About to install the Windows 10 April 2018 Update? You might want to wait a little bit longer The troubled Windows 10 April 2018 update is facing another issue, with some users losing access to their desktop after installing the new code. The problem, which first appeared in a posting on a Microsoft support forum on 14 May, has gained a bit of traction over the last two days with users taking to social media as they go …
That's annoying - had an update when shutting down PC, assumed it was just more security patches, only found out this morning it was actually an updated windows 10 version.
Thankfully didn't screw up my PC.
Thanks microsoft for "asking" whether you could install a new version but in hindsight, with microsofts "All your windows belong to us" attitude now, not surprising <sigh>
One day when they annoy me too much, switch to Linux it will be.
Re Linux: "I switched 2 years back. Much happier now. I only miss paint"
gimp can do most of what MS Paint does [and without "the ribbon" or "the metro"], and a LOT more.
As for anti-virus causing this: At least in Linux and on the BSD's, you really DO NOT NEED anything *like* anti-virus [unless you lack the intelligence to NOT do things as 'root' all of the time, or mis-configure sudo to be promiscuous with permissions].
This is because Windows has been 'insecure by default' for a VERY, LONG, TIME!
So when "the fix" becomes "the cause", you KNOW it's F.U.B.A.R.!
/me points out that fixing any Linux system [that might have been root'd or virus'd] generally means inserting the Live CD/DVD, booting the optical media, going to a recovery console, and re-installing the base OS packages. it would require a *little* computer savvy, but not a whole lot. Compare THAT to fixing a windows system with the problem described by this article. yeah.
"I switched 2 years back. Much happier now. I only miss paint"
It's been so long since I used MSPAINT that I really don't recall what it can and can't do. I use the kolourpaint program (part of KDE) for simple image editing. For that matter, I think MSPAINT will probably run under WINE, but my experience with WINE has never been very positive -- not really a criticism of WINE. WINE seems a noble attempt to create a Windows compatible environment on Unix, but that's really a monumentally difficult task I think. I vaguely think that ImageMagick has some editing tools. And of course, there's always Gimp. Rumor has it that Gimp's once legendarily baffling UI has mellowed in recent years.
One day when they annoy me too much, switch to Linux it will be.
Why wait? Just do it now.
Or go for a preliminary Linux taster: get yourself a Raspberry Pi 3B. No need for an extra keyboard and screen: install PuTTY on your Windows box and all you need to add to the RPi to make it go is a microSD card, a decent USB wall-wart to power it, and a length of Cat 5 ethernet cable to connect it to the PC. That gives you both a graphical desktop and text console access plus file transfer between the two. OK, you might also like a case for the Pi3, but that is only six quid extra.
On the RaspberryPi use the standard OS - Raspbian (Debian Linux ported to the RPi). Get it from the RaspberryPi Foundation unless you buy a package that includes it.
I gave up using Windows around 2003 - all my computers (Lenovo laptops and an AMD Athlon whitebox desktop) apart from the RPi run Redhat Fedora. I'd started running RedHat Linux 6.2 in 1999, liked it and so stuck with Redhat thru RedHat Linux 7.2 and into Fedora. Fedora is fairly close to the bleeding edge - CentOS is a RedHat clone and gives more stability. Both now have a stable and painless procedure for doing in situ upgrades to the next OS version.
I've now moved a fair bit of my own C code from Intel and AMD (Fedora Linux) to ARM (Raspbian on the RPi) using a shared CVS source repository and in all cases the code has compiled and run on the RPi without any problems.
As the machine is now Microsofts they can do whatever they like with it and whenever they like.
SatNad has decreed that all PC's running windows will run Windows 10 and they will control them like the fictional Borg did with people.
Declare your resistance to the MS Borg and install Linux. You won't regret declarings independance.
I did years ago and have not looked back.
The suggestion about the R-Pi is a good one. I have several in use now including one as my Firewall.
I'm switching my mother from XP to Linux Mint 18. I've been a Unix sysadmin/engineer for 20+ years, but have to say that Linux Mint is crap. Maybe the least crap of the distros, maybe not as crap as Windows 10, but still crap.
