Win10 sans updates vs Linux

[An0maly_76]

So, amidst all this talk about forced Win10 updates to the cringe-worthy Win11... I have suspended updates to my Win10 for the time being.

 

However, I wonder if I'd be better off with a Windows-like version of Linux, such as Ubuntu. Pros / cons? Thoughts?

 

And how would I go about swapping over with an existing Win10 install with data files?

[whispous]

What talk about Win11 forced updates? It's not forcing anyone.

[RONOTHAN##]

3 minutes ago, An0maly_76 said:

So, amidst all this talk about forced Win10 updates to the cringe-worthy Win11... I have suspended updates to my Win10 for the time being.

Just disable TPM and call it a day. For a desktop PC there really isn't a reason to have a TPM (outside of BitDefender, but if you need BitDefender on a desktop you should really be running Windows LTSC which should be updating to Windows 11), and disabling it will disable Windows 11 updates. 

 

Linux is cool and everything, I do daily Fedora on my laptop for a couple reasons, but it will really depend on what you're planning on doing whether some sort of Linux distro makes sense. For a gaming PC, it's getting a lot better, and it will eventually be fine thanks to Valve, but ATM it's still not great, especially if you're on something Nvidia. For programming, the Linux terminal is awesome and a lot of stuff is just easier to do on there. That said, software support isn't amazing, there are a number of utilities that are only available on Windows and there's no good alternative on Linux (same thing is true other way around though). 

 

If you've got a laptop or something not mission critical that you can try it out, sure, give Linux a try, HoloISO is something neat to look at, it's basically SteamOS 3.0 but without the code specific to the Steam Deck and with actual drivers present. The standard Ubuntu or Mint is a good place to start though, it's where most people I know start with Linux because there's a ton of documentation and it's good enough out of the box.

[Alex Atkin UK]

57 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

especially if you're on something Nvidia

The irony there is I ended up using an NVIDIA card to get 4K 120Hz working and the Intel iGPU I couldn't stop it tearing on video.

 

57 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

The standard Ubuntu or Mint is a good place to start though, it's where most people I know start with Linux because there's a ton of documentation and it's good enough out of the box.

I've never understood why anyone would start with Ubuntu coming from Windows, its so confusing.  KDE Plasma still feels most like Windows to me in how it looks and behaves, unless you go for a distro that is specifically trying to look like Windows.

Speaking of, Fedora drive me up the wall, this is two consecutive releases now where the KDE Spin ISO wont work on NVIDIA, though that's getting off topic and I'd not recommend Fedora for anyone new to Linux anyway as its supposed to be bleeding edge, its just not supposed to actually be broken. (grumble grumble Wayland sucks)

 

But honestly, as someone who uses KDE Plasma 99% of the time, I don't get all the fuss with Windows 11.  I upgraded my gaming PC as soon as I could and its been great, no longer caring that PC games often don't support HDR as AutoHDR is brilliant.  Much prefer rounded corners on my Windows, always have.  Upgraded my AI upscaling box a few days ago, went smoothly.  No longer running Windows 10 on anything now.

If want to see an abomination of an OS, try MacOS.

[RONOTHAN##]

17 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

I've never understood why anyone would start with Ubuntu coming from Windows, its so confusing. 

It was my first distro (granted this was back when Unity was still a thing), and I did figure everything out pretty quickly. It was basically Windows with a left mount task bar and a universal activities bar (I know there's a proper name for it, I'm not a UI designer and I forget how it works). Plus, the quote I heard for why Ubuntu is the best starter distro (paraphrasing) "Ubuntu is functional enough that you can get around without changing anything perfectly adequate, it's not functional enough for you to not want to change stuff, there's plenty of tutorials out there for how to change stuff, and you learn how to Linux while doing so." Basically, it's kinda like buying a early 90s Miata, yeah it's fine to get you around town stock as well as do some more fancier driving, but while driving it (if you care about driving) you will eventually want more out of it (better suspension, higher power motor, etc.) so you find guides and parts (there are tons out there), modify it, and you end up with a car that fits you the best at the end. 

