# Windows 7 ends Jan 14, 2020



## Borophagus Metropolis (Jan 1, 2020)

I like Windows 7, but it's been 10 years, and Microsoft is ending support. I am removing Win7 and installing Linux Mint Mate on both my desktop and laptop. With that, my old (but good) machines should last another decade, anyway.

I think Windows 10 sucks, and obviously I don't want anything to do with an Apple because I'm not one of _those people._

I have joined the Linux Mint cult because:
•It is free and open source
•It runs great on older hardware (so far, even better than Win7)
•It has a MS compatible office suite
•Steam lets me play Windowz games on Linux
•The GUI is intuitive and easy to use for a lifetime Windows user like me. 

I wonder what everyone else is planning to do...


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## KodaPop (Jan 1, 2020)

I've been using Ubuntu Budgie for a few months now switching from Windows 10 on my personal computer. Oh boy what a fantastic change that was. Plus if you use Wine or Steam's Proton, you can run pretty much anything that is native to Windows. For a free and open source OS, I think it is the best one out there by a long-shot. Gives server owners and developers like me an OS that won't fight back when you want simple things. Mint is also great because you don't really have to interact with the command line if you don't want to (but I would highly recommend getting used to it).

Glad you are joining the Linux cult


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## Izzy4895 (Jan 1, 2020)

As long as I don’t have any major problems down the road, I will probably use my old Windows 7 computer until it needs to be replaced (I only switched from XP to Windows 7 because the motherboard in my old laptop was defective). When I finally have to switch to something else, I will go with some variant of Linux.


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## Borophagus Metropolis (Jan 1, 2020)

KodaPop said:


> I've been using Ubuntu Budgie for a few months now switching from Windows 10 on my personal computer. Oh boy what a fantastic change that was. Plus if you use Wine or Steam's Proton, you can run pretty much anything that is native to Windows. For a free and open source OS, I think it is the best one out there by a long-shot. Gives server owners and developers like me an OS that won't fight back when you want simple things. Mint is also great because you don't really have to interact with the command line if you don't want to (but I would highly recommend getting used to it).
> 
> Glad you are joining the Linux cult



I have played around with my Raspberry Pi quite a bit, so terminal commands aren't completely lost on me. However, Mint seems to be completely useable without ever using the terminal window, and I like that.


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## Z-ro (Jan 1, 2020)

This computer will lose it's vitality then 
that's unfortunate


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## Deleted member 106754 (Jan 1, 2020)

I used to be in the boat where I just didn't want to get Windows 10 for all the data collecting it does. I can understand if someone who's running a lot of old legacy software and work with it heaps that going to Win10 just simply will not work. I looked at different linux versions as a replacement and for a while, and I installed it on my main rig on one of my drives and booted into it as the main OS, but this only lasted for a few weeks. The production software I use simply didn't run well or at all on linux, sony vegas being one of them and as decently Mint KDE worked for me, it really felt like a last resort rather than a replacement when I used it.

As an OS itself however win10 it's not too shabby and when it comes to general usage I can look past it by using classic start, as the "new" start menu is one of my bigger gripes along with the data it collects. It has just been minor headaches if any where some updates over the years now made me go "Why did you remove this here, now I just need to make 2 clicks extra to get where I want...". I stayed away insider program like a plague and kept away from fresh new updates on a Win pro license and never had any issues myself at least.

Not liking win10 is fair, but sometimes it feels like the hate is so strong for the wrong reasons as change is change and people don't like changes. By spending a few extra minutes the first day when installing win10 on a system I can get it homey and windows7-ishy enough that it doesn't matter to me at least, and I still get to keep the stability of running software native on the OS it was made for. Not a big fan of learning new softwares and go through a bigger change by moving to a completely new OS in the end, rather than just learning those small bothersome workaround things once. Usability on win10 is all fine and dandy to me, but win10 aand what it does with data is questionable at best.


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## Simo (Jan 1, 2020)

I will spank a fox.


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## Kinare (Jan 2, 2020)

My desktop already has 10 on it because 7 wasn't compatible with the hardware upgrades I had to do for it, so I've gotten used to it. There's some features I hate, but overall it's ok. I'll keep 7 on my laptop until absolutely forced to get 10. I don't think this laptop will last more than a couple more years anyways, so it'll be fine.


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## Deleted member 82554 (Jan 2, 2020)

Pffft Android is where it's at...


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## Fallowfox (Jan 2, 2020)

My tablet works with windows 7 so I am continuing to use a windows 7 laptop. If I only use it for furaffinity, email and bbc news should I anticipate any problems?


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## Simo (Jan 2, 2020)

Does it cost money to get Windows 10?


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## Pomorek (Jan 2, 2020)

Simo said:


> Does it cost money to get Windows 10?


