On 31/07/15 14:43, Richard wrote:
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

On 31/07/15 13:56, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 31/07/15 13:46, dennis@home wrote:
On 31/07/2015 02:54, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
8

Most people can't use linux mint, they need help but there isn't any.

what a stupendously ridiculous thing to say.

If there were decent help for windows, the OP wouldn't have posted
here.

Hpw many people here asking how to fix linux then?



More than post about fixing windows.
How many windows people even know about usenet?
Where are they going to get linux help when they don't know about
usenet
and they can't ask in the local shop or a friend?


all over the interweb you dick. Flippin eck the help forums come as the
default browser home page...


You live in the clouds like most linux zealots, you use linux and know
where to get help so you expect everyone else to know how.

I domt. just know its a darned sight easier than getting windows or OS/X
help

Its thinking like that that stops linux beig more wide spread
especially
when the ones that do ask questions get told they are too stupid to run
linux which happens far too often.

Total myth.




Does windows actually produce anything as helpful as this? Free?

http://www.linuxmint.com/documentati...glish_17.2.pdf

Dunno. Never needed anything like that, bearing in mind that I haven't
bothered to read the entire thing.


well there's nowt so deaf as those that stick their fingers in their
ears and yell 'windows is great, windows is good'



--
New Socialism consists essentially in being seen to have your heart in
the right place whilst your head is in the clouds and your hand is in
someone else's pocket.

On 7/31/2015 11:30 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 31/07/15 11:05, John Rumm wrote:
On 7/30/2015 10:27 AM, Davey wrote:
On Thu, 30 Jul 2015 09:56:38 +0100
David Lang wrote:

On 30/07/2015 00:48, Davey wrote:
On Thu, 30 Jul 2015 00:00:17 +0100
David Lang wrote:

On 29/07/2015 23:55, Davey wrote:
On Wed, 29 Jul 2015 23:41:34 +0100
David Lang wrote:

I only use the Win7 when I want to run the one programme that I
can't get to run on Ubuntu otherwise I would delete it to get the
extra space. If you happen to have a Humax PVR, you already have a
Linux machine.

Thank you, but I didn't understand a word of that :-)



Oh well, I tried. It's not that difficult, surely?

And I thank you for trying.

It may not be that difficult if you know your subject but to the
layman its gibberish :-)

As an ex working magician I could describe a trick as using an
Elmsley Count, an Ascanio Spread and a Tenkai Palm. Another magician
would immediately know what I was on about.



I can only refer you to the suggestion offered by The Natural
Philosopher:
"Insert DVD, follow instructions."

"Simples", as they say.

Sounds like a simply way to lose all your documents, photos, and other
information. Then find you are no longer connected to your email,
newsgroups and don't recognise half your software.


same for a reinstall of windows.

Which while not necessarily true, would be equally dumb advice.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 7/31/2015 11:32 AM, Davey wrote:
On Fri, 31 Jul 2015 11:05:45 +0100
John Rumm wrote:

I can only refer you to the suggestion offered by The Natural
Philosopher:
"Insert DVD, follow instructions."

"Simples", as they say.

Sounds like a simply way to lose all your documents, photos, and
other information. Then find you are no longer connected to your
email, newsgroups and don't recognise half your software.

We are talking about installing a different operating system, so I fail
to understand what you mean by that.

It was suggested that "insert DVD, follow instructions" would solve the
problem (i.e. a slow Win 8 PC) at a stroke.

It neglected to mention the vital useful background explaining what
doing as described would actually do (i.e. the equal of changing an air
filter by ripping and replacing the entire engine with a different make
and model).

It also neglected to mention what precautions one would need to take to
preserve their data first should thy consider doing as suggested.

Any sensible operator has any
important files backed up already,

And the other 97% of the population who would be looking for a reverse
switch if you suggested backup?

and why would installing Linux fail
to connect you to the internet?

That it would manage...

What about remembering to preserve all those email account settings that
you setup months ago and have now forgotten about?

What about the paid for license for MS Office you find you now can't use?

Of course half the software would not be recognised, but any new
software required is free, in both senses. Firefox and Thunderbird, the
Mozilla programmes, are the same on either platform

They are similar on both platforms - although not the same.

Also how would a windows user go about installing them?

Will they need to select the right install package to download?

Will it come as a compressed tar file? Will they know how to extract
that? (assuming they find their downloads folder)

Will it all install from a double click of the icon, or are you perhaps
assuming that someone new to the platform will understand how to use a
command line and sudo etc, or will suddenly be well versed in the
variety of linux package managers and how to use them?

and will transfer
directly, importing your old profiles,

If you can work out where the profiles are and how to move them between
the OSes. Most windows users would be challenged to find their windows
thunderbird profile folder[1], let alone the equivalent place in
whatever distro of linux they have.

[1] %appdata%\thunderbird in case you were wondering. That will expand
to a ^hidden^ folder tucked way down in the "roaming" part of the users
home folder.

and LibreOffice understands Word
and Excel and other Windows files. I see no problem.

Precisely... you see no problem.

Now go try getting someone to round trip a few more complicated office
docs back and fourth with co-workers a few times. Sometimes 90%
compatibility 90% of the time is no use.

(Kingsoft office is a more "Office like" recommendation than Libre these
days FWIW)


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

On 31/07/15 14:22, Richard wrote:
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

On 31/07/15 12:43, Richard wrote:
"Davey" wrote in message ...

On Fri, 31 Jul 2015 11:05:45 +0100
John Rumm wrote:

I can only refer you to the suggestion offered by The Natural
Philosopher:
"Insert DVD, follow instructions."

"Simples", as they say.
Sounds like a simply way to lose all your documents, photos, and
other information. Then find you are no longer connected to your
email, newsgroups and don't recognise half your software.

We are talking about installing a different operating system, so I
fail
to understand what you mean by that. Any sensible operator has any
important files backed up already, and why would installing Linux fail
to connect you to the internet?
Of course half the software would not be recognised, but any new
software required is free, in both senses. Firefox and Thunderbird,
the
Mozilla programmes, are the same on either platform and will transfer
directly, importing your old profiles, and LibreOffice understands
Word
and Excel and other Windows files. I see no problem.

Really? Is LibreOffice able to handle Excel VBA files without any
issues?

depends on what's in em ;-)

Well, will LibreOffice handle Excel VBA files and run the code?
Second thoughts, I need a sensible answer...
OK. I've downloaded windows version...
installing...
will try to use my Excel files when install finished...

