The end of Windows XP and my next move.

3bbb7

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You say your machine is aging, and you use cross platform software, so what's stopping you from using a linux distro? Why consider Windows at all?
Unless you're going to need windows only software, I say choose a linux distro

The only reason I'm on windows 8 (which isn't bad at all) is because of games, I'd be on mint if I didn't play games
 

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Virtualbox has a very nice seamless mode and its savestates cure the boot time issue thing. Bonus is some of the debug options afforded to you by playing in a VM are great ( http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch12.html#ts_debugger -- a bit less reliable sure but some of the things there were previously big boy expensive hardware or serious custom stuff), this is assuming you are not doing RE work on viruses as most of the creation kits seem to have VM detection as standard.
That debugger looks interesting, hadn't seen it before. Regarding savestates I already use the same feature in vmware but for testing drivers the only way without resorting to megahacks is to reboot the VM (and for Vista+ pray you are in a state where signed driver enforcement is disabled or you remember to hit F8).


Depending on how you look at it most or all of your points here are invalid or irrelevant. For the record I think there are many problems with XP as mentioned in my previous post but here are my thoughts on what you said:

-No GPT support
True but pretty irrelevant at least for me personally. I didn't have 2TB HDDs when XP came in 2001 (or >128GB for that matter, which was the limit until SP1) and neither do I today. I'd say if you're going to critique XPs lack of support for hardware not readily available anywhere close to its release it would make more sense to mention its inferior SSD support, at least that's something I personally find more relevant.

-PAE limited to 4GB RAM
As this is the same for all later Windows versions I assume you're talking about the inofficial hacks in which case I'll assume 3rd party support is fine for your later points. The real issue here is the lack of a (decent) 64-bit version of the OS.

-Unable to actually remove WMP or Messenger from the system using built-in tools
Wat.
8hh9BtG.png

Can in addition remove from the installation CD using 3rd party tools.

-No support for installing from USB stick
Easy to do with 3rd party tools.

-Add missing drivers during installation by "Insert floppy now..."
Easy to add to installation with 3rd party tools.

-Single-handedly ruined web developers lives because of IE7
IE7? Internet Explorer has from its beginning until very recently always been a big issue for web developers in that it has always deviated from standards and required its own special solutions. This was neither different in IE6 (which was the latest version 2001-2006, double IE7's era of 2006-2009 so not sure why you find IE7 worse than IE6 but that's beside the main point) nor in the earlier versions before XP.
 

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If you have ever used a stock version of XP, unchecking those boxes only removes the application shortcuts from the start menu. All the program files remain. It's actually kind of funny, in a really annoying, God-I-wish-I-wasn't-so-OCD kind of way.

IE7? Internet Explorer has from its beginning until very recently always been a big issue for web developers in that it has always deviated from standards and required its own special solutions. This was neither different in IE6 (which was the latest version 2001-2006, double IE7's era of 2006-2009 so not sure why you find IE7 worse than IE6 but that's beside the main point) nor in the earlier versions before XP.

Right, but XP was the reason the IE problems stayed around. I mention IE7 because it is what web developers (at least, what my colleague has explained to me) still have to code for today, not only because of the old versions on XP but also because "Compatibility View" in IE9+ just uses the IE7 rendering engine.

My point is not to say that XP was not a good operating system. During its time, it was very, very good (it had to be to dethrone Windows 2000).

My point is: Is it a very good operating system anymore? Well... not really. It's missing tons of features, and while slipstreaming of drivers and updates are available via 3rd party tools, my understanding was we were talking about the OS itself.
 

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If you have ever used a stock version of XP, unchecking those boxes only removes the application shortcuts from the start menu. All the program files remain. It's actually kind of funny, in a really annoying, God-I-wish-I-wasn't-so-OCD kind of way.
This
If you even look at that little screenshot there, right under the list where it says "Description:..." kinda confirms it's only removing the shortcuts.
 

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why dont you just use a Linux distro, you seem to use all the open source software anyway. steam is on linux too know. linux also has bunch of emulators. dont need a anti-virus.



if you take the time and learn arch-linux and how it works. you can build a custom OS just for you.
 

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I do not use steam so that is not an issue.

As for arch linux it is a great thing to give to new sysadmins to train them up but I would not bother with it for day to day work. Give me a nice LTS version of some mainline distro any day.


"it had to be to dethrone Windows 2000"
Did it have to do that though? 2000 was mostly still a business system/OS and XP has traditionally been seen as the unification of the NT and 9x lines. Granted it could have been like today where I still get called in to install windows 7 for business uses.
 