If you're buying brand new license, then yes.

But if you have a genuine Windows 7 product key, you can try downloading the 10 and activating it with this key. I've read an article from August 2019 stating that this unofficial method still worked at the time of writing.

Alternatively, it was stated that it's possible to use the 10 without activation indefinitely. It may of course nag about it, but it won't block itself or anything. The limitation is that you can't have a personal user account on it, only something generic, and the desktop background is watermarked and not possible to change from the personalization options - but RMB on a picture and "Set it as desktop background" was said to work regardless.


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## ManicTherapsid (Jan 3, 2020)

Borophagus Monoclinous said:


> I like Windows 7, but it's been 10 years, and Microsoft is ending support. I am removing Win7 and installing Linux Mint Mate on both my desktop and laptop. With that, my old (but good) machines should last another decade, anyway.
> 
> I think Windows 10 sucks, and obviously I don't want anything to do with an Apple because I'm not one of _those people._
> 
> ...




If only I could get Epic to run on Linux or find a way round it so I can play Mechwarrior 5.


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## Pomorek (Jan 3, 2020)

As to what I'm planning to do: I'm driving Windows 7 for as long as it works. I have KDE Neon flavor of Linux installed, it's fine as an alternative system. Especially as all my art programs are Linux-friendly FOSS. The only Windows-dependent was the one I used for Flash turntables, but with the unfortunate demise of that standard, I no longer have any use of it...

So far, Neon was very much secondary, but I think I'll be gradually migrating more and more works onto it because of security reasons - after all, Win 7 is no longer covered.

Further down the line, when I finally need to upgrade the CPU & mobo to something that doesn't support the 7 (that is, any modern ones), I can give Win 10 a chance, but only as a secondary system in case there's something Linux cannot handle. 

Overall, as I said more than once, I greatly dislike the direction in which Microsoft is taking Windows after the 7. Lots of weird experiments and corporate ploy, little in terms of actual improved usability. Or even regressions, like what the heck is with the search function? I have Win 10 on a laptop and I can tell that it returns more junk and less relevant finds than that on the 7. Sometimes even fails to find installed applications! Also, so many years development, and it still doesn't have tabbed file manager built in, come on people! But stupid useless tiles? Why, of course. 

Also, the aesthetics (I consider myself an artist, after all...). The rough, blocky, sharp-edged look of the 10 is simply off-putting to me. It looks like something from the 8-bit era, or maybe a homebrew Linux distro where the maker didn't have time to make proper UI graphics so he hastily composed everything out of simplest geometrical primitives. Yeah, I know that the "flat minimalism" is the word of the day, but every time I see it I want to grab a (physical) file and smoothen all these damn sharp corners and edges before someone gets hurt on them, lol.


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## Borophagus Metropolis (Jan 3, 2020)

Fallowfox said:


> My tablet works with windows 7 so I am continuing to use a windows 7 laptop. If I only use it for furaffinity, email and bbc news should I anticipate any problems?



Security will be the main problem. I would be sure to use a good third party security program.



ManicTherapsid said:


> If only I could get Epic to run on Linux or find a way round it so I can play Mechwarrior 5.



I haven't played MechWarrior since, oh 1996 or so. I have fond memories, but it caused lots of PC crashing.


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## Pomorek (Jan 3, 2020)

Borophagus Monoclinous said:


> Security will be the main problem. I would be sure to use a good third party security program.


I think that as long as we use a decent antivirus that still supports Win 7 and receives updates, we're pretty safe. After all, how many new exploits can be found in a system that has been around since more than a decade?

Additionally, most people seem to be going with the flow (userbase of Windows 7 was said to be around 20-30% by now, depending on the source, and most likely will keep falling). This should reduce the incentive for hackers to work on this system.


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## ManicTherapsid (Jan 3, 2020)

I'm running Mint 18.3 I think. Are the 19 versions much better?


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## KodaPop (Jan 3, 2020)

ManicTherapsid said:


> I'm running Mint 18.3 I think. Are the 19 versions much better?


v19 looks a bit more modern with minor performance boosts. However, I usually just stick with the latest LTS release which is still in v18.


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## Tyll'a (Jan 4, 2020)

I stopped using Windows 7 on my main computers in 2012, and stopped using it entirely in 2015.  No regrets.


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## Pygmepatl (Jan 8, 2020)

I've already jumped to Apple since 2015, still using OS X El Capitan. Though my laptop won't last forever, and their products no longer interest me, so I'll switch to Linux.


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## Pygmepatl (Jan 8, 2020)

I'm already starting to learn Linux through Gentoo, but maybe I'll go for something easier once I make the full switch, like some flavor of the still to be released Ubuntu 20.04 Focal Fossa.