Oh well, couldn't run my VBA enabled files using LibreOffice...
Uninstalling.

How long did you have to search to find the one command that wasn't exactly
duplicated

I am not even sure you did install libre office.

Yawn. Yet another prat calling me a liar. I did install
LibreOffice_4.4.5_Win_x86.msi
I opened one of my Excel workbooks which contained VBA. Tried to run the VBA
and was informed that there was not the particular JRE version required to
complete the task.
I therefore decided that the software was not worth the bother as I have
better things to do than fart around trying to get stuff that just works, to
work in an environment that needs farting around to get things to work.
Call me a liar if you like.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

On 31/07/15 14:43, Richard wrote:
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

On 31/07/15 13:56, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 31/07/15 13:46, dennis@home wrote:
On 31/07/2015 02:54, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
8

Most people can't use linux mint, they need help but there isn't
any.

what a stupendously ridiculous thing to say.

If there were decent help for windows, the OP wouldn't have posted
here.

Hpw many people here asking how to fix linux then?



More than post about fixing windows.
How many windows people even know about usenet?
Where are they going to get linux help when they don't know about
usenet
and they can't ask in the local shop or a friend?


all over the interweb you dick. Flippin eck the help forums come as the
default browser home page...


You live in the clouds like most linux zealots, you use linux and know
where to get help so you expect everyone else to know how.

I domt. just know its a darned sight easier than getting windows or
OS/X
help

Its thinking like that that stops linux beig more wide spread
especially
when the ones that do ask questions get told they are too stupid to
run
linux which happens far too often.

Total myth.




Does windows actually produce anything as helpful as this? Free?

http://www.linuxmint.com/documentati...glish_17.2.pdf

Dunno. Never needed anything like that, bearing in mind that I haven't
bothered to read the entire thing.


well there's nowt so deaf as those that stick their fingers in their ears
and yell 'windows is great, windows is good'

Provide a quote from me where I say that.

"John Rumm" wrote in message
o.uk...

On 7/31/2015 11:32 AM, Davey wrote:
On Fri, 31 Jul 2015 11:05:45 +0100
John Rumm wrote:

I can only refer you to the suggestion offered by The Natural
Philosopher:
"Insert DVD, follow instructions."

"Simples", as they say.

Sounds like a simply way to lose all your documents, photos, and
other information. Then find you are no longer connected to your
email, newsgroups and don't recognise half your software.

We are talking about installing a different operating system, so I fail
to understand what you mean by that.

It was suggested that "insert DVD, follow instructions" would solve the
problem (i.e. a slow Win 8 PC) at a stroke.

It neglected to mention the vital useful background explaining what doing
as described would actually do (i.e. the equal of changing an air filter by
ripping and replacing the entire engine with a different make and model).

It also neglected to mention what precautions one would need to take to
preserve their data first should thy consider doing as suggested.

Any sensible operator has any
important files backed up already,

And the other 97% of the population who would be looking for a reverse
switch if you suggested backup?

and why would installing Linux fail
to connect you to the internet?

That it would manage...

What about remembering to preserve all those email account settings that
you setup months ago and have now forgotten about?

What about the paid for license for MS Office you find you now can't use?

Of course half the software would not be recognised, but any new
software required is free, in both senses. Firefox and Thunderbird, the
Mozilla programmes, are the same on either platform

They are similar on both platforms - although not the same.

Also how would a windows user go about installing them?

Will they need to select the right install package to download?

Will it come as a compressed tar file? Will they know how to extract that?
(assuming they find their downloads folder)

Will it all install from a double click of the icon, or are you perhaps
assuming that someone new to the platform will understand how to use a
command line and sudo etc, or will suddenly be well versed in the variety
of linux package managers and how to use them?

and will transfer
directly, importing your old profiles,

If you can work out where the profiles are and how to move them between the
OSes. Most windows users would be challenged to find their windows
thunderbird profile folder[1], let alone the equivalent place in whatever
distro of linux they have.

[1] %appdata%\thunderbird in case you were wondering. That will expand to
a ^hidden^ folder tucked way down in the "roaming" part of the users home
folder.

and LibreOffice understands Word
and Excel and other Windows files. I see no problem.

Precisely... you see no problem.

Now go try getting someone to round trip a few more complicated office docs
back and fourth with co-workers a few times. Sometimes 90% compatibility
90% of the time is no use.

(Kingsoft office is a more "Office like" recommendation than Libre these
days FWIW)

+1 for Kingsoft - on my Android phone.

On 31/07/15 16:05, John Rumm wrote:
On 7/31/2015 11:32 AM, Davey wrote:
On Fri, 31 Jul 2015 11:05:45 +0100
John Rumm wrote:

I can only refer you to the suggestion offered by The Natural
Philosopher:
"Insert DVD, follow instructions."

"Simples", as they say.

Sounds like a simply way to lose all your documents, photos, and
other information. Then find you are no longer connected to your
email, newsgroups and don't recognise half your software.

We are talking about installing a different operating system, so I fail
to understand what you mean by that.

It was suggested that "insert DVD, follow instructions" would solve the
problem (i.e. a slow Win 8 PC) at a stroke.

It neglected to mention the vital useful background explaining what
doing as described would actually do (i.e. the equal of changing an air
filter by ripping and replacing the entire engine with a different make
and model).

It also neglected to mention what precautions one would need to take to
preserve their data first should thy consider doing as suggested.

Any sensible operator has any
important files backed up already,

And the other 97% of the population who would be looking for a reverse
switch if you suggested backup?

and why would installing Linux fail
to connect you to the internet?

That it would manage...

What about remembering to preserve all those email account settings that
you setup months ago and have now forgotten about?

well many people use webmail: you would of course have those in your
browser in that case, and you should extract thiose first.

If you are alrdeay using thunderbird or firefox you could export all
that stuff to a usb stick or similar..


What about the paid for license for MS Office you find you now can't use?


Write it off.


Of course half the software would not be recognised, but any new
software required is free, in both senses. Firefox and Thunderbird, the
Mozilla programmes, are the same on either platform

They are similar on both platforms - although not the same.

Also how would a windows user go about installing them?


in Linux?

Will they need to select the right install package to download?