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honestly it's really hard for me.
there's no reason to spend more to buy new OS to do the same thing with old OS (on old hardware).
XP is fine, whatever this security bullshit is doesn't matter if you know how to handle it, specially if threats is coming from internet.
 

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honestly it's really hard for me.
there's no reason to spend more to buy new OS to do the same thing with old OS (on old hardware).
XP is fine, whatever this security bullshit is doesn't matter if you know how to handle it, specially if threats is coming from internet.

And attitudes like that are one of the bigger reasons why we have botnets as large as we do. Certainly you could lock it down and people mainly sitting behind firewalls/routers these days helps a lot but it would probably not be recognisable as XP if you did. I am certainly not going to be entering any info I care about into an XP machine post April.

Shorter version there are so called movie plot threats, this is not one of them.
 

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honestly it's really hard for me.
there's no reason to spend more to buy new OS to do the same thing with old OS (on old hardware).
XP is fine, whatever this security bullshit is doesn't matter if you know how to handle it, specially if threats is coming from internet.


yeah... no. maybe he should not use the internet... or maybe not turn on his PC at all.

if you dont want to use archlinux or have the time, than you could use Xbuntu and daul boot with windows 7.
 

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honestly it's really hard for me.
there's no reason to spend more to buy new OS to do the same thing with old OS (on old hardware).
XP is fine, whatever this security bullshit is doesn't matter if you know how to handle it, specially if threats is coming from internet.


Interested in buying some oil?
 

Frederica Bernkastel

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Windows 8 and 8.1, (and the rumored .2) both have a noticeable difficulty curve, which can be fairly offputting at first, but they are definitely not deserving of the general amount of hatred they have been getting. Vista and up boosted the minimum system requirements for a usable workspace quite considerably, but 8 has taken a step in the opposite direction offering (at least for the machines I've run it on) overall better performance.
Just that FUCKING charm bar. Even to this day it keeps getting in the way and I _hate it_, _hate it_, _hate it_.

With regards to linux distributions I'm not yet sure that there are any 'complete' systems good enough to use as a desktop operating system, at least not for now.
There's a lot of controversy going on behind the scenes, with the GNU and the Free Software Foundation trying to take over the Linux community en-masse, which is making alternative, non-GPL, non-GNU software like Clang/LLVM (over GCC) and libmusl (over glibc) rise in popularity to the point where we are in danger of seeing a greater split between distributions supporting different things over one another - similarly there is also controversy surrounding systemd, which while a noble attempt to better support newer features introduced in the Linux kernel such as LXC and more interestingly Cgroups, is attempting to claim more ground by replacing other software than many people are comfortable with. (Already there is a divide in support for distributions like Arch which use it.)
In addition there's a move right now away from the traditional X Server model which is proving to be a pain, with the bigger contender being Wayland, and the other being Canonical's Mir. Both offer exclusive features, with basic support for Xlib and other stuff provided by the X.org server framework, but neither is a complete replacement yet and the rush to start using both is further causing notable splits in the community.
Graphics drivers are a mess right now, with Nvidia hastily scrabbling to make their offerings for Windows and Linux identical - unfortunately this seems to comprise of them removing features previously only available in their Linux drivers and AMD managing to completely flop in every possible regard. (R9 290 performing abysmally for example). Intel graphics however are looking very promising, mesa actually outperforms the Windows drivers.
Linux is definitely on the up, and I myself have run it full-time on my ThinkPad since late 2012, however these issues are not to be sneezed at and before settling with it I would honestly recommend waiting a while to see how things pan out. Personally I am running Gentoo, and so this isn't an issue as I'm the one painstakingly choosing exactly what it is I wish to support and run - right now using OpenRC but I'm planning to migrate over to systemd in the near future.
It is a matter of taste, and distributions like Debian are indeed quite awesome although the majority of these hyper-stable distributions are point release based, meaning that while they introduce fancy features with every iteration, it usually comes at the cost of being stuck with the same versions of software with very few updates (particularly with Debian where their security team is a little _too_ good) until the next major version. Which already introduces yet another layer of fragmentation, which can be a little painful (and is what pushed me to rolling release distros like Gentoo and Sabayon).
If you're really considering switching to a *nix system, maybe look at Sabayon, Xubuntu, ElementaryOS or go back to CrunchBang as they all try to offer software fairly quickly, but are still very stable and are more lightweight than their more mainstream counterparts.

In the BSD route there's actually PC-BSD, running KDE and designed to be 'user-friendly' but I personally have no experience with it to speak of.

