Why moving to Linux to avoid Microsoft spying is impossible for most people

Discussion in 'Linux' started by roga, Aug 29, 2015.

  1. goldfinger

    goldfinger MDL Junior Member

    Dec 29, 2010
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    No they were not. There were many computers to have ram based SSDs shipped before even Apple was even a company. Apple was not even the first to have flash based SSDs on their laptops. At my first job (1990s) we bought a Toshiba laptop that had a 40mb ssd on it. Small, but still a flash based SSD.

    Samsung had the Q series notebooks in 2006 shipped standard with SSDs.

    Dell had SSD options for it's laptops in 2007 before Apple's first Macbook Air with SSD option (2008.)

    Apple being the first to have something is usually a myth. Stop making and perpetuating myths.
     
  2. QueenOfTech

    QueenOfTech MDL Junior Member

    Apr 2, 2019
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    My bad then lmao
     
  3. Yen

    Yen Admin
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    #1243 Yen, Aug 17, 2019
    Last edited: Aug 17, 2019
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  4. gorski

    gorski MDL Guru

    Oct 21, 2009
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    To avoid any misunderstanding - I DO admire your effort!! I really DO!!!

    But this must be said:

    Ach, where to begin?

    Most people are not IT savvy. Most average laptops one can get online or in shops are having some kind of issue. Smaller or bigger but an issue... I am also on many forums, many Linux forums, my hobby (Sat TV Enigma2) forces me to do it and most experiences are NOT flawless. And when it comes to finding solutions to not so simple problems not many people are capable enough to sort those out themselves...

    I mean, it is admirable you are trying to do all this - but it is not a matter of fact, the stuff you are claiming. It's activism. Great, people like you are also needed! There IS a place under the Sun for the likes of you, especially in hearts like mine - but...

    What more do you need - if you can't get online.... DAMN! Most people switch off right there!

    But also with printers, for instance, audio-visual drivers and so on... Not to mention, simply put: not as strong/capable the very same apps under Linux, as they are under monopolistic Winblows!

    No, you are not "most people" and you must not jump to far reaching conclusions from your own situation. And no, it does not only take a minute for most people... Again, jumping to conclusions...



    Look, not many people are crazy about messing with VB settings for ever, 'till they finally get it right... Again, you are judging by yourself. And that is a BIG mistake!

    You are making the same mistake here that most geeks on Linux forums make - just do it, let it out, say it here, give it to everybody, so everybody can benefit, as well as contribute, critically if needed - don't do it on a one-to-one basis, that is NOT OK...
     
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  5. smallhagrid

    smallhagrid MDL Addicted

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    Very Cute Reply - Thanks for Your Kind Thoughts Gorski !!

    Yes, most people are not IT savvy - mostly because they prefer NOT to be & also NOT to learn to be - because it is easier the way they see it to just keep buying & re-buying whatever krap that the box store sales drones & their FB 'friends' recommend;
    To me that is the same thing as just lighting money on fire - and a very silly way to waste time & money.

    That model of USB Wifi dongle...
    I have to look up that chipset from the invoice because it is not printed on the dongle...please hold...
    (And yes - all it takes for me is to plug in any dongle & watch for a minute - it'll either work on its own, or not - its very easy.)

    As to not being able to get online without Wifi, there IS internet MINUS Wifi !!
    I always have an ethernet cable ready for those moments & if anything cannot accept an RJ45 plug & get connected that way easily - then it is trash & has no business even existing as a PC !!

    As to the rest, I do my best to avoid 'the laptop crowd' even though I do have several NOTEBOOK type of PCs myself - I find that most of those sold in recent years are just krap & don't last very long for all sorts of reasons.

    Again - I am happy to help those I know to get into Linux - and once that transition has been made, they have always been delighted & have no trouble with it - and yes, there have been quite a few by now.
    They are NOT gamers or tinkerers - just end users who are friends & I make sure I can use remote access to help them also, but it is very, very rarely needed.
    One has a notebook PC, that is the same exact model as what I have with the same model of USB Wifi dongle too.
    Two others are elderly friends who changed from desktops to notebooks as part of a long distance move, and they are still delightedly happy with ther trouble free Linux powered notebook PCs.

    Yes - I can be considered a Linux activist in that I enjoy helping others - within reason, that is...
    Now & then I've heard from friends of friends who demand the latest, fastest, fanciest h/w for reasons only known to themselves, and those folks can muddle through whatever they need on their own - I do not fancy dealing with such headache inducers.

    Struggling through VB settings ??
    That's a new one to my eyes as I can usually have a VM running in either major platform in under 10 minutes without making any huge adjustments.

    Yes - I am an IT guy (semi-retired now) & as such do have both experiences & inclinations that work in my favour - but I am also self-taught since before the DOS era.