Will it come as a compressed tar file? Will they know how to extract
that? (assuming they find their downloads folder)

Nope. Its all simple : go to software manager, select firefox, click.
Anyway its the default browser for Mint

Will it all install from a double click of the icon, or are you perhaps
assuming that someone new to the platform will understand how to use a
command line and sudo etc, or will suddenly be well versed in the
variety of linux package managers and how to use them?

and will transfer
directly, importing your old profiles,

If you can work out where the profiles are and how to move them between
the OSes. Most windows users would be challenged to find their windows
thunderbird profile folder[1], let alone the equivalent place in
whatever distro of linux they have.

[1] %appdata%\thunderbird in case you were wondering. That will expand
to a ^hidden^ folder tucked way down in the "roaming" part of the users
home folder.

and LibreOffice understands Word
and Excel and other Windows files. I see no problem.

Precisely... you see no problem.

Now go try getting someone to round trip a few more complicated office
docs back and fourth with co-workers a few times. Sometimes 90%
compatibility 90% of the time is no use.

well that is already better than interversion compatibility of MSoffice
itself.


(Kingsoft office is a more "Office like" recommendation than Libre these
days FWIW)




--
New Socialism consists essentially in being seen to have your heart in
the right place whilst your head is in the clouds and your hand is in
someone else's pocket.

On 31/07/15 16:12, Richard wrote:

well there's nowt so deaf as those that stick their fingers in their
ears and yell 'windows is great, windows is good'

Provide a quote from me where I say that.

Just about every post you have made has been essentially that.

Noth8ng is easier than finding something that one system does OK, and
another doesn't do.

Liker the MAC man who came and saiod ' pity linux cant read Canon raw
format files off my camera' Of course installing a plugin that did read
them was the work of 5 minutes...


--
New Socialism consists essentially in being seen to have your heart in
the right place whilst your head is in the clouds and your hand is in
someone else's pocket.

In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
In article , The Natural Philosopher
scribeth thus
On 31/07/15 10:24, fred wrote:

I feel the same way about Linux. In global terms its such a minority
interest. If it was so wonderful it would be cock of the walk by this
time so why would a neophyte wish to get involved with an operating
system with such a small user base.

Dunno. Not much of a user base for a Lamborghini either, but I'd take
one for free...

Wasn't much of a user base for DOS either till IBM built their PC.

Incidentally the whole desktop PC thing is in a state of collapse.

Have noticed these days that the desktop has been replaced with a
portable laptop especially with sales staff at quite a few firms we
visit....

Most all running WIN 8 ....

having just come back from an eye test, there seemed to be a Windows
machine on the desk plus an ipad tethered down at each "work station".

--
Please note new email address:

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

On 31/07/15 16:12, Richard wrote:

well there's nowt so deaf as those that stick their fingers in their
ears and yell 'windows is great, windows is good'

Provide a quote from me where I say that.

Just about every post you have made has been essentially that.

That's totally untrue. Nowhere have I said 'windows is great, windows is
good' or anything remotely resembling that.
My particular needs are met using Windows. I have invested significantly in
software over the years and, yes, Linux does have some good software. It
does not have the complete answer to all my needs whereas Windows does. Am I
a lesser person for that?


Noth8ng is easier than finding something that one system does OK, and
another doesn't do.

Liker the MAC man who came and saiod ' pity linux cant read Canon raw
format files off my camera' Of course installing a plugin that did read
them was the work of 5 minutes...

If it makes you feel any better, have it your way.
Just out of curiosity; is it Linux which does all your typos, or just your
own low standards?

On 31/07/15 16:47, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , bert
wrote:


I feel the same way about Linux. In global terms its such a minority
interest. If it was so wonderful it would be cock of the walk by this
time so why would a neophyte wish to get involved with an operating
system with such a small user base.

It's all down to applications. Most of the world uses MS Office and
has a lot of investment in documents. They didn't got o Office because
it was the best product but because everyone else did.

So I use a Mac and use Office for the Mac. So your point was *what*,
precisely?

His point is that ubiquity equates to quality.

Of course it doesn't. Its classic FUD as in 'no one ever got sacked for
buying IBM'

Even Microsoft itself has problems reading microsoft office generated
files as anyone with any real experience knows.

Unless you have the same version and the same fonts installed, what you
get may be anything from a blank refusal to open the bloody thing to a
crazy unformatted mess.

Which is why despite Adobe's software being a bug ridden disaster and
postcript being probably the worst ever page description language it is
possible to write, a PDF with embedded fonts is now the de facto
document exchange format.

Not MS word....

That doesn't make PDFs great - they are not - they are crap - but it is
a standard that MS office is simply not.

The point is simple: even if you DO use MS word on MSwindows you are
STILL screwed in document interchangeability.

As far as Excel etc goes, anyone who uses a spreadsheet rather than code
against a database for anything more complex than a marketing document
is probably a tosser anyway.


--
New Socialism consists essentially in being seen to have your heart in
the right place whilst your head is in the clouds and your hand is in
someone else's pocket.

On 31/07/15 16:52, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

On 31/07/15 11:30, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , Davey
wrote:

I mentioned earlier about the Linux fanatics, and yes they are out
there, and I'm not one of them. I have said that I keep Windows as
there is one programme that I need it for. But I also love the ease and
simplicity of updates with Linux, none of the huge time-consuming
sessions while Redmond downloads another load of Patches and fixes.
Linux updates take a few minutes, and installing from scratchmaybe half
an hour. The last time I installed Windows anywhere, it took about e
hours, after several update/reboot/update/reboot etc sessions.

Every time I fire up my Mint VM (about once a month) it spends 20-30
minutes downloading stuff.

indeed. but it doesn't reboot your computer while it does it.

More precisely, the VM. But the point is taken. Meanwhile any update to
my Win7 VM usually does reboot the VM. Only about half of the OS X
updates seem to need a reboot, but those only appear two or three times
a years anyway. I always find it amusing that I can suspend the Mint or
Win7 VM, reboot the Mac, and the VMs can continue from where they left
off.

I find the same with my windows VM

I can switch te machine off, reboot it in 30 seconds into linux, and 10
seconds later there is windows if I need it. Not that I do much these
days as I am not #doing 3D CAD much..

And if by chance it does catch something there is always last months
snapshot to revert to, before it got infected.


And if I need to rebuild the linux machine hardware and OS, why simply
save the total VM state onto backup, restore it, tell virtual box to use
it, and there is windows as I left it!

The only place for winders is in a VM where its safe from the internet
and microsoft.

And you can run any legacy MS**** (TM) safely.