- Frequently freezes, on a laptop with 3GB of RAM. No informative spinner/hourglass, it just freezes until it decides it's finished. Top and system monitor don't show anything hogging resources.
- The installed utilities are are supposed to be a carefully curated collection:
- I opened a hi-res image with the Image Viewer. It displayed the image, then hung, then rebooted the PC. No error messages. Apart from the fact that a user program shouldn't be able to crash a system, where are the logs for a "normal" user to find?
- mintbackup uses a tar file, so can't back up more than 4.3 GB. No, the option that's supposed to be there to do a "normal" backup doesn't exist. I wrote an rsync script in less time than I'd wasted on reading up on mintbackup.
- Oh, and Timeshift as a restore tool? How about something that can do backups AND restores? Both data and system?
- Software Manager + Software Sources + Synaptic Package Manager + Update Manager? Not so much "do one thing and do it well" as "do half a job and do that badly"
- Screenshot tool that exits after every screenshot, and doesn't remember preferences?
- The start menu is full of useless garbage, so you have to search/scroll for the useful stuff. Yes, you can do some customisation, but why not start from a clean point?
- Installing packages supposedly tested on Mint is very hit & miss. Sometimes an install hangs, sometimes it fails. Try a slightly different method, and it works.
- The install of Teamviewer on the PC I gave to my mum breaks the update manager. The same packages installed on a lower spec PC I kept work OK.
- Dreadful documentation, support and "knowledge" on the internet. A million forums and how-to's full of garbage.
- Installs a huge list of "foreign" ttf fonts. No, thank you, I'll install a "language pack" if I want one.
- Disabling Bluetooth was another case in point. After disabling Bluetooth startup, you eventually find that there's something called Blueberry that starts it up anyway. The Blueberry authors declined to provide a checkbox to disable it. The arrogance in their self-congratulatory post about their cleverness was astounding.
Say what you want about my (lack of) skills, but no way is Linux usable by end users.
Say what you want about my (lack of) skills, but no way is Linux usable by end users.
As far as your experience with Linux goes, there's not enough evidence to conclude that "Linux" is not usable by end users. All you can conclude that Linux Mint, of one specific version, is not usable as it is currently configured and installed on one specific system.
Your experiences with Mint don't match mine, and I've set it up on quite a lot of systems by now. I use Mint as my main OS on all three of my primary PCs, though I still keep Windows around in a dual-boot setup for the odd thing I need it for (which seldom if ever happens anymore, thanks to VMs). Mint for me tends to work brilliantly right out of the box, in contrast to Windows, which usually ends up with a generic, terribly slow VGA driver for the GPU and it often can't find drivers for basic things like Intel wifi and ethernet cards, leaving the user to try to locate them without a working internet connection. Linux Live sessions have never failed to find and auto-configure my network adapters and let me know that wifi access points are available (using various Intel, Realtek, and QC/Atheros wifi and ethernet adapters).
You seem to be comparing Windows that has already been installed by someone else, like the computer OEM, to an OS you install yourself. Preinstalled Linux would be the same way, since the various tweaks and adjustments to get things working would already be done. They're something you need to do in Windows bare-metal installations too. While Linux installs for me have usually (if not always) been a lot closer to being ready out of the box than Windows installs, they all are going to need some tweaks and adjustments before they can be considered ready for use. When you get Windows preinstalled, that's already been done.
As far as stability is concerned... I've never had Mint crash or freeze. Well, let me amend that-- I've never had Mint crash or freeze unless there were underlying hardware problems. Once those were resolved, Mint has been as stable as it is possible to be. So has Windows, for that matter, but the versions of Windows I am willing to use are on numbered days. Still quite a large number for 8.1, but numbered they are. Windows 10... no. Just no.
It's kind of pointless to compare pre-10 Windows to Linux, because pre-10 Windows has no future, and is actively being sabotaged by its own creator in the time it has left. Yeah, Windows XP was great, and so was 7 (and it still is, for now, when MS isn't breaking it with updates and security fixes that make it even less secure than it was before). Win 8.1 can be too if you install Classic Shell, Old New Explorer, install a custom theme, and remove all of the apps by unofficial means. That will buy you a few years, maybe. Or maybe not, depending on how many bugs MS introduces "accidentally" in the course of fixing security issues.