    My message to most other folks is to just NOT be intimidated by the IT world - and NOT to do as the mainstream says to do - and NOT to follow the advices of most other folks -unless- they have a great history of helping others with REAL fixes for things rather than the usual band-aid approach of throwing money at problems.

    Too many poor souls will get unhelpful help from their uncle or some other end user level person and they also usually end up worse off than when whatever problem began !!
     
  6. gorski

    gorski MDL Guru

    Oct 21, 2009
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    #1246 gorski, Aug 18, 2019
    Last edited: Aug 18, 2019
    Sorry, my bad: my son's PC had not been able to function fully under both OSs with LAN chpset (built-in), so I bought a USB2 LAN adaptor and again... problems...

    And the WLAN had issues with either Lin or Win, so it was really frustrating... I ended up having double of everything and it still didn't work as planned...

    Needless to say, I had to have dual boot because of the games requirements...

    In short, both my sons' PCs had some kind of an issue, whereby it was not straight-forward (either Terminal or buy new HW)... Sorry for not being clear...

    P.S. It doesn't help when a multi-billion £$ corporation can't even write properly the bloody drivers for a graphics card under monopolistic Winblows, let alone for Linux which they don't get much incentive to do... And so every so often I have to deal with blocked PCs (serious error re. graphics card or something like that), something not functioning under xyz... Frankly, I would say that expectations management for ANY OS you help somebody with should be CAREFUL... Too much optimism can be YOUR headache... That is the gist of my few last posts here,,, ;)
     
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  7. gorski

    gorski MDL Guru

    Oct 21, 2009
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    Re. VM: it defeats the purpose if one has to have dual boot and then install Winblows inside Linux - it's a perversion.

    And I tried many apps inside VM and PlayOnLinux and many did NOT wanna install or work properly to the point where I just gave up...

    So, dual boot is less of a headache, in short... Winblows for what doesn't work under Linux and Linux for most stuff one does online, like browsing, streaming etc.

    Firefox, Kodi, VLC and so on are cool under Linux and if you use VPN - you're safer...

    On the other hand, anything more complex, audio-visual editing, properly working printer/scanner/fax drivers, games for kids, fully working chat apps (audio-visually) - Winblows, sadly...
     
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  8. smallhagrid

    smallhagrid MDL Addicted

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    Wow - blast from the past !!
    I think it was 10 years or more ago last time I bothered with dual-booting.

    Being able to use multiple OSes without rebooting just seems evolutionary to me - like what all computers should be able to do, right out of the box.

    My goal was to be able to use Android and windoze under the host OS of Linux without having to reboot, and I've been able to easily do that for over a year already.

    If that wasn't possible for any reason I'd just have a 2nd, smaller screened device for whatever outcast OS that I needed - if it refused to behave well inside a VM.

    Maybe one day before I get older & leave this world I'll have a big enough living space to keep 2 PCs with large screens at my desk, but for now I need to do my best with the space I have which just fits my 27" screen.

    I am very glad to have a simple enough life that I do not need to use apps which force me into using an insultingly distasteful OS that has been so lobotomized like all the post-XP windoze versions have been.
    (I have also totally avoided the windoze phones for the same reason - sheer distaste.)
     
  9. QueenOfTech

    QueenOfTech MDL Junior Member

    Apr 2, 2019
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    Do virtual machines not slow things down? I believe virtual machines only have access to a virtual disk rather than the physical one, so can’t benefit from a ssd
     
  10. Enthousiast

    Enthousiast MDL Tester

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    It can use physical disks (hdd/ssd) too.
     
  11. smallhagrid

    smallhagrid MDL Addicted

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    Very illustrative !!:
    Pointing clearly to the deliberate misinformation made into 'truth' by the tech giants that throwing $$$ at a PC (no matter if it says Mac on it..) will magically speed it up.
    So, one spends their $$$ to replace their HDD with a SSD - and sure, there is likely a visible speed gain simply due to access time - that much is true - but there it ends.

    Disk access is NOT the 1st bottleneck.
    That one is CPU speed - period.

    Bottleneck #2 is the I/O bus, through which all data MUST pass.

    RAM speed, GPU access, storage access all come AFTER those two.

    As to windoze, as it arrives it is far from optimal, given that it has all sorts of overhead that only bogs it down - some of which relates with how & where it swaps to, useless services that run without user knowledge, plain old krapware that tags along without user knowledge, and of course the worst of all=>
    The ever present 'C drive paradigm'.

    All the above relates with choices possible in using a VM of windoze.
    If it is made using defaults then it likely will not suit the demanding user very well at all.

    The way I do it begins with a pared down & optimized windoze - tweaked up for performance, then made into a VM via the P2V process, including several partitions and a fixed swap space as well.
    That way windoze runs better from within the VM than it does natively - visibly so.

