Ray, roll your sleeves up, install Debian or Fedora on that brick. Join the party
Been there, done that, just did not work for me.
Isn't "it works for me" really what it all boils down to?
What a refreshing response, no accusation, incrimination, justification, flat out denial, ..., etc. Truthfully, when I posted the query, I was expecting one of two things, a specific OS that did meet the criteria or just no responses. I would have taken that to mean, there is nothing available, period. I did not post to create a new debate or to start a war, maybe I will have to work on my self control, and not be so impulsive.
I have sort of narrowed down the "Free OS" that I will be experimenting with, I guess if it fits some of my criteria, I guess that is close enough, oh what times we live in. And no I will not be revealing the system that I will be working with, "just works for me" just might be my response to the masses.
OK, "No, Ray, there is no OS Free/free or otherwise that will meet all of your criteria straight out of the box without any input on your part. Please return your computers and find a hobby that does not require the use of computers. I find making stained glass and woodworking enjoyable. You may need someone else to go online to order supplies or tools for you from time to time."
They are always specific to some distribution or other and they are always out of date. Same applies to books about commercial operating systems and programs.
Better to go to the current docs online regarding whatever it is you want to do.
Except, the "Linux From Scratch" book. If you want to get really hard core and build a Linux system of your own: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
Potatohead suggests FOSS is only free of cost if your time is worth nothing. Judging by the hours people spend fettling their Windows machines, or getting the nerdy friend or family member to do it, I think this is totally bogus.
This is totally fair.
Let me clarify. Take the printer example. In Linux land, you can hope your printer is one of the simple ones that's more or less taken care of. You can load one of a couple printing systems (been a while since I used a printer in Linux) and configure, test, etc... Once it's done, it's done. If your printer isn't one of the simple ones, you can generally figure out what other printer is like your printer, and do the same thing. If it's an oddball, then you are out of luck, but you still can go get the code, add that bit once you know what it is, and then it's done. In the end, it almost always can get done, but you might have to do the doing of it.
When people share this stuff, it gets rolled up into the various distributions and we all are better off. Cool beans.
In Windows land, Microsoft has collected a pile of printer setups. Vendors work with them to make sure theirs is in the list of "shipped with the OS" drivers, or not. Some, like HP, prefer to ship their own pile of driver and "sell you ink" code. Whatever. In Windows land, users are basically limited to a few things. Configure OS driver, load vendor driver, registry tweak, maybe some other setting or file (rare these days) tweak.
Googling a Linux printer problem can yield you everything from, "get this, click on it, do what it says...", to "get this, edit files, compile code, configure..."
Googling a Windows printer problem usually boils down to, run this thing, make this setting.
The big difference is in what users know. If you've been running Linux, you know stuff. You typically know a lot more stuff than the average user knows. That's a time investment. If you've been running Windows, you may also know a lot of stuff, but quite frequently, windows users don't know as much and they don't want to know either. They want to know what they have to do in order to make it work.
Vendors satisfy this last requirement as does Microsoft by closing most things down, and working hard to package all the variable things up and into mere settings and programs you load, and run to do things.
Both will take some of your time. Either can take a lot of your time. But, the Windows land expectation is that users just don't know too much, and they can spend their time running something that some others have packaged up for them. Those others know stuff, and that's fine.
And to make it more clear, everything costs something. This post probably cost me a buck, when it's all added up. It costs us to exist, if nothing else, and so time has a baseline, minimum cost aside from it's value as determined by each of us.
I value my Propeller time, for example. When I get Propeller time, I want to spend that time doing something on the Propeller, not some meta-tasks that get me to the point of doing something on the Propeller.
Just last night, I really, really, really wanted to get a Prop Plug working on the Mac with Virtual Box. The Altera USB Blaster worked finally, but no Prop Plug. Spent a couple of hours, and the Mac being somewhat closed meant dorking around with .kext files, installing things, and configuring things, along with some terminal work. That was expensive time!
It was expensive, because I wanted to be writing and running PASM.
Of course, on the Windows machine, I fetched a couple bits of software, ran them, next, next, yes, yes, finish. I don't care what they did. I do care that when I plugged in the Prop Plug, it talked to the Prop. In fact, that's all I cared about.
This is what people pay Microsoft and the various vendor ecosystems for. It is a straight up trade of time for dollars. Most things are.
There are other nice things, like the GUI for working, how the mouse or trackpad works, etc... that impact this. So for me, Linux is good in that I could get something working and then keep it for a long time. (recommended) But I don't do much else in Linux, so that's like a little island. I am in Mac OS and Windows all the dang time professionally.
