W10 rant

[Paul Drawmer]

Friend of mine asked me to reinstall windows on a 2nd hand laptop he'd purchased.

I did a new installation from CD and then went through all the loops of setting up a microsnot account and then updating the new system. Can't believe how slow the whole process is. I plugged it into the my network (FTTP) and let it do its thing.

It is so slow with all the multiple updates and the whirling thingy Grrrrr

With Ubuntu, if it's connected to the internet, it updates as it installs. If subsequent updates are required, you can still use the machine whilst it updates in background.

Just a rant. Glad I moved to Ubuntu some years ago.

[Pachydermus]

ubuntu said:

To mount the CD image and extract the contents:

Power on the virtual machine.
Log in to the virtual machine using an account with administrator or root privileges.
Select:

For Fusion: Virtual Machine > Install VMware Tools.
For Workstation: VM > Install VMware Tools.
For Player: Player > Manage > Install VMware Tools.

Note: If you are running the light version of Fusion, a version of Workstation without VMware Tools, or VMware Player, you are prompted to download VMware Tools before they can be installed. Click Download Now to begin the download.

Open the VMware Tools CD mounted on the Ubuntu desktop.
Right-click the file name that is similar to VMwareTools.x.x.x-xxxx.tar.gz, click Copy, and select Ubuntu Desktop to copy the file.
Right-click the file name that is similar to VMwareTools.x.x.x-xxxx.tar.gz on the Ubuntu Desktop, click Extract here.

The vmware-tools-distrib folder is extracted to the Ubuntu Desktop.

To install VMware Tools in Ubuntu:

Open a Terminal window. For more information, see Opening a command or shell prompt (1003892).
In the Terminal, run this command to navigate to the vmware-tools-distrib folder:

cd Desktop/vmware-tools-distrib

Run this command to install VMware Tools:

sudo ./vmware-install.pl -d

Note: The -d switch assumes that you want to accept the defaults. If you do not use -d, press Return to accept the defaults or supply your own answers.

Following command can be used " sudo chmod u+x vmware-install.pl " to make the file executable.

Enter your Ubuntu password.
Restart the Ubuntu virtual machine after the VMware Tools installation completes.

windows said:

run setup.exe

Yes, I can see why people would struggle with windows, it's just so difficult to use.

[LimSlip]

Paul Drawmer said:

If subsequent updates are required, you can still use the machine whilst it updates in background.

Same as Windows then?

[paulrockliffe]

Pachydermus said:

ubuntu said:

To mount the CD image and extract the contents:

Power on the virtual machine.
Log in to the virtual machine using an account with administrator or root privileges.
Select:

For Fusion: Virtual Machine > Install VMware Tools.
For Workstation: VM > Install VMware Tools.
For Player: Player > Manage > Install VMware Tools.

Note: If you are running the light version of Fusion, a version of Workstation without VMware Tools, or VMware Player, you are prompted to download VMware Tools before they can be installed. Click Download Now to begin the download.

Open the VMware Tools CD mounted on the Ubuntu desktop.
Right-click the file name that is similar to VMwareTools.x.x.x-xxxx.tar.gz, click Copy, and select Ubuntu Desktop to copy the file.
Right-click the file name that is similar to VMwareTools.x.x.x-xxxx.tar.gz on the Ubuntu Desktop, click Extract here.

The vmware-tools-distrib folder is extracted to the Ubuntu Desktop.

To install VMware Tools in Ubuntu:

Open a Terminal window. For more information, see Opening a command or shell prompt (1003892).
In the Terminal, run this command to navigate to the vmware-tools-distrib folder:

cd Desktop/vmware-tools-distrib

Run this command to install VMware Tools:

sudo ./vmware-install.pl -d

Note: The -d switch assumes that you want to accept the defaults. If you do not use -d, press Return to accept the defaults or supply your own answers.

Following command can be used " sudo chmod u+x vmware-install.pl " to make the file executable.

Enter your Ubuntu password.
Restart the Ubuntu virtual machine after the VMware Tools installation completes.

windows said:

run setup.exe

Yes, I can see why people would struggle with windows, it's just so difficult to use.

I can see why Ubuntu is faster to install given it's pretty useless out of the box. But you lose days of your life as soon as you want to do anything with Ubuntu, so it's swings and roundabouts really.

[Sheepshanks]

Paul Drawmer said:

Friend of mine asked me to reinstall windows on a 2nd hand laptop he'd purchased.

How old was it? Older laptops can be terrible.

I pulled an old HP mini sized desktop of the shelf the other day, last used some time ago when it was a right battle to get it update from W7 to 10. This time it must have taken literally 3 hours of doing updates before it would do anything.

What surprised me, is once it sorted itself out this time it actually worked pretty well - after it did the initial move from W7 to 10 it was terribly slow.

[Chozza]

When you install Ubuntu do you start with a copy from a CD that has been lying around for a year .. ? or do you download the latest .iso.

If you downloaded a new image for windows .. You wouldnt need the various downloads and it would have done updates in the background

The error here is the beyond the HMI

[Paul Drawmer]

Pachydermus said:

Yes, I can see why people would struggle with windows, it's just so difficult to use.

To install from a bootable cd or USB is almost exactly the same as windows - NOT the complex VMware installation you quoted.

The difference is that Ubuntu will update on the fly whilst installing if connected, and that when then installed it is up to date.


