Goodbye Linux: Why am ditching linux and going back to Windows 10

On 08/10/2019 21:15, nospam wrote:
In article , Chris
wrote:

worse is if you've got one or more cloud sync services running. Although,
they are quite easy to pause.

those are separate and take almost no time because the amounts of data
is small.

Really? I must be confused regarding the quantity of data in mine, then.

how much stuff are you syncing on a regular basis?

Did I say this was a regular problem? Nope. Your excessive snipping
doesn't help in maintaining the point of a thread. The whole context is
in scenarios where a machine hasn't been used in a while.

The Box sync client is real resource hog. Can easily grab 150% CPU.

then something is wrong. that's not normal.

I know. The Box client is crap.


downloading (or uploading) anything in the background has no noticeable
effect on windows, mac ios or android.

Wrong (again).

not wrong.

background network activity has little to no impact on the performance
of the system, nor do other background tasks.

Plainly ridiculous. If any number of background tasks have no effect on
system performance then I could run 1000s of active b/ground tasks with
no impact. Clearly that's not the case. There is a finite number of
processes that a computer can manage beyond which it struggles.

if that's not the case for you, then something is wrong with your
system.

There's definitely something wrong, here. It's not my system.

Chris wrote:
On 08/10/2019 21:15, nospam wrote:
In article , Chris
wrote:

worse is if you've got one or more cloud sync services running.
Although,
they are quite easy to pause.

those are separate and take almost no time because the amounts of data
is small.

Really? I must be confused regarding the quantity of data in mine, then.

how much stuff are you syncing on a regular basis?

Did I say this was a regular problem? Nope. Your excessive snipping
doesn't help in maintaining the point of a thread. The whole context is
in scenarios where a machine hasn't been used in a while.

The Box sync client is real resource hog. Can easily grab 150% CPU.

then something is wrong. that's not normal.

I know. The Box client is crap.


downloading (or uploading) anything in the background has no noticeable
effect on windows, mac ios or android.

Wrong (again).

not wrong.

background network activity has little to no impact on the performance
of the system, nor do other background tasks.

Plainly ridiculous. If any number of background tasks have no effect on
system performance then I could run 1000s of active b/ground tasks with
no impact. Clearly that's not the case. There is a finite number of
processes that a computer can manage beyond which it struggles.

if that's not the case for you, then something is wrong with your
system.

There's definitely something wrong, here. It's not my system.


You could try sysinternals.com procmon.exe and trace
execution of the Windows Box executable.

Perhaps what it's doing, is computing a hash for each
data file, in order to figure out which file(s) need
to be synced or something. If so, in procmon.exe you'd
see a lot of "readfile" operations passing over the
data files in the folder it uses. There would be nothing
distinctive about computing a hash. We wouldn't really
know what it was doing to the files. That part would
be a guess.

You can try to identify files using just the date stamp
as a synchronizing indicator, but that assumes there's
no way to modify the timestamp so the file appears to
not have changed. Since NTFS has $USN, the USN records
changes to the files and that's a mechanism to detect
changes too. If you deleted the $USN, then the program
would need a fallback method to detect what has
changed (or, at least, a method that is trustworthy).

Paul

In article , Chris
wrote:

worse is if you've got one or more cloud sync services running. Although,
they are quite easy to pause.

those are separate and take almost no time because the amounts of data
is small.

Really? I must be confused regarding the quantity of data in mine, then.

how much stuff are you syncing on a regular basis?

Did I say this was a regular problem? Nope. Your excessive snipping
doesn't help in maintaining the point of a thread. The whole context is
in scenarios where a machine hasn't been used in a while.

that's not the usual scenario, but in that case, it's expected that
there will be a backlog of updates.

however, they download in the background without impacting anything.
only when it comes time to restart to install the updates is it an
interruption, and usually can be deferred to a more convenient time.

The Box sync client is real resource hog. Can easily grab 150% CPU.

then something is wrong. that's not normal.

I know. The Box client is crap.

it is, and thus not a flaw of windows.

downloading (or uploading) anything in the background has no noticeable
effect on windows, mac ios or android.

Wrong (again).

not wrong.

background network activity has little to no impact on the performance
of the system, nor do other background tasks.

Plainly ridiculous. If any number of background tasks have no effect on
system performance then I could run 1000s of active b/ground tasks with
no impact. Clearly that's not the case. There is a finite number of
processes that a computer can manage beyond which it struggles.

straw man.

if that's not the case for you, then something is wrong with your
system.

There's definitely something wrong, here. It's not my system.

that leaves one other thing...

