Is It Time To Dump Windows XP?

On Thursday, February 6, 2014 6:07:09 AM UTC+8, BillW50 wrote:
"Andy" wrote in message

...



That is not a problem because there are alternatives like LibreOffice,

etc.



We are not Microsoft's slaves anymore.



We never were. And too bad I can't use LibreOffice, I find it too weak.

sigh



--

Bill

Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows Live Mail 2009 v14

Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 7 Home SP1

What do you mean by too weak ?

Andy

"Andy" wrote in message
...
On Thursday, February 6, 2014 6:07:09 AM UTC+8, BillW50 wrote:
"Andy" wrote in message
...

That is not a problem because there are alternatives like
LibreOffice, etc. We are not Microsoft's slaves anymore.

We never were. And too bad I can't use LibreOffice, I find it too
weak. sigh

What do you mean by too weak ?

Andy

Take a simple task like some plain text contains ASC(13) after each
line. I often strip them off and use only one per paragraph. I can use
virtually any word processor (even one that I never used before) and
figure out how to do this in a matter of seconds.

Although when I use LibreOffice, trying to do something really simple
like this is very frustrating. Can it do it or not? And if it can, then
why isn't it obvious just like every other word processor on the planet?

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows Live Mail 2009 v14
Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 8 Pro w/Media Center

In message , BillW50
writes:
[]
Take a simple task like some plain text contains ASC(13) after each
line. I often strip them off and use only one per paragraph. I can use
virtually any word processor (even one that I never used before) and
figure out how to do this in a matter of seconds.

How would you do it in Word? I'm assuming you mean you have a way of
deleting all the newlines at once, not manually - except presumably
double ones.

Although when I use LibreOffice, trying to do something really simple
like this is very frustrating. Can it do it or not? And if it can, then
why isn't it obvious just like every other word processor on the planet?

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"Bother," said the Borg, "we assimilated a Pooh."

On Saturday, February 8, 2014 5:16:56 AM UTC-6, BillW50 wrote:
"Andy" wrote in message

...

On Thursday, February 6, 2014 6:07:09 AM UTC+8, BillW50 wrote:

"Andy" wrote in message

...



That is not a problem because there are alternatives like

LibreOffice, etc. We are not Microsoft's slaves anymore.



We never were. And too bad I can't use LibreOffice, I find it too

weak. sigh



What do you mean by too weak ?

Andy

Take a simple task like some plain text contains ASC(13) after each

line. I often strip them off and use only one per paragraph. I can use

virtually any word processor (even one that I never used before) and

figure out how to do this in a matter of seconds.



Although when I use LibreOffice, trying to do something really simple

like this is very frustrating. Can it do it or not? And if it can, then

why isn't it obvious just like every other word processor on the planet?

Bill

Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows Live Mail 2009 v14

Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 8 Pro w/Media Center

Bill,

Hope your week has been good.

For text files I use Geany as my text editor.

I dual boot with Windows and Linux Puppy.

Like yourself, I have 2 cores and 8 Gb of RAM.

I got tired of Windows only using 3 Gb of RAM.

Linux started with a command line interface similar to the "Dos".

They have been working very hard at making a G.U.I. interface similar to Windows.

They have done an admirable job.

They are not perfect, but neither is Windows.

I have evaluated many versions of Linux. (Mint, Ubuntu, Slackware, OpenSuse, and a few more)

I HIGHLY recommend Slacko Puppy version 5.6 which is found here.

http://www.puppylinux.com/download/index.html

Since using Puppy, I have found that compared to Windows XP :

1. Download speeds are much faster.

2. Have never gotten a virus, Trojan, or malware.

Have a great week,

Andy

In message , Andy
writes:
[]
Since using Puppy, I have found that compared to Windows XP :

1. Download speeds are much faster.

Strange; I'd have thought that was line-limited - unless you have a
_very_ fast connection.

2. Have never gotten a virus, Trojan, or malware.

Neither have I (on Windows).

