Linuxhead sees Windows for the first time in more than 10 years.

[barbos]

Have been using linux and all kind of unixes since the beginning of time.
The last time I semi-used Windows was during WinXP time.
Completely missed Vista, 7, 8. Couple of times I was asked to help with win 10, I think it was. One guy got "You have a virus!" popup in browser, I told him it's nothing. Another time, old lady lost file associations after some install, I did not fix it (I could but it would have taken time). Instead I taught her to start her Word manually. That's literally all my post WinXP windows experience.
Recently, I decided that I need windows just in case, and installed it under VMware:

Fresh install from the last ISO, automatic update (~6G of files), very long and annoying reboot and 17GB of disk usage.
Fonts are still not antialliased, don't know why.
Media Player does not play x265, and when it plays x264 and older codecs it does not have postprocessing so everything looks pixelated.
Browser Edge seems fine. Cortana does not work without registering and seems cloud based, I did not want guys in India laughing at my accent.

In comparison, Linux (Kubuntu in my case), takes much less space (10G), have much more stuff in it, update process is virtually unnoticeable - not automatic and does not cause 30 minutes reboots. Video player plays everything and does that correctly. Yeah, and fonts are antialiased.

 

[bigfield]

Fresh install from the last ISO, automatic update (~6G of files), very long and annoying reboot and 17GB of disk usage.

Meh, storage is cheap. 17GB is not much if you have 500GB.

Fonts are still not antialliased, don't know why.

Turn on ClearType? It should be on by default. It's well-known that Microsoft and Apple have different priorities when to comes to text: Apple prioritises prettiness while Microsoft sacrifices prettiness for improved readability.

Media Player does not play x265, and when it plays x264 and older codecs it does not have postprocessing so everything looks pixelated.

Install VLC? Which you're probably already using on Kubuntu?

Cortana does not work without registering and seems cloud based, I did not want guys in India laughing at my accent.

IIRC, you can turn that off with some Powershell commands.

In comparison, Linux (Kubuntu in my case), takes much less space (10G), have much more stuff in it, update process is virtually unnoticeable - not automatic and does not cause 30 minutes reboots. Video player plays everything and does that correctly. Yeah, and fonts are antialiased.

Might give Kubuntu another try at some point. Tried it couple of years ago, but it wasn't as customisable as I wanted.

 

[barbos]

I have vlc installed but use mplayer most of the time. I know, I can install vlc, that's not the point. I remember media player being crap in WinXP and it is still a crap. Why can't they have standard player working? They have had 15 years since XP. That shit must work out of the box.
And they want me to activate it

I checked, TrueType is ON, but it looks crappy, I managed to make it look it better in the settings but it is still not as good as kubuntu.
17G is still 17G and VMware recommended 60G. My drive was not exactly empty before this experiment.

Kubuntu did not change much in the last 4 years in terms of look. It just works better.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Linux is always the way to go when you don't need to use any mass distributed software. Other than being able to run mass distributed software, I'm not aware of much else about Windows that makes it good. I mean, yes, it'll run a lot of lesser distributed software, drivers are more likely to work and what not, but I can't think of what would make Windows better than Linux.

Granted, I do now have Linux on a Raspberry Pi 3+ that is running my Plex server... for a total cost of about $55. Windows can't do that! Of course, if I wanted to run mass distributed...

 

[barbos]

I figured out why essentially empty windows takes 17G of disk. It's because of  DLL_Hell.
WinSxS folder has lots of versions of the same DLLs
Linux rarely have such situation because everything is installed from repositories or even from sources.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Sighhhhhh. I hate everything. Windows, Apple, Linux. I am about to start upgrading my system, which is worefully outdated. I am trying to get my webcam working and it refuses to do audio. Linux. Magiea 5 with KDE. And systemd. And Pulsaudio. Pulse audio mixer. And kmixer. And Alsa. And phonon (on KDE) and a jillion confugure files. And Cthulhu knows what else. A real spaghetti code mess.

I am thinking of Gentoo. No system D. No Pulse audio. Rolling distro. Can modify easily. Harden system.
Set up main system with no X system, no GUI. Boot into Xen VM and if necessary administer base system via web browser. Backs up main system painlessly. Set up a user system with browsers in firejail in a hardened VM. I want to go the rest of my life with a working system without the complexity of systemd in my way. I want a webcam that works right. I have a fresh, newly partitioned and formatted 1 terabyte SSD. I need a week, the motivation and a quart of rum. Maybe two. And a handful of thumb drives for basic back up to bare metal and restore shell scripts. And this time I will have a notebook to write down what I did and why.

I dread the ordeal facing me. But I have to Penguin up and get it done.

 

[barbos]

Both Pulseaudio and systemd are incredibly stable now. You should not have problems with them. I have not used HD webcams but older USB20 SD resolution webcams are identical as far as linux kernel concerned, they all use the same protocol/driver, like USB keyboards.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

It is not their stability I am ticked off at. It is they have a deep layer of WTF that keeps me from figuring out my webcam. They have a lot of deep configuration garbage that makes it a nightmare to even understand, much less trouble shoot. Getting rid of all of that will simplify everything. For a server like I am thinking up setting up to run my Xen server, I don't need it anyway.

 

[barbos]

I don't understand, you say you don't need a webcam and yet complain it's hard to configure.
Usually you don't need to configure anything. Skype for example, will let you choose which camera, microphone and audio out to use, same with browsers.