OSX is also another option, and Hackintoshing is quite easy unless you have an Intel wireless card. Kernel extensions and drivers have been introduced by the community and run rather well, although myself I am doing it the native way and caved into buying Apple hardware. As far as an operating system goes, with a little customization it is at least a capable replacement for Windows with the added boons of the stability and flexibility Unix systems tend to afford. Plus the latest release, Mavericks, introduces ZRAM and fancy new automatic CPU scheduling which is a huge step above the offerings available in most Linux distributions and Windows (at this time).

inb4 chromeos

I for one prefer Windows XP Secumize edition.

:creep:
I don't get it? Why do people use pre-slipstreamed XP systems like this?
Why would you trust some random bittorrent tracker script kiddie to pre-install your customization software and pre-cracked warez on your behalf when you can easily just do it yourself, and without the risk of being part of someone's botnet?

if you take the time and learn arch-linux and how it works. you can build a custom OS just for you.
Arch doesn't actually give you any choice over anything, and the AUR is a mess.
It's a nice toy for sure, but the general community's inability to understand why core tools were kept separate from the main system, and of keeping stable packages and bleeding edge packages separate, really makes it more of an occasional 'fun to play with' kind of thing than anything else.
In addition it is regarded as being a pretty poor choice of operating system if you wish to learn how linux works, because in 99% of all cases, people are usually just copying and pasting commands and configuration from the wiki. So you find a lot of people with systems too fragmented to easily diagnose or repair, who have little idea how most of their stuff actually works, all because they skip the part where one actually learns anything.
Having set up Arch, do you know the difference between Pulseaudio and ALSA? Do you know of JACK? Which would you use in different scenarios, and how would you make KDE support them? Do you know how to configure and compile the Linux kernel, how about making your very own initramfs without a script to do it for you - What do you do when either breaks? All these things, and more, are examples of why one should generally avoid Arch linux - much for the same reason people while first learning how to program are advised to stay away from Visual Basic.NET; It encourages bad practices, over-reliance on pre-made code snippets and functions which skip important fundamentals of computer science leaving people with code they don't understand the function of.
If you're looking for actual choice over what you run, or for bleeding edge software, you're basically stuck with either Debian unstable, Gentoo (with the stable or untested prefix, depending on what you want) or SourceMage - of course the trade-off being that with Gentoo and SourceMage your package manager also compiles everything for you instead of downloading someone elses' pre-compiled package.
 

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Arch doesn't actually give you any choice over anything, and the AUR is a mess.
It's a nice toy for sure, but the general community's inability to understand why core tools were kept separate from the main system, and of keeping stable packages and bleeding edge packages separate, really makes it more of an occasional 'fun to play with' kind of thing than anything else.
In addition it is regarded as being a pretty poor choice of operating system if you wish to learn how linux works, because in 99% of all cases, people are usually just copying and pasting commands and configuration from the wiki. So you find a lot of people with systems too fragmented to easily diagnose or repair, who have little idea how most of their stuff actually works, all because they skip the part where one actually learns anything.
Having set up Arch, do you know the difference between Pulseaudio and ALSA? Do you know of JACK? Which would you use in different scenarios, and how would you make KDE support them? Do you know how to configure and compile the Linux kernel, how about making your very own initramfs without a script to do it for you - What do you do when either breaks? All these things, and more, are examples of why one should generally avoid Arch linux - much for the same reason people while first learning how to program are advised to stay away from Visual Basic.NET; It encourages bad practices, over-reliance on pre-made code snippets and functions which skip important fundamentals of computer science leaving people with code they don't understand the function of.
If you're looking for actual choice over what you run, or for bleeding edge software, you're basically stuck with either Debian unstable, Gentoo (with the stable or untested prefix, depending on what you want) or SourceMage - of course the trade-off being that with Gentoo and SourceMage your package manager also compiles everything for you instead of downloading someone elses' pre-compiled package.


tumblr_m6eg7aOihI1rucw6so1_500.jpg




come to think of it......


just install CruchBang Linux FAST.
 

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I think mainly with desktops these days I can get away with a browser (usually firefox though anything with adblock and script/flash blocking will do), an image editor as powerful as GIMP, something to type basic documents on (libre office works for me), something to type big boy documents on (and Tex, though read Lyx, has long been a linux friendly affair with Scribus not exactly shying away either). On printing.... most of the use of any printer I have around here is for a scanner and if I do need something in dead tree form I am probably going to be speaking to a real printer anyway. Tying all that together in a distro has been easy enough for years. I could probably get away with tablets before too long but occasionally I like to do my own thing and most tablets seem to want to stop me there and I am willing to take the hit as far as managing a system to allow that to happen.