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## Captain TrashPanda (Jan 8, 2020)

F for windows 7


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## Deleted member 82554 (Jan 8, 2020)

Elementary OS is best Linux.


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## Pygmepatl (Jan 8, 2020)

Void Linux and Gentoo Linux.


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## Pygmepatl (Jan 8, 2020)

But at the end it doesn't matter, they're all Linux.


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## Fern Bayley (Jan 9, 2020)

When Win10 first came out, I detested the new desktop so much, I went pure Linux. I'm using both Ubuntu and Mint. Only one laptop has Windows 7 on it for a few legacy reasons here and there.

But for those wanting to try Linux, it's really easy, when you choose which version, pick the Cinnamon Desktop, for users converting from Windows to Linux, this gives you a desktop that behaves most like the classic Windows 'Start Menu'. If Ubuntu is using the Trinity desktop and you want Cinnamon, go to the software manager and install Cinnamon, then select it next time you log in.

For users of windows, just bite the bullet and go Linux. If you pick Cinnamon and install WINE, it'll be 99% the same and easy with support for some of the odds and ends Windows applications running under Linux with WINE (Windows Is Not an Emulator, it's a Windows API emulator to run Win apps under Linux). 1% of the time, you'll be frustrated saying 'where the bleep did that menu option move to, no, darn, where is it!...', you'll get over that relatively fast and get into things. If in doubt with Linux, google it, the answer is there. And if you use Photoshop, when you switch to Linux, go to the software manager and install the *free* GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) and give it a try. Use Micro$oft Office? Go Linux, *free* office package, LibreOffice comes pre-installed, and reads and writes M$ Office formats.

I mean, after using Linux for over ten years, and going 100% Linux two years ago, it's a very nice alternative to Windows. If you tried Linux back in the day, try it again, it's *really* hardened up these days. Screw Micro$haft now.


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## pilgrimfromoblivion (Jan 10, 2020)

F for windows 7. shit was my childhood.


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## Fern Bayley (Jan 10, 2020)

You want childhood, I started with Windows 3.0, pre-3.1 kid, on floppies.


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## Ma' Tahsarr (Jan 11, 2020)

Worst birthday present ever


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## Pygmepatl (Jan 14, 2020)




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## Fallowfox (Jan 18, 2020)

I'm trying Ubuntu now. I still have to see whether my graphics tablet will be compatible with linux, but I hardly make art anymore anyway.


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## Borophagus Metropolis (Jan 18, 2020)

Spilogale Pygmaea said:


>



Plasma? I'll check it out.


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## ManicTherapsid (Jan 18, 2020)

Fallowfox said:


> I'm trying Ubuntu now. I still have to see whether my graphics tablet will be compatible with linux, but I hardly make art anymore anyway.



GIMP seems to run better on Linux than Windows 10 for me.


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## Fallowfox (Jan 18, 2020)

ManicTherapsid said:


> GIMP seems to run better on Linux than Windows 10 for me.



Opposite experience for me, but I only just did the installation and I am not sure it worked correctly. 

Having issues getting pressure sensitivity for tablet to work and the menus in GNU are scrambled- so random parts of letters appear in the panes. 
Difficulty finding an up to date version of R as well, because telling Ubuntu to install R via the command line resulted in an installation of version 3.44,  when I know the latest one is up to 3.53

So, going to have lots of fiddling.


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## ZeroVoidTime (Jan 18, 2020)

I already have windows 10 on my new gaming pc.........


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## Tenné (Jan 18, 2020)

Fallowfox said:


> Opposite experience for me, but I only just did the installation and I am not sure it worked correctly.
> 
> Having issues getting pressure sensitivity for tablet to work and the menus in GNU are scrambled- so random parts of letters appear in the panes.
> Difficulty finding an up to date version of R as well, because telling Ubuntu to install R via the command line resulted in an installation of version 3.44,  when I know the latest one is up to 3.53
> ...


Does GIMP even support pressure sensitivity? You can try Krita which should work out of the box.

Seems like it's a bit of a pain to update R. Here's a guide that looks correct, but is a bit terminal-heavy. www.r-bloggers.com: Updating R on Ubuntu
Note that Ubuntu 19.10 ships with R 3.6.1. I personally like to run the latest Ubuntus (ie, non-LTS) due to stuff like this.


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## Pomorek (Jan 18, 2020)

Tenné said:


> Does GIMP even support pressure sensitivity?


Technically it does, but yeah, it has to be manually activated in some non-intuitive way. Next to impossible to figure out without the help of Google. It's such a baffling roadblock when (re)installing the program, no idea why they don't fix it.