On 09/10/2019 17:36, nospam wrote:
In article , Chris
wrote:

worse is if you've got one or more cloud sync services running. Although,
they are quite easy to pause.

those are separate and take almost no time because the amounts of data
is small.

Really? I must be confused regarding the quantity of data in mine, then.

how much stuff are you syncing on a regular basis?

Did I say this was a regular problem? Nope. Your excessive snipping
doesn't help in maintaining the point of a thread. The whole context is
in scenarios where a machine hasn't been used in a while.

that's not the usual scenario, but in that case, it's expected that
there will be a backlog of updates.

Why do you keep misinterpreting what people say? I didn't say it was a
usual scenario. It is a specific scenario which many people experience
on occasion - see other comments in the thread.

I'm glad you're finally up to speed with what I wrote two days ago...

however, they download in the background without impacting anything.
only when it comes time to restart to install the updates is it an
interruption, and usually can be deferred to a more convenient time.

The Box sync client is real resource hog. Can easily grab 150% CPU.

then something is wrong. that's not normal.

I know. The Box client is crap.

it is, and thus not a flaw of windows.

Again. Was I blaming windows explicitly? Nope.


downloading (or uploading) anything in the background has no noticeable
effect on windows, mac ios or android.

Wrong (again).

not wrong.

background network activity has little to no impact on the performance
of the system, nor do other background tasks.

Plainly ridiculous. If any number of background tasks have no effect on
system performance then I could run 1000s of active b/ground tasks with
no impact. Clearly that's not the case. There is a finite number of
processes that a computer can manage beyond which it struggles.

straw man.

You brought it up.

if that's not the case for you, then something is wrong with your
system.

There's definitely something wrong, here. It's not my system.

that leaves one other thing...

Yeah, time to stop wasting my time with this subthread...

On 09/10/2019 12:20, Paul wrote:
Chris wrote:
On 08/10/2019 21:15, nospam wrote:
In article , Chris
wrote:

worse is if you've got one or more cloud sync services running.
Although,
they are quite easy to pause.

those are separate and take almost no time because the amounts of data
is small.

Really? I must be confused regarding the quantity of data in mine,
then.

how much stuff are you syncing on a regular basis?

Did I say this was a regular problem? Nope. Your excessive snipping
doesn't help in maintaining the point of a thread. The whole context
is in scenarios where a machine hasn't been used in a while.

The Box sync client is real resource hog. Can easily grab 150% CPU.

then something is wrong. that's not normal.

I know. The Box client is crap.


downloading (or uploading) anything in the background has no
noticeable
effect on windows, mac ios or android.

Wrong (again).

not wrong.

background network activity has little to no impact on the performance
of the system, nor do other background tasks.

Plainly ridiculous. If any number of background tasks have no effect
on system performance then I could run 1000s of active b/ground tasks
with no impact. Clearly that's not the case. There is a finite number
of processes that a computer can manage beyond which it struggles.

if that's not the case for you, then something is wrong with your
system.

There's definitely something wrong, here. It's not my system.


You could try sysinternals.com procmon.exe and trace
execution of the Windows Box executable.

THanks for your input Paul, but this isn't an issue I'm suffering with
at the moment. It is simply a general observation of OSs which haven't
been run for a little while.

In article , Chris
wrote:

worse is if you've got one or more cloud sync services running.
Although,
they are quite easy to pause.

those are separate and take almost no time because the amounts of data
is small.

Really? I must be confused regarding the quantity of data in mine, then.

how much stuff are you syncing on a regular basis?

Did I say this was a regular problem? Nope. Your excessive snipping
doesn't help in maintaining the point of a thread. The whole context is
in scenarios where a machine hasn't been used in a while.

that's not the usual scenario, but in that case, it's expected that
there will be a backlog of updates.

Why do you keep misinterpreting what people say? I didn't say it was a
usual scenario. It is a specific scenario which many people experience
on occasion - see other comments in the thread.

there is no misinterpretation. if it's only on occasion, it's of little
to no impact.

On 08/10/2019 22.15, nospam wrote:
In article , Chris
wrote:

Then there is the issue that when it reboots on its own it will default
to Linux, so when I come back I have to reboot manually, and then tell
it to scan for updates a second time, till there are no more updates,
and only then I can fully use the machine. In the end, more than one day
to do updates.

Why Microsoft hasn't learned how to install all updates in one go and do a
single reboot, i don't know? All other OSs manage it

most of the time they do, however, in some cases, an update might
require a previous update to have been installed, and that's not unique
to microsoft either.

It doesn't happen on the Linux I use.

This time I needed 3 reboots on Windows, about 12 hours.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 08/10/2019 20.47, Frank Slootweg wrote:
Carlos E.R. wrote:
[...]

