failure during install, and that's not something I'm willing to give a second-chance (actually, it did later install, and crashed and glitched frequently). I tried Xubuntu and found it to be horribly slow considering it was marketed as a "faster" version of Ubuntu.
This all by the way was on a P4 Dell Desktop with 2 GB RAM, not exactly the state of the art, but definitely workable. And Windows 7 didn't exhibit any unusual problems, so I settled with that until I scrapped that machine.
Recently I built for the first time in awhile a more modern machine. X64 i3-6300, Asus Republic of Gaymers Mobo with onboard Intel graphics, 8GB Patriot RAM, and unremarkable WD SATA drive. For Linux, Ubuntu Gnome Flashback on the latest LTS release is good enough but a lot of my favorite effects are missing from CompizConfig-Settings-Manager. And I'll get around to throwing that Linux drive back in whenever I get around to it, because I have Win7 on this drive and in my system now.
But anyway, the point I was trying to make before all that yammering was that an older version of Ubuntu became unusable on my plebian box despite having been an LTS release, and sure, I could have taken the time to get it working, but those are a class of problems I call "fiddling," and I'm too lazy for fiddling. You can extend fiddling to the physical world as well. What isn't fiddling is swapping out and calibrating a new part of an existing larger system. What is fiddling is troubleshooting a ground fault or deviated value in complex circuit by painstakingly swapping out all components until you have isolated the faulty one, but even in small parallel circuit boards that can be difficult, and in the case of compound failures, often impossible. So sometimes you just want to swap out the whole board, or in this case, the OS.
Mediocrity for the win!
(Score: 2) by http on Sunday March 19 2017, @02:13AM (3 children)
Well, that's what you get for using Ubuntu, which is based on debian's testing branch - which debian explicitly says is not suitable for production use.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday March 19 2017, @02:16AM (2 children)
Forgot to mention I also tried Debian stable, which had no features at all.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 19 2017, @04:40AM
But was the lack of features stable?
(Score: 3, Touché) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Sunday March 19 2017, @05:47AM
Common -- they support MRI machines [debian.org]. You can't complain it lack features, just because your hardware costs less than $2 million.
(Score: 3, Informative) by magamo on Sunday March 19 2017, @02:58AM (1 child)
I hate to break it to you, but Ubuntu 10.10 wasn't an LTS version. 10.04 and 12.04 were, but not 10.10, 11.04 or 11.10
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday March 19 2017, @03:18AM
I started with 10.04, but went downhill from there.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 19 2017, @03:04AM (3 children)
So you tried Ubuntu, then tried Mint (based on Ubuntu) and Xubuntu (self-explanatory), and in another comment, mention you also tried Debian (which Ubuntu is based on)? I can almost see a pattern here...
I'm not saying you necessarily would have had better success with any other distro, just that if you're trying to get away from an issue with one distro, the best strategy might involve trying another distro that is not intimately related. I'd recommend Arch (if you can live with systemd as default, other inits available but unsupported), but there are others who would swear by Suse, Fedora, or something else. (I'm assuming Gentoo (my current poison) and Slackware need not apply.) The point is not one of these in particular, but that any of them would be much less likely to share common faults with Ubuntu than the other options you tried.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday March 19 2017, @03:23AM (2 children)
When I'm ready to fiddle then I'll run Slackware and/or BSD, while touching upon SELinux for that paranoid user experience.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 19 2017, @01:36PM
Sounds exciting, keep us posted with the feelings.
(Score: 2) by ragequit on Monday March 20 2017, @03:37PM
Actually, my go-to is Slackware. 14.2 (w/KDE (FUCK Gnome)) has been running flawlessly so far.
The above views are fabricated for your reading pleasure.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 19 2017, @03:36AM (2 children)
Mileage varies. Depending on the alignment of the stars, how the old woman throws the bones, whether you've been laid recently, whether you'll ever get laid again . . .
I attempted Linux several times, before it "just worked". After at least half a dozen failures, I downloaded the then-current Suse Linux, and it installed itself with zero glitches. Of course, in my case, I had finally made the decision to go Linux because Microsoft didn't support my wireless, and I had read that a couple of Linux distros did.