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## Fallowfox (Jan 19, 2020)

I managed to get GIMP to activate pressure sensitivity...for now at least. The menu panes are still broken though.

I'm running Ubuntu 18.04.03 LTS 'Bionic Beaver', and that seems to install R 3.44 as its most 'up to date' version.

I am testing to see whether I can get R to run my script to make the Furry World Map.


edit; no since the package 'rgdal' requires an R version >3.5 

I think this means I have to edit my source.list file but I am not really sure how to do that I'll try later.


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## Fallowfox (Jan 19, 2020)

Well, I think I'm on R v 3.6.2 now. installing the packages for the furry world map script is taking a long time. I think it is because they have a lot of dependencies.


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## Fallowfox (Jan 19, 2020)

Got things working (for that script at least!) 

However I noticed something very strange in GIMP. Some of my menus are all scrambly.


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## Borophagus Metropolis (Jan 19, 2020)

Fallowfox said:


> Got things working (for that script at least!)
> 
> However I noticed something very strange in GIMP. Some of my menus are all scrambly.



There appears to be a furpocalypse somewhere around Germany. Run away!


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## Tenné (Jan 19, 2020)

Fallowfox said:


> Got things working (for that script at least!)
> 
> However I noticed something very strange in GIMP. Some of my menus are all scrambly.


Do you have an NVIDIA GPU, and in that case, have you installed the official drivers? You can do so by pressing the windows key, searching for "Additional Drivers" and selecting the proprietary driver.

(Note: DONT install it from NVIDIA's website as you'd do on Windows. You might get it working, but you'll have to reinstall it every time your system updates. Use the Ubuntu-provided drivers.)


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## Fallowfox (Jan 19, 2020)

Tenné said:


> Do you have an NVIDIA GPU, and in that case, have you installed the official drivers? You can do so by pressing the windows key, searching for "Additional Drivers" and selecting the proprietary driver.
> 
> (Note: DONT install it from NVIDIA's website as you'd do on Windows. You might get it working, but you'll have to reinstall it every time your system updates. Use the Ubuntu-provided drivers.)



I ran 
sudo lshw -C display

and retrieved 

*-display
description: VGA compatible controller
product: Thames (Radeon HD 7500m/7600M Series)
(and then a bunch of other information)

So I think I have a Radeon graphics processor


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## Tenné (Jan 19, 2020)

Fallowfox said:


> I ran
> sudo lshw -C display
> 
> and retrieved
> ...


Okay, there's no need for you to install drivers.


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## Fallowfox (Jan 19, 2020)

Tenné said:


> Okay, there's no need for you to install drivers.



Do you think the Radeon graphics card is responsible for the scrambling in the image I posted?


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## Tenné (Jan 19, 2020)

Fallowfox said:


> Do you think the Radeon graphics card is responsible for the scrambling in the image I posted?


Your card was released in 2012, which suggests that it uses the older "radeon" driver instead of the newer "amdgpu" (released in 2015 and only supports cards from then on). The radeon driver was notoriously buggy, mostly since it's mostly a volunteer effort with some tiny backing from AMD.

The major problems with the driver is that it doesn't wake from sleep and that HDMI doesn't work on some hardware. If both of these work then you're mostly good.

Searching a bit online, the problem you're seeing is perhaps that radeon doesn't like GNOME.
You can install and run KDE alongside GNOME if you want to test this without reinstalling the system: vitux.com: How to Install the KDE Plasma Desktop on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
In general, you can look at the different flavours of Ubuntu online (eg. Kubuntu, Xubuntu, etc) and install them using "sudo apt install ubuntu-mate-desktop" (in the case of Ubuntu MATE).
Since it seems you're running this on older hardware, I'd recommend MATE (Ubuntu MATE), XFCE (Xubuntu), or if you really need performance, LXDE (Lubuntu). All programs will stay the same, but the main interface will be different.

EDIT: You can also try selecting the "Ubuntu on Wayland" option on the log in screen. (Click the gear icon under, before entering your password).


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## Deleted member 82554 (Jan 19, 2020)

I chose switch to Apple just to spite you; Ubuntu is also optional.  
But my top operating systems outside of Windows and Apple in no particular order are Android, Manjaro, Pop OS, Elementary OS and MX Linux.


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## Fallowfox (Jan 19, 2020)

Tenné said:


> Your card was released in 2012, which suggests that it uses the older "radeon" driver instead of the newer "amdgpu" (released in 2015 and only supports cards from then on). The radeon driver was notoriously buggy, mostly since it's mostly a volunteer effort with some tiny backing from AMD.
> 
> The major problems with the driver is that it doesn't wake from sleep and that HDMI doesn't work on some hardware. If both of these work then you're mostly good.
> 
> ...