The conclusion: run Winders in a VM and make Linux - or if you must, OSX
- the primary OS to run.

Its much safer that way.

--
New Socialism consists essentially in being seen to have your heart in
the right place whilst your head is in the clouds and your hand is in
someone else's pocket.

On 31/07/15 16:51, Richard wrote:
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

On 31/07/15 16:12, Richard wrote:

well there's nowt so deaf as those that stick their fingers in their
ears and yell 'windows is great, windows is good'

Provide a quote from me where I say that.

Just about every post you have made has been essentially that.

That's totally untrue. Nowhere have I said 'windows is great, windows
is good' or anything remotely resembling that.
My particular needs are met using Windows. I have invested significantly
in software over the years and, yes, Linux does have some good software.
It does not have the complete answer to all my needs whereas Windows
does. Am I a lesser person for that?


Noth8ng is easier than finding something that one system does OK, and
another doesn't do.

Liker the MAC man who came and saiod ' pity linux cant read Canon raw
format files off my camera' Of course installing a plugin that did
read them was the work of 5 minutes...

If it makes you feel any better, have it your way.
Just out of curiosity; is it Linux which does all your typos, or just
your own low standards?

Its my worn out keyboard, failing eyesight and complete contempt for
your posts.


--
New Socialism consists essentially in being seen to have your heart in
the right place whilst your head is in the clouds and your hand is in
someone else's pocket.

On 31/07/2015 12:54, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , Bod
wrote:

On 31/07/2015 11:30, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , Davey
wrote:

I mentioned earlier about the Linux fanatics, and yes they are out
there, and I'm not one of them. I have said that I keep Windows as
there is one programme that I need it for. But I also love the ease and
simplicity of updates with Linux, none of the huge time-consuming
sessions while Redmond downloads another load of Patches and fixes.
Linux updates take a few minutes, and installing from scratchmaybe half
an hour. The last time I installed Windows anywhere, it took about e
hours, after several update/reboot/update/reboot etc sessions.

Every time I fire up my Mint VM (about once a month) it spends 20-30
minutes downloading stuff.

You must have a very low download speed then....yes?

3.5Mbps - not so slow. Mind you, the VM is only getting one core so
that may hinder it. I only run the VM to test my software anyway so
ultimately it doesn't matter.

By todays standards 3.5Mbs is quite slow. My ADSL2+ connection gets 6.5
down. Luckily the fibre cabinet has just been put in place, so I will
soon have a decent speed of up to 76 down. I am quite close to the
cabinet (200yards) so I should get near the maximum speed.

On 31/07/15 13:14, bert wrote:
I feel the same way about Linux. In global terms its such a minority
interest. If it was so wonderful it would be cock of the walk by this
time so why would a neophyte wish to get involved with an operating
system with such a small user base.
It's all down to applications. Most of the world uses MS Office and has
a lot of investment in documents. They didn't got o Office because it
was the best product but because everyone else did.

Lst week a friend here brought a new laptop, it has windows 8 so I said:
can't fix, won't fix, I'm retired and I don't know anything after XP.
Yesterday he said he needed Word, but wasn't happy because he no longer
understood the versions after circa 2003 and he wasn't happy about
paying for it either given the new netbook only cost ‚¬60 on ebay. So I
suggested he download Open Office, I assured him it would open all the
documents he was ever likely to receive and produce all the ones he was
ever likely to write. He did so, and now he has a perfectly capable
Office that actually works in a familiar way.

On 31/07/2015 16:17, Richard wrote:
"John Rumm" wrote in message
o.uk...

On 7/31/2015 11:32 AM, Davey wrote:
On Fri, 31 Jul 2015 11:05:45 +0100
John Rumm wrote:

I can only refer you to the suggestion offered by The Natural
Philosopher:
"Insert DVD, follow instructions."

"Simples", as they say.

Sounds like a simply way to lose all your documents, photos, and
other information. Then find you are no longer connected to your
email, newsgroups and don't recognise half your software.

We are talking about installing a different operating system, so I fail
to understand what you mean by that.

It was suggested that "insert DVD, follow instructions" would solve
the problem (i.e. a slow Win 8 PC) at a stroke.

It neglected to mention the vital useful background explaining what
doing as described would actually do (i.e. the equal of changing an
air filter by ripping and replacing the entire engine with a different
make and model).

It also neglected to mention what precautions one would need to take
to preserve their data first should thy consider doing as suggested.

Any sensible operator has any
important files backed up already,

And the other 97% of the population who would be looking for a reverse
switch if you suggested backup?

and why would installing Linux fail
to connect you to the internet?

That it would manage...

What about remembering to preserve all those email account settings
that you setup months ago and have now forgotten about?

What about the paid for license for MS Office you find you now can't use?

Of course half the software would not be recognised, but any new
software required is free, in both senses. Firefox and Thunderbird, the
Mozilla programmes, are the same on either platform

They are similar on both platforms - although not the same.

Also how would a windows user go about installing them?

Will they need to select the right install package to download?

Will it come as a compressed tar file? Will they know how to extract
that? (assuming they find their downloads folder)

Will it all install from a double click of the icon, or are you
perhaps assuming that someone new to the platform will understand how
to use a command line and sudo etc, or will suddenly be well versed in
the variety of linux package managers and how to use them?

and will transfer
directly, importing your old profiles,

If you can work out where the profiles are and how to move them
between the OSes. Most windows users would be challenged to find their
windows thunderbird profile folder[1], let alone the equivalent place
in whatever distro of linux they have.

[1] %appdata%\thunderbird in case you were wondering. That will
expand to a ^hidden^ folder tucked way down in the "roaming" part of
the users home folder.

and LibreOffice understands Word
and Excel and other Windows files. I see no problem.

Precisely... you see no problem.

Now go try getting someone to round trip a few more complicated office
docs back and fourth with co-workers a few times. Sometimes 90%
compatibility 90% of the time is no use.

(Kingsoft office is a more "Office like" recommendation than Libre
these days FWIW)

+1 for Kingsoft - on my Android phone.

*In case some of you haven't heard of this*

I've just found out that a Windows compatible office program is
available on Android Cost *£13.99p
SoftMaker Office HD
Handy for Tablets especially.

"SOFTMAKER HAS ANNOUNCED that it will release a version of its Office
suite for Android with features to match the Windows version."