Bush was fresh in office at the time. With Trump there now, the timing may be good for another EF attempt. Skunk season is starting too - if it fails again, try to hit a skunk, see if the smell helps.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DECbot on Sunday March 19 2017, @04:38AM (1 child)
When Xubuntu 12.04 was 6 months old, I put it on everything; AMD desktop, Dell mini 9, 32-bit Via C7 Eden, Intel P4, Intel i3.... It didn't matter, it ran perfect on everything. But now I'm starting to see the repository rot and software get slower just like EF saw on 10.10. I've switched the file server to FreeBSD, but I still don't have a solution for the laptop, desktop, media center, and the 32-bit web/email/MySQL server. I don't have the spare time to tinker anymore, so my options are quite slim.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Sunday March 19 2017, @05:52AM
I have to look up when I stopped using Ubuntu. It was around the 12.0 release. I was forcing the TV I was using at the time to work in 16:10 mode. Upgrade only let me choose the 16:9 and 4:3 modes it actually advertised :P
Currently using Mint. Don't like it. Plan to try Slackware (And FreeBSD -- I like it, but take way too long to configure stuff).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 19 2017, @04:35AM (4 children)
Hey so ethanol, where can i get those buffalo burgers in or near Long Beach? Remember, you promised to tell me.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday March 19 2017, @05:08AM (1 child)
I don't live in Long Beach. Get 'em in San Diego at Stone or any burger joint in North Park. But those are Bison, rather than Buffalo, burgers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @05:31AM
Alright, Bison. I don't have enough time to drive to San Diego on this trip. Maybe next time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 19 2017, @09:37PM (1 child)
This was a fairly simple easy Google. [google.com]
They even give a top recommendation.
Jim's Burgers, 3639 E 7th St, Long Beach, CA (@ Euclid Av.) [googleapis.com]
The Google-phobic who use a proxy server will get results that are a bit less useful.
archive.li's server is in the Netherlands. [archive.li]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20 2017, @05:34AM
Too tired now, i'll look into it later, but quickly looking i don't see any buffalo/bison in their menu.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Hairyfeet on Sunday March 19 2017, @04:47AM (13 children)
The Linux flag wavers can get pissed but the simple fact is there is zero point in Linux on the desktop because if they are one of those users that Linux often touts, the ones that ONLY surf the web, use email, etc? They are much better off with a tablet as they are more secure, easier to use, and don't have any driver issues or any of the other BS you get running a Linux desktop. And if they are one of those that require Windows for the programs they need/want? Well it makes absolutely no sense to pay for a copy of Windows to run in a VM with worse performance and more bullshit than just running it on the hardware just so you can say "I run Linux".
So there just isn't a point in running Linux on the desktop, not when you can get Android tablets for less than $100, its just pointless.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Sunday March 19 2017, @05:55AM (3 children)
Umm, most tablets run Android/Linux these days.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 19 2017, @02:23PM
Umm, most tablets run Android/Linux these days.
and the iThingies, don't forget them, they run some sort of fscked-about-with BSD under all the ooooh shiny!, buts shh, don't tell anyone..
In fact, the only tablets I've heard about which don't run any sort of Unix/Linux derivative are those Surface things, and I've not seen one IRL...
Personally, If I had to use one, I'd rather have a tablet running an OS with Unix rather than VMS lurking in it's DNA, but as I hate the fscking things in general, I'll stick with my netbook for 'portable computing' (Dual boot Win7/Kali).
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday March 20 2017, @03:48AM (1 child)
And they have no driver issues, no upgrade treadmill, and no bullshit like systemd which Linux has in spades again making Linux absolutely pointless on the desktop. BTW if you are gonna claim Android, a proprietary OS owned by Google [arstechnica.com] then you might as well claim all those other proprietary devices like TiVos and those embedded OSes on routers because hey, they don't have diddle shit to do with the four freedoms or anything else Linux actually stands for, but all that matters is the kernel...right?
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Monday March 20 2017, @04:01AM
You are the one complaining about the Linux desktop. If you were worried about the four freedoms [gnu.org], you should have specified GNU/Linux. Or, given your specific complaint, Systemd/Linux (not sure how much of the GNU userland systemd tries to replace).
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Sunday March 19 2017, @05:57AM
A tablet operating system's window management policy is on the whole less flexible, in many cases allowing only one window to be visible at a time. Want to read a document in half the screen and write a review in the other half? Too bad.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 19 2017, @06:28AM (3 children)
You're so full of shit it hurts, where to even begin. Sigh.
