Why you should replace Windows 7 with Linux
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i have used vivaldi as my main browser for many years... been a solid linux user since 2014 and have ran windows on machines since 1990 , had also ran and worked on computers since 1986. I can say that Vivaldi is one awesome browser and i would love for it to implement a way to back up and restore locally,even my synch password so that if i format a machine,I would have a way to restore all of my favorite sites (Including this page) without hassles.
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@linfan: be glad... windows 7 was ok but then proprietary. When win 10 came,many lost thier stuff.. lol this is why i am an avid linux user.
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I got lured in with these kind of articles, and replaced the hard-drive of a brand new HP laptop with a bigger SSD and installed Linux Mint...
Things that made me give up on the idea and why that laptop sits in a corner, never used again:
Repeatedly having to go back to forums and ask noob questions... and not understanding the answers.
Learning that the developers of Mint didn't consider it a replacement for Windows and code it 'just for fun', with no interest or intention of helping Window users migrate (and this is meant to be THE distribution for those like me, migrating?)
Clunky irritations that weren't worth doing the noob questions thing about but which still irritated
The fact that not only is Office not available for Linux, nor are the Serif/Affinity alternative to Adobe. Nor is my fav video editor... Basically I realized all my fav software was Windows, and while some alternatives existed, they mostly suck like free software always does. Always.
The final straw was when the 3rd hotel in a row had awful wifi that I just couldn't connect to... until discovering that some or all versions of mintylunuxdwardfwhatever WON'T CONNECT to Wifi unless it's private WLAN, regardless if you want to or not. So I was lugging my laptop around like a paperweight, while becoming increasingly rude to various (entirely innocent) Malaysian hotel staff.
Oh and the password thing. Got SO effing sick of typing in my password, holy %##Technically I know I CAN use it for various tasks, if I really have to, but my levels of enjoyment went from "Yeah! Sticking it to the man! It's gonna get MINTY fresh around here!" to "Password again? I'm not USING that deposit thing, I deleted it already, why does it keep telling me it can't update it? And what the heck is... oh wait, why? Oh WTF? Look, can I just.. password? Oh it nearly 8pm? Welp, time for bed then...I have a headache"
Oh and that was a previous version of Mint, 11 I think, as the latest version at the time had all kinds of issues, including not booting, that the fanboys just didn't bother to mention for my first 3 days of trouble-shooting the thing.
And much as I despise Win10's updated updates of it's updated updating updates, I've always found 'free' (my time isn't) software to be no better in that regard.
I'll stick with Win7 until it physically quits working. And I have backup hardware.
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Apart of the already mentioned:
Shut Up 10 by O&O SoftwareFor those who have/want to use W 10:
https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/3921/how-can-i-get-away-from-using-windows/5(The previously mentioned)
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@mikehoulden said in Why you should replace Windows 7 with Linux:
@linfan: be glad... windows 7 was ok but then proprietary. When win 10 came,many lost thier stuff.. lol this is why i am an avid linux user.
I have not lost anything at all with Win10, I could even use old XP stuff again that was not compatible with Win7.
I certainly also prefer FOSS, although not fanatically, if a proprietary thing is better than the FOSS alternative, I don't mind using it. Apart there are more FOSS for Windows than for Linux. -
@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. 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.
The tile desktop is optional in W10 and designed for the user of a Tablet, on a PC or Laptop, the desktop is the same as in previous versions of Windows.
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@JoelYoung He speaks about the UWP apps of Windows 8 & 10 that were meant to be running on any Windows platform, tablets, phones, PC. They are not native for the PC but "universal", like the Calculator, Weather, Calendar, Camera, Mail, Movies & TV, Voice Recorder, etc... unfortunately for everyone Windows Phone died a horrible death as expected and this junk was left in the OS for everyone to... admire.
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It's funny that no one has wondered WHY there would still be machines running Win7. The only reason I can see to suggest Linux in this instance is because someone found an old machine that has it and it can't run 8 or 10 or the cost to upgrade outweighs the benefit.
Think about it.
Arguably, any PERSON still using Win7 either didn't care enough about it to upgrade when they had the chance in which case they're not going to care (and probably not know) that Win7 is obsolete or that Linux even exists.
So while we all agree that Linux is a great OS to replace Win7 for the MACHINE, it probably doesn't matter to the OWNER. Saying that you SHOULD do it takes nothing but the machine capability into account.
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@aeonscrim ,I think the reasons can be limited only to ignorance or costs, since Windows 10 does not use much more resources than Windows 7, in fact there are even tablets and netbooks that work with Windows 10.
In general, a PC where Windows 7 works will also work with 10, otherwise they are very old PCs with XP or earlier where there may be problems and where Linux really would be the only alternative. -
Not so.
Many games do not behave properly in windows 10.
This is often due to DirectX no longer handling old functions properly, and MS trying to phase out OpenGL support, so often leaves developers with an SDK they cannot use even if the game works OK. -
@Dr-Flay , it's relative, I have some old XP games that didn't work for me in Windows 7, but now in Windows 10 they work without problems. Windows 10 has a better compatibility mode than 7. For example Dark Messiah in Windows 7 only works with a patch, ,I don't need in Win 10.
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@catweazle: In general, just because a machine will start up and boot an OS doesn't mean it "works".
I shouldn't have to "down tune" Win10 to make it work on a machine previously running 7 full on. I have had to do that more often than not when performing upgrades for customers.
