Now I Remember Why I Hate Windows

Well, I am excited about Linux but I wouldn't say I'm a Zealot.

Multiple times a day I wonder why I am bothering with Linux, trying to fix things on the command line, when I know Windows will just work 99% of the time out-of-box.

Not to say that Windows doesn't have problems, it does, but the vast majority of the time it will do the basic thing you need without extensive configuration.

But there is something that is fun about tinkering with the computer, and, when things are working, I do prefer Ubuntu over Windows 10.
 
Yuo claim of many things not the least of being the representative of an imaginary thing so that doesn't help your credibility at all. I have you on my ignore list but I chose to read your post just for giggles actually.

Hey, told you multiple times, if you want to discuss my faith in Jesus the Christ and why, I am more than happy to PM you about it. As for my credibility....... Who cares, this is the internet, I do not know you personally and as far as life is concerned, except for your salvation, I do not care. Now, can you actually confront my actual post or are you just going to deflect, as you usually seem to do?
 
Your internet speed isn't Microsoft's problem. You complained about internet speed. This will solve your issue. Either accept that your internet speeds are adding to the time needed to update and stop complaining, or do something about it.

It's not internet speed, it's Microsoft servers. The download speed is well below my maximum download speed, quite often the progress bar will sit at 0% for half an hour. Likewise, it'll sit at 100% for another half an hour.
 
To be fair, I did open the door with my OP thread title, knew someone was going to bite on that...

Fact of the matter is that Windows update is one of the worst parts of Windows, even though I accept the Win10 is decent in a lot of ways.

No comparison whatsoever to how things work on Linux, updates are orders of magnitude faster, you can continue using your machine, reboots are typically not needed. So much better.

My point in posting was that *on top* of the Windows update, I got an advertisement on my desktop. Thought that was out of the ordinary and very unwanted.
 
To be fair, I did open the door with my OP thread title, knew someone was going to bite on that...

Fact of the matter is that Windows update is one of the worst parts of Windows, even though I accept the Win10 is decent in a lot of ways.

No comparison whatsoever to how things work on Linux, updates are orders of magnitude faster, you can continue using your machine, reboots are typically not needed. So much better.

My point in posting was that *on top* of the Windows update, I got an advertisement on my desktop. Thought that was out of the ordinary and very unwanted.
Thanks for keeping it on topic ;)
 
I actually really like installing software via terminal, I find it vastly superior to GUI based requester boxes because throughout the entire process I can see exactly what's going on at any point during installation. There's nothing worse than a requester box appearing under Windows, you click next and it disappears for a period of time leaving you in limbo wondering just what is happening until the next requester box appears - Even worse on newer machines with no HDD activity indicator.
 
To be fair, I did open the door with my OP thread title, knew someone was going to bite on that...

Fact of the matter is that Windows update is one of the worst parts of Windows, even though I accept the Win10 is decent in a lot of ways.

No comparison whatsoever to how things work on Linux, updates are orders of magnitude faster, you can continue using your machine, reboots are typically not needed. So much better.

My point in posting was that *on top* of the Windows update, I got an advertisement on my desktop. Thought that was out of the ordinary and very unwanted.

I cannot say that I agree, as Windows updates are concerned. Linux has it a lot easier because they do not have to concern themselves with backwards compatibility nor legacy hardware and software. Security through obscurity means there is less reason, initially, to push out security updates and in fact, if I had to guess, there are a ton of Linux backbone machines out there that are highly insecure because they are running many years out of date OS or they have not been rebooted yet in a long time, although they need to be to install updates.

Could Windows updates be improved? Yes, absolutely or do people have such a short memory that they do not remember having many issues installing Windows 7 SP1? In fact, Windows Vista 64 Bit was my favorite Windows OS, since I rarely had issues with it and the updates did work pretty well, overall, back then.

Thankfully, most new computers, if not all, come with an SSD as their primary drive. No, the 32GB eMMC does not count since it is good for nothing, for any OS and is far to small.

Edit: As for that advertisement, that often occurs because folks click next rapidly and miss something. Either that, or you simply missed something but, easy enough to disable.