Have a great week,

Andy







You too.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"Knowledge isnt elitist - that's rubbish! Why are we embarrassed by the idea
that people know things? It's not a conspiracy against the ignorant. Knowing
things is good!" - Jeremy Paxman, RT 14-20 August 2010

"Andy" wrote in message
...
On Saturday, February 8, 2014 5:16:56 AM UTC-6, BillW50 wrote:
"Andy" wrote in message
...
On Thursday, February 6, 2014 6:07:09 AM UTC+8, BillW50 wrote:
"Andy" wrote in message
...

That is not a problem because there are alternatives like
LibreOffice, etc. We are not Microsoft's slaves anymore.

We never were. And too bad I can't use LibreOffice, I find it too
weak. sigh

What do you mean by too weak ?

Andy

Take a simple task like some plain text contains ASC(13) after each
line. I often strip them off and use only one per paragraph. I can
use virtually any word processor (even one that I never used before)
and figure out how to do this in a matter of seconds.

Although when I use LibreOffice, trying to do something really simple
like this is very frustrating. Can it do it or not? And if it can,
then why isn't it obvious just like every other word processor on the
planet?

Bill

Bill,

Hope your week has been good.

Hi Andy, besides horrible weather, not too bad! And how was yours?

For text files I use Geany as my text editor.

I use many things, Notepad, WordPad, WordStar, NewtPad, Atlantis,
Kingsoft, Word, Works, etc.

I dual boot with Windows and Linux Puppy.

I have one machine that has a dualboot with Ubuntu and Puppy Linux. I
have another one just with Ubuntu. There is another distro that was a
spin-off of Puppy, although I don't recall what it was called now that I
had used too?

Like yourself, I have 2 cores and 8 Gb of RAM.
I got tired of Windows only using 3 Gb of RAM.

Well 64 bit Windows doesn't have that problem. Although I haven't
actually found anything I run that needs anything more than 3GB yet.

Linux started with a command line interface similar to the "Dos".

Yes I remember, started back in about '91 by Linus Torvalds who was a
Commodore VIC-20 programmer when he was younger.

They have been working very hard at making a G.U.I. interface similar
to Windows.

They have done an admirable job.

They are not perfect, but neither is Windows.

I have evaluated many versions of Linux. (Mint, Ubuntu, Slackware,
OpenSuse, and a few more)

I HIGHLY recommend Slacko Puppy version 5.6 which is found here.

http://www.puppylinux.com/download/index.html

Since using Puppy, I have found that compared to Windows XP :

1. Download speeds are much faster.

2. Have never gotten a virus, Trojan, or malware.

The only trojan or virus I ever got was a trojan on a Commodore machine
back in the late 80's. Although I do work on clients machines that has
become infected from time to time.

I suppose some people find Linux very useful. For me though, it only
provides only basic needs for me. So I only use my Linux machines for
just simple tasks.

Have a great week,

You too.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows Live Mail 2009 v14
Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 8 Pro w/Media Center

On Friday, February 21, 2014 1:36:42 AM UTC-6, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Andy

writes:

Since using Puppy, I have found that compared to Windows XP :

1. Download speeds are much faster.

Strange; I'd have thought that was line-limited - unless you have a

_very_ fast connection.

2. Have never gotten a virus, Trojan, or malware.

Neither have I (on Windows).

Have a great week,

Andy

J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

things is good!" - Jeremy Paxman, RT 14-20 August 2010

I think the speed increase is because they use a console for downloading files instead of a GUI which tends to decrease overhead.

As far as malware, I have gotten 4 or 5 over 15 years which I feel is pretty small.

I love to learn, so I sometimes venture into "Dark Side Websites" in order to learn things to help myself and others and report destructive sites. :-)

take care,
Andy

In message , Andy
writes:
On Friday, February 21, 2014 1:36:42 AM UTC-6, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Andy

writes:

Since using Puppy, I have found that compared to Windows XP :

1. Download speeds are much faster.

Strange; I'd have thought that was line-limited - unless you have a

_very_ fast connection.

