General Computer Thread

[Santaman]

Updated a few machines to 22.2, nothing special happened, there's now a handy "reboot" button in the update manager so you can just click reboot right away after you've updated something important (usually the kernel) otherwise it remains what it is, pleasant and stable.

 

[John Clark]

Just updated to 22.2 myself. That's another thing I'm enjoying about Linux. So far, every single update (whether the OS or otherwise) has been pretty quick and smooth.

For my old (work) laptop, the regular updates (never mind the H1/H2 ones) took my computer out of action for at least an hour, and massively slowed everything down for an hour or so beforehand while it downloaded everything. - Technically it was compatible with Win11, but it just failed every time.

My new work laptop is faster in that regard (and now on Win11), but still not as fast as mint has been on the updates.

Don't think we'll go Linux there though.

 

[Santaman]

Not many corporations switch to Linux, backwards compatibility, people not wanting to learn new stuff etc etc.

Yeah, on Windows most updates are a long and dramatic event.. and while Linux also had its stinkers the track record of windows updates breaking stuff isn't great...

 

[John Clark]

At one point, I could have seen our team go for it as we had the people who probably could manage it and would have liked to try.
Nowadays, really not.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Yeah, on Windows most updates are a long and dramatic event.. and while Linux also had its stinkers the track record of windows updates breaking stuff isn't great..

The amount of time Windows breaks something has dramatically increased once CEO Satya Nadella took power & decided to fire the entire internal QA / Test team.
He decided that treating the Consumers/Public as "Free QA" was good enough and that's why we're at where we are at.

 

[Santaman]

Yes, the normal beta.. eh alpha tes.. eh user is the one who tests everything for their corporate branch, after a few 10's of thousands of computers go belly up they'll get the data and distill from there the solution which is used to create patches for the poor souls who have corporate licences which is where the real money is.. "normal" users don't bring any money so they're expendable...

 

[Owain Taggart]

Not many corporations switch to Linux, backwards compatibility, people not wanting to learn new stuff etc etc.

Yeah, on Windows most updates are a long and dramatic event.. and while Linux also had its stinkers the track record of windows updates breaking stuff isn't great...

Does Linux have good VM? Wondering as my Dad has an aging Windows 7 computer, I would think moving to Linux with it would be a great idea, other than the fact that he relies on many windows applications that would otherwise prevent him from moving that are probably not be available via Linux.

 

[Marc]

Does Linux have good VM? Wondering as my Dad has an aging Windows 7 computer, I would think moving to Linux with it would be a great idea, other than the fact that he relies on many windows applications that would otherwise prevent him from moving that are probably not be available via Linux.

Virtual Box has a Linux port, VM Workstation (broadscum nuked VMUG, castrated the free version of ESXi but did make workstation free).

Unless you want to get into things like Libvvirt and KVM

Not many corporations switch to Linux, backwards compatibility, people not wanting to learn new stuff etc etc.

the later is probably a bigger issue than backwards compatible (we all known ever fucking microsoft can't even pull that off).

Many users can and do get by in their daily work lives with apps accessed via browsers (MS Office, Google Docs, Salesforce etc) so why not run Linux? You've got Chrome, Firefox and possibly MS Edge for choice of browser.

Hell you could replace their PCs with a Rasperry Pi and they could work just as well.

Then you've for the IT dept to fight with - they would have all their nice Windows tools for updates, deployment etc and comfortable in their own little world.

There's nothing in the Linux world that quite matches for the VDI such as VMWare Horizon (or was Horizon - believe broadscum sold/spun it iff) or Citrix but could still do build once deployment many soluition that could provide everyone with standard desktop with browers for cloud based apps and mapped storage for their preferences without shattering the world.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Virtual Box has a Linux port, VM Workstation (broadscum nuked VMUG, castrated the free version of ESXi but did make workstation free).

Unless you want to get into things like Libvvirt and KVM

Ok, I guess the better question would be, could there be a setup where I wouldn't worry about what's compatible, say being able to run windows applications out of the box? Does such a thing exist?

 

[Santaman]

Wine, not the drink but the program, is the usual go to for running Windows programs under Linux.

Wine (software) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Marc]

Ok, I guess the better question would be, could there be a setup where I wouldn't worry about what's compatible, say being able to run windows applications out of the box? Does such a thing exist?

Wine as noted but a virtual machine would the best the option for because you can physical to virtual the existing install (most likely a breach of the licencing but we won't tell MS if you won't).

That means everything will there just as it is. No need to re-install software etc.

And from a user perspective, much easier to use and deal with.

 

[Owain Taggart]

That does sound very nice. And I'm assuming there would be less overhead in general as compared to Windows. Is it possible to do both, say run wine and a VM, or is it one or the other?

I'm kind of considering Linux for my Dad. He's got so much stuff accumulated from over the years, and any change would need to have everything stay where it is. It's an aging computer running Windows 7, and the good thing is, he's already running some open-source software such as Thunderbird for his mail. I guess another way of doing it would be to dual boot. He's also got a Windows 10 machine, but I think the computer guy who sold it to him back then knew it was a dud, and I've long suspected a fault with the board as it randomly crashes, and despite it being newer, he relies more on the Windows 7 computer.

 

[Marc]

That does sound very nice. And I'm assuming there would be less overhead in general as compared to Windows. Is it possible to do both, say run wine and a VM, or is it one or the other?

I'm kind of considering Linux for my Dad. He's got so much stuff accumulated from over the years, and any change would need to have everything stay where it is. It's an aging computer running Windows 7, and the good thing is, he's already running some open-source software such as Thunderbird for his mail. I guess another way of doing it would be to dual boot. He's also got a Windows 10 machine, but I think the computer guy who sold it to him back then knew it was a dud, and I've long suspected a fault with the board as it randomly crashes, and despite it being newer, he relies more on the Windows 7 computer.

running wine would mean you have to install the app to the Linux distro which would entail you having all the install media etc.

is the system a name brand or local assembler? The later and you could probably upgrade the hardware and then the OS to run Windows 11.

Most expensive option but the least likely to involve extra calls for support.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Nah, not a name brand. It's a PC from a local computer shop. They both are, actually. And upgrading isn't much of an option as the PCs are old enough as to make upgrading too much of a pain. At that point, buying something new makes more sense, which is why I asked about Linux, which would at least give it a new lease on life. The Windows 7 PC is an early generation i5 processor, for instance.