I can know less by just running Windows, and that means I can focus on my task, not meta tasks, which is typically why I do not currently run Linux as a primary OS for anything at all right now. It's expensive to me.
But I do have a few tasks that Linux is great for, and I've set one up for those tasks, and it's actually on my keychain. Boot it, do it, leave. Perfect.
That's just me. Others may vary.
For someone who has used Linux as a primary OS, and I used to be in that camp, this equation changes quite a bit. Meta tasks aren't too tough, and the more you know, the quicker you do them too. It can approach what the Microsoft and Apple "just install it" model does, in terms of your time.
This is why I've always advocated people who want a free OS, and that means free in terms of both dollars and freedom to compute, need to make the investment to get onto the OS. I've done that in the past, and most of it is still good understanding. I jump on a Linux today, and it's a Linux. No worries. I get it done way more than I don't.
But, if you value your time being available for tasks you want to do, and you don't know much about a Linux, you are going to have to invest your time and you are going to have to know some stuff too. This is different from a Windows or Mac. Those "have to know stuff" investments are much smaller, and a person can "monkey see, monkey do" to get a lot of basics setup more frequently than they can on a Linux.
And none of this is bad. It's just trade-offs and what you value and why.
In Microsoft and Apple land, the expectation is that somebody has packaged it up for you. All you do is the few things needed to set that package in motion.
In Linux land, yes. Some stuff is packaged, but it might not be, or you might have to do stuff... and you might have to know stuff. What is there is there, and it's open, so you do what you have to. Microsoft and Apple are closed. So you sometimes and often CAN'T do what you have to, which changes the dynamics of things considerably.
And that's the dollars / time equation right there. I've seen this play out with people, and myself over the years consistently. Open stuff will take your time more than your dollars, but once you've invested that time, you get that setup or capability gratis! Heck of a deal. Closed will also take your time, but there are dollars there too, and those dollars mean somebody else owns the problem. You don't.
I do not plan on returning my computers, I already stated that I have narrowed down a "Free OS", in fact the keyboard and mouse work, it just works for me. The next thing is an install of SimpleIDE, if that just works for me, then I guess that is all that I should need. This "Free Stuff" is amazing. Now I just have to settle in, and decide what the next point in my criteria to go after and master. Can I get a hail... "just works for me".
I am torn between my better half, which is happy that you found what you're looking for, and my other half, which is very upset that you requested the community's help to find a specific program and then, upon finding it, refuse to give back to the community with the name of said program.
This post probably cost me a buck, when it's all added up.
No it did not.
Humans all over the world sell their time for money. Perhaps by the hour, or the week, or the month, or year. Or perhaps they get paid to get some job done without any time keeping, but there is always a deadline. Unless you are a tenured professor or some such.
Unless we are crazy or desperate we take time out. After you have discounted all the work time and all the sleep time we have precious few hours left in a lifetime for ourselves.
Your post cost you a lot more than a dollar. It ate that little time you have for yourself.
It was priceless.
Less philosophically, what I mean is that not every hour of your life has a dollar value. Simply because it's impossible to spend every waking hour making dollars.
I think your comment above may have been a bit off target:
And no I will not be revealing the system that I will be working with, "just works for me" just might be my response to the masses.
I don't think anyone has said, "Sure, I have something that meets all your criteria but I'm not telling you!" The situation has been at the other extreme if anything on most responses to OS questions: "I found this to work on my PC! It may work for you or it may not or it may need some tweaking".
I mostly abandoned windows this last time for Linux because my FTDI drivers would not work with one combination of boards/software. I spent a weekend doing and redoing and trying what other people had success with - it never worked for me. I loaded Fedora and in 20 minutes I was back in business - it worked for me! Did I share that information? Sure! Did I comment on my windows experience? Sure! Were people successfully using Windows on THEIR HARDWARE COMBINATION where I couldn't with MY HARDWARE combination surprised? Probably not!
I have Fedora on my main laptop (works great for me!). I went to put it on my daughters (much) older laptop and WiFi didn't work. It's an old, strange Wifi chipset. Solution: plug in a $3 WiFi dongle - works for her! Am I going to condemn everything else Fedora gives me and search for another distro that support that WiFi chipset and everything else Fedora does? No way!
"just works for me" just might be my response to the masses.
Is really unhelpful to anyone on a forum like this. If you don't want to be helpful and cooperative then why post such a thing to the forum? Why be here at all?
I am torn between my better half, which is happy that you found what you're looking for, and my other half, which is very upset that you requested the community's help to find a specific program and then, upon finding it, refuse to give back to the community with the name of said program.