[About Windows systems:]

I'd rather trigger updates manually when I'm ready for it. And then do
it as fast as possible and get it over.

And that is updates to the system. Many apps update separately on their
own, and some require a reboot.

And most if not all 'apps' have their own update mechanisms, which are
all different.

Often it's not possible to prevent or postpone updates and update
notifications often get in your face while you're using the computer.

Yep.


For example if you let Thunderbird "Check for updates, but let me
choose whether to install them", then sooner or later TB *will* notify
you and will keep nagging you (default daily) until you accept the
update. There is no "No thank you!" choice. (And no amount of hacking
Preferences - also not the un-/badly documented ones - with the Config
Editor will change that.)

And that's just *one* of many, many, such 'apps'!

And don't get me started on the amount of costly mobile data this
non-sense costs when you're travelling and using a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot!
:-(

I never use Windows while on the go, tethering.
Once with W7 I used it to activate a new GSM dongle.


[Rewind:]

Like having to go out in a hurry, power off the machine, and *then* it
says it is going to apply some updates, which takes an hour. And another
on the next boot.

I prevent problems like this by using Hibernate instead of Shut Down.
When hibernated, the system doesn't use/need power, so taking the laptop
with you is no problem. (FWIW, I nearly never Shut Down my laptop, only
Sleep or Hibernate.)

Well, on reboot I need Linux. It is Liux which I sleep or hibernate, and
need Windows fully powered off so that I have write access to its partition.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 08/10/2019 21.36, Chris wrote:
Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 07/10/2019 21.08, Chris wrote:
Carlos E.R.
Don't forget that Linux is both free and gratis, made largely by a
myriad of volunteers in their own time.

Kinda. Kernel development has a significant contribution from paid
developers (intel, Microsoft, Google, etc). I can't find recent figures,
but they contribute about 20% of the code.

However, the vast majority of user applications are by volunteers doing it
in their own time.

Correct.


There is no boss that says what
style to use, so there can't be much consistency.

Try telling that to Linus Torvalds He very much is the boss and there is
very clear expectation in style and quality.

Certainly! But the kernel is not all there is in Linux. It is "only" the
kernel.

Being pedantic, linux is *only* the kernel. What we all call linux includes
all the userland GNU tools: bash, less, tar, etc. Then there's the desktop
environment as well.

To me, it is everything, while the kernel is the Linux kernel :-P



There are often
alternatives for each task, made in their own styles. And there may be
no interest for finesse: when the tool does the task that the people
that made it wanted, there is no need to polish it nice and beautiful.
Thus there are so many CLIs instead of GUIs.

Which causes newbies all sorts of problems. The choice can be overwhelming.

True.

But they can stick to a distribution and use the distribution default
choices, which usually should work. Remains the choice of desktop,
though :-p

People just can't handle so much choice early on


Right now, I'm writing in Linux, and at my side is a laptop doing
updates of its Windows. Let's say I use 95% Linux, except some
proprietary tools that only run in Windows. :-)

Have you used the Windows subsystem for linux for anything significant?
I've installed it and run a few things on it, but windows isn't my main
desktop so can't say any more than it's a fun experiment.

No, I haven't. But I feel it is nice to have it. I would use it if I had
to use Windows as the main system somewhere that is not mine.


I don't criticize people for their choice of OS. Others do, though.

Be happy!






--
Cheers, Carlos.

Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 08/10/2019 22.15, nospam wrote:
In article , Chris
wrote:

Then there is the issue that when it reboots on its own it will default
to Linux, so when I come back I have to reboot manually, and then tell
it to scan for updates a second time, till there are no more updates,
and only then I can fully use the machine. In the end, more than one day
to do updates.

Why Microsoft hasn't learned how to install all updates in one go and do a
single reboot, i don't know? All other OSs manage it

most of the time they do, however, in some cases, an update might
require a previous update to have been installed, and that's not unique
to microsoft either.

It doesn't happen on the Linux I use.

This time I needed 3 reboots on Windows, about 12 hours.


In fact Linux doesn't even do multiple reboots on a new distribution
release update...

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

Chris wrote:
Carlos E.R. wrote:
[...]

Certainly! But the kernel is not all there is in Linux. It is "only" the
kernel.

Being pedantic, linux is *only* the kernel. What we all call linux includes
all the userland GNU tools: bash, less, tar, etc. Then there's the desktop
environment as well.

Well, actually it is both, neither, whatever! :-)

What 'Linux' is and isn't, is a *controversy*.

Some of it is explained in Wikipedia:

'GNU/Linux naming controversy'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU%2FLinux_naming_controversy#Opinions_supporting _%22GNU/Linux%22

And *because* it's a controversy, the Wikipedia page says:

"(!) * The neutrality of this article is disputed."