Oh, and I said it before, I will say it again and I will never care about it being off topic:

GO BILLS! :)
 
I actually really like installing software via terminal, I find it vastly superior to GUI based requester boxes because throughout the entire process I can see exactly what's going on at any point during installation. There's nothing worse than a requester box appearing under Windows, you click next and it disappears for a period of time leaving you in limbo wondering just what is happening until the next requester box appears - Even worse on newer machines with no HDD activity indicator.

Except that once you hit Y, you have no control anymore and chances are, seeing something happening is not going to be of any use. After all, unless you are DATA, how are you going to see what is happening as it is zipping on by at lightning fast speed? :D
 
Except that once you hit Y, you have no control anymore and chances are, seeing something happening is not going to be of any use. After all, unless you are DATA, how are you going to see what is happening as it is zipping on by at lightning fast speed? :D

You can scroll up...

This is a joke post, right?
 
I agree that most won't, but what's the issue with adding it for those that do?

Like, if I want to install a .deb file I can use the package manager and it does it like windows BUT it has a drop down to watch what it's doing via terminal. Why not add something so simple to Windows?
 
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I cannot say that I agree, as Windows updates are concerned. Linux has it a lot easier because they do not have to concern themselves with backwards compatibility nor legacy hardware and software.
This is a good point. I saw a Twitter post with a photo of Word 95 running perfectly fine on Windows 10. Microsoft may make mistakes at times, but they do value backwards compatibility over all else.

Security through obscurity means there is less reason, initially, to push out security updates and in fact, if I had to guess, there are a ton of Linux backbone machines out there that are highly insecure because they are running many years out of date OS or they have not been rebooted yet in a long time, although they need to be to install updates.
I've seen this argument, but I'm not sure it's true. Linux on desktop is very small, but Linux on servers is huge. The vast majority of the internet runs on Linux, and it's exactly these kinds of servers that hackers would want to compromise. We are talking credit card numbers, proprietary source code, email servers, etc. most likely running on some form of Linux. So Linux is not "security through obscurity".

Could Windows updates be improved? Yes, absolutely or do people have such a short memory that they do not remember having many issues installing Windows 7 SP1? In fact, Windows Vista 64 Bit was my favorite Windows OS, since I rarely had issues with it and the updates did work pretty well, overall, back then.
If you thought Windows Vista was good, well, I'm not sure what to say. I think I had more problems with Vista than any other OS ever. It got so slow after time, it was almost unusable. But I did install it, despite haters, because I build computers and don't want to install an old OS on new hardware.

Edit: As for that advertisement, that often occurs because folks click next rapidly and miss something. Either that, or you simply missed something but, easy enough to disable.
I am usually very careful about choosing the "advanced" install and unchecking any bogus options. I guess in this case, they hid the button good enough, or I just missed it somehow. Still a crappy situation when you have to be scared to install anything because they will trick you.
 
I believe that if maintaining compatibility with something, like for example Word 95, involves putting up with all of the issues we face with Windows today - Than it's time to get over backwards compatibility.

As it is, Microsoft are the biggest contributor to Github. Microsoft now base Edge on Chromium and I believe it's even being made available for Linux, not that I'd want to use it unless it supports 1080p Netflix. Windows now supports WSL and Microsoft's own Azure based platforms run under Linux. The Microsoft of today is far from the Microsoft of old and I can see that they're getting tired of being just an operating system vendor - Especially when you consider that Microsoft's cloud based solutions running Linux now net them more profit than Windows itself.

Even Apple are stripping the baggage related to backwards compatibility by removing 32bit support from their OS altogether.

With every new Windows release comes a corresponding number of increasing bugs and issues, it's undeniable that the updater has some glaring issues that cannot be resolved unless the NT kernel and the NTFS file system are finally put to pasture where they belong. I can see Microsoft eventually basing their OS on the Linux kernel with a locked down DE based around Windows, possibly using code from the Wine project to maintain backwards compatibility with certain win32 applications for the sake of transition. Eventually, I can see Microsoft shifting all users to online Microsoft accounts and bringing in a subscription model with the OS itself being a fairly stripped out component and a proportion of the OS being hosted in the cloud to prop up Microsoft's more profitable cloud based division.

Just my perspective as it's undeniable Microsoft's focus has shifted away from Windows.

As far as security through obscurity is concerned, Android is globally the most popular OS today and suffers minuscule infections compared to Windows. The biggest problem with Windows in terms of security is it's method of software installation and the fact that 99% of users out there run Administrator accounts and UAC is only partially effective.