On my Sandy Bridge desktop, my XP-era AMD Turion laptop, my Core 2 Duo laptop, my low-end Dell Braswell laptop (mfd. 2017), or the Dell Kaby Lake i5 gaming laptop (mfd. 2018) I bought and really tried to like, but ended up returning, Linux, in one of its Ubuntu-based distros, worked flawlessly (though Kubuntu had some annoyances right out of the box; Mint didn't). In fact, it was incompatibility with Windows (other than 10) that was one of the contributing factors in my returning the 2018 Dell (specifically, the Synaptics touchpad driver had to be force-installed and couldn't be made to obey any of the settings in its own UI, and the touchpad failed to work after resuming from standby).
Kubuntu 18.04 worked flawlessly on the 2018 Dell after the first round of updates, right down to the variable brightness backlight control for the keyboard, while the others, running Mint Cinnamon (various versions since 2015), worked well right off the bat. I did have to fiddle around to get Prime Sync working in Kubuntu, but Prime itself (which allows switching from the integrated Intel GPU to the discrete Nvidia GPU) worked perfectly (though not automatically as in Windows... that's up to Nvidia to fix, since they won't let the Linux community have the info they would need to do it themselves). It was as easy as starting the driver manager and clicking the radio button from "Nouveau" to "Nvidia proprietary driver" and letting it reboot.
Timeshift isn't meant to be a full bare-metal backup. It's meant to be the equivalent of Windows' System Restore, only with a lot more flexibility, and it works brilliantly in that capacity. It can do both data and system (which System Restore cannot), and it can back up and restore both quite easily. I'm not sure why you're suggesting it can't. I've used it for both and found it easy and effective (and as an added plus, you can store the data on a USB drive, so it's not sitting there taking up HDD/SSD/eMMC drive space all the time).
What do you get as far as backup programs in Windows? Windows 7 had a backup utility that wasn't able to image my HDD's >2 TB partition, since it was written before GPT and hadn't been updated, and the UI has been removed from Windows post-7. So you're stuck using the command line, which puts you into the same situation you're in with rsync on Linux if you don't like any of the other tools.
Perhaps Terabyte Backup for Linux is more in line with what you want. It's a commercial product, but it has a free trial period to evaluate it and see if it is what you want. Personally, I use Aomei Backupper Free for Windows... it backs up and restores Linux partitions from within Windows or from the USB rescue drive without a hitch. It's one of the few things I still use Windows (not in a VM) for.
I don't like the behavior of the GNOME screenshot tool in its most recent Mint versions either. I want it to automatically save the full screen image when I hit PrintScreen, not pop up a dialog asking me what to do with it each time. This actually was how it behaved in older Mint versions (17.3, I think, at the latest), and I seem to remember that it gave the option of opening a dialog if you set a preference, so I am not sure why they didn't just change the default pref rather than modify the whole program (they say that customers complained that it didn't ask them what to do with the captured image).
To fix this, I use Synaptic to force the version to the Xenial version, then lock it so it doesn't try to upgrade it again. Fixed!
The software management is one of the best things about Mint specifically, IMO. Synaptic is a package manager, which is not exactly the same as a software manager. One's the Mint version of the Google Play store, while the other is a graphical frontend for the apt command. Synaptic is a power user tool, while Software Center is geared toward beginners.
The Mint software manager is better, IMO, than its Ubuntu equivalent, though I don't have any need for it personally (I use Synaptic or the command line) and the update manager in Mint is simply far and away superior to the unified software center in Ubuntu, IMO, which contains the updater as well (the kernel version manager is particularly good). If you don't agree, you can certainly try a Ubuntu proper (or maybe the Ubuntu manager can be installed into Mint, since it uses the Ubuntu repo too; I haven't tried) and see if it is more to your liking.