2. Have never gotten a virus, Trojan, or malware.

Neither have I (on Windows).

Have a great week,

Andy

J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

things is good!" - Jeremy Paxman, RT 14-20 August 2010

I think the speed increase is because they use a console for
downloading files instead of a GUI which tends to decrease overhead.

I would have thought, on any reasonably-modern (5 years, even more,
unless having really minimal memory) computer, running a GUI shouldn't
make perceptible difference to download speed, surely?

As far as malware, I have gotten 4 or 5 over 15 years which I feel is
pretty small.

I love to learn, so I sometimes venture into "Dark Side Websites" in
order to learn things to help myself and others and report destructive
sites. :-)
[]
Well, I'm not that public-spirited/daring, but I do occasionally access
pr0n sites, some of which do try things - but (so far anyway) I've found
them to be fairly obvious. (I obviously don't bite when told "you need
this to view this".)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves. -Abraham
Lincoln, 16th president of the U.S (1809-1865)

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message
...

In message ,
Andy writes:

I think the speed increase is because they use a console for
downloading files instead of a GUI which tends to decrease overhead.

I would have thought, on any reasonably-modern (5 years, even more,
unless having really minimal memory) computer, running a GUI shouldn't
make perceptible difference to download speed, surely?

Well Puppy is indeed a bit different than many other Linux distros that
it does have a very small memory footprint. It also is different in that
it runs totally from RAM (which gives it great speed). It also doesn't
write anything to disk unless you tell it to later. Otherwise it acts
like a read only system. It also is different in that it doesn't mount
other devices on boot. Which makes it very safe using it as a live
version. Although I haven't verified increased download speed, it would
make a lot of sense considering how it is built for speed.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows Live Mail 2009 v14
Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 8 Pro w/Media Center

BillW50 wrote:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message
...
In message ,
Andy writes:

I think the speed increase is because they use a console for
downloading files instead of a GUI which tends to decrease overhead.
I would have thought, on any reasonably-modern (5 years, even more,
unless having really minimal memory) computer, running a GUI shouldn't
make perceptible difference to download speed, surely?

Well Puppy is indeed a bit different than many other Linux distros that
it does have a very small memory footprint. It also is different in that
it runs totally from RAM (which gives it great speed). It also doesn't
write anything to disk unless you tell it to later. Otherwise it acts
like a read only system. It also is different in that it doesn't mount
other devices on boot. Which makes it very safe using it as a live
version. Although I haven't verified increased download speed, it would
make a lot of sense considering how it is built for speed.


If you FTP, the data is not interpreted as it is received.
The NIC DMA transfers a packet into memory, and the hard
drive interface can use DMA transfer to take that data and
store it in a cluster on the disk. The basic operation of
downloading, should not make a big dent in the processor.

It really doesn't matter how the OS is housed in that
case, as it's a relatively hands off (interrupt handlers)
kind of thing. On Linux, the highest overhead might be
the NTFS file system calls (EXT2/3/4 will be lower).

Operating systems can have differences in the network stack.
For well behaved web servers, the differences should not
really matter all that much.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCP_con...ance_algorithm

*******

If you want to test a poorly behaved download, try this :-)
I got 1KB/sec in Firefox, and 2.4KB/sec in a freshly installed
(just for this test) copy of Netscape 4.76, all on the same OS.
I would not normally consider Netscape from eons ago, but decided
to try it for a test.

ftp://fusionhdtv.kr/down/FusionHDTV3.91.96.zip

When I eventually got the download, it was missing some data
at the end, and needed PKZIP fixup. I could see enough of the
information in the file, to satisfy my curiosity. But I would
not install the thing in that state, because the file was
damaged to an unknown extent. That's an example of a
crappy download site. Current ping time is 227 ms.

Paul