 

[bigfield]

It is not their stability I am ticked off at. It is they have a deep layer of WTF that keeps me from figuring out my webcam. They have a lot of deep configuration garbage that makes it a nightmare to even understand, much less trouble shoot. Getting rid of all of that will simplify everything. For a server like I am thinking up setting up to run my Xen server, I don't need it anyway.

The most "under-the-hood" I ever got was a year or so using Arch LInux. I ended up spending a lot of time maintaining my OS instead of actually using my computer to do useful things. The thing that finally made me wipe it was ALSA: I had tried to fix an unfixable bug (ALSA didn't support my particular Realtek sound card) and ended up losing sound entirely.

 

[barbos]

Fixing unfixable is, by definition, impossible and waste of time. Replacing sound card with something which is supported is usually possible and easy.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

I don't understand, you say you don't need a webcam and yet complain it's hard to configure.
Usually you don't need to configure anything. Skype for example, will let you choose which camera, microphone and audio out to use, same with browsers.

What I mean is I plan to have a minimal hardened basic server set up to run my Xen hypervisor. I plan to eliminate everything else not essential to that task. No Xorg, No GUI, Nothing but Xen and security. All real work will be in a VM with a tailor made set up in these to do what I need to do. For example a simple system for internet surfing with access to the net, with full jails for all apps. A VM that I can set up simply for media, and web cams. Simple OS meant to run Kodi for example. I have 32 gigs of memory and 8 cores, so I might as well learn to use them. Rolling distros all the way with backup, rollback and security.

 

[barbos]

I don't understand, you say you don't need a webcam and yet complain it's hard to configure.
Usually you don't need to configure anything. Skype for example, will let you choose which camera, microphone and audio out to use, same with browsers.

What I mean is I plan to have a minimal hardened basic server set up to run my Xen hypervisor. I plan to eliminate everything else not essential to that task. No Xorg, No GUI, Nothing but Xen and security. All real work will be in a VM with a tailor made set up in these to do what I need to do. For example a simple system for internet surfing with access to the net, with full jails for all apps. A VM that I can set up simply for media, and web cams. Simple OS meant to run Kodi for example. I have 32 gigs of memory and 8 cores, so I might as well learn to use them. Rolling distros all the way with backup, rollback and security.

Looks to me that you do all of that just for fun and yet complain about it.
Still, don't understand how webcam and your VM zoo are related.

 

[bigfield]

Fixing unfixable is, by definition, impossible and waste of time.

This is some wise wisdom.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

I don't understand, you say you don't need a webcam and yet complain it's hard to configure.
Usually you don't need to configure anything. Skype for example, will let you choose which camera, microphone and audio out to use, same with browsers.

What I mean is I plan to have a minimal hardened basic server set up to run my Xen hypervisor. I plan to eliminate everything else not essential to that task. No Xorg, No GUI, Nothing but Xen and security. All real work will be in a VM with a tailor made set up in these to do what I need to do. For example a simple system for internet surfing with access to the net, with full jails for all apps. A VM that I can set up simply for media, and web cams. Simple OS meant to run Kodi for example. I have 32 gigs of memory and 8 cores, so I might as well learn to use them. Rolling distros all the way with backup, rollback and security.

Looks to me that you do all of that just for fun and yet complain about it.
Still, don't understand how webcam and your VM zoo are related.

The base OS is for the Xen hypervisor only. I will not want any thing like a web cam in there anyway. in a VM, I can download a simplified system that supports a web cam without the big problems. No complicated systemd, no convoluted spaghetti software. This is a new Logictech web camera so it should work,. Kodi is a media centric system and I should be able to do anything with that. I will not really need a complex DE like KDE with it's addition of mystery software that might be a problem. A base OS without systemd. Simplify, simplify! And it is in a safe VM far, far away from my base OS.

 

[barbos]

I am not aware of systemd involvement specifically with cameras.
I know systemd has or rather had a lot of detractors who say it is too pervasive and complicated but, in practice, it works great and one just does not notice it.
Also, running VM just for one or two specific applications which are available for host OS for security reasons is an overkill. There is apparmor for that, which is ON by default.
VMs are for quick deployment and managing whole OSes with everything in them.
Also, running graphics intensive programs in VM could have sometimes large overhead.
Graphics is emulated with different degrees of hardware assistance. But with 32G of memory I presume you have very modern system.

 

[barbos]

I really need to learn how to speak to elderly women about computers.
Was asked to "repair" broken windows today by one. It's hard to work when she asks every two minutes "How it's going?"
Boot manager somehow got broken. Before I could fix it she lost patience and decided to bring to official shop where they it turns out would simply make clean install of unlicensed windows. I could have done the same thing much faster and for free. But it's too late for that.

Google says improper shutdown and viruses can screw up boot manager partition. I can believe viruses but improper shutdown? seriously?

 

[ZiprHead]

I checked, TrueType is ON, but it looks crappy, I managed to make it look it better in the settings but it is still not as good as kubuntu.
17G is still 17G and VMware recommended 60G. My drive was not exactly empty before this experiment.

Probably need your video driver updated. It will probably do it automatically if you have updates turned on. Windows isn't completely installed until after the first big update.

 

[barbos]

I checked, TrueType is ON, but it looks crappy, I managed to make it look it better in the settings but it is still not as good as kubuntu.
17G is still 17G and VMware recommended 60G. My drive was not exactly empty before this experiment.

Probably need your video driver updated. It will probably do it automatically if you have updates turned on. Windows isn't completely installed until after the first big update.

Video driver has nothing to do with that. And as I said, it does anti aliasing but it's just trying to use sharp fonts way too aggressively compared to kubuntu.