As far as the help you get online... I haven't found much difference in quality between the stuff for Windows and the stuff for Linux. In both cases, a search will often return a lot of outdated info and other irrelevant faff, and it's up to you to sort through and find the nugget you're looking for amid all of the nonsense. The only real difference is that there are official Microsoft forums, but have you actually looked at them? If you get any useful advice there, it almost certainly won't come from an actual MS employee. You're far more likely to find good answers on a third-party site, and that's the same as finding answers for Linux.
There are a lot of things in Mint that are really simple and "just work." The other day, I was asked to scan a two-page paper document and send it in PDF form to a certain addressee. I was in Windows, so I loaded the Scan and fax program, then scanned the document. When I went to save it, I saw that it only was willing to use image formats (BMP, JPG, PNG). I didn't have a separate print-to-PDF utility installed at that moment, and the print-to-file function in Windows doesn't do PDF (at least not in 8.1). Not wanting to mess around with it, I rebooted into Linux and used the Mint-included Simple Scan... and simple it is! Performing the task I described was as simple as positioning page 1 on the scanner, hitting SCAN on Simple Scan, positioning page 2 on the scanner, hitting SCAN again, then hit Save... it pops up a dialog and allows save to PDF without further ado. As an aside, I never had to install a scanner or printer driver for my Canon MF3010 all-in-one in Mint, but Windows couldn't do a thing with them until I gave it the driver.
There are a lot of things like that in Linux. I don't like Blueberry much, but Blueman IMO is the way a PC Bluetooth program should be. I only wish there was something like it for Windows.
Linux (in any form) is far from perfect, but so is Windows. I wouldn't even have the knowledge or experience to debate this if Windows 10 had not come along. I would happily have kept using Windows and not given Linux more than a curious glance. I'm a creature of habit, and if I have something that works for me, I keep it... which is why I stuck with Windows XP for about a dozen years. Windows 10... well, even you said that it probably sucks more than Mint, which is saying something given how little you like Mint. And since that's the future of Windows, I say... Mint it is.
Thank you for your detailed response. I do appreciate the thought and effort you've put into it, but I politely disagree with you.
- I'm happy you've had no problems with installs and stability. Maybe you're smarter than I am. Maybe you put more effort into configuring and troubleshooting something that should "just work". I still maintain that a real end-user could not have got as far as I did with this setup. Maybe it's a weird Lenovo N200 hardware combo. I doubt that the hardware is faulty, as it ran XP flawlessly for years. Please, recommend a basic laptop model that you can guarantee will work, and I'll try that. I really, really want this to work!
By the way, I've installed Windows from scratch a few times (dead disks and own-builds). Yes, had problems with WiFi and displays, but always got a working wired connection to download drivers.
- (May be Mint MATE specific) You don't see a problem with menu options labelled Backup (mintbackup) and Restore (Timeshift)? Or something labelled "Software Manager" that doesn't manage installed software?
(I'm sorry, I haven't actually looked into what Timeshift does yet. And I was partly wrong about the screenshot tool - it does remember the last save location)
Maybe you _do_ need to install other FOSS software to make Linux usable. So why not include that in the Mint distro? Isn't that the point of a distro?
Teamviewer installs fine on a Lenovo N100, but breaks the PPAs on an N200 installed from the same image. Hang on, that's not a hardware or a UI problem. Delete & reinstall? Same problem.
Here's a thought, why not put the backup icon on the Start menu, to prompt people every time? Rather more useful there than, say, Software Manager. Yes, it's all configurable, but why not start with useful choices? I'm torn over the Terminal icon there - I'd use it a lot, but real end-users should not need to.
Regarding online help: It doesn't help that googling "Linux Mint 18 (problem description)" seems to ignore most of the search criteria. Hey, Google, it's about the quality of the results returned, not the number or the popularity.
Mint vs. Windows 10? Poorly designed, high maintenance software vs. a horrible UI, forced upgrades and spyware? Hmm, tough choice.
I have never had stability issues with desktop PCs and Linux (generally Ubuntu), but have had some buggy wifi with laptops and occasional no-display. But equally some people have stability/BSOD with various Windows machines for never adequately explained reasons.
