21 Comments

#LinuxLite, for migrating windows users

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I have music software and hardware that will not run on anything post-XP or Win7. So I keep those around and avoid the internet. Delightful creative tools.

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I was forced to switch from W7 to W10 and I despised that abomination of an OS since it came out.

It is just a new butfugly facade plastered over the previous itterations of windows, doing away with the solid structure that made XP and 7 great for the sake of a crappy mobile-esque experience. One needs several third party tools to make it barely acceptable. It is littered with BS no one needs and I don't want on my machine period. Useful functions and settings are hidden in cumbersome extra menus without rime or reason. There are so many settings to make and hoops to jump through to disable all the garbage, spy- and malware the M$ hivemind nested in its core to hold control of your machine, get your data and to curate your experience. With newer itterations and updates that has been rendered impossible entirely.

I spent half a year with several reinstalls trying to bring this piece of tart OS to its knees, but I lost, and it broke me.

If that were not enough, Firefox, which once had a beautiful UI sembling W7, decided it had to revamp everything to adapt to the fugly modern design craze without options. I had to invest in chromium customisations to at least get back some of what I had been robbed of, but v89 got another revamp that made it unmanageable. So I stuck with v88 and now I face the same problems Anders had. I just refuse to give up what I like, aslong as there's no better or at least equivalent alternative and I refuse to use other annoying redundant software additionally.

Everything involving some sort of business nowadays happens on companies own online portals. I.e. my health insurance decided to migrate all billing from email delivery to an account inbox on their own shitty website. Even if I were willing to, I now wasn't even able to check my bills anymore as their website does not support my browser. Ludacrisly even the reminders and admonitions are only sent to the inbox on their website. So, short of getting prosecuted I had to call them and arrange for them to hence forth send me my bills in paper, like we used to do once upon a time, and I even have to pay a penalty for this service. That is the sort of hill I fight and will probably die on soon.

Also account management is getting insane. For everything you need an account these days. Either you sacrife all safety by using the same credentials all over the place or you have to somehow manage hundreds of ever longer and more complicated passwords and other login information. You can also choose to (or often times are rather forced to) sell your soul to google or M$ and have everything tied and registered on only a couple accounts.

And blodyhell what about two factor authentification? I don't want to be dependant on my phone for business stuff and even less for transactions. What if i loose it, or it breaks, or gets stolen, or just has no charge when I need it or internet access. Another hurdle that bars me from access to most everything these days.

Also my email accounts are all 2fa with other email accounts. If I logon on a new device I need to have another device with already logged in email to get acces to the other. If my main machine dies and I have no other active login on any other device, I am dead. Without these mail accounts I won't be able to recover my emails, won't be able to log into any of my web accounts tied to them, and everything down the line that depends on it.

All these things together have become so dreadfull that I can't even think about it nor face it anymore. The day will come where someone has to patronize me, and all because of progress.

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Nice run my friend. I love XP and put it up there with Windows 2000 and 7 as one of (if not the) best versions ever. That whole decade — sans Vista — really was peak Windows. I’ve still got a couple XP machines around and play with them, but it’s be cool to use them more seriously to get work done. Substack is the big hang up for me too.

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LOL. I do not believe that Windows XP (or any Window$) is faster than linux (especially debian)?

I think you haven´t really installed linux in your machine. Or if you installed, you did not know how to configure it. Have you tried Linux without a DE? Install it, remove any DE and install WM/TW. You will see your machine flying...

Oh. By the way, have you tried freeBSD or any BSD? They are even faster than Linux...

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>LOL. I do not believe that Windows XP (or any Window$) is faster than linux (especially debian)?

Even back in the day Linux desktop was noticeable slower than XP's, for the regular small-to-middle-size programs written with winapi forms.

I'm telling that as a Linux desktop user with 13 years of everyday experience.

>Or if you installed, you did not know how to configure it.

Oh yeah, the bug which basically did not allow to use computers with low-ish RAM for the decade and which has been fixed only in the end of previous year? Are you talking about THAT linux?

https://www.lkml.org/lkml/2021/12/2/751

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Maybe I'm remembering things rosier than they were, but memory pressure wasn't a huge issue in the <1 GiB days. Software in general wasn't very memory-hungry, and the Linux world was usually better than Windows at this. I have far more trouble with memory these days than I did back in 2007.

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So. Do you mean that: no one has used a linux-box on low-ish RAM for a decade because of this bug? I used linux in a PC with 712MB of memory, PentiumII and an Asus laptop with 2G of RAM and never had issues with speed! Probably you are talking about other Linux... My advice: got to Librechat IRC server and access #debian #siduction and other linux distro channels and post your nonsense there and wait for answers...

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People has used it, but their systems are frequently entered thrashing condition, making it "hang" for minutes. This was one of the major Linux issues for all these years, which in my opinion definitely influenced Linux desktop popularity in the negative way. ChromeOS developers used their own workaround patch for this issue since the beginning, as their lower-end laptops woundn't work properly otherwise, just as in a plain Linux.

Google "MGLRU" for more information.

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Ok. Be happy with your Window$ ==> Windows is crap and malware

- https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-microsoft.en.html

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I'm a Linux user. I hardly have Windows anywhere.

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Great! Why are we arguing then?

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My good old ZX Spectrum... nothing runs as smooth!!!

Those were the days... (Next N - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IagZIM9MtLo )

(yeah... most will probably just: "WTF is a ZX Spectrum?!")

Still... being playing with computers since the early 90's i could not recommend Linux more. In terms of productivity nothing comes close iyam... (yeah... there's a few tweaks and glitches but nothing we can't handle)

since you like XP:

https://www.pling.com/p/1387663

(no, a distro that does a decent implementation of Plasma is NOT a bloated distro... no matter what they say)

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I don't want to upset you, but current Chrome requires Windows 10 at least https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/7100626?hl=en

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Try frogfind.com. it is a website designed to bring the modern web to older computers. I can't promise it will always work, especially with regards to pusting, but it may be helpful.

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Try Debían w xfce

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RIP XP

We'll miss you!

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I have a ten year old MacBook Air and it runs great. It is 4 years out of date but there are still security fixes. They go for about £100 on eBay if that.

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So much to relate to here. The more Windows is always configured to be ‘friendly’ and ‘feature-packed’ the more I yearn for Win 2000. That was my favourite.

I did Linux for a year, but making certain music production things work was maddening, so it was back to Windows on a cheap reconditioned desktop. Great, for music production.

This summer I bought a MacBook and have spent months trying to make it feel more like Windows.

Operating systems sometimes end up feeling like an extension of the self.

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