Are you saying there are more "Linux users" that only surf the web? Actually usually the users that are more knowledgeable tend to do more on computers. You really think a random tablet is more secure, really? Without having any idea what kind of security policies are in place and even if it spies on you like so many lovely pieces of proprietary software do these days? Easier to use you say... when you get a new gadget, you need to learn to use it, it makes little difference whether you learn GNU/Linux or some lame tablet thing. And drivers, eh? Are you aware that Linux runs from phones to supercomputers, unlike any other operating system? Thought so... The only BS I see so far is some hairy card carrying windoze luser spouting random crap at people here. Also, almost all computers you purchase these days come with a mandatory windoze license so it's not like most people haven't got one already.
And obviously you don't even mention freedom, the number one point of using GNU/Linux. Do you realize you seem as unbiased as North Korea you retarded fucker?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday March 19 2017, @12:55PM (2 children)
Yeah i find this attitude perplexing, especially on a site where users are presumably more technical. Linux is superior in every way for the technical user. Its development tools are superlative. Every layer is robust enough to handle the most intensive tasks in the world. You can optimize your system down to its foundation and not lose performance to malware/spyware. And for me best of all is you can keep peeking under the hood and learning as you go. The heuristic opportunities there are endless, and you never run into a wall where you have to pay more or take a course or sit on the phone for hours talking to some fellow in India who has less clue than you do.
And that's for technical users. Non-technical users can finally breathe a sigh of relief that Norton/McAfee have finally stopped bugging them and that MS itself has stopped hitting them up for money. Everything just works.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 19 2017, @01:45PM (1 child)
The explanation is the usual one, follow the money. Hairy is a MS guy through and through.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it! -- Upton Sinclair
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Sunday March 19 2017, @07:52PM
Poor Hairyfeet! I have a nice warm blankie and cup o' hot chocolate for him! This is only a relapse, he'll get over it as soon as the next Micro$oft patch comes out. But it does look like he has taken to hawking tablets for a living, rather than attempting the impossible, fixing Windows machines. Not much call for fixing tablets, especially when they are already "fixed".
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Sunday March 19 2017, @06:53AM
No the answer for the casual web surfer and emailer is a Chromebook. Costs less than an iPad and has a full keyboard and long battery life. The OS is just about unbreakable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 19 2017, @03:51PM
you're a fucking idiot and no one trusts your opinion. everyone i know uses Gnu+Linux, great grannies and all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 19 2017, @10:18PM
Used to see this guy at the Linux Mint forum regularly.
After switching to Linux, this (now retired) architect used FOSS exclusively. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [linuxmint.com]
...and with the folks who use tablets, there's an 80something percent likelihood they're running Linux.
It's been that way for years and years.
In that same time span, the presence of Windoze on handheld thingies has been under 4 percent and continues to dwindle.
Given a choice, folks avoid M$.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 20 2017, @07:59AM
I have to point out that most tablets are Linux. Well, Android, but Android uses the Linux kernel. Basically it's open source. Except, what few people realize is, your phone/tablet/whatever running Android generally belongs to the telco or whoever provided it. Unless the device is rooted, the device belongs to the supplier, not to the end user. If the device belongs to the supplier, then no, the end user cannot deem the device as "secure". The one exception to that rule, seems to be Apple's phones. They claim that they can't recover files from their phones, so maybe the device really does belong to the end user. Except - walled garden.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday March 19 2017, @05:14AM (8 children)
Sounds like you need to go into this stuff in a little more depth...I believe the children refer to this process as "git gud n00b."
Seriously; Arch is *easy.* Slack is a pain because it has no dependency checking, but there's something very soothing and old-school about it. Gentoo should run fine on that hardware, though it's OCD personified. FreeBSD will probably work fine too. The disadvantage of a curated solution like *buntu is that it *is* one-size-fits-all.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Hyper on Sunday March 19 2017, @11:24AM
I switched to Ubuntu 16.04 for the one-size-fits-all-NFW-will-I-run-windows-10 aspect.
So far, so good. Not wild about a couple of things. Interface needs tweaking. For all intents and purposes it replaces Windows except for Windows only games. I have dual boot for that.
IMOHO I cannot see why anyone now can't switch to linux. Except AAA gamers.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday March 19 2017, @08:54PM (6 children)
No, slack is LESS of a pain because it has no dependency checking, and because it 'lacks' a lot of other misfeatures as well.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday March 19 2017, @09:09PM (5 children)
There is a thin line between elitism and masochism, Arik :)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday March 20 2017, @09:28AM (4 children)
Automagical systems are masochistic but I don't see them as "elite" in any way.