I have not noticing the fracturing of the Linux world (and beyond) but I reckon it will take long enough to come to pass that it is not likely to bother me, certainly not before XP ends and probably not before a few years have gone by and if my files are in open formats anyway I will OK if it does come to pass.

CAD and video still can be a bit troublesome but video is quite doable for most of what I want. CAD does not look to be sorted any time soon but the requirements for what I need there (restraints, typing numbers for sizes, the ability to do rounded/chamfered corners-- basically something I can make and feed to a CNC or 3d printer) are staying pretty static.

On Apple... my usual policy there is "I am already restricting what hardware and software I could run. Why would I pay for the experience?". I can get stuff done if I was all I had to work with but I would probably not have one by choice.

On slipstreamed XP. I must confess I do like the bartpe stuff that comes with some of the nicer rescue discs and the ultra minimal ones were interesting to deconstruct and copy a few tricks from. I would never use one for day to day stuff though.


Edit. On crunchbang. I have it as my linux VM of choice, it feels a bit like Linux Mint did 5 years ago though "almost but just enough to hold me back" where Linux Mint largely sorted itself out.
 

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tumblr_m6eg7aOihI1rucw6so1_500.jpg




come to think of it......


just install CruchBang Linux FAST.
Given your earlier recommendation of Arch, I can only thank you for proving my point.
Why CrunchBang in particular? What does it offer over other distributions?

(Two can play at the reaction image game, by the way; it's impolite and doesn't add any value to the actual content your post in these types of discussion, don't do it).
 

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Given your earlier recommendation of Arch, I can only thank you for proving my point.
Why CrunchBang in particular? What does it offer over other distributions?

(Two can play at the reaction image game, by the way; it's impolite and doesn't add any value to the actual content your post in these types of discussion, don't do it).


CrunchBang is very lightweight by which it uses openbox and is based on Debian stable.


that image is very true, i learn of it this week actually. i updated the grub on my windows(my computer is dual boot with Ubuntu) build on my VBox which is arch. it stopped running all together. this is after i recommend it to FAST. and for three days i was trying to fix it.


for the arch part i like to keep my windows build clean as possible and use portable or things in VBox (and do other things in VBox like use transmission instaed of utorrent).
 

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[...]
I don't get it? Why do people use pre-slipstreamed XP systems like this?
Why would you trust some random bittorrent tracker script kiddie to pre-install your customization software and pre-cracked warez on your behalf when you can easily just do it yourself, and without the risk of being part of someone's botnet?
[...]


Easy there, buddy, easy... take a deep breath before you hurt yourself. If you don't understand my reference then you weren't around during this forum's golden age, and the joke is well over your head.

If you must know, I haven't used a pre-modified OS like that in years. I've been running genuine Windows 8.1 Professional for quite a while. I'm not as terrible a person as you might think.
 

Frederica Bernkastel

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I think mainly with desktops these days I can get away with a browser (usually firefox though anything with adblock and script/flash blocking will do), an image editor as powerful as GIMP, something to type basic documents on (libre office works for me), something to type big boy documents on (and Tex, though read Lyx, has long been a linux friendly affair with Scribus not exactly shying away either). On printing.... most of the use of any printer I have around here is for a scanner and if I do need something in dead tree form I am probably going to be speaking to a real printer anyway. Tying all that together in a distro has been easy enough for years. I could probably get away with tablets before too long but occasionally I like to do my own thing and most tablets seem to want to stop me there and I am willing to take the hit as far as managing a system to allow that to happen.

I have not noticing the fracturing of the Linux world (and beyond) but I reckon it will take long enough to come to pass that it is not likely to bother me, certainly not before XP ends and probably not before a few years have gone by and if my files are in open formats anyway I will OK if it does come to pass.

CAD and video still can be a bit troublesome but video is quite doable for most of what I want. CAD does not look to be sorted any time soon but the requirements for what I need there (restraints, typing numbers for sizes, the ability to do rounded/chamfered corners-- basically something I can make and feed to a CNC or 3d printer) are staying pretty static.

On Apple... my usual policy there is "I am already restricting what hardware and software I could run. Why would I pay for the experience?". I can get stuff done if I was all I had to work with but I would probably not have one by choice.

On slipstreamed XP. I must confess I do like the bartpe stuff that comes with some of the nicer rescue discs and the ultra minimal ones were interesting to deconstruct and copy a few tricks from. I would never use one for day to day stuff though.


Edit. On crunchbang. I have it as my linux VM of choice, it feels a bit like Linux Mint did 5 years ago though "almost but just enough to hold me back" where Linux Mint largely sorted itself out.
OSX is free now, as is a large amount of other Apple software. In addition, their hardware also has excellent support for Linux systems, and so given the general physical build quality it is a direction you may wish to explore.. Given a bottomless wallet.