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...nal-on-android

Bod

Thanks for that. LibreOffice can't handle my Excel files code. No doubt I
could rewrite the stuff to suit the package, but that is not what I call an
improvement over Windows software.



Use this one, works fine....

and its free...

http://wps.com/wps-office-personal/
--
Tony Sayer

On Fri, 31 Jul 2015 17:37:52 +0100
Bod wrote:

On 31/07/2015 16:17, Richard wrote:
"John Rumm" wrote in message
o.uk...

On 7/31/2015 11:32 AM, Davey wrote:
On Fri, 31 Jul 2015 11:05:45 +0100
John Rumm wrote:

I can only refer you to the suggestion offered by The Natural
Philosopher:
"Insert DVD, follow instructions."

"Simples", as they say.

Sounds like a simply way to lose all your documents, photos, and
other information. Then find you are no longer connected to your
email, newsgroups and don't recognise half your software.

We are talking about installing a different operating system, so
I fail to understand what you mean by that.

It was suggested that "insert DVD, follow instructions" would solve
the problem (i.e. a slow Win 8 PC) at a stroke.

It neglected to mention the vital useful background explaining what
doing as described would actually do (i.e. the equal of changing an
air filter by ripping and replacing the entire engine with a
different make and model).

It also neglected to mention what precautions one would need to
take to preserve their data first should thy consider doing as
suggested.

Any sensible operator has any
important files backed up already,

And the other 97% of the population who would be looking for a
reverse switch if you suggested backup?

and why would installing Linux fail
to connect you to the internet?

That it would manage...

What about remembering to preserve all those email account settings
that you setup months ago and have now forgotten about?

What about the paid for license for MS Office you find you now
can't use?

Of course half the software would not be recognised, but any new
software required is free, in both senses. Firefox and
Thunderbird, the Mozilla programmes, are the same on either
platform

They are similar on both platforms - although not the same.

Also how would a windows user go about installing them?

Will they need to select the right install package to download?

Will it come as a compressed tar file? Will they know how to
extract that? (assuming they find their downloads folder)

Will it all install from a double click of the icon, or are you
perhaps assuming that someone new to the platform will understand
how to use a command line and sudo etc, or will suddenly be well
versed in the variety of linux package managers and how to use
them?

and will transfer
directly, importing your old profiles,

If you can work out where the profiles are and how to move them
between the OSes. Most windows users would be challenged to find
their windows thunderbird profile folder[1], let alone the
equivalent place in whatever distro of linux they have.

[1] %appdata%\thunderbird in case you were wondering. That will
expand to a ^hidden^ folder tucked way down in the "roaming" part
of the users home folder.

and LibreOffice understands Word
and Excel and other Windows files. I see no problem.

Precisely... you see no problem.

Now go try getting someone to round trip a few more complicated
office docs back and fourth with co-workers a few times. Sometimes
90% compatibility 90% of the time is no use.

(Kingsoft office is a more "Office like" recommendation than Libre
these days FWIW)

+1 for Kingsoft - on my Android phone.

*In case some of you haven't heard of this*

I've just found out that a Windows compatible office program is
available on Android Cost *£13.99p
SoftMaker Office HD
Handy for Tablets especially.

"SOFTMAKER HAS ANNOUNCED that it will release a version of its Office
suite for Android with features to match the Windows version."

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...nal-on-android

Bod

Good for some, I'm sure! The only tablets in this house have pharmacy
labels on them.
Again, you want it to look like Windows, you pay somebody money. Wow.

--
Davey.

On 31/07/15 17:37, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

On 31/07/15 16:47, Tim Streater wrote:

So I use a Mac and use Office for the Mac. So your point was *what*,
precisely?

His point is that ubiquity equates to quality.

Of course it doesn't. Its classic FUD as in 'no one ever got sacked
for buying IBM'

Even Microsoft itself has problems reading microsoft office generated
files as anyone with any real experience knows.

MS Office files on one platform may or may not format the same on
another platform, or even on the same platform with a different version
of MS Office.

Unless you have the same version and the same fonts installed, what
you get may be anything from a blank refusal to open the bloody thing
to a crazy unformatted mess.

Course at the simplest level, user incompetence doesn't help. Like
people who use the computer as a ****ing typewriter (thinks: hmmm.
Where have I heard that before? Recently, too). F'rinstance they want
to start the next paragraph on a new page. Have they heard of "Insert
page break"? Have they buggery. They just press return until the cursor
appears on a new page. And are then surprised when they send the doc to
someone else who wants to know why they are starting a paragraph at the
bottom of the page - or the middle of the next page. And so on ...

because they didn't export it as a PDF...


--
New Socialism consists essentially in being seen to have your heart in
the right place whilst your head is in the clouds and your hand is in
someone else's pocket.

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
How long did you have to search to find the one command that wasn't
exactly duplicated


I am not now nor have I ever been an IT professional so I don't quite
understand what you mean by "command". All I know is that last time I
looked at LibreOffice it seemed to me the objects and methods in its
Basic were significantly different from VBA (just as it says in the
Libre Office help pages). But I am willing to be educated. Could you
give an example of a macro you have translated from VBA to LibreOffice
so I can see how easy it is to find the equivalents? (I assume you are
basing your statements on evidence from practical examples from your or
others' experience.)


[1] oh look - it still does at
--
Robin
reply to address is (meant to be) valid

On 31/07/2015 17:27, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , Bod
wrote:

On 31/07/2015 12:54, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , Bod
wrote:

On 31/07/2015 11:30, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , Davey
wrote:

I mentioned earlier about the Linux fanatics, and yes they are out
there, and I'm not one of them. I have said that I keep Windows as
there is one programme that I need it for. But I also love the
ease and
simplicity of updates with Linux, none of the huge time-consuming
sessions while Redmond downloads another load of Patches and fixes.
Linux updates take a few minutes, and installing from scratchmaybe
half
an hour. The last time I installed Windows anywhere, it took about e
hours, after several update/reboot/update/reboot etc sessions.

Every time I fire up my Mint VM (about once a month) it spends 20-30
minutes downloading stuff.

You must have a very low download speed then....yes?

3.5Mbps - not so slow. Mind you, the VM is only getting one core so
that may hinder it. I only run the VM to test my software anyway so
ultimately it doesn't matter.

By todays standards 3.5Mbs is quite slow.