    Does it matter that all the storage spaces it uses are inside the VM ??
    Not that I can tell - and to the OS - a disk is a disk is a disk.

    What really tickles me in using a VM is the enhanced time to re-open it after not using it for a while - given that I can simply hit the pause button, then close the app...when next I wish to use it, it comes right back up to the frozen session I paused it at, already in progress again, very quickly.

    Disclaimer:
    Since I totally refuse to be afflicted with any of the windoze viruses after XP with their lobotomized interfaces and restricted user controls and wonderful calling home protocols - I cannot know just what may be done to optimize those poor, bloated things - nor will I make the effort to learn, YMMV based upon all of that stuff !!

    But the facts about the system H/W remain absolutely true - those details affect EVERYTHING that a computer is able to process.
     
  12. Enthousiast

    Enthousiast MDL Tester

    Oct 30, 2009
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    Now now: https://forums.mydigitallife.net/th...ble-for-many-people.78605/page-4#post-1541671
     
  13. smallhagrid

    smallhagrid MDL Addicted

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    Same as it ever was...
    Same as it ever was......
    Same-as-it-ever-was !!!
     
  14. ipx

    ipx MDL Addicted

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    #1254 ipx, Aug 19, 2019
    Last edited: Oct 26, 2022
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  15. ipx

    ipx MDL Addicted

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    #1255 ipx, Aug 19, 2019
    Last edited: Oct 26, 2022
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  16. ipx

    ipx MDL Addicted

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    #1256 ipx, Aug 19, 2019
    Last edited: Oct 26, 2022
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  17. sungerbob

    sungerbob MDL Junior Member

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  18. smallhagrid

    smallhagrid MDL Addicted

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    #1258 smallhagrid, Aug 19, 2019
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2019
    I find it sadly amusing to see folks attracted to a negatively titled thread rather than 2 other positively titled threads - and also seeing folks coming here to trash talk Linux IN THE LINUX SECTION !!

    A long time ago my elders always said that if someone had nothing good or helpful to contribute they'd do best to seek elsewhere rather than showing their lowest personality parts.

    So I say to the OP and all the ~1000 who have come to this absurdly pinned thread:
    Don't have anything good to say about Linux ??
    Great !!
    Go collect a pat on the back from your fellow windoze fans rather than demonstrating how negative you can be about something you essentially have no uses for - or:
    Maybe try actually helping someone, somewhere, somehow.

    Thanks:
    I have 5 or 6 KVM switches living in a box - after trying and using them I discovered that for my work style what works best is clipboard sharing when I have space for more than a single PC & display.

    I have a visual impairment that freaks out with too much busy/bright/colourful/graphical stuff, and=>
    Those whom I assist are either total technophobes, and/or senior citizens who favour stability along with familiarity - as such they have been delighted to stop paying the antivirus tax (as they've called it) and to have an OS that is fully supported for 5 years at a time that they literally have no troubles with at all.

    I have one picked out and well in service already, thanks:
    And I have not asked for any such advice, thanks.

    Nope:
    And nope:
    I have an assortment of friends who are all what you refer to as 'normal-basic users' and they have no need to ever see the CLI and also have no complaints even though they use their PCs quite a bit, daily, for 'normal-basic tasks' only.

    Once again I say to the mods/admins here at My Digital Life:
    Biased much ??
    If not, then why is this horrid & negative thread PINNED & encouraged to spread disdain whereas the helpfully positive (opposing POV) threads are NOT PINNED ?!?

    PS:
    Before I collect any more mild flamings or snark-o-grams - as I've said elsewhere, I am a 25+ year veteran IT consultant and worked with everything since before DOS & including every version of windows (until XP) as well as the original Apples & Macs and Linux.
    I am now now semi-retired and help good folks to have good times with their simple needs with PCs as a sort of hobby as well as being a small-time webmaster.
    Given that I am old enough to be some folks' grandpa - I have waited & watched for Linux to become what I like to call 'grandpa friendly' - which it finally has, as I have proven with my own crowd of happy friends who are all using it - trouble free, with ease & comfort.
     
  19. sungerbob

    sungerbob MDL Junior Member

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    Oh, looks like I found linux zealot (as always), great!
     
  20. Yen

    Yen Admin
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    This is an irrational assumption. Arguments, please.
    (If being great on low end, it is at least as great as.... on high end...)

    General statement. Does not apply to most of distros, though.

    Linux is especially an suitable OS for the normal-basic user who even is not tied to windows!
    The only reason why I cannot leave windows completely behind me is my profession and my paid windows apps.


    You know me. ;)
    The thread originally came from another section and has been moved later into the Linux section.
    The idea to have it still pinned was to attract attention and to get rid of prejudices.

    I have unpinned it now considering it has no Linux content that is helpful.
     
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