 

5 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Speaking of, Fedora drive me up the wall, this is two consecutive releases now where the KDE Spin ISO wont work on NVIDIA, though that's getting off topic and I'd not recommend Fedora for anyone new to Linux anyway as its supposed to be bleeding edge, its just not supposed to actually be broken. (grumble grumble Wayland sucks)

The KDE spin of Fedora is usually kinda broken in my experience, I've yet to get it to boot with a machine running a Nvidia card since Fedora 34. Then again, I daily stock Fedora on my Laptop, and on there I prefer Gnome anyway because of its IMO best virtual desktop implementation out currently. Plus Intel's Wayland drivers are actually fairly decent. Wayland is definitely getting better, and in my experience it's been fairly reliable.

 

If you want a KDE spin that works well (I do personally prefer KDE for anything with more than 1 monitor, virtual desktop is the only reason I even remotely like Gnome), OpenSUSE is my go-to for anything with a Nvidia card in it. It's rock stable, everything is up to date thanks to it being a rolling release, and the KDE implementation is just stellar. Plus getting Nvidia drivers to work on it, while harder than something like Mint, is still relatively easy if you know what you're doing. 

 

12 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

But honestly, as someone who uses KDE Plasma 99% of the time, I don't get all the fuss with Windows 11.  I upgraded my gaming PC as soon as I could and its been great, no longer caring that PC games often don't support HDR as AutoHDR is brilliant.  Much prefer rounded corners on my Windows, always have.  Upgraded my AI upscaling box a few days ago, went smoothly.  No longer running Windows 10 on anything now.

I have sworn off Windows 11 personally, not because of the UI changes (I don't personally like it but I could get used to it), but because of the forced usage of all Microsoft services and a Microsoft account. Yeah I know you can bypass it, but it's an OS they want $100 for, and yet they're advertising in the freaking start menu. If Windows 7 was still getting security updates and wasn't a pain to get running on modern hardware, that's what I'd still be running, it was the last good OS Microsoft has made. 

[RollyShed]

2 hours ago, An0maly_76 said:

So, amidst all this talk about forced Win10 updates to the cringe-worthy Win11... I have suspended updates to my Win10 for the time being.

 

However, I wonder if I'd be better off with a Windows-like version of Linux, such as Ubuntu. Pros / cons? Thoughts?

 

And how would I go about swapping over with an existing Win10 install with data files?

In October 2018 MS wiped about a million user's systems, deleted everything. A Windows user here sat down at her computer next morning with it running Linux Mint and carried on as if nothing had happened... except it never had updates failures again.

 

The Win10 which got wiped back to Win7? Everything fortunately had been backed up to another disk with Linux on it.

 

Data files on a Windows disk? Simply copy them to the Linux disk. Linux can see everything on a Windows disk, Very easy to do, I've done it many times (30+ installations) and the users carry on using their computers but they are now easier, more reliable and can do more.

[Kilrah]

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

I've never understood why anyone would start with Ubuntu coming from Windows, its so confusing.

If you take the cinnamon remix it's pretty much what looks and feels as close to Windows as it gets, plus you get the advantage of lots of Ubuntu resources.

[FUIT1985]

16 hours ago, An0maly_76 said:

So, amidst all this talk about forced Win10 updates to the cringe-worthy Win11... I have suspended updates to my Win10 for the time being.

 

However, I wonder if I'd be better off with a Windows-like version of Linux, such as Ubuntu. Pros / cons? Thoughts?

 

And how would I go about swapping over with an existing Win10 install with data files?

Updates are required for OS security (even in Linux). In fact, a cracker or script kiddie could exploit a known vulnerability.

Quote

 

<<We strongly recommend that you report bugs in Debian using the reportbug program.

reportbug is installed by default on most systems. If it is not available, it can be installed using the package management tool available on your system.

reportbug can be started from the system section of the menu or by running reportbug via the command-line.

It will guide you through the bug reporting process step by step.

If you have questions that the interactive prompts of reportbug do not resolve, you can refer to the rest of the documentation below or ask the Debian user mailing list.>>

https://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting.en.html

 

 

 

[RollyShed]

3 hours ago, FUIT1985 said:

Updates are required for OS security (even in Linux). In fact, a cracker or script kiddie could exploit a known vulnerability.

Except MS updates which destroy the system they are supposed to be protecting it.

[An0maly_76]

18 minutes ago, RollyShed said:

Except MS updates which destroy the system they are supposed to be protecting it.

[Alex Atkin UK]

2 hours ago, RollyShed said:

Except MS updates which destroy the system they are supposed to be protecting it.

You're conflating two issues.  Updates protect against security issues, you however should ALWAYS keep regular backups as no update is guaranteed to preserve your data, though obviously they are intended to.