The fracturing of the Linux world is something that is continuous and ongoing, the only reason there has been any semblance of dignity is as the Free Software Foundation had been more focused on spreading all kinds of propaganda to start forcing itself everywhere. Newer projects are appearing with different goals and intentions, and so it is only natural that things will change over time. Linux is fully modular in a sense, so you'll never be stuck with no support, the main problem is that all the high-quality software and in particular the more user-minded developers are attracted to the closed-source paid economies that Windows and OSX provide. User simplicity attracts those people, and so I've already had a few tools I was using daily lose support.
However Wayland and systemd, are a little too future-minded for some, and so I fear the fragmentation may get a little worse for at least a short while. Debian is definitely one to keep an eye out for, however, as it seems that they will be adopting both as soon as realistically possible.
As for Mir? Canonical are just making things worse for themselves. They had a really good thing going with Ubuntu and seem to want to change that more and more every year with changes like these.

For virtualisation, by the way, I should point out that newer versions of the Linux kernel include LXC - better than the Virtuozzo derivative (OpenVZ) used in Proxmox (recently we have migrated away from Proxmox to Ubuntu Server 13.10 for LXC and Docker.io). KVM seems to be generally the same, though I'm a huge fan of VMWare Workstation which works a treat.

Re. Mint, I'm really loving Cinnamon and the other software they're supporting. It's genuinely delightful to use.

Easy there, buddy, easy... take a deep breath before you hurt yourself. If you don't understand my reference then you weren't around during this forum's golden age, and the joke is well over your head.

If you must know, I haven't used a pre-modified OS like that in years. I've been running genuine Windows 8.1 Professional for quite a while. I'm not as terrible a person as you might think.
Nah I get the reference(s), it's just amusing to no end how people genuinely prefer that shit.

How are you finding Windows 8.1? Many people I talk to would have me believe I am crazy for thinking it is better than <insert 7 or XP here>.
CrunchBang is very lightweight by which it uses openbox and is based on Debian stable.


that image is very true, i learn of it this week actually. i updated the grub on my windows(my computer is dual boot with Ubuntu) build on my VBox which is arch. it stopped running all together. this is after i recommend it to FAST. and for three days i was trying to fix it.


for the arch part i like to keep my windows build clean as possible and use portable or things in VBox (and do other things in VBox like use transmission instaed of utorrent).
GRUB is a huge pain, especially when making the initial transfer to UEFI where it is really astoundingly easy to forget modules in your image. I did it twice, despite my best efforts not to. My fault though, I guess.
Not really sure what's wrong with your system, although it does sound like chrooting into your machine and re-running the GRUB installer _should_ fix things... You can probably get in using the install disk.
 

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GRUB is a huge pain, especially when making the initial transfer to UEFI where it is really astoundingly easy to forget modules in your image. I did it twice, despite my best efforts not to. My fault though, I guess.
Not really sure what's wrong with your system, although it does sound like chrooting into your machine and re-running the GRUB installer _should_ fix things... You can probably get in using the install disk.

nope did that. it was to do something with UUID or something not having the right ID when grub was generating when i tried to do "grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg" it just wouldnt see where the linux is installed. i think it was a bug with either with arch or Vbox not sure tho.



edit: oh yes, it was installing grub 1:2 or something, it wasn't installing grub 2.
 

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I rather Windows 7 over XP for one reason: Windows 7 can installed anything that they are looking for instead of yourself. Windows XP wont do that at most part and will force you to do it instead.
 

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[...]Nah I get the reference(s), it's just amusing to no end how people genuinely prefer that shit.

How are you finding Windows 8.1? Many people I talk to would have me believe I am crazy for thinking it is better than <insert 7 or XP here>.[...]


Oh I absolutely love it. When I was using 8 I was using Classic Start and Classic Shell, both of which were fairly buggy and unreliable on my machine. Since 8.1 I run a purely stock install with no UI modifications like that, I have it set to boot straight to the desktop. I am personally not a fan of the Start Screen, I find it very unintuitive and it's too big of a change from the start menu of old for me to feel comfortable with, especially on a non-touch (and dual monitor) environment. However, I RARELY ever need to use it, and because of that, I don't let it hamper my overall experience with the OS.

My computer is by no means low-powered, but even compared to 7, 8/8.1 run great and holds that performance longer than 7 did. Boot times are unreal, a non UEFI BIOS is still going from power-switch on to desktop in under 10 seconds.

Yeah, I do very much like Windows 8 and I don't think it deserves half of the hate that it's subject to. But the Windows h8 train keeps on rolling.
 

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