If you want ones that are good and definitely work then check out Entroware:
https://www.entroware.com/store/
Otherwise some folk have decent results from cheap HP laptops, and you can get one *basic* model with only FreeDOS for under £200 with various people saying it worked fine with Linux:
https://www.ebuyer.com/819841-hp-255-g6-laptop-3kx70es-3kx70es-abu
Please, recommend a basic laptop model that you can guarantee will work, and I'll try that. I really, really want this to work!
Thinkpads. Even a lowly X30, and up from there an X31, X40T, X60, T61, and X201. Oh, and an Ideapad S10 and a Samsung N100. No problems really, although the X3xes and the S10 (with only 2G memory) are a bit sluggish, even with Mint XFCE. The N100 has a SSD, and is quite workable. But no actual problems with any of them installing or running Mint (the others run Mint Mate).
Dell is OK, and even offers machines preinstalled with Ubuntu, so Mint should be fine on those too. A ten year old Dell Latitude that was my work laptop is still running fine as far as I know.
Stay away from Acer. Unless you're wielding an axe or sledgehammer.
Note that all but the X3xes were installed by my GF, who started using Linux two and a half years ago. The only assistance required was with partitioning the harddisk, and that was mainly because Mint does not (yet) offer a predefined partitioning scheme using a separate home partition. Which saves a lot of effort if you ever have to reinstall the OS, or want to install a different distro (replacement or multiboot).
Regarding online help: It doesn't help that googling "Linux Mint 18 (problem description)"
Try the Linux Mint forum
First - I have experienced issues of locking with Ubuntu and lubuntu 18.04. I suspect you would have the same issue with Mint 18.
I have been using Ubuntu 12.04, then 14.04, then 16.04 and also lubuntu 16.04 without issue on several home computers and a home server. I also use Ubuntu/lubuntu 16.04 for a couple business servers and backup systems. If you have to run Windows for some reason, such as the 'wife unit' and any programs that you just have to have Windows, put in a virtual machine using Virtualbox. My wife is more comfortable with Windows. I make a snapshot of the Windows VM's about once a month. If ever hit by a virus, or I suspect there could have been a virus installation attempt, I just restore to the snapshot I want to go back to. The process takes only a few seconds and will get you exactly to the state the VM was in when the snapshot was made. This came in handy when Win 10 rel 1803 recently installed and broke my wife's installation. Just a simple click stop the VM and restore to the last snapshot, reboot - job complete. I manually installed 1803 from the disk iso later without problem.
"Frequently freezes, on a laptop with 3GB of RAM. No informative spinner/hourglass, it just freezes until it decides it's finished. Top and system monitor don't show anything hogging resources."
Never had any performance issues on an i3-4330 with 4GB RAM using the integrated graphics chip. Hell, it runs quickly as a VM within Windows on my i7-4600U (dual-core).
"I opened a hi-res image with the Image Viewer. It displayed the image, then hung, then rebooted the PC"
Never had that, even opening 70MB 36MP JPEGs
"mintbackup uses a tar file, so can't back up more than 4.3 GB"
It can also do directory copies and zip files - just pick the option. From memory, I don't think it can do incremental backups, which is a bigger issue for me.
"Oh, and Timeshift as a restore tool? How about something that can do backups AND restores? Both data and system?"
It's a *system restore* tool for getting the OS back to a working state - for data use the data backup tool. I know some people want a tool to do everything, but realistically backing up the OS and data separately is a better idea as they change at differing rates, are typically vastly different sizes, logically not inter-dependent, etc
"Installing packages supposedly tested on Mint is very hit & miss. Sometimes an install hangs, sometimes it fails."
Literally never had this.
"Say what you want about my (lack of) skills, but no way is Linux usable by end users."
My retired, computer-illiterate, parents have been using it for 3 years, with no issues and no help from me.
Not my experience no hangs here on 3 machines, maybe a couple in five years. You have something set up wrong or a hardware fault. It's way more stable than Windows. The mint forums are always helpful. Use system back if you want windows like restore points.
"- Dreadful documentation, support and "knowledge" on the internet. A million forums and how-to's full of garbage."