:-)

[...]

On 10/9/19 10:36 AM, nospam wrote:
In article , Chris
wrote:

worse is if you've got one or more cloud sync services running. Although,
they are quite easy to pause.

those are separate and take almost no time because the amounts of data
is small.

Really? I must be confused regarding the quantity of data in mine, then.

how much stuff are you syncing on a regular basis?

Did I say this was a regular problem? Nope. Your excessive snipping
doesn't help in maintaining the point of a thread. The whole context is
in scenarios where a machine hasn't been used in a while.

that's not the usual scenario, but in that case, it's expected that
there will be a backlog of updates.

however, they download in the background without impacting anything.
only when it comes time to restart to install the updates is it an
interruption, and usually can be deferred to a more convenient time.

This may be conditional from one system to another.

I agree, it shouldn't impact anything while downloading, under normal
usage, but I've concluded there are no absolutes in computers. But
Chris is also right, there has to be a finite number of things any
computer can do at one time without there being noticeable degradation
of performance. Computers are not unlimited in their power.

I think many respondents to this and other newsgroups have higher end
systems. And they've forgotten what it's like to run a minimalist, bog
slow laptop, and how long it takes for that type of system to accomplish
the same tasks.

Quite awhile back, I was given a W10 computer to fix, the owner said it
probably needed an OS reinstall. I think I commented on this system
somewhere else. I found a huge backlog of updates. So I just let it
work on the updates, and I walked away. 22 hours to get them installed.

A month ago, same person called, same problem. I asked if he'd done
what I said, which was to just turn it on once every couple of weeks,
and walk away. Nope. I told him to turn it on, and walk away for a
day. Computer runs fine, now.



snip


--
Ken
MacOS 10.14.6
Firefox 69.0.2
Thunderbird 60.9
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

In article , Ken Springer
wrote:


I agree, it shouldn't impact anything while downloading, under normal
usage, but I've concluded there are no absolutes in computers. But
Chris is also right, there has to be a finite number of things any
computer can do at one time without there being noticeable degradation
of performance. Computers are not unlimited in their power.

nobody said running unlimited background tasks would have no effect.

I think many respondents to this and other newsgroups have higher end
systems. And they've forgotten what it's like to run a minimalist, bog
slow laptop, and how long it takes for that type of system to accomplish
the same tasks.

downloading is not cpu intensive, so even low end systems won't be
burdened.

the bottleneck is the isp bandwidth. those with slower links will have
to wait longer than those with faster links, and not just for updates
either.

Quite awhile back, I was given a W10 computer to fix, the owner said it
probably needed an OS reinstall. I think I commented on this system
somewhere else. I found a huge backlog of updates. So I just let it
work on the updates, and I walked away. 22 hours to get them installed.

he must be on a very slow link.

Jonathan N. Little wrote:
Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 08/10/2019 22.15, nospam wrote:
In article , Chris
wrote:

Then there is the issue that when it reboots on its own it will default
to Linux, so when I come back I have to reboot manually, and then tell
it to scan for updates a second time, till there are no more updates,
and only then I can fully use the machine. In the end, more than one day
to do updates.

Why Microsoft hasn't learned how to install all updates in one go and do a
single reboot, i don't know? All other OSs manage it

most of the time they do, however, in some cases, an update might
require a previous update to have been installed, and that's not unique
to microsoft either.

It doesn't happen on the Linux I use.

This time I needed 3 reboots on Windows, about 12 hours.


In fact Linux doesn't even do multiple reboots on a new distribution
release update...

I can't remember for sure, but I think the Mac does a couple of reboots
with full OS updates. It's completely unattended, mind, and only takes 40
minutes or so.

Frank Slootweg wrote:
Chris wrote:
Carlos E.R. wrote:
[...]

Certainly! But the kernel is not all there is in Linux. It is "only" the
kernel.

Being pedantic, linux is *only* the kernel. What we all call linux includes
all the userland GNU tools: bash, less, tar, etc. Then there's the desktop
environment as well.

Well, actually it is both, neither, whatever! :-)

What 'Linux' is and isn't, is a *controversy*.

That's why I was being "pedantic". We all know what we mean with the
general use of the word linux. However, we mustn't forget all the other
stuff that comes with it.

Some of it is explained in Wikipedia:

'GNU/Linux naming controversy'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU%2FLinux_naming_controversy#Opinions_supporting _%22GNU/Linux%22

And *because* it's a controversy, the Wikipedia page says:

"(!) * The neutrality of this article is disputed."

:-)

[...]