 

I've always kept the majority of data on different partitions on Windows, this advice has not really changed except now you can do cloud backups and 99% of my data is kept on a NAS which I regularly back up.

 

Since owning a Mac, every OS update on my Mac Mini has booted to a black screen except the last one.  To a casual user this looks broken, but a reboot always fixed it.

As I run Fedora I've had plenty of issues in Linux, except I'm used to dealing with them and the benefits greatly outweigh the negatives IMO.

[FUIT1985]

3 hours ago, RollyShed said:

Except MS updates which destroy the system they are supposed to be protecting it.

 

2 hours ago, An0maly_76 said:

 

CYBERSECURITY & INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY (United States federal agency, Department of Homeland Security)
KNOWN EXPLOITED VULNERABILITIES CATALOG

https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog

[RollyShed]

20 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

You're conflating two issues.  Updates protect against security issues, you however should ALWAYS keep regular backups as no update is guaranteed to preserve your data, though obviously they are intended to.

How can you trust MS's updates to protect against security issues if they can't do updates that don't destroy a system?

I've never had that happen with Linux Mint.

Yes, backups too but simply don't trust MS to do things properly. Google it and year after year, data deleted.. again... by MS.

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 minute ago, RollyShed said:

How can you trust MS's updates to protect against security issues if they can't do updates that don't destroy a system?

I've never had that happen with Linux Mint.

Yes, backups too but simply don't trust MS to do things properly. Google it and year after year, data deleted.. again... by MS.

They have many orders of magnitude higher install base, on desktop at least.  I'm not saying I trust Microsoft or Apple, far from it, but its not THAT common an issue if you look at just how many users they have.

I only use anything other than Linux when I absolutely need to.

[RollyShed]

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

I only use anything other than Linux when I absolutely need to.

That's a good start.

 

The incident I was mentioning, and it only happened to about 1 million users in October, was happening each month in 2018.

 

A user, losses the printer drivers. Has to go to the shop to get it fixed. Next month, screen drivers vanish, to the shop, next month printer and screen drivers and something else, to the shop to get it fixed.

 

Then come October it wipes everything and reverts from 10 to 7 and says it is an illegal version. Now what's that going to cost? And yes, at the start of the year it was legal and working. OK, 2019, deleting data again. 2020 more data deletion. Then 2021 or 22, it takes MS 3 goes at getting an update to work correctly.

 

Google it. Why did all this happen? Because the richest company sacked their testing staff.

 

If any of your household appliances broke like that you'd demand your money back. Did MS ever pay anyone for inconvenience and repair costs? No?

[Kilrah]

5 hours ago, RollyShed said:

Except MS updates which destroy the system they are supposed to be protecting it.

I've had to reinstall/restore 2 linux systems that broke due to updates this week. 

I've had way more upgrade issues on linux than on Windows over the years.

[cretsiah]

29 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

I've had to reinstall/restore 2 linux systems that broke due to updates this week. 

I've had way more upgrade issues on linux than on Windows over the years.

thats not Arch is it

 

37 minutes ago, RollyShed said:

That's a good start.

 

The incident I was mentioning, and it only happened to about 1 million users in October, was happening each month in 2018.

 

A user, losses the printer drivers. Has to go to the shop to get it fixed. Next month, screen drivers vanish, to the shop, next month printer and screen drivers and something else, to the shop to get it fixed.

 

Then come October it wipes everything and reverts from 10 to 7 and says it is an illegal version. Now what's that going to cost? And yes, at the start of the year it was legal and working. OK, 2019, deleting data again. 2020 more data deletion. Then 2021 or 22, it takes MS 3 goes at getting an update to work correctly.

 

Google it. Why did all this happen? Because the richest company sacked their testing staff.

 

If any of your household appliances broke like that you'd demand your money back. Did MS ever pay anyone for inconvenience and repair costs? No?

knew about the big one didnt know about all the others though far out

[An0maly_76]

3 hours ago, FUIT1985 said:

CYBERSECURITY & INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY (United States federal agency, Department of Homeland Security)

 

KNOWN EXPLOITED VULNERABILITIES CATALOG

https://www.cisa.gov/known-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog

225 entries for Microshaft.

 

[An0maly_76]

3 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

They have many orders of magnitude higher install base, on desktop at least.  I'm not saying I trust Microsoft or Apple, far from it, but its not THAT common an issue if you look at just how many users they have.