So, here is my equivocation, if I name the program, and it does not just work for you, then I feel that I just wasted your time, there has been a lot of discussion about "time" lately, after all mine is priceless.
As to the request of the community, I already stated that the "Free OS" that I refer to, does not meet my criteria, I will have to make all kinds of concessions and states of denial, after I get past the keyboard and mouse working part. Those are the facts, as I see them, and it just works for me.
I am torn between my better half, which is happy that you found what you're looking for, and my other half, which is very upset that you requested the community's help to find a specific program and then, upon finding it, refuse to give back to the community with the name of said program.
So, here is my equivocation, if I name the program, and it does not just work for you, then I feel that I just wasted your time, there has been a lot of discussion about "time" lately, after all mine is priceless.
As to the request of the community, I already stated that the "Free OS" that I refer to, does not meet my criteria, I will have to make all kinds of concessions and states of denial, after I get past the keyboard and mouse working part. Those are the facts, as I see them, and it just works for me.
Ray
In other words, you have begun a journey we are all on.
There isn't a perfect OS by any criteria. But some are easy while others are interesting for other reasons.
There isn't much out there that has a binary already available for Simple IDE and is free for the taking... unless you are related to someone at MS or Apple.
unless you really hope to run Windows 7 in free trial mode or got an old set OEM Windows XP from somewhere.
There isn't much out there that has a binary already available for Simple IDE and is free for the taking... unless you are related to someone at MS or Apple.
unless you really hope to run Windows 7 in free trial mode or got an old set OEM Windows XP from somewhere.
You could always pirate Window 7 or 8 and then take your free upgrade to a legal copy of Windows 10
You don't really have to "pirate" Windows 7. Microsoft made it possible to use it for free. I've been using it that way on my TV/gaming machine since 2012. On the other hand, you couldn't give me a free copy of Windows 10.
Heater, you do need an install disc. Until Windows 10 was released it could be freely downloaded. I believe Microsoft now asks for a valid CoA number first. Once you have a disc or iso, just install it and don't enter the CoA when asked. Google windows 7 free trial.
A friend of mine just pulled me over to look at some pop up dialogue box on her Win 7 laptop. Seems a Java update is asking to make Yahoo the default search engine and take over the machine. Even worse than the old Ask tool bar trojan.
Just reminded me of what a corrupt world Windows users have to suffer.
F'it. I'm running back to FOSS. Good luck you guys out there.
Any idea if bumping Windows 7 free trial to Windows 10 removes the "free trial" and just gives you a legitimate license?
I have no idea if a trial mode Win 7 can be converted to Windows 10.
I think I read somewhere that Microsoft was actually considering upgrading illegal installations of other versions to Windows10. They've been acting pretty desperate here lately. I'm not sure Windows 10 has gone over as well as they try to put on.
You can also get Win 7 trial ISO images. That is what I have in Virtual BOX. If you don't do much configuration, just reload it every few months, or keep it in isolation and never run out the clock.
I'll use those for demos, proofs of concept and other things that I one off. Easy.
Oh yeah, shovelware. Gotta hate it. I keep mine plain vanilla mostly. Easier that way.
Both Linux and Apple are very nice about not popping up a sales job or con when you just want to update or get a utility.
Skype recently 'improved my user experience' by updating my Skype. Sadly it hung up my conference call with my employer in Germany to do so.
Sometimes I wish my IBM/390 back. It just worked as promised. Sure the assembler was cruel, the terminals small but - well - it worked 24/7 without disturbances.
There are some other OS out, written in assembler. Mostly connected to FASM, a very wonderful macro assembler. MenutOS, Kolibrie and other. Some even have Web-Browser and TV/Video support. Sadly I found none supporting RDP-Protocol and that is what I use most for work.
Well, this whole scheme has become absurd. Resadeika is just wants to be coy.
My Windows 7 Starter will not upgrade to Windows 10, not sure exactly why but absolutely sure it will not do so... even though MS created an icon in it inviting me to do so. Just a bit of tease to make one feel inferior.
I suppose one could install Linux with Wine and run Windows inside Linux to 'make it easier'. But a more direct solution is going to be more rewarding over the long run.
I hate pop-ups in any form. Windows seems to like using pop-ups which have to be told to go away.
Oh yeah, that one would have been nice 10 years ago but don't expect much beyond basics even at this stage. Disassembled MS code that somehow gets reimplemented exactly the same way including bugs......
Oh yeah, that one would have been nice 10 years ago but don't expect much beyond basