Tweet
If you followed my other thread, you will know that I had a disastrous extrepience with a laptop running the Windows 8 (Hate) operating system. If you haven't come across this latest obscenity from Microbug, then it is absolutely vital that you learn one thing – if Windows Hate is mentioned, run like hell in the opposite direction.
There is no point in duplicating content which was printed on the other thread, so I will only briefly summarise the difficulties. Users are faced with the nightmare of having idiotic menus come on to the screen, blocking out what they are trying to do, every time they attempt to move the cursor. There are programs such as Skip Metro Suite and Classic Shell which are supposed to overcome the problem, but they do not.
The nearest comparison I can make, for those who are used to driving vehicles, would be if every time you moved the steering wheel, a silly display came up over the windscreen and stopped you from seeing where you were going. How long could you put up with that?
The PC which I bought in November is now being returned to Amazon for a refund, as there is nothing which can be done to transform Windows Hate into something usable. It isn't an operating system, it is a disease. The problem is made far worse by the fact that Microbug seem committed to this insanity, prompting many in the industry to speculate whether their reign may be coming to an end. They certainly seem entirely oblivious to the needs of their own customers, and the PC-using public as a whole.
So, despite being a long time satisfied user of Windows XP and 7, I have now decided to experiment with Linux. Having read copious articles and web pages about it, I decided that Linux Mint 13 was the right operating system to experiment with. There is a Linux Mint 14, but it is not a long-term supported stable release, unlike 13 which will be supported until April 2017.
I started to try to find a way of installing Mint on my old netbook, alongside XP, at midnight. It was not easy. The standard of tutorials and instruction is pitiful in the extreme, which is something that the Linux community will need to address if they are ever going to attract enough users. In the end, I had to work out how to install the system entirely by myself, taking bits of information from here and bits from there. That is nowhere near good enough – there needs to be step-by-step instructions!
As I write this, it is 4:09am, so it has taken just over four hours to work out how to get Linux Mint 13 installed on the system, and make it happen. A large percentage of this time was spent sitting watching software install, as there are a lot of open source programs which come with Mint.
How will it work out for me? Well, the basics shouldn't be too bad. I am already used to browsing with Firefox, using Thunderbird for email, writing and using spreadsheets in Libre Office, and using VLC media player to play video. I will miss foobar2000 desperately, unless someone has come up with a Linux compatible audio player that is somewhere near the same standard. Music is a huge part of my life, and it is all organised with foobar2000.
The biggest problem will come with processing audio files. Audacity is a program I use a lot, and that will apparently work with Linux. The one weakness in Audacity, as admitted by those who develop it, is the noise reduction feature. The professional standard Izotope RX-2 software, which I use to reduce noise on audio files transferred from 78rpm, is irreplaceable, and this is the reason why I will never be able to replace Windows completely.
Anyway, I am writing this post on Libre Office powered by my new Mint installation, and have posted it to the forum using Firefox on Linux Mint. It is a significant start.
One immediate difficulty I have encountered is that the trackpad, the equivalent of the mouse, operates differently on Linux than it does on Windows. That is not going to help! I will keep this thread up to date with developments, in case there is anyone else out there who wants to familiarise themselves with Linux as a potential safety valve should Microbug extend its insanity to an intolerable amplitude.
SH
PS I'll make a detailed post later today to show how I managed to get Linux installed, in case anyone else wants to try.
There is no point in duplicating content which was printed on the other thread, so I will only briefly summarise the difficulties. Users are faced with the nightmare of having idiotic menus come on to the screen, blocking out what they are trying to do, every time they attempt to move the cursor. There are programs such as Skip Metro Suite and Classic Shell which are supposed to overcome the problem, but they do not.
The nearest comparison I can make, for those who are used to driving vehicles, would be if every time you moved the steering wheel, a silly display came up over the windscreen and stopped you from seeing where you were going. How long could you put up with that?
The PC which I bought in November is now being returned to Amazon for a refund, as there is nothing which can be done to transform Windows Hate into something usable. It isn't an operating system, it is a disease. The problem is made far worse by the fact that Microbug seem committed to this insanity, prompting many in the industry to speculate whether their reign may be coming to an end. They certainly seem entirely oblivious to the needs of their own customers, and the PC-using public as a whole.
So, despite being a long time satisfied user of Windows XP and 7, I have now decided to experiment with Linux. Having read copious articles and web pages about it, I decided that Linux Mint 13 was the right operating system to experiment with. There is a Linux Mint 14, but it is not a long-term supported stable release, unlike 13 which will be supported until April 2017.
I started to try to find a way of installing Mint on my old netbook, alongside XP, at midnight. It was not easy. The standard of tutorials and instruction is pitiful in the extreme, which is something that the Linux community will need to address if they are ever going to attract enough users. In the end, I had to work out how to install the system entirely by myself, taking bits of information from here and bits from there. That is nowhere near good enough – there needs to be step-by-step instructions!
As I write this, it is 4:09am, so it has taken just over four hours to work out how to get Linux Mint 13 installed on the system, and make it happen. A large percentage of this time was spent sitting watching software install, as there are a lot of open source programs which come with Mint.
How will it work out for me? Well, the basics shouldn't be too bad. I am already used to browsing with Firefox, using Thunderbird for email, writing and using spreadsheets in Libre Office, and using VLC media player to play video. I will miss foobar2000 desperately, unless someone has come up with a Linux compatible audio player that is somewhere near the same standard. Music is a huge part of my life, and it is all organised with foobar2000.
The biggest problem will come with processing audio files. Audacity is a program I use a lot, and that will apparently work with Linux. The one weakness in Audacity, as admitted by those who develop it, is the noise reduction feature. The professional standard Izotope RX-2 software, which I use to reduce noise on audio files transferred from 78rpm, is irreplaceable, and this is the reason why I will never be able to replace Windows completely.
Anyway, I am writing this post on Libre Office powered by my new Mint installation, and have posted it to the forum using Firefox on Linux Mint. It is a significant start.
One immediate difficulty I have encountered is that the trackpad, the equivalent of the mouse, operates differently on Linux than it does on Windows. That is not going to help! I will keep this thread up to date with developments, in case there is anyone else out there who wants to familiarise themselves with Linux as a potential safety valve should Microbug extend its insanity to an intolerable amplitude.
SH
PS I'll make a detailed post later today to show how I managed to get Linux installed, in case anyone else wants to try.
Comment