Spending more time with Windows than expected

Talk about anything you like not related to the above forums
User avatar
crosscourt
Posts: 11100
Joined: Sun Jan 14, 2018 5:38 pm
Location: Wash DC
Contact:

Re: Spending more time with Windows than expected

Post by crosscourt »

Its been strange lately as Ive only been on Linux one day this week, and the rest of the time on Win10 mainly with ChromeOS thrown in at times.
Site Moderator
User avatar
bin
Posts: 204
Joined: Wed Aug 05, 2020 11:08 am
Location: Wiltshire UK

Re: Spending more time with Windows than expected

Post by bin »

My old Acer X3995 desktop machine died a sudden death on Saturday. I've ordered an ex-corporate Dell Optiplex 7040 to replace it. In the meantime my only option is an equally elderly HP Pavilion DV6 laptop - Core 2 Duo. It has Windows 10 running on it and I will say that it does it remarkably well all things considered. That is until you try to do anything. I realised I was missing my daily fix of Yukon Solitaire. Normally that is delivered via Aisleriot. Looking around the new world of windows it seems the only choice are various apps all of which want - at least - access to my network connection. So much other stuff I knew and used is changed or just gone.

Whipped out the drive and popped in the Sparkylinux one off my desktop - both Intel graphics. Just picked up and ran no mess, no fuss. Only pain is no virtualisation so my VMs are sitting somewhere unhappy and I had to re-compile ART (RAWTherapee fork) to run on the different chip (Acer was i3 Quad)

When the new desktop arrives it will have Windows 10. Will I try it? I don't know. With W10 I feel I am being used. It's not a question of "Would you like ads with this?" But "Which adverts do you want?" I get enough of that from my phone thanks.
User avatar
tlmiller
Posts: 4848
Joined: Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:29 pm
Location: AZ, USA

Re: Spending more time with Windows than expected

Post by tlmiller »

I actually can't remember the last time I booted my Windows install. :D
User avatar
crosscourt
Posts: 11100
Joined: Sun Jan 14, 2018 5:38 pm
Location: Wash DC
Contact:

Re: Spending more time with Windows than expected

Post by crosscourt »

Ive set my Win10 install to stop all the nonsense so its really not an issue. Telemetry can be limited if thats what you want. Things have changed a bit so you may be able to gain what you want. Certainly give it a try before jumping to conclusions. Dai actually liked Win10 so Ill take that as its changed enough for even a devout Linux user to use.

LOL!! You dont game on your Win10 system tlmiller?
Site Moderator
User avatar
tlmiller
Posts: 4848
Joined: Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:29 pm
Location: AZ, USA

Re: Spending more time with Windows than expected

Post by tlmiller »

I do!! But I haven't played any of my games in like 2-3 months now. And games are LITERALLY the only reason I boot to the Windows partition.
User avatar
crosscourt
Posts: 11100
Joined: Sun Jan 14, 2018 5:38 pm
Location: Wash DC
Contact:

Re: Spending more time with Windows than expected

Post by crosscourt »

Thye 7040 Optiplex should be a nice system bin. Which form factor did you get, usff,sff, or desktop? I still have my 7010s and they run very well but will eventually get rid of them and upgrade my wifes system to a 7040 more than likely.
Site Moderator
User avatar
tlmiller
Posts: 4848
Joined: Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:29 pm
Location: AZ, USA

Re: Spending more time with Windows than expected

Post by tlmiller »

The 7040's were the last desktop model my company used. They were nice systems. We upgraded most of them to SSD's and 16GB ram, and they ran REALLY well.
User avatar
bin
Posts: 204
Joined: Wed Aug 05, 2020 11:08 am
Location: Wiltshire UK

Re: Spending more time with Windows than expected

Post by bin »

I opted for the SFF as my old ACER was SFF. I prefer full size boxes as they are easier to work on, but space is limited and these days I maybe don't delve around quite as much I used to.

I do have some concerns on the USB side. Although it has both USB 3 and 2 ports I now understand that the Skylake processor means that the USB 2 ports will not work. It seems a bit strange to fit ports that won't work so I'm hoping that I have misunderstood this and that they will be backwards compatible. As I have USB 1.1 and USB 2 devices I'm a bit worried I may not be able to use them.
User avatar
crosscourt
Posts: 11100
Joined: Sun Jan 14, 2018 5:38 pm
Location: Wash DC
Contact:

Re: Spending more time with Windows than expected

Post by crosscourt »

There were issues with Win7 and USB 2.0 with the 7040 but other than that I havent seen any issues with USB 2.0 with more recent OS. You should be fine as I have friends and one of our own forum members who use 7040/7050 with no issues.
Site Moderator
User avatar
tlmiller
Posts: 4848
Joined: Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:29 pm
Location: AZ, USA

Re: Spending more time with Windows than expected

Post by tlmiller »

Yeah, should be fine, 1/2 my company was on a 7040 at one point and we never had issues. I think the initial issue was fixed with a BIOS update anyway.
Post Reply