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As a followup to an earlier blog post at Ubuntu's blog about why those on Windows 7 should upgrade to Ubuntu, the same blog has a post about how to actually do it.
A few days ago, Rhys Davies wrote a timely article, titled Why you should upgrade to Ubuntu. In it, he outlined a high-level overview of what the end of support of Windows 7 signifies for the typical user, the consideration – and advantages – of migrating to Ubuntu as an alternative, and the basic steps one should undertake to achieve this.
We'd like to expand on this idea. We will provide a series of detailed, step-by-step tutorials that should help less tech-savvy Windows 7 users migrate from their old operating system to Ubuntu. We will start with considerations for the move, with emphasis on applications and data backup. Then, we will follow up with the installation of the new operating system, and finally cover the Ubuntu desktop tour, post-install configuration and setup.
The upcoming Long Term Support (LTS) release will have not just the usual five years of regular support but an optional additional five years for those that decide to pay. That would be 10 years starting from April, 2020.
Previously:
Ditching Windows: 2 Weeks with Ubuntu Linux on a Dell XPS 13 (2018)
How to Create a Custom Ubuntu ISO with Cubic (2018)
Debian vs. Ubuntu: What's the Difference? (2017)
(Score: 4, Informative) by aristarchus on Friday January 31 2020, @04:49AM (6 children)
50? Sorry, Barb, 25 of those were probably mine, and they were dealt because you lie. I have not used Windoze since win95. I have always found linux to be more than adequate as an operating system. Yes, there were rough spots with things like proprietary wifi drivers, but linux has always been ahead of Windows on things like usb. I get the idea that you are a disenfranchised proprietary code developer, who cannot understand how someone could possibly do something just for the betterment of humanity, like produce a free and open operating system for personal computers. Perhaps you should have a talk with the TMB on this. He makes a living coding, and has enough free time to support SoylentNews as well. Free software makes all this possible. Now, if you need to use proprietary software, I'm sorry, but you are already screwed. But you probably know that from the accessibility programs you have been forced to use. Free software has more than lived up to its promise, and this despite well-funded programs of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt, and Microsoft shills such as yourself. Please stop.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @06:54AM (4 children)
I know this will probably be modded down as offtopic or troll or whatever but I have to say it. I read that comment and though it was really good. Then I checked the name and saw "aristarchus" and literally said "holy fuckin' shit" out loud. With a glimpse of the humanity below, my opinion of you has shifted a bit. Well done.
Now, I await your next nonsensical and over the top comment to deposit me back into my comfort zone.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday January 31 2020, @07:27AM
Wait, please read before judging. Most aristarchus posts, and submissions, are exquisitely rational. It is only the attempt to smear my posts that produces the reaction you had. So seriously, read. The TMB, lo these many years ago, thought that I was trying to paint "ironic" libertariantards like him with a broad "Rand Paul" alt-right brush. Turns out, with recent TMB fake news journals, and TMB defenses of the Traitor Trump (IMPOTUS #3!), that once again, like with the heliocentric model, aristarchus is correct.
I only humbly ask, as any and all philosophers do, that you merely listen to my theories, and make up your own mind.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @08:34AM (1 child)
There's nothing stunning or brave about an anti-M$ comment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 31 2020, @08:34PM
Sometimes it's not what you say, it is how you say it. And that was more than just an anti MS comment anyway.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by hendrikboom on Monday February 03 2020, @04:17AM
Aristarchus is quite intelligent and entertaining, though I have my doubts about him being thousands of years old and still alive to post here.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday January 31 2020, @05:18PM
I have NEVER been a Microsoft shill. I've been the one that's brought linux into the companies I worked at. However, I'm also a realist. People who aren't of a technical bent can't use linux for day-to-day work. This is nothing new. It's been around since the days of DOS. At one business, a financial package was written in DOS, and the finance guy would come to me to complain that the program was broken. I'd watch him fill in all the fields, then complain "see, it doesn't work." "Press ENTER!" This happened once a week for more than a month.
People need consistency. They don't want to have to either figure something out themselves or have to ask someone else. 1,000 distros, each with a slightly different UI, each with the same old collection of software packages, each package having it's own quirks, doesn't cut it for those who, even if the RTFM, wouldn't understand it.
I keep in mind that while I really liked to read the user manuals that came with all my old software; I also knew that almost nobody bothered. I don't expect other users to be as curious. I expect that when something doesn't work, they will look for alternatives.
FOSS doesn't meet the needs of the masses. Every single person I installed linux for went back to Windows or moved on to Apple. And I can't blame them - they have different priorities, they don't want to tinker, they don't want to distro-hop - heck, they don't even want to do a minor upgrade because it might change something.
You know all this. FOSS with 1,000 distros can't address this.
The established players need competition. Real competition. They're not getting it from FOSS. They take what they want, lock it on a server or inside a device, and just keep rolling on.
If Shuttleworth had any insight, instead of trying to ride linux for profit, he would have pulled an Apple - grabbed a copy of FreeBSD and customized it for commercial use, and sold each copy. Trying to be another RedHat making money off support contracts is much tougher - people don't like to pay for support, they don't like products that require ongoing support, and they'll pay up front to avoid having to pay the costs of ongoing support for free software. Not just for operating systems, but all sorts of software.
Programmers also like the consistency of just having one or two target platforms. Remember the hell of web development when there were a ton of browsers, each with their own vagarities, even the same browser on different platforms working differently? Developing for the two big proprietary platforms is easier and more likely to be profitable. It also has the advantage that your competitor isn't going to take your code and sell into the same market - let them develop their own version, and let competition result in evolutionary improvement.
As for accessibility, I tried linux distros that were targeted to the visually handicapped, and they don't work. Every time a package is updated, something breaks, which means that everything breaks. That's the nature of screen reader programs, so good luck with that.
Try the screen reader in the current version of Ubuntu. It can only read the window titles and such from a small selection of software, not the content. It can't read any of what I'm typing. The browser doesn't even exist, so it's a good thing I've been training my eyes not to depend on the fucked-up world of screen readers (both open and proprietary - they're all cursed, just in different ways - but the proprietary ones are better because they have the financial resources that come with being paid, and the financial incentive to keep the money rolling in).
And therein lies a fatal flaw of FOSS. A perverse incentive to make software shitty enough that it requires paid support. That is not "something for the betterment of humanity" any more than making a car that requires a lube job every 2 months is. Even if lube jobs were free, it's still better environmentally to make tie rod ends that never need lubing, and the time lost. So there are fewer college students doing lube jobs, but with far more cars on the road, it's been partially compensated for, and others have gone on to other jobs once they finished college.
People want to keep Win7. I don't know why - I saw it (and my eyes were fine then but it really was nasty for eyestrain) and the whole Aero Vista thing taken to the next level was not for me. It was as ridiculous as the wobbly windows in KDE - cute the first 5 times, and a real pain in the butt thereafter.
Most people have at least one "need to have/want to have/nice to have" that is better met by closed source. There's nothing inherently evil in them choosing a system that meets their needs. Or at least they think meets their needs. I'm not going to tell them they're wrong. Not my circus, not my monkeys.
I would just say that if people think that open source can do better, why is it stuck in 2000? Why is it still not possible to even give it away? How is 1,000 distros with the same software packages any better than 100, or 50, or 10?
How is having a distro with 4 different package managers working out?
But don't worry about it - the down-mods don't bother me. People who get bent out of shape over moderation need to get some perspective - others are entitled to their opinions after all. A robust discussion is far better than sulking over moderation. Like coffee - the more robust the better. Dishwater "coffee" is for the weak, along with tofu and rice cakes.
One day I'll try out some of the other distros suggested during the debate - but they have to be non-systemd, and no Gnome 3. I liked FreeBSD at work when I was in charge of remotely adminning them. If one of them works with my sound card, why not?
But if they don't meet my needs and I have to buy new hardware, it might be Apple - I hated it when someone dumped a Mac on my desk at work because nobody else wanted to use it. It sat there unplugged until one co-worker needed fonts off it. I was on Opensuse, and everyone else was on Windows, and Windows is not an option. Neither is a Chromebook or something based off Android. I want something that isn't riddled with spyware.
It's too bad Shuttleworth shot his wad on Ubuntu; if he had taken FreeBSD and made a proprietary OS, like Apple did, he could have given the incumbents some real competition just from selling operating systems.
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