Why you should replace Windows 7 with Linux
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Windows 10 is not a true desktop OS. It's obvious because it's screen elements/text and the space between those elements are HUGE enough to select with your big toe on a touch screen and not a mouse. Therefore, based on Microsoft cutting corners with lousy design implementation, I will NEVER use any Windows OS past Windows 7 unless Microsoft designs a DECENT OS strictly for a desktop PC like Windows 7 was. Apple designs separate OS's for their desktop, their tablet and their phone. Microsoft should learn from Apple.
I thought about Linux for years but the only thing that's keeping me are the choice of programs and the ability to run a windows Adobe Creative Suite without much hassle. Also, I believe storage drives would need to be reformatted which would be a pain.
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@seeley said in Why you should replace Windows 7 with Linux:
Windows 10 is not a true desktop OS. It's obvious because it's screen elements/text and the space between those elements are HUGE enough to select with your big toe on a touch screen and not a mouse.
What?? I've been using Windows 10 since it was released, and never saw HUGE anything! No idea what you're talking about.
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@JoelYoung Win 8/10 elements are designed for a touch screen. The start menu, the task bar, control panels. For instance, look at the font size and space between the programs in your start menu on the left. Compare it to the Windows 7 start menu's All Programs. Just my opinion since I'm a designer.
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@seeley I don't know whose computer you saw it on, but they apparently had it configured that way. My Win10 has always been made for mousing, never saw any touch screen characteristics to it at all. Everything is well spaced and very comfortable for the mouse.
I used Win7, didn't like 8, but 10 has been basically 7 on steroids.
I ran my own Web design business from '99 to '15, so I would notice if my screen was more suited to touch.
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@JoelYoung no he's right. Win 8 was worse, but open the start menu or the settings in 10 and just look how much space they actually take up on the screen. Look at the spacing between elements. Look at just how huge the minimise / maximise / close buttons are on every window border. Heck, just look how thick the top border is!
This is not even an opinion, it's what Microsoft themselves stated; the UI was designed to work the same in both touch screen and desktop environments.
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FWIW, if you don't like the large tiles on your start menu, you can change any of them to be smaller. Just right-click on it, and in the context menu you'll see the sizing options. That way you can shrink them to take up 1/4 the area and fit more on your screen. I do this to some that I use infrequently, and ones that I use even less frequently I stack. Dragging & dropping an icon onto another stacks them and then you can add others. I've found this to make my start menu much more manageable considering I pin so many apps to it. If I didn't do that, I'd have to scroll to see everything on my workstation.
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@bonetone I just removed them all and slimmed the Start Menu down to one list (the left side).
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@Catweazle said in Why you should replace Windows 7 with Linux:
with Wine you can also use Photoshop
Have you tried this? It's been years since WINE has been able to run the current version of Photoshop with any reasonable measure of completeness and the current version is rated as "Garbage" on the WINE site. Older versions may be workable, but my workflow has been adapted to the latest PS.
For the most basic of tasks GIMP will work, and I use it when I have to. It's not as enjoyable to use, but it suffices for some quick & dirty editing. Start using any plugins or if you've automated your workflows, you're giving up a whole lot to leave PS behind. I so desperately wish I could get PS working reliably in WINE, or have Adobe support Linux natively. All this equally applies to Lightroom & darktable.
Alas, it seems neither if these things are going to happen for me and so I run a multi-boot environment on my workstations. In all reality I'd have to do so even with PS working in Linux, but having that would dramatically reduce the frequency with which I need to reboot into Windows. Not that I hate Windows either, I just prefer my environment in Linux, so the more I can achieve there the better. But for any serious photography work I have to be in Windows, so I've tweaked it as best I can to match my Linux setup.
Edit: I'd also add that while certain tasks can be done in the Linux alternatives to PS & LR, that doesn't mean they are equally enjoyable to use for those tasks. Even with GIMP installed on Linux, since I have PS available I'll almost always reboot to use it.
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@bonetone
Hi, there are some of my customers not want to upgrade to 10 for different reasons.
You can easy extend security updates for Windows 7 on a yearly base for 50 € a year.
I mention this already a few posts ago and should not be a problem for professional user to pay a few bugs for the MS support.
I use dual boot system for some time with a read/write partition from both systems.
As booting from SSD need only 20 seconds I can use both today without issues with some planing what I do first and so forth.