Could not agree more. MINT is delivered with everything one needs other than being able to purchase documentation that gives a complete listing of the packages and how to use them. Not everyone that moved from MS to Linux has a background in software; no one seems to care about those of us that just want to use the software for other purposes than self congratulation.
Why IS it that "Mint" has become another word for Linux. It isn't, its a distribution based on Ubunto which is itself crap.
There are literally hundreds of distributions out there which do not have the bugs reported here. Just as a suggestion you could always try OpenSuse, an independent RPM based distribution one of the Mandriva based distriibutions like PcLinuxOs, (Which BTW is a rolling release which makes use of Synaptic as its installer) or Mageia.
If you are drawn to Debian based packages, which I can well understand, try a package a wee bit closer to the baseline.
Either way the niggles you report will be behind you.
Not my experience with Mint of many versions over the years and on a variety of hardware. It's been rock solid for me and the many folks I've switched over to it. Support calls from friends and family are now zero (I refuse to deal with Windows issues anymore), happy all round.
To be fair to him Mint LTS doesn't run very well on my hardware but Ubuntu LTS does perfectly. I've said once before in another thread that my internet would cut off every 10 minutes unless i restart. Then there's the crashing and freezing issues i had too. Ubuntu works flawlessly and has been very reliable for me.
If your PC is showing symptoms like this:
>
> - Frequently freezes, on a laptop with 3GB of RAM.
> No informative spinner/hourglass, it just freezes until
> it decides it's finished. Top and system monitor don't
> show anything hogging resources.
Then this cause is usually a harddisk with bad sectors. SMART monitoring and error reporting is poor in both Linux and Windows, and the system behaviour of Linux and Windows has been the same in the past: Freezing for 30 seconds per error.
"But at least you can choose to use one of the popular non bloated distros."
Yes, of course. It's just a bit sad that the most popular distro has become so bloated.
Mint seems a bit better, and is apparently based on Debian, so should provide similar levels of hardware compatibility.
My home machine (ie with fairly non-standard hardware) bluescreened during the update process, but then rebooted and continued just fine. Not sure what that was about.
So far this year I've had more problems with grub updates bricking machines than Windows, but I suppose I do deal with more linux than Windows these days so it's hard to tell which is better.
I switched a long time ago.
Started playing with Linux back in the late 90's shortly after I had played with DOS/Win 3.1 and settled on win 98 and up on PC's that I built myself as a teen by reading up in the library (no internet or computer access outside of school).
I played with all aspects of Linux from installing a different distro regularly to building kernels and my own custom live systems running off bootable floppies. I was in heaven! I almost ate man pages for breakfast. Windows and DOS paled in comparison and I wondered how they were considered operating systems when they came with basically nothing more than notepad and paint.
Anyway I soon realised I was no longer dual booting to windows. I came home from uni, switched on the pc, booted linux (it did it by default), opened XawTV which let me watch TV on my PC (Fresh Prince and Buffy were on BBC 2) while eating some dinner and doing coursework (slowly as Buffy was followed by Farscape). I even would browse teletext on it, watch VHS tapes and DVD's.
It must have been about 3 months before I realised I hadnt booted windows once. I only realised this when I HAD to boot windows, to play a windows game.
So to this day all my machines except 1 run only Linux (I intend on playing with FreeBSD and Haiku again). That single 1 machine dual boots windows and linux and windows is used only booted to play windows games or use sony vegas.
"Thanks microsoft for "asking" whether you could install a new version but in hindsight, with microsofts "All your windows belong to us" attitude now, not surprising <sigh>"
It's not just an attitude, it's an official change in the system. At one point during the update on my tablet, there was a message specifically stating that "Windows is a service...blah blah blah" I strongly suspect that within a year or so we'll start seeing offers for monthly subscriptions to new features and updates, probably with a minimum 12 month contract.
Avast has been painful for years, I binned it off in the Windows 7 era as it got more bloated and buggy. No surprise it's causing problems.
To be honest, having any commercial AV active during an OS upgrade has always been technology suicide anyway. Surprised Microsoft don't detect it during prerequisite checks and just say no.
Paris - because even she doesn't check for viruses before overnight maintenance.
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