I only use anything other than Linux when I absolutely need to.

"Oh, yes, do come! There is safety in numbers..."

 

...said the spider to the fly....

[RollyShed]

1 hour ago, Kilrah said:

I've had to reinstall/restore 2 linux systems that broke due to updates this week. 

I've had way more upgrade issues on linux than on Windows over the years.

I've never with all the 50+ installations I've done had an update problem with Linux.

I'm using Linux Mint.

[Alex Atkin UK]

25 minutes ago, RollyShed said:

I've never with all the 50+ installations I've done had an update problem with Linux.

I'm using Linux Mint.

That's the thing, it varies a lot from distro to distro and what specific software configuration you may have.

 

I honestly don't notice issues much as I'm used to having to fix one or two things every once in a while.  That said, there usually is a solution vs Windows where almost every problem I've had was unfixable.

 

I've had problems with network speed on my gaming laptop ever since I bought it and no clue why, happens even on a clean install.  Its still throttled to 300Mbit right now, boot into Linux and it does 1.44Gbit, over WiFi no less.  The Windows network stack has been nothing but trouble and when it has issues I've never once been able to fix it.  Fortunately another machine which exhibited this issue magically fixed itself eventually.

[Mark Kaine]

On 5/27/2022 at 8:33 AM, An0maly_76 said:

So, amidst all this talk about forced Win10 updates to the cringe-worthy Win11... I have suspended updates to my Win10 for the time being.

 

However, I wonder if I'd be better off with a Windows-like version of Linux, such as Ubuntu. Pros / cons? Thoughts?

 

And how would I go about swapping over with an existing Win10 install with data files?

So a few "dumb" questions i have.

 

Why do you have TPM enabled? (i suppose you do otherwise there wouldn't be a "threat" of an update to 11)

 

How did you "disable" updates (not like windows would nilly willy turn that back on or something,  not like they have a service specifically for that purpose [Windows as a Service Medic Agent (WaaSMedicAgent) was introduced in Windows 10 to “Enable remediation and protection of Windows Update components.”] or anything)?

 

Do you do any payment or banking stuff on your PC?

 

Do you use the same email adress for everything (more or less)? 

 

 

Cant say anything about Linux as Im not using it or have any use for it, but Im somewhat of a selfproclaimed anti windows update expert (1803 represent) and these are questions that seem important to me to know the answers in order to answer your question.  : p

 

 

 

 

 

[An0maly_76]

1 minute ago, Mark Kaine said:

So a few "dumb" questions i have.

 

Why do you have TPM enabled? (i suppose you do otherwise there wouldn't be a "threat" of an update to 11)

 

How did you "disable" updates (not like windows would nilly willy turn that back on or something,  not like they have a service specifically for that purpose [Windows as a Service Medic Agent (WaaSMedicAgent) was introduced in Windows 10 to “Enable remediation and protection of Windows Update components.”] or anything)?

 

Do you do any payment or banking stuff on your PC?

 

Do you use the same email adress for everything (more or less)? 

 

 

Cant say anything about Linux as Im not using it or have any use for it, but Im somewhat of a selfproclaimed anti windows update expert (1803 represent) and these are questions that seem important to me to know the answers in order to answer your question.  : p

 

Quite honestly don't know much about TPM. And yes, I process the occasional payment, usually cards that are stored on Amazon, eBay and the like. I try not to store card info in my browser.

[Mark Kaine]

5 minutes ago, An0maly_76 said:

Quite honestly don't know much about TPM. And yes, I process the occasional payment, usually cards that are stored on Amazon, eBay and the like. I try not to store card info in my browser.

I wouldn't recommend turning off windows updates in this case.

 

But just make sure TPM is off and you should have smooth sailing,  more or less,  with windows 10 + updates until support ends at least.

 

I mean if you want to switch to Linux, why not, but it just seems there's no immediate need for such an action... i dont think windows will update to 11 as long TPM is disabled  (someone correct me if im wrong...)

[An0maly_76]

So Linux may not be necessary, and I can avoid that by turning off TPM and disabling the search bar? Kinda sucks because I do use the search bar once in awhile. So how do I turn off TPM? I may be showing my age, but I've just never been crazy about Windows, although I thought XP SP3 smacked it out of the park. I hail from the days of command prompt MS-DOS and dabbled in UNIX for awhile in college, but certain autistic issues have caught up with me and I'm not so good with remembering such things anymore.