I don't have a cog symbol on my lock screen, but perhaps this 'wayland' choice needs to be done when first starting ubuntu? 

Also, I tried dpkg-deb -I amdgpu-pro and it failed to find such a file or directory, so your explanation that amdgpu isn't being used sounds like it is correct.


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## Fallowfox (Jan 19, 2020)

Edit: @Tenné Opening up with 'Ubuntu on Wayland' appears to have resolved this. I'm not exactly sure why, I'll continue probing it.


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## Tenné (Jan 19, 2020)

Fallowfox said:


> Edit: @Tenné Opening up with 'Ubuntu on Wayland' appears to have resolved this. I'm not exactly sure why, I'll continue probing it.


Neat! Wayland is the new windowing system so it does some things a bit smarter, and it makes sense that some of the graphical glitches disappear. I personally use it whenever I can.
However, DO check that your tablet still does stuff as expected. Also, games might feel laggy with Wayland.

Also, "dpkg-deb -I amdgpu-pro" means look for the file named "amdgpu-pro" where you currently are and install it. If you do "apt search amdgpu-pro" instead, it'll search for that in the system and put an "[installed]" next to the name if it's installed.
But in this case:
1. AMDGPU Pro is not the same as the AMDGPU driver that I was talking about. It's some extra stuff that you need only if you're doing some specific type of scientific computing.
2. Most drivers on Linux are built-in and don't need to be installed. This includes both "radeon" and "amdgpu", plus any accessories that you might have. Therefore they won't show up with either "dpkg" or "apt".
3. The fact that it's installed doesn't mean it's in active use. It's there in case you need it in the future.
4. If you type "lsmod | grep radeon" in terminal, it should give you some text out, as opposed to "lsmod | grep nvidia" or "lsmod | grep amdgpu", which shouldn't print anything.

For the last point: the "lsmod" command lists all loaded modules (drivers in Linux parlance). You can use the "grep" command to filter the list for things. The "|" symbol means take the output from the left hand side and *pipe* it into the input of the right hand side.


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## Fallowfox (Jan 19, 2020)

Tenné said:


> Neat! Wayland is the new windowing system so it does some things a bit smarter, and it makes sense that some of the graphical glitches disappear. I personally use it whenever I can.
> However, DO check that your tablet still does stuff as expected. Also, games might feel laggy with Wayland.
> 
> Also, "dpkg-deb -I amdgpu-pro" means look for the file named "amdgpu-pro" where you currently are and install it. If you do "apt search amdgpu-pro" instead, it'll search for that in the system and put an "[installed]" next to the name if it's installed.
> ...


Thankyou for the suggestion. 

My tablet's pressure sensitivity stopped functioning after I switched to Wayland, but I experimented with settings in GNU and was able to restore it. I feel the part of my life where I actually make any art is behind me now anyway- as is the part of my life where I play any games. x3 So I won't have to worry about those things really.  

I will try the list modules command later- although I may not be able to reply because I'm about to go into a building with some strict network settings, and they'll probably think that my machine is unapproved because of the recent OS change. 

Thankyou for introducing me to pipes- I'm used to ' | ' meaning 'or' so this definitvely saves me some future confusion.


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## CaptainCool (Jan 19, 2020)

So why are so many people refusing to upgrade?
Windows 10 is still a free upgrade (unofficially but they still do let you upgrade for free) and, as far as I'm concerned, it IS the better OS with all the latest features.
I could see a reason not to upgrade if you are using relatively old hardware but any PC built in the last 5 years should run it without issues.


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## Simo (Jan 19, 2020)

CaptainCool said:


> So why are so many people refusing to upgrade?
> Windows 10 is still a free upgrade (unofficially but they still do let you upgrade for free) and, as far as I'm concerned, it IS the better OS with all the latest features.
> I could see a reason not to upgrade if you are using relatively old hardware but any PC built in the last 5 years should run it without issues.



My reasons are more or less total confusion about tech stuff, coupled with no money  I'm not even sure how I got 7, really...I think somebody gave me it, but I don't have the secret code to get 10. I think this computer would run 10, but not sure; is kinda old???? Or, rather, it is pieced together from various old parts by a friend who is not close-by now. My hope is to meet an eager, local computer fur by spring who will come over, and make things purr. : )


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## Fallowfox (Jan 19, 2020)

CaptainCool said:


> So why are so many people refusing to upgrade?
> Windows 10 is still a free upgrade (unofficially but they still do let you upgrade for free) and, as far as I'm concerned, it IS the better OS with all the latest features.
> I could see a reason not to upgrade if you are using relatively old hardware but any PC built in the last 5 years should run it without issues.



My PC was older than that and I also just didn't like Windows 10 on the other machines that I use. 