As a matter of fact, I've got an HP 255 G4 on my bench now that absolutely won't work with Win 10 but works with 7 experiencing only minimal issues. It flat out hated Ubuntu 18-10, performed decently with Lubuntu 19-10 but ultimately is now just too under-powered for any real use with a current OS regardless of what's on it.So while you're not wrong, your comment was not helpful in the slightest and I stand by my point of "not all Win7 machines will work with Win 8 or 10".
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@aeonscrim said in Why you should replace Windows 7 with Linux:
I shouldn't have to "down tune" Win10 to make it work on a machine previously running 7 full on. I have had to do that more often than not when performing upgrades for customers.
Newer software is built to utilize newer hardware, it makes sense for the default installation to be richer than the previous version rather than forcing users to hunt down all of the new functionality and enable it. The need to optimize down for weak hardware is a less common scenario, especially over the lifetime of the product.
Operating Systems aren't mind readers, they don't know which features someone wants to keep enabled versus which features they're happy to do without in order to optimize their system. So it's not just a matter of the OS analyzing the hardware and then turning off some set of features. A Windows system can be used in so many different roles that I couldn't possibly list them all, let alone guess which role a user wanted simply by analyzing their system and then automatically tune it.
Windows 7 is no different, it even has a Performance Troubleshooting tool that helps users identify potential areas that could be optimized and allows the user to decide what to modify. There are also various support documents available that help with optimizing Windows.
Most modern systems are the same. Mac controls what hardware people are allowed to use, so it doesn't have to deal with supporting the vast options available to Windows and Linux users. Some Linux distros take a different approach, and install the bare minimum necessary for a working system (see Arch), but that's hardly what you or most people are looking for -- it requires installing pretty much everything one wants to use and requires the user to manually tune everything anyways. Personally, I like that, building my system up and configuring it to meet my specific needs, but I'd never ask my parents to do the same.
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@kjm489 , W10 obviously contains a lot of garbage by default when purchased with a new PC or upgraded to this OS. But to be fair, it must also be said that the OS itself offers the possibilities of remove it ,, which was always the first thing I've done with any version of Windows.The only problem is that many users are not aware of this possibility and it is clear that MS also does not remind you of this and does not have much documentation on how to do it. Many things are simple to uninstall like any other program in 10, but with others it is somewhat more complicated to be part of the system and some of them do not appear with the name they really have in the system. To eliminate them (!) you have to use the command line.
Get-AppxPackage "appname" | Remove-AppxPackage
Calendar and mail: communicationsapp
Cinema & TV: zunevideo
Get Office: officehub
Skype: skypeapp
Get Started: getstarted
Groove Música: zunemusic
Naturally make a backup of the system before. -
@kjm489 said in Why you should replace Windows 7 with Linux:
I tested all distros listed on Distrowatch.
That seems unlikely. There are 76 distributions in the list... before you get to the letter B. That of course includes distros that are no longer active. There are at least 275 active distributions on Distrowatch. At a rate of testing one per workday, that still takes over a year, at which point comparisons between those tested earlier and those tested later lose their value. Even with one full day, one person would struggle to complete a sufficiently broad set of tests for an operating system -- especially if one is also testing across devices to be able to compare desktops and several brands of laptops... that's far more than could be done in a single day.
Perhaps it would be more meaningful to simply list the distros that you tested, and what testing means: what manual test cases were run, any automated test suites that were used, what metrics were collected, which benchmark programs were used and the results from those, what devices were they tested on, etc. Without details like this, it's difficult to draw any conclusions at all without the risk of coming to a wrong one.
For example, what does "boots fast and regular" mean? How is "friendly" measured? What metrics are used and what is the target for "run fast"? What kind of load is put on the system and how is it determined to "work smoothly"? Presumably the same apps & data were used to test these things, and it would make sense if it was automated -- to save you time & effort, to make the tests consistent & thus comparable, and to automatically generate reports. That would make it very easy to objectively determine which systems are running fast and which have performance issues.
For Arch, what compatibility issues did you find, in which brands? That would be useful information to know for anyone who is looking for a new laptop to run Arch.
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On my laptop Windows 10, cold boot and connected to the network ~ 22s. Linux isn't faster
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@Catweazle said in Why you should replace Windows 7 with Linux:
On my laptop Windows 10, cold boot and connected to the network ~ 22s. Linux isn't faster
Out of curiosity... Do you have "fast boot" disabled? If not then it's not a cold boot - by default Microsoft let's Windows 10 "shut down" by logging the user out and hibernating.
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@mossman, no, nothing to hibernate, I turn off the Laptop when I do not use it. Cold start.
Although I have to add that on the one hand I use an SSD and on the other hand I have also left only the necessary Windows services. -
On my workstation Windows is the fastest of 5 OSes that I boot on the machine. I don't have the numbers available as I haven't timed it in well over a year, maybe 2 now. Between the 2 OSes I regularly boot, Windows (vs Arch Linux) is significantly faster that it's noticeable without a stopwatch. I consider the stopwatch to start after the OS is chosen in the boot loader, refund in my case. That's the only fair way to compare. Not only is everything before that common to all systems, it wouldn't be an accurate measurement trying to time choosing a non-default OS with the boot loader timeout. So when I did time it, I started the timer when I selected the OS to boot. Total time from power on to network connected isn't what mattered in that test, just the difference between systems.
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@bonetone I guess faster boot time is needed for having to restart the PC 3 times a day every day for any (minor) update in Windows :smiling_face_with_open_mouth_closed_eyes:
P.S. Did you add to the fair comparison the time that is needed to re-open all the opened programs and their files that the restart has shut down?