I've spent a lot more time troubleshooting problems with such systems, than dealing with the 'problem' they are purported to solve.
When you take into account the relative amount of time spent using such systems, this looks REALLY bad. I've probably used Slack or similar systems about 98 hours for every 2 hours I've spent trying to use rpm or deb based systems, conservatively. And I've had one or two very minor issues of that nature with Slack, so easily solved they don't really stick in my head. On the other hand, as little as I've actually wound up using them, I've had occasion to spend many hours trying to repair the messes these things cause 'automagically' when they fail.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday March 20 2017, @04:26PM (3 children)
We've had different experiences then I guess. I've been using various flavors of Linux since 2004, starting with Gentoo (think about that one a moment...) and have had less than half a dozen package manager foulups, all of them within the first 4 or 5 years of that timeframe and most of them my own fault for screwing around with things I shouldn't have been. I like Slack, in that it's a kind of "set it and forget it" system, but I can get the same feeling and then some by using FreeBSD.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by Arik on Monday March 20 2017, @05:23PM (2 children)
The world is broad enough to allow for that I guess. ;)
"I've been using various flavors of Linux since 2004, starting with Gentoo (think about that one a moment...) and have had less than half a dozen package manager foulups, all of them within the first 4 or 5 years of that timeframe and most of them my own fault for screwing around with things I shouldn't have been."
I got into it in '94. I'd been using HP-UX and NeXT but those were expensive systems I could only get a timeshare on, and I wanted something like that on my own machine. I found the local SCO dealer, we got along well and had similar desires on that, and we started experimenting with Linux that would have been in 93, fighting SLS and trying to cobble together the right hardware and software to have a fully supported machine, we were on and off with that for several months. I'm thinking it was like March or April of 94 when we discovered Slackware. Shortly after that he quit selling SCO and started migrating people to Linux.
Anyway I've used all the main families but it's true to say I mostly used them years ago, and hopefully they've matured a bit since then. But I've seen RPM trash installed systems more than once. I've seen Debian go into endless loops installing the same packages over and over until forcibly stopped, and spent hours figuring out how to repair the damage.
I've never once seen Slackware do anything like that. If you install the wrong package you get an error message you can search on to find out what's missing. Install it and try it again. Not that many people will ever see that anyway - you can prevent them at the cost of some disk space (which everyone tells me is cheap) by just doing a full install if you want. But they never bothered me enough to care.
Sure if you do the wrong thing you can cause problems. IIRC one of the times I had an issue with Debian I had actually caused the problem by forcing the wrong thing, but that shouldn't cause such spectacular failure. Forcing the wrong package to install just results in a program that won't run, and it can be easily removed. Not so in a system that presumes to try to track and manage all installed software without needing (or permitting) manual intervention by the owner!
So I honestly think the whole package manager thing, at least when applied to a general purpose distro, is an excellent example of over-engineering, it fixes problems which are so minor and rare as be practically nonexistent, and creates a whole new class of much more serious problems in the process.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday March 21 2017, @12:18AM (1 child)
Heh, interestingly enough I've never used a .rpm distro for personal use. Their reputation for dependency hell preceded them. Most of the time I don't use .deb distros either; it's been a long, continuing love affair with Gentoo, with Arch brought in when my hardware isn't powerful enough, and some dabbling in *BSD. Vanilla Debian never broke on me, but I've also always installed these systems from the minimal .iso and frankly the idea of a Mint or Ubuntu type experience (disk in, say Next a lot, wait, bang full system) still feels really weird. You are correct about Slack insofar as the base system is concerned but heaven help you if you start adding stuff outside the tree.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday March 21 2017, @02:01AM
"You are correct about Slack insofar as the base system is concerned but heaven help you if you start adding stuff outside the tree. "
I really never found that problematic at all. Between the main site and the user supported sites like slackbuilds it's very rare not to be able to get a binary package for anything substantial, but when that happens it's super easy to deal with, since slack is makescript friendly and the package manager works with me instead of against me I just do a standard install. (Another issue I've had when I try other distros is that they really don't seem to want to tolerate programs installed the standard way, which to me is just stupid, and annoying, why would I want to deal with that?)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?