So while I had to stop using Windows 7, Windows 10 wasn't really an option to 'upgrade' to.


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## Purplefuzz (Jan 19, 2020)

CaptainCool said:


> So why are so many people refusing to upgrade?
> Windows 10 is still a free upgrade (unofficially but they still do let you upgrade for free) and, as far as I'm concerned, it IS the better OS with all the latest features.
> I could see a reason not to upgrade if you are using relatively old hardware but any PC built in the last 5 years should run it without issues.



Never understood the Win 10 hate i see everywhere, I've never had any issues with it. It's almost stupid to gimp yourself to OS's with no game suppourt/less apps or stay with one with no security updates. But I'm sure the Win 10 haters are the kind that cringed when companies were still using 32bit windows XP, But are okay with using Win 7. But then again the ones who are overhyping linux are 10x worse imo, Since they'll secretly use dual boot anyways for gaming & other software. lol


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## Fallowfox (Jan 19, 2020)

Purplefuzz said:


> Never understood the Win 10 hate i see everywhere, I've never had any issues with it. It's almost stupid to gimp yourself to OS's with no game suppourt/less apps or stay with one with no security updates. But I'm sure the Win 10 haters are the kind that cringed when companies were still using 32bit windows XP, But are okay with using Win 7. But then again the ones who are overhyping linux are 10x worse imo, Since they'll secretly use dual boot anyways for gaming & other software. lol



Actually had to delete all my data and software to convert my computer to linux. x3 
So if I have a bias it will trying to _justify_ what I've done! ;D


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## agris (Jan 20, 2020)

I've been using and continue to use Linux for virtually everything. I only keep a second hard drive around to boot into with Windows 7 with updates turned off for the small amount of videogames that don't work in Proton compatibility layer. Usually this is because of something stupid like Ubisoft Uplay DRM or something not that that game couldn't actually run in Proton or Linux Native.

I could not care less about M$ "support" of Windows 7. I don't enable any auto-updates not even security updates, and only install service-packs by offline installation by hand. I have got the original Enterprise Edition ISO back up as well as each service pack, .NET whatever. In addition to that I've got a crack that reliably works on WIndows 7 backed up should for some reason the Activation Servers no longer work.

One of these days I will setup a seperate machine for this connected to a hardware-firewall that only lets steam and video game ports through.

I really despise Windows and Windows 7 is just the last "tolerable" windows release only for gaming purposes.

I would advise anyone else to switch to Linux as the Windows situation appears to get worse year after year. Linux is quite comfortable. Don't set yourself up to rely upon any software you don't own a copy of the source code to unless you absolutely have to. Especially if you use a computer for productivity or your livelihood relies upon it.


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## agris (Jan 20, 2020)

tbh I have not booted into the Windows 7 hard drive in the last 2 years. Proton runs pretty much every game now and the ones that don't I either stopped playing for found a DRM-free copy that works in Linux Proton the ThePirateBay.


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## Pomorek (Jan 20, 2020)

Fallowfox said:


> My PC was older than that and I also just didn't like Windows 10 on the other machines that I use.


Exactly my situation too.


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## Fallowfox (Jan 20, 2020)

I just had to restart 3 times because after my machine woke up from sleep the screen was black, and when I rebooted I just got the 'ubuntu' logo flickering on and off to white. 

Trying repeatedly it eventually went to the login menu. I'm unsure why the problem occurred.


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## agris (Jan 25, 2020)

Fallowfox said:


> I just had to restart 3 times because after my machine woke up from sleep the screen was black, and when I rebooted I just got the 'ubuntu' logo flickering on and off to white.
> 
> Trying repeatedly it eventually went to the login menu. I'm unsure why the problem occurred.


Maybe use a more conservative distribution like Welcome to devuan.org | Devuan GNU+Linux Free Operating System . Ubuntu is a commercial distribution and as such are pressured to keep adding more and more features so often and forced to release updates before they are ready. Another aspect of this is that because of Conical's business model they have in the past installed spyware by default in Ubuntu that sends your personal shit to Amazon and 'analytics' back to themselves. That's one of the ways they generate their statistics. You can tell a lot about a company or organization by looking at their past actions.


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## Tenné (Jan 29, 2020)

Fallowfox said:


> I just had to restart 3 times because after my machine woke up from sleep the screen was black, and when I rebooted I just got the 'ubuntu' logo flickering on and off to white.
> 
> Trying repeatedly it eventually went to the login menu. I'm unsure why the problem occurred.


Problems with sleep mode were one of the bigger problems with AMD. I think they’ve mostly solved it in more modern hardware, but I’m afraid you’re stuck with those drivers. The ubuntu logo flickering is probably due to the reboot not fully resetting whatever was messed up in the firmware.