True. It was that when we moved here 5 years ago. Then I got the house
phone wiring redone (incl. disconnecting the bell wire) and it went
straight up to 6.5Mbps. Then a year ago some scroats removed 400 yards
of the 400-pair cable between us and the exchange (a bit over a mile
away). Openreach replaced it within 24 hours but the extra joins in the
cable have reduced the speed.

But - I get FTTC in a week or two and the box is 300 yards away.

My ADSL2+ connection gets 6.5 down. Luckily the fibre cabinet has just
been put in place, so I will soon have a decent speed of up to 76
down. I am quite close to the cabinet (200yards) so I should get near
the maximum speed.

That's the ticket :-)

Very good :-)

On 31/07/2015 17:52, Davey wrote:
On Fri, 31 Jul 2015 17:37:52 +0100
Bod wrote:

On 31/07/2015 16:17, Richard wrote:
"John Rumm" wrote in message
o.uk...

On 7/31/2015 11:32 AM, Davey wrote:
On Fri, 31 Jul 2015 11:05:45 +0100
John Rumm wrote:

I can only refer you to the suggestion offered by The Natural
Philosopher:
"Insert DVD, follow instructions."

"Simples", as they say.

Sounds like a simply way to lose all your documents, photos, and
other information. Then find you are no longer connected to your
email, newsgroups and don't recognise half your software.

We are talking about installing a different operating system, so
I fail to understand what you mean by that.

It was suggested that "insert DVD, follow instructions" would solve
the problem (i.e. a slow Win 8 PC) at a stroke.

It neglected to mention the vital useful background explaining what
doing as described would actually do (i.e. the equal of changing an
air filter by ripping and replacing the entire engine with a
different make and model).

It also neglected to mention what precautions one would need to
take to preserve their data first should thy consider doing as
suggested.

Any sensible operator has any
important files backed up already,

And the other 97% of the population who would be looking for a
reverse switch if you suggested backup?

and why would installing Linux fail
to connect you to the internet?

That it would manage...

What about remembering to preserve all those email account settings
that you setup months ago and have now forgotten about?

What about the paid for license for MS Office you find you now
can't use?

Of course half the software would not be recognised, but any new
software required is free, in both senses. Firefox and
Thunderbird, the Mozilla programmes, are the same on either
platform

They are similar on both platforms - although not the same.

Also how would a windows user go about installing them?

Will they need to select the right install package to download?

Will it come as a compressed tar file? Will they know how to
extract that? (assuming they find their downloads folder)

Will it all install from a double click of the icon, or are you
perhaps assuming that someone new to the platform will understand
how to use a command line and sudo etc, or will suddenly be well
versed in the variety of linux package managers and how to use
them?

and will transfer
directly, importing your old profiles,

If you can work out where the profiles are and how to move them
between the OSes. Most windows users would be challenged to find
their windows thunderbird profile folder[1], let alone the
equivalent place in whatever distro of linux they have.

[1] %appdata%\thunderbird in case you were wondering. That will
expand to a ^hidden^ folder tucked way down in the "roaming" part
of the users home folder.

and LibreOffice understands Word
and Excel and other Windows files. I see no problem.

Precisely... you see no problem.

Now go try getting someone to round trip a few more complicated
office docs back and fourth with co-workers a few times. Sometimes
90% compatibility 90% of the time is no use.

(Kingsoft office is a more "Office like" recommendation than Libre
these days FWIW)

+1 for Kingsoft - on my Android phone.

*In case some of you haven't heard of this*

I've just found out that a Windows compatible office program is
available on Android Cost *£13.99p
SoftMaker Office HD
Handy for Tablets especially.

"SOFTMAKER HAS ANNOUNCED that it will release a version of its Office
suite for Android with features to match the Windows version."

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...nal-on-android

Bod

Good for some, I'm sure! The only tablets in this house have pharmacy
labels on them.
Again, you want it to look like Windows, you pay somebody money. Wow.

I was only giving the heads up on the program, ie; I was trying to help
and inform.
I'm not into all of this one upmanship arguments crap.

Bod

In message , The Natural Philosopher
writes
On 31/07/15 13:46, dennis@home wrote:
On 31/07/2015 02:54, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
8

Most people can't use linux mint, they need help but there isn't any.

what a stupendously ridiculous thing to say.

If there were decent help for windows, the OP wouldn't have posted here.

Hpw many people here asking how to fix linux then?



More than post about fixing windows.
How many windows people even know about usenet?
Where are they going to get linux help when they don't know about usenet
and they can't ask in the local shop or a friend?


all over the interweb you dick. Flippin eck the help forums come as the
default browser home page...


Yes, but for many people accessing that sort of info is actually quite
hard. My FIL has tried before now, but he just gets bogged down and
lost. A search ends up with multiple threads form various places, with
contradictory information etc. when all he wants is an answer. Sure I
can manage to filter that sort of stuff down, but for many/most users
it's quite difficult.

Fortunately, as we run the same OS I can normally manage to help him
out.


--
Chris French

tony sayer wrote:

Use this one, works fine....

and its free...

http://wps.com/wps-office-personal/

Thnaks for that. But while I may be missing something (the more so as
wine has been taken) it seems to say that the Free Personal Edition
*doesn't* have VBA/Macro support. Unless of course I am
misunderstanding the meaning of the red cross and the green tick

And printing/PDFs with a watermark would be a bit of a pain.

The business edition which does have VBA/Macro support looks cheap at
GBP61.45 compared to MS Office at first blush. But ISTM even the
business edition WPS is word processor, spreadsheet and presentation
only. So that looks to be equivalent to MS Office Home & Student which
can be had for c.GBP70. At times in the past for a good deal with a
..ac.uk address - such as can be had relatively cheaply by signing up to
U3A
--
Robin
reply to address is (meant to be) valid

On 31/07/2015 13:16, bert wrote:

The big plus about UNIX (where every command looks like a mis-type) is
that the operating system is essentially invisible to the end user. Well
it was designed by a telephone company.

That's true of windows and other OSes.
You can run applications and never see the OS if you want to.
An example is a cash machine, you don't see the windows or other OS
unless there is a fault.

In article , Robin
scribeth thus
tony sayer wrote:

Use this one, works fine....

and its free...

http://wps.com/wps-office-personal/

Thnaks for that. But while I may be missing something (the more so as
wine has been taken) it seems to say that the Free Personal Edition
*doesn't* have VBA/Macro support. Unless of course I am
misunderstanding the meaning of the red cross and the green tick

I dunno either. But what I do know was that the missus used to receive
documents from the Unit and other places that OO and LO didn't or could
open properly however the paid for version of WPS worked and there were
no further complaints at all

I use it, the Free version, mainly for spreadsheets and the odd letter
and its fine for what I need of it....