2 cents, booting in to Windows always come with me shouting:" Oh no, not update horror again now".Cheers, mib
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I have had linux over 20 years, but when I started playing some mmorpg games, I switched over to windows 10. I have never had windows 7. The windows I had prior to linux was Windows 2000. Windows 10 is a bit hard to switch over to, if you are unwilling to learn new things. Same goes for linux, so basically both linux and windows 10 are new challenges. But the article also talks about older hardware, and here linux is really great. But it is not a question of simply installing linux--you also need to have some knowledge of your hardware, if your processor is x86 or x86_64, that is 32-bit or 64-bit. Some linux distributions do not support 32-bit architectures. So prior to installing linux, be sure to read up on the linux distribution you are interested in. I would, though, think that most people nowadays have 64-bit pc's and laptops as their main ones. For them linux might not be the best solution, especially not for gamers although some games certainly run on wine, but not out of the box, with much reading and trickery. But if you do not game, there is absolutely no reason not to use linux. The user friendly distros are already mentioned in the article, which I think are best to stick to, unless you are stubborn and willing to pick some of the more demanding linux systems. Some are quite nice, but not always stable, one of which is Manjaro, which is Arch Linux based, but contrary to Arch Linux has an automated setup and hardware detection. But be aware that these two do NOT run on 32-bit systems. So when you and if you switch to linux, be prepared to do some serious reading before hand to avoid disappointments and uninstallable distributions.
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@bonetone , I already said that Gimp is not a valid substitute for professional use in the absence of certain PS functions, for example the handling of RAW files, used by photographers, although the latest versions of Gimp have improved a lot (some years ago, Gimp, with the Separate windows was certainly a mess).
But I think that for 90% of users, Gimp offers more resources than the user will ever use.
On the other hand, Krita is a drawing program created by design professionals and not specifically for photographic retouching (although also possible, compatible with PS files), but which in its scope has functions far superior to those that PS has and would therefore be the choice for cartoonists and Designers.
(Curious that Krita, an OpenSource program, which can be downloaded for free from the official website, in the Windows Store is offered for € 9.95) -
@justinzobel said in Why you should replace Windows 7 with Linux:
@bonetone I just removed them all and slimmed the Start Menu down to one list (the left side).
Funny enough, I had forgotten how to junk all the junk for the start menu on this recently installed laptop and just looked up how to do it five minutes ago - as you describe.
Typical Micrsoft bad UI design that there is no description anywhere why those tiles are there and no option to just get rid of them(*). No, you have to figure out yourself that they are applications which have been "pinned to start" by the system in the first place - and that to get rid of them you have to right-click each one and un-pin it manually....
(*) there are options for including or excluding "most used", "recently added" etc. but clicking all those options affects everything EXCEPT the ones I wanted to get rid of! Why not have another option for "pinned tiles"?!? Then you could not only get rid of them with one click, you could also figure out why that junk is there in the first place...
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@mossman said in Why you should replace Windows 7 with Linux:
@JoelYoung
the UI was designed to work the same in both touch screen and desktop environments.The joke in Win10 being that they still haven't finished the UI! It's bizarre... you can get to about 75% of settings in the Win10 settings thing... but just type "control panel" in a console or from the start menu and you get the Win7 control panel which accesses more stuff and goes into much more detail.
Power options for example... your Win10 laptop is actually using a selected option from a list of user-defined power profiles - but you can't see it in a Win10 UI interface! Oh no... to get there, you have to either use the Win7 control panel or right-click the power icon in the system tray and choose "power options"... and get the same old Win7 interface as ten years ago.
It's quite pathetic that instead of "finishing" the new UI, they just keep adding on more and more "skins" on top of the old system which eventually ends up dumping you back in the Win7 interface anyway.
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To facilitate access to all options you can create a God mode in Windows10.
Simply create a new folder in any directory and call it
GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}That's it, clicking on the icon opens a menu with all the possible options in Windows, organized by themes.Instead of God mode, you can also put any other name.
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@mossman I guess I must've customized my Win10 to not be that way. Don't remember doing it, but it's fine to me. The Start menu is still larger than it used to/needs to be, but it's no big deal because it's only there for a few seconds while I access something from it, and it's gone. No longer in the way.
I dunno... I guess for people who don't want to learn how to make the OS suit their own needs, it's a bother. -
@Catweazle Why didn't I know about this? LOL. I'm geeky and computery and have learned a ton of tips & tricks the past 20 years. How did this escape me??
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@JoelYoung said in Why you should replace Windows 7 with Linux:
@Catweazle Why didn't I know about this? LOL. I'm geeky and computery and have learned a ton of tips & tricks the past 20 years. How did this escape me??
I have no idea, this trick is so old, already from times of XP, where I applied it.
It is a Control Panel on Steroids -
@linfan Strange. I started on Manjaro (after many months of live sessions) and since then I'm facing only problems that are usual when switching OS (or any other piece of SW).
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@Catweazle said in Why you should replace Windows 7 with Linux:
@JoelYoung said in Why you should replace Windows 7 with Linux:
@Catweazle Why didn't I know about this? LOL. I'm geeky and computery and have learned a ton of tips & tricks the past 20 years. How did this escape me??
I have no idea, this trick is so old, already from times of XP, where I applied it.
It is a Control Panel on SteroidsYes, I remember someone showing me this literally decades ago.
Can't do much on this company laptop (most of it requires admin) - will have to have a look at home some time to see if there's anything useful in there...
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@mossman , this may also work on the company's PC, provided you are authorized to create a folder