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## Kellan Meig'h (Jan 29, 2020)

I upgraded my Dell 17R laptop from Win 7 to Win 10 using that Upgrade Tool on Micro$oft's website. Things went smoothly and now that it's had a few days to bed and do some optimization, my Dell runs better on 10 than it ever did on 7. BTW, it's 8 years old, so it's not a new machine by any means.

Don't get me wrong, I like Linux (FreeBSD is rock-solid, Ubuntu is idiot-proof) but I have to long distance troubleshoot family computers that all seem to have migrated to Win 10. By having a similar machine, it helps me to guide my computer-illiterate family members through steps to repair their F-ups.

If I didn't need to troubleshoot, I would run Ubuntu.


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## agris (Jan 31, 2020)

Kellan Meig'h said:


> I upgraded my Dell 17R laptop from Win 7 to Win 10 using that Upgrade Tool on Micro$oft's website. Things went smoothly and now that it's had a few days to bed and do some optimization, my Dell runs better on 10 than it ever did on 7. BTW, it's 8 years old, so it's not a new machine by any means.
> 
> Don't get me wrong, I like Linux (FreeBSD is rock-solid, Ubuntu is idiot-proof) but I have to long distance troubleshoot family computers that all seem to have migrated to Win 10. By having a similar machine, it helps me to guide my computer-illiterate family members through steps to repair their F-ups.
> 
> If I didn't need to troubleshoot, I would run Ubuntu.


Why don't you just run it in a virtual machine? Also, if your family keeps fucking up their computer, don't give them the root password.


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## Kellan Meig'h (Jan 31, 2020)

agris said:


> Why don't you just run it in a virtual machine? Also, if your family keeps fucking up their computer, don't give them the root password.


You don't know my family - with Window$ you don't need root privilege to really Eff one up, trash settings like default browser, printer, passwords, etc. That's the one thing about Windows (any flavor) that I truly dislike. Or losing a document (saved to the wrong place), can't open email (recycled the desktop icon), crap like that. Another reason is Teamviewer has some issues with trying to run on a virtual machine, then through Ubuntu's firewall.

I ran a Win XP Pro virtual machine on FreeBSD for sixteen years on a Dell laptop when I worked for a school district so I am savvy to the ins and outs of VM operation. The XP install was never reinstalled, sixteen years on the original VM install. That shows how Windows can run forever if you care for it just a bit. Admittedly, I ran most of my Windows software on Wine. Only Notifier Tools for fire panels wouldn't run on Wine so that had to run on the VM machine.

I'm preparing to do a dual boot on this machine so I can run some flavor of Linux and still have Window$ 10 for troubleshooting purposes. Probably Ubuntu because the wife unit uses this laptop, too. It seems to be the most friendly *unix flavor for a Windows person (the wife) to run.

As an aside, in the time coming up to my retirement, I was instructed to return the laptop to the school district how I received it. Wiped the drive, put the original Win XP Pro on it, found my disk with all the updates. Ran them all, put the programs on, did some housekeeping. That was July of 2018, laptop running very crisp for 4Gb of memory. I left the district in October of 2018, handing over said laptop. By December 15th, they had crashed it hard trying to do something that was never explained fully and IT claimed they couldn't recover the crash. Oh well, it was a good Dell Latitude 510 when I gave it back to them.


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## Deleted member 82554 (Jan 31, 2020)

I went back to Windows 10 (now that updates are finally working). Trying to learn an Arch based operating system was, well, tedious to say the least. I think next time I will just stick with something that is debian-based, much easier to use. Plus there are more packages that are already compiled for that architecture.


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## Fallowfox (Feb 1, 2020)

@Tenné @agris 

So one of you recommends Devuan, do you both think this is a good idea?
I am considering trying to re-install ubuntu on the machine, or changing to a different distribution, because frankly the machine is almost unusable since it is not guaranteed to start up correctly.


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## Pomorek (Feb 1, 2020)

Fallowfox said:


> @Tenné @agris
> 
> So one of you recommends Devuan, do you both think this is a good idea?
> I am considering trying to re-install ubuntu on the machine, or changing to a different distribution, because frankly the machine is almost unusable since it is not guaranteed to start up correctly.



Few months ago, @S.A.F.I recommended KDE Neon to me. I had some doubts as this distribution was said to come with minimal software included. And I had pretty minimal Linux knowledge at that time. 

But with the help of this article
averagelinuxuser.com: 10 Things to do after installing KDE Neon
everything went smoothly.

I've encountered opinion that this initial simplicity is this distribution's strength: there's much fewer things to break or be buggy than in the case of Ubuntu. And I agree. Even if a problem comes up, it should be possible to track it back to some recent action having been performed.