And printing/PDFs with a watermark would be a bit of a pain.

Use cute PDF and there are others that work fine and are free...


The business edition which does have VBA/Macro support looks cheap at
GBP61.45 compared to MS Office at first blush. But ISTM even the
business edition WPS is word processor, spreadsheet and presentation
only.

Well isn't that all you need?. Use TB for the mail ..


So that looks to be equivalent to MS Office Home & Student which
can be had for c.GBP70. At times in the past for a good deal with a
.ac.uk address - such as can be had relatively cheaply by signing up to
U3A

Perhaps not everyone can do that. Anyway try it and see how you get on
its free ...
--
Tony Sayer

On 31/07/2015 16:57, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 31/07/15 16:47, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , bert
wrote:


I feel the same way about Linux. In global terms its such a minority
interest. If it was so wonderful it would be cock of the walk by this
time so why would a neophyte wish to get involved with an operating
system with such a small user base.

It's all down to applications. Most of the world uses MS Office and
has a lot of investment in documents. They didn't got o Office because
it was the best product but because everyone else did.

So I use a Mac and use Office for the Mac. So your point was *what*,
precisely?

His point is that ubiquity equates to quality.

Of course it doesn't. Its classic FUD as in 'no one ever got sacked for
buying IBM'

Even Microsoft itself has problems reading microsoft office generated
files as anyone with any real experience knows.

Unless you have the same version and the same fonts installed, what you
get may be anything from a blank refusal to open the bloody thing to a
crazy unformatted mess.

Exactly the same as open office then.


Which is why despite Adobe's software being a bug ridden disaster and
postcript being probably the worst ever page description language it is
possible to write, a PDF with embedded fonts is now the de facto
document exchange format.

That's because PDFs are cross platform, which office wasn't.
It is now so using word formats are not a problem any more, you can even
read them on linux if you want to. M$ provide software to read word
documents for free on windows and mac and you can even use them on linux.

Its probably better to use word format rather than PDFs for many things
but I just use whatever I feel like and word will do PDFs with ease.

BTW it looks like M$ are the only major vendor offering tools to build
apps that run on all the main platforms and they are free.

In article , bert
scribeth thus
In article ,
newshound writes
On 29/07/2015 23:02, David Lang wrote:
Hi

New laptop is already starting to run slowly. Piggin Windows 8.


I used to have Norton 360 which had various function to do disc clean
up, defrag etc.

Not sure if Norton 360 still has those functions? Don't like the price
of it either.

Anyone recommend a download that will clean up & improve speed?


I gave up reading all the posts half way through the "Linus" thread so
someone else may have already said this.

The newsreader I use (Turnpike) has a split thread facility so you can
put OT branches into a separate thread.
Unfortunately thanks to MS failing to support 32 bit explorer after
encouraging developers to use it, it won't run on 64 bit Windows so I
run W732 bit just to keep it.


Me too!.. Good olde Turnpike....


--
Tony Sayer

"Tim Streater" wrote in message
.. .

Course at the simplest level, user incompetence doesn't help. Like
people who use the computer as a ****ing typewriter (thinks: hmmm.
Where have I heard that before? Recently, too).

Oh dear, Timmy, Timmy, Timmy.

From your remark there I can only conclude that you've never done
any "serious" programming then ? Or as it's called "coding" nowadays
I believe.

"Serious" as meaning anything more advanced than copying
listings out of the back of "My Sinclair" magazines at least.

So you've never experiences that joy that comes with the realisation
that compilers simply don't care how many blank lines you leave.
between routines ? Between subroutines, even between imdividual
lines if you wish ? And the same goes for HTML interpreters
too. You can leave as many blank lines as you like there, as well.

Which basically makes it all easier to read and to copy and paste
routines which may have been saved so as to save re-inventing
the wheel.

And no Timmy I didn't use a typewriter for this I mainly used text editors.
Of late Oiv'e been mostly using Context. It renders different bits, keywords etc
in different colours and even does line numbers if you'd be happier with those.

HTH


michael adams

,,,

On 31/07/2015 17:27, DJC wrote:
On 31/07/15 13:14, bert wrote:
I feel the same way about Linux. In global terms its such a minority
interest. If it was so wonderful it would be cock of the walk by this
time so why would a neophyte wish to get involved with an operating
system with such a small user base.
It's all down to applications. Most of the world uses MS Office and has
a lot of investment in documents. They didn't got o Office because it
was the best product but because everyone else did.

Lst week a friend here brought a new laptop, it has windows 8 so I said:
can't fix, won't fix, I'm retired and I don't know anything after XP.
Yesterday he said he needed Word, but wasn't happy because he no longer
understood the versions after circa 2003 and he wasn't happy about
paying for it either given the new netbook only cost ‚¬60 on ebay. So I
suggested he download Open Office, I assured him it would open all the
documents he was ever likely to receive and produce all the ones he was
ever likely to write. He did so, and now he has a perfectly capable
Office that actually works in a familiar way.

Most of the small ~10 inch and less windows machines come with free
office these days. Does he have the license keys so he can install it if
he wants to?

On 31/07/2015 11:31, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 31/07/15 11:18, John Rumm wrote:
(iii) In the server space, Unix won overwhelmingly.

True, but not really relevant to the consumer.

very relevant. It demonstrates that where stability and speed matter,
you don't pick windows



But if you want to be able to use it and buy games and other useful
stuff that works out of the box you buy windows or a mac.
If you are running linux then you have to investigate everything very
carefully to see if it will work with or without having to recompile or
rewrite it.

On 31/07/2015 13:50, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 31/07/15 13:18, bert wrote:
In article , The Natural Philosopher
writes
On 31/07/15 11:18, John Rumm wrote:
(iii) In the server space, Unix won overwhelmingly.

True, but not really relevant to the consumer.

very relevant. It demonstrates that where stability and speed matter,
you don't pick windows


Don't most bank's cash machines run on XP?

Well exactly.

Stasbility and speed wasn't seen as a primary requirement



Yet they are almost always working and when they aren't its usually the
server that's down (running linux?).

On 31/07/2015 02:55, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 30/07/15 23:37, dennis@home wrote:
Its dead simple, download the image, boot from it, install. Just how is
that difficult?