Tell me what I'm doing wrong in Windows - on the one installation I own, it will download updates, then when I want to power down, it will commence updating. Then next time I switch on, it makes me wait whilst it completes its update. Can I switch it to do the whole thing in background at let me continue working?

[paulrockliffe]

Chozza said:

When you install Ubuntu do you start with a copy from a CD that has been lying around for a year .. ? or do you download the latest .iso.

If you downloaded a new image for windows .. You wouldnt need the various downloads and it would have done updates in the background

The error here is the beyond the HMI

Ha ha, you unwittingly make a great point. You start by trawling reviews of the 78 different variations and select the one you think you need, while not really understand what the differences are and how they will cause you to regret your choice later down the line. This doesn't matter as you'll never get that far.

Then you load ask your Windows machine to download it, because nowhere sells Ubuntu for you to install.

Then you copy the file to a USB stick and put it in the other machine and wonder what the fk you do next?

More Google.

Find a Windows tool to create a bootable USB drive from the .iso and leave that running for a while.

Start again with the install. At this point even the slowest Windows installation has finished and run it's updates.

Quick install. Login, wonder where your files are and why there's nothing there to let you do anything?

Start installing all the things that Windows would have just sorted out for you. Wonder why so many obvious things are missing.

Discover the command line, Google some of that SUDO Apt Get stuff. Try it out. Fail.

Go back to Windows because life is simply too short for Ubuntu.

[paulrockliffe]

Paul Drawmer said:

Pachydermus said:

Yes, I can see why people would struggle with windows, it's just so difficult to use.

To install from a bootable cd or USB is almost exactly the same as windows - NOT the complex VMware installation you quoted.

The difference is that Ubuntu will update on the fly whilst installing if connected, and that when then installed it is up to date.


Tell me what I'm doing wrong in Windows - on the one installation I own, it will download updates, then when I want to power down, it will commence updating. Then next time I switch on, it makes me wait whilst it completes its update. Can I switch it to do the whole thing in background at let me continue working?

You're right that Windows will download and install in the background, but lots of things won't change-over until you restart. It'll also do everything it can to force those restarts on you, which is a bit annoying, but I can see where they're coming from. Ubuntu wins there for sure.

[Chozza]

paulrockliffe said:

Ha ha, you unwittingly make a great point.

Have i ? i was suggesting that windows was easier ..

Only issue with a generic windows boot usb is when its associating with an existing install and doesn't determine if it enterprise/home etc . But this is just enter the reset product key.

[Pachydermus]

Paul Drawmer said:

To install from a bootable cd or USB is almost exactly the same as windows - NOT the complex VMware installation you quoted.

presuming all your drivers are available. If not you're straight into arcane commands like I posted which was just the start of my fun with the last vm I installed.
I've been a dev for 30 years now and use both windows and linux for work and I have to say that anyone who claims linux is ready for the masses is living in their own nerdy dreamworld.

[roadsmash]

Windows is a far more comprehensive offering than Ubuntu. Install sizes are approx 5GB for Ubuntu and 15GB for Windows.

It will obviously take far longer to install and set up.

[HRL]

All you really needed was an 8Gb USB stick and the latest version of Win 10 from the MS website.

It even makes the bootable USB stick for you.

Power on to finished install takes about 10 mins using the latest version as long as you’re installing to an SSD.

Pretty damned painless TBH.

[hutchst]

I'll side with Paul here against the microsoft love-in.

I now run dual boot Win10 and Mint on all my devices. It started out as an experiment 18 months ago to see how i got on.

Nowadays i only use Win10/MSOffice for occasional Client-facing work. I much prefer linux. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer to see what's going on in a terminal window, rather than being done in secret behind my back.

[HRL]

Dual boot Win 10 and OSX on a MacBook Pro here. However, I seem to use OSX less and less these days.

Sure Win 10 isn’t perfect but I don’t get the hate for it.

I have it running on the other 3 PC’s in the house, and a matching dual boot setup on my daughters MacBook Air.

[Chozza]

I know which one i would rather talk an isolated relative through :-)

[Derek Smith]

paulrockliffe said:

I can see why Ubuntu is faster to install given it's pretty useless out of the box. But you lose days of your life as soon as you want to do anything with Ubuntu, so it's swings and roundabouts really.

I'm unsure of what you mean. Mint just needs to be downloaded and put on a USB. Run it and you're off.

There's a choice of office suites (I use Softmaker) and browsers. All this on a 12+-year-old Dell laptop. I had a spare 250 SSD. It runs faster than ever it was, boots up quicker and is stable. The laptop struggled with Win10.

It took a morning, including replacing the HDD. You know, about the same time as it would take to load a full version of Win10 plus replace the HDD.

It's not for everyone; indeed its only for my second laptop, but it's great.

[hutchst]

Similar here. Refreshed a 10 year old laptop with a new battery, 2 sticks of ram and an SSD. I now use it daily with Mint, and took the free upgrade from Win 7 to 10 as standby. I should have done it years ago.

[Chozza]

Mint vs. ubuntu Now that a whole other discussion :-)

For normal end-users Mint

<tosses grenade and runs away>

[OlonMusky]

I love ubuntu, especially when it complains that the "Boot" is low on space because it doesn't bother to delete previous kernels that it upgraded through the update mechanism. So you have to spend time googling for an answer hoping to find the right one only to realise that this, as almost everything on Linux, is designed for spotty teenagers to kill time whilst they can't find anyone to sleep with. Life's too short, I'd rather pay Apple for the privilege of not using Windows.