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## Fallowfox (Feb 1, 2020)

Pomorek said:


> Few months ago, @S.A.F.I recommended KDE Neon to me. I had some doubts as this distribution was said to come with minimal software included. And I had pretty minimal Linux knowledge at that time.
> 
> But with the help of this article
> averagelinuxuser.com: 10 Things to do after installing KDE Neon
> ...



Thankyou for this recommendation. I'm a bit apprehensive about doing things like the drivers manually- I'm not really sure there is an appropriate driver for my hybrid radeon graphics card since it's no longer listed on amd's website. 

Overall I guess so far I'm just surprised by how much of a problem changing to linux has been, because I had used ubuntu machines before and been happy with them, so I didn't really expect it to be an issue.


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## Marcl (Feb 1, 2020)

I used to use Ubuntu long time ago, but I got burnt on how much effort it was taking from me to maintain the system x3.

With Windows 7 being out of support, I have to remember to download all the service pack upgrades and the collected updates. And store them well. The step no. 2 is to get myself box of Windows 10 and one of the boxes of Windows 7 (running on OEM for far too long). For the second case I'm really glad people can resell their old Windowses(eseseses...).


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## Tenné (Feb 2, 2020)

Fallowfox said:


> @Tenné @agris
> 
> So one of you recommends Devuan, do you both think this is a good idea?
> I am considering trying to re-install ubuntu on the machine, or changing to a different distribution, because frankly the machine is almost unusable since it is not guaranteed to start up correctly.


Meh, wouldn't recommend Devuan. It's a distribution based on Debian with a different init program, which should be entirely uninteresting for you unless you really enjoy participating in drama.
The differences between distributions are very minimal, and the drivers will be more or less the same. That is especially true for legacy hardware.
The official AMD driver (Catalyst) is no longer developed and the last version it supports is like Ubuntu 12.04 or something, so ancient. You can probably hack together a system that kind of works, but don't know if that's worth the time and effort required.

The best distros for hardware compatibility is Ubuntu and others based on Ubuntu, so Linux Mint, Pop! OS, etc. You most likely won't get more success in the more niche systems.

Sadly, if you want to have a good experience with Linux you have to select and make sure the hardware works well. AMD, especially their older stuff, is atrocious.


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## Kellan Meig'h (Feb 2, 2020)

I know my youngest daughter and I prefer KDE desktop over Gnome when it comes to Ubuntu or FreeBSD distro. I spotted a used laptop the same vintage as my machine at a second hand store the other day. Seems like a good candidate for Kubuntu (Ubuntu with KDE already rolled in). Trying to wean my wife off of Window$, if that's possible.


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## S.A.F.I (Feb 2, 2020)

Fallowfox said:


> Thankyou for this recommendation. I'm a bit apprehensive about doing things like the drivers manually- I'm not really sure there is an appropriate driver for my hybrid radeon graphics card since it's no longer listed on amd's website.
> 
> Overall I guess so far I'm just surprised by how much of a problem changing to linux has been, because I had used ubuntu machines before and been happy with them, so I didn't really expect it to be an issue.



Yeah, I used to jump from operating system to operating system but for that very reason I've started changing as rarely as possible and only if there's a really good reason.
I actually recently got a system 76 gazelle so just to make sure everything ran smoothly (and since I would have to reinstall anyway) I switched to PopOS of course I kept the KDE desktop The last time I did a fresh install on my daily driver was about 2 years ago... You tend to forget how many tweaks you've made to the system when it's been that long.

Anyway I wish you the best of luck with figuring it out. And let me know if you have any questions and I'll do my best to answer if I can


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## Kellan Meig'h (Feb 18, 2020)

Simo said:


> My reasons are more or less total confusion about tech stuff, coupled with no money  I'm not even sure how I got 7, really...I think somebody gave me it, but I don't have the secret code to get 10. I think this computer would run 10, but not sure; is kinda old???? Or, rather, it is pieced together from various old parts by a friend who is not close-by now. My hope is to meet an eager, local computer fur by spring who will come over, and make things purr. : )


You can download a free version of Belarc Advisor. It will scan your system and create a report for you. In that report, your serial number for Win 7 will be shown.

The Win 10 Upgrade tool is just about idiot proof but you will need a 8Gb thumb drive to put the files on. If your system runs Win 7, it will run Win 10. My eight year old laptop really likes Win 10 and I can tell it's a bunch better. One add-on I installed was OpenShell which gave the system a start menu that works like Win 7. The wife unit likes that little piece of trickery.

If you ever get to Central Indiana, bring your laptop, give me a shout and we'll upgrade it.


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## Fallowfox (Feb 19, 2020)

Some updates occurred to Linux that appear to have fixed some of the issues I had. Some. I wonder if they created other issues though.


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