Well that's linux mint for you!

takes half an hour on a reasonable computer..



Win10 took less than that and I didn't need to enter anything other than
my password.

"dennis@home" wrote in message
web.com...
On 31/07/2015 16:57, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Which is why despite Adobe's software being a bug ridden disaster and
postcript being probably the worst ever page description language it is
possible to write,

Indeed if only you'd have been around at the time to advise John Warnock,
just think of how successful he might have been. Let's just hope he's
not reading this NewsGroup and finally realises his big mistake.


michael adams

....

On 31/07/2015 07:53, stuart noble wrote:
On 30/07/2015 23:37, dennis@home wrote:
On 30/07/2015 22:20, Adrian Caspersz wrote:
On 30/07/15 21:50, dennis@home wrote:
On 30/07/2015 19:58, Adrian Caspersz wrote:


You should then look at a clean W8 install using the recovery media
supplied with the machine. Uninstall all of the pre-delivered junk. If
that is hard, pay someone.

Then have it upgraded to Windows 10...


ITYM backup the data, download the win10 ISO, do fresh install using
win8 key.

Look at the hoops in that. Clean it ain't.

http://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/201...ndows-7-and-8/





Its dead simple, download the image, boot from it, install. Just how is
that difficult?

Well, I've no idea what you're talking about and I doubt if the OP has
either.

That's why linux does so poorly, you have to do exactly that from a
choice of a few dozen distros.

If you have windows 7/8 the install of win10 will be automatic if you
accept the upgrade. Doing it my way just avoids you having to do the old
windows first (that's probably from a recovery partition not dvd).

"bert" wrote in message ...

Which is how MS-Dos came to dominate the market place. It was a condition of the
dealer's licence that no other operating system would be loaded on the same PC. At the
time there was quite a good graphical system around called Gem. Light years before
Windows.
--
bert

Yawn

GEM was a Digital Research product. If Gary Kildall hadn't
decided to swan off playing golf/flying his plane when big
blue made an appointement to call, and/or if Kildall's
wife had realised the advantage of signing a non-disclosure
agreement then it would have been DR DOS and subsequently
GEM that would dominated the desktop. For a while until
Kildall got bored. Although saying that his CP/86 was also
bundled with the original PC.
It was pre-loaded PC Dos* which initally dominated the
marketplace. As with Kindall's big mistake, Gates only
got where he is today by IBM making one of the worst
business decision in history - allegedly - by allowing
Gates to market the OS he sold to them - as new improved
MS Dos. But Gates and M$ can hardly be blamed for that.

There was GUI for PC's which predated GEM by 2 years called
VisiON which was launched in 1983. VisiOn was a commercial
failure as a result of high system requirements, much higher
than were common at the time. It was this failure which
allegedly gave Gates pause for thought and determined#terminated
the limitations of the earliest versions of Windows

All of them are, or are not, as with the Mac GUI knockoffs
of concepts first developed at Xerox Parc. According to taste,

/yawn




michael adams

....


* Which itself had originally been bought by Gates
as QdDos from an outfit in Seattle and which contained
what Kildall swore were identifiable chunks of his own code

On 31/07/2015 16:52, Tim Streater wrote:

More precisely, the VM. But the point is taken. Meanwhile any update to
my Win7 VM usually does reboot the VM. Only about half of the OS X
updates seem to need a reboot, but those only appear two or three times
a years anyway. I always find it amusing that I can suspend the Mint or
Win7 VM, reboot the Mac, and the VMs can continue from where they left
off.


I seldom have to reboot windows after an update, maybe twice a month.
I must be running a different windows to you, ah yes win 8.1 is different.

tony sayer wrote:
snip And printing/PDFs with a watermark would be a bit of a pain.

Use cute PDF and there are others that work fine and are free...

It's not just a waternark in WPS's PDFs. It's in all prints. This is
possibly new since you used it - introduced since WPS took over from
Kingsoft.

The business edition which does have VBA/Macro support looks cheap at
GBP61.45 compared to MS Office at first blush. But ISTM even the
business edition WPS is word processor, spreadsheet and presentation
only.

Well isn't that all you need?. Use TB for the mail ..

Does TB now support VBA macros? I don't use/support many for Outlook
but at my time of life it'd be a pain to have to rewrite them.

So that looks to be equivalent to MS Office Home & Student which
can be had for c.GBP70. At times in the past for a good deal with a
.ac.uk address - such as can be had relatively cheaply by signing up
to U3A

Perhaps not everyone can do that. Anyway try it and see how you get on
its free ...

But it's *not* free with support for VBA macros.............?
--
Robin
reply to address is (meant to be) valid

On 31/07/2015 11:30, The Natural Philosopher wrote:



Sounds like a simply way to lose all your documents, photos, and other
information. Then find you are no longer connected to your email,
newsgroups and don't recognise half your software.


same for a reinstall of windows.



Not so.
You can do a repair install and it will keep all the documents and
stuff. you can also upgrade to a new version and it will keep the user
stuff.

BTW windows won't automatically delete a linux install but linux will
delete a windows install, without asking the last time I tried.

On 31/07/2015 11:32, Davey wrote:
On Fri, 31 Jul 2015 11:05:45 +0100
John Rumm wrote:

I can only refer you to the suggestion offered by The Natural
Philosopher:
"Insert DVD, follow instructions."

"Simples", as they say.

Sounds like a simply way to lose all your documents, photos, and
other information. Then find you are no longer connected to your
email, newsgroups and don't recognise half your software.

We are talking about installing a different operating system, so I fail
to understand what you mean by that. Any sensible operator has any
important files backed up already, and why would installing Linux fail
to connect you to the internet?
Of course half the software would not be recognised, but any new
software required is free, in both senses.

Really?
Can you point me to where I can get a free linux RailMaster from?
Will it work with an eLink controller?

How about the camera software for controlling my IP cameras?

How about the software for managing my auto feed scanner and replacement
for PaperPort 14 pro?

Then there is the simple camera software that downloads and
automatically corrects the compact camera images.

Then there is the software that allows you to control my Olympus DSLR
over USB and the similar one for the Lumix compact which includes live
view over IP.

....

Firefox and Thunderbird, the
Mozilla programmes, are the same on either platform and will transfer
directly, importing your old profiles, and LibreOffice understands Word
and Excel and other Windows files. I see no problem.


Maybe but they are just a tiny subset of software that many people need
to use. I see a significant problem.