Leave it to Linux to get it right

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It’s been awhile since I’ve messed around with Mint.

[slaps head]

Man, that was hard to figure out.

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David F, Elly

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Please correct me if necessary.  All I see is a picture suggesting the use of automatic updates.  M$ has made me distrustful of such a practice.  Looks to me like a forced choice take it or leave it sort of situation.

I know I need more Linux experience.  Haven’t done updates yet because I only have a live stick w/Mint 18.3 to look at for practice & evaluation before an actual install that might not happen for a while.

Win 8.1 (home & pro) Group B, W10/11 Avoider, Linux Dabbler

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There’s a choice; that was my point.

Even if they left out the Windows Update window where you can pick and choose updates like in 7 & 8.1, it would be nice if there was simply a toggle to automatically update, or not, that was freely available, easy to use, and worked on all SKU’s including Home.

You can adjust this in Group Policy and via the Registry in Pro or above SKU’s, but not in Home. Yet a free OS platform with miniscule market share still gives users choice. You can exclude updates, you can install updates, you can do it yourself, you can choose when you reboot (if you have to). All are choices that you can make. MS stripped all choice away for the most part with Win10. Even with my boxes set in Group Policy, I still don’t have toggles and sliders and things I can check or uncheck to do the job, and that makes me fearful that my choices are not really being respected. (Look at all the people who have been upgraded to newer feature updates, despite having deferrals set or their network connection set as a metered connection.) It’s all about trust and choice. How can a free OS with basically no public central face or corporate entity offer these choices and provide this trust, but the almighty Microsoft cannot?

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Elly

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zero2dash wrote:

a free OS platform with miniscule market share

I understand that Linux has huge market share in the server arena. It just hasn’t been adopted much on the desktop.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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Those are valid points, for sure.  I plan to avoid Win10.  More research on my end will be required to see how updates are done in Linux (adds it to list).  Initially that’s what piqued my interest about this topic.

Win 8.1 (home & pro) Group B, W10/11 Avoider, Linux Dabbler

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zero2dash has observed: ” Yet a free OS platform with miniscule market share still gives users choice.   ”

The share may be small, but  the use of Linux (in any of its various distributions, or “distros”) is pretty much entrenched with some important kinds of users in: government (at least to some degree in Europe and some Asian countries), research, university, teaching and some other activities mostly concerned with science and engineering.

The code distributed by those distros are free software under the terms of the Free Software Foundation, where with a FSF Public License one can share one’s software broadly, and those one shares with can then modify it and even sell the result of their work modifying one’s original, as long they acknowledge who created those original parts that are still in their own product. This is a very different way of doing business than that of commercial software makers such as MS or Apple.

The makers of any of those  Linux distros, e.g. Mint, have nothing to gain by making things difficult for their users, as these can simply decamp and move on to another distro, as all of them work, from the point of view of the users, in pretty much the same way and are very compatible with each other, some applications excepted. That, for some, might be inconvenient, but is not necessarily a deal breaker for most. In general, moving from one distro to another is much less bothersome than from Windows to macOS, for example. As shown by some of those writing about Linux in various threads at Woody’s, some of whom have several distros in their Windows PCs, be it in dual boot with Windows, or on VMs, live sticks, etc.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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I know Linux rules the server market; I meant they’re small on desktops but it’s just funny to me how the “little guy” with no corporate support can still get so many fundamental things right and MS almost can’t get anything right.

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zero2dash ( #219742 ): Linux has plenty of support in those circles I mentioned in my entry just above yours, and that is enough. It does not have to rule the mass market (understood here as that of home users and small businesses), and largely it does not do that, as pointed out already here and repeatedly elsewhere in the Lounge (unless one counts something like Android as one more Linux distro). But it keeps going, among other reasons, because some collectively pretty influential people, not the mass market (as I just defined it for the purposes of this entry), want and need it to. And they also need it to keep going in a way that does not annoy them and lets them get on with their work. And that will probably never be a problem, because there is not one “Linux” (the way there is one MS Windows smorgasbord), but lots of independent “Linuxes.” (Its curse for some, its strength for others)

No one knows what the future will be like, but it might not be too daring a guess that something like Ubuntu, Mint, and their like might evolve into a more serious presence in that mass market, if Windows 10 goes down in flames because the way it is being managed. At least in that mass market. Enterprise, now… that’s moot.

As to servers, it is certainly big there already, as MrJimPhelps has pointed out.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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I’d like to see a few OEM’s, like Dell and HP for instance, throw their backing behind Ubuntu or Mint and start pushing out systems with those as choices…then I think we’d probably get some real change, especially when the Ubuntu/Mint machine should save the user $100 off the price. I would say “Fedora” but I think Ubuntu and Mint are better for new users, and support more hardware as well.

Dell has sold systems in the past with Ubuntu but it was not highly publicized, and at that point, it wasn’t much of a necessity. Now, they may get a lot of buzz behind it, if they did it now – especially if they link an article such as this (https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2018/07/19/ditching-windows-2-weeks-with-ubuntu-linux-on-the-dell-xps-13/).

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Microfix

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The OEM’s are probably tied to MS in some way or another (partners, sole OS provider, small print etc.) but, If these OEM’s were to collaborate and use 3rd party businesses to shift their hardware (rebranded) with various popular Linux distro’s, they may well be onto a winner, as well as the customer due to being cheaper for better H/W specification machines within the cost of a Windows License.

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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zero2dash

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Mint actually changed their update process with version 19.

Originally, updates were tagged with a number from 1-5, where 1 was considered safe, and anything above 3 was considered “risky” (for example kernel updates). Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu LTS releases, which are usually good for 3-4 years (similar to the fixed lifespans of Win7 and 8.1) , and then need a full re-install (though you can go from 18.3 to 19 via update).

Other Linux distros (for example, Arch) are “rolling releases, where everything is updated constantly…but if you live on the edge, things break (funny how Win10 is using that model!)

Mint got a lot of push back about not installing security fixes right away, so they’ve changed to allowing everything…BUT, they highly suggest using TimeShift, which is basically a backup of the OS files (it can include data if you like), on a daily or weekly basis. That way, if updates bork the PC, you can quickly shift back to a previous working version. Mint still allows you to do it the old way, but you have to change the default settings.

I like to examine my updates individually before I apply them, so I’m not a fan of hitting the automatic button (though, I haven’t run into an issues with updates yet, knock on silicon!). However, if you’re setting up a PC for someone who isn’t all that savy, the combination of auto update and Timeshift work well.

Mint does HIGHLY suggest using Timeshift when you do an install of ver 19 or an upgrade, so it shouldn’t be a secret, either.

 

 

 

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Elly, Microfix

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