Not willing to get into an argument over an opinion, so don't even try.
 
Chances are, most will not fully understand everything they see, anyways.

Actually, if you pay attention to terminal and the resulting error being displayed, it tells you exactly what the problem is in fairly plain text. Most people just get all muddled because 'terminal' and fail to read what's right in front of them.

The computer illiterate users aren't being forced to make use of the option, so there's no harm in providing it for more advanced users.
 
It's true, Microsoft today is very different from the old.

They do need a break, like a new file system or revamped kernel, but this would jeopardize backwards compat, the main reason people continue using Windows.

It's inertia really. People use Windows because the software they know works on Windows and most new computers come with it preinstalled.

If Microsoft broke the backwards compat, then they lose a big reason people use the OS to begin with.

Though they do have the pull to make developers update, probably more than Apple does and Apple just dropped 32-bit.

But, yeah, Windows 11 as a Linux distro is not so far off from fantasy given the recent moves by MS.

It would be smart too, and benefit everyone, but it would take some HUGE balls to do it. Maybe Satya's got 'em.
 
Actually, if you pay attention to terminal and the resulting error being displayed, it tells you exactly what the problem is in fairly plain text. Most people just get all muddled because 'terminal' and fail to read what's right in front of them.

The computer illiterate users aren't being forced to make use of the option, so there's no harm in providing it for more advanced users.

Bingo. The errors are in plain English (for the most part) in Linux. In windows, it's brutal. Memory addresses, random files referenced instead of the culprit...

I could go on, but in the end I still use Windows 95% of the time on my main machine. Just is what it is.
 
Right. At least usually you can get helpful error messages in Linux, at least of obvious stuff like an update failure or a dependency issue.

On Windows they give you random error numbers that don't mean anything, MVPs on MS forums are never helpful, they just tell you to use the troubleshooter (which never works) or random stuff that has nothing to do with the problem.

Or you get a memory dump. I've tried to look through those, even with my 20 years of programming experience, it's almost impossible to find anything in there. Not a great experience.
 
Bingo. The errors are in plain English (for the most part) in Linux. In windows, it's brutal. Memory addresses, random files referenced instead of the culprit...

I could go on, but in the end I still use Windows 95% of the time on my main machine. Just is what it is.

Going through Event Viewer trying to isolate an issue is really just an attempt at trying to pick out key words able to be understood, as error 0x0000c000184 is pretty damn useless to most. ;)

I can honestly say, I don't have this issue under Linux, even logs are in plain text.
 
It's true, Microsoft today is very different from the old.

They do need a break, like a new file system or revamped kernel, but this would jeopardize backwards compat, the main reason people continue using Windows.

It's inertia really. People use Windows because the software they know works on Windows and most new computers come with it preinstalled.

If Microsoft broke the backwards compat, then they lose a big reason people use the OS to begin with.

Though they do have the pull to make developers update, probably more than Apple does and Apple just dropped 32-bit.

But, yeah, Windows 11 as a Linux distro is not so far off from fantasy given the recent moves by MS.

It would be smart too, and benefit everyone, but it would take some HUGE balls to do it. Maybe Satya's got 'em.

With Apple compleately dropping 64bit support, I'd have to say change is in the wind. I'd like to believe we're entering another era in computing, hopefully it's not as tightly controlled as the Microsoft era of the 90's/early 2000's. Satya Nadella certainly seems like he wants computing to evolve for the better while Microsoft focus on the future of cloud computing.

About the only people I really see making full use of backwards compatibility are those still running legacy Microsoft Office 2007 and earlier products, a major security issue that really needs to be stopped. Quite odd when you think about it as Libre Office probably has better compatibility than Microsoft Office 2007.
 
That advertisement looks like adware of some sort.
I actually really like installing software via terminal, I find it vastly superior to GUI based requester boxes because throughout the entire process I can see exactly what's going on at any point during installation. There's nothing worse than a requester box appearing under Windows, you click next and it disappears for a period of time leaving you in limbo wondering just what is happening until the next requester box appears - Even worse on newer machines with no HDD activity indicator.

You know you can install stuff via command line in Windows too, right? ;)
 
That advertisement looks like adware of some sort.


You know you can install stuff via command line in Windows too, right? ;)

Executing an .exe via command line is nothing like installing software via terminal under Linux. You don't see the same level of detail at all and may as well just double click the icon via GUI.

In case some folks were wondering Windows has an app repository (suppository joke here) akin to some Linux package managers. The one I know of is called chocolatey. https://chocolatey.org

Windows has a app repository built in, it's called the Windows Store.
 
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Executing an .exe via command line is nothing like installing software via terminal under Linux. You don't see the same level of detail at all and may as well just double click the icon via GUI.

You know that's not was I was talking about ;)
 
You know that's not was I was talking about ;)

Do I?

Fact is: Installing software via CMD bypasses Windows SmartScreen, under Windows you need every ounce of security you can get. Seems you didn't read the part about installing software via terminal where I mentioned just 'why' I find it a better method of software installation.
 
Do I?

Fact is: Installing software via CMD bypasses Windows SmartScreen, under Windows you need every ounce of security you can get. Seems you didn't read the part about installing software via terminal where I mentioned just 'why' I find it a better method of software installation.

You think downloading random software from package managers is inherently more safe? Or NPM? Or PiP? Because it's not.
 
You think downloading random software from package managers is inherently more safe? Or NPM? Or PiP? Because it's not.

It's safer than installing some random .msi from some obscure corner of the internet with no security at all. Furthermore, the installation GUI you see under Windows is a package manager - It's the method of software delivery that's the problem under Windows.
 
It's safer than installing some random .msi from some obscure corner of the internet with no security at all.

But that's what you're doing with a package manager as well. What I'm saying is that neither of them are "safe" from the perspective of OpSec. You cannot implicitly trust any of them.
 
It's like push button start on vehicles...

In the name of convenience we've done away with one physical layer of security - With that layer of security being the physical key blade itself. It's ridiculous.
 
Do I?

Fact is: Installing software via CMD bypasses Windows SmartScreen, under Windows you need every ounce of security you can get. Seems you didn't read the part about installing software via terminal where I mentioned just 'why' I find it a better method of software installation.

This is not correct. If I do not open the command prompt as an admin, it will just give me errors.
 
The challenge with any software is in determining that what you're installing is actually 'safe'. There's no automated check that's going to do that for you.
 
This is not correct. If I do not open the command prompt as an admin, it will just give me errors.

Installing software via CMD is how I get around the issues of Smartscreen incorrectly flagging reputable software on install.
I can play the link game too...

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2019-3462 an 8.8 on the severity scale. Arbitrary Code Execution.

That's the latest vuln, of which there have been a few over the years.

Now you're getting sarcastic and attacking. Not interested in further discussion. Once again, one method of software installation is inherently more secure than the other. The other is resulting in infection issues.
 
"I'm patching an old Linux laptop that got returned to us. Sheesh, 748 patches, this is going take a bit, See you in 15 minutes."

"I just updated yesterday and now there are more patches for my Windows host. Dang it! 5 updates. See you tomorrow."
 
My RHEL 7.7 VM took >2 hours yesterday, hasn't been updated in a few months. Most of that was downloading and I wasn't doing anything else intensive.

I can provide plenty of anecdotes for both...
 
My RHEL 7.7 VM took >2 hours yesterday, hasn't been updated in a few months. Most of that was downloading and I wasn't doing anything else intensive.

I can provide plenty of anecdotes for both...

Never ever ever ever ever ever have I've seen this. But seen the Windows thing a gazillion times. Maybe you're Windows based Internet gateway was on the fritz (probably just needs updates)?
 
"I'm patching an old Linux laptop that got returned to us. Sheesh, 748 patches, this is going take a bit, See you in 15 minutes."

"I just updated yesterday and now there are more patches for my Windows host. Dang it! 5 updates. See you tomorrow."

Except that is not the way it works, ever, but you do Linux a disservice by trying to exaggerate Windows realities. Trying to make Linux look good by making others look bad, hmmmmm....., oh well, if you use Linux, you must work within it's limitations.
 
This is not correct. If I do not open the command prompt as an admin, it will just give me errors.

You are absolutely correct with this and I knew that instantly, before i even finished his sentence. Now I remember why I hate when people intentionally misinform when they claim they know better. Now I remember why I choose a long time ago to hate no operating systems or computing devices, because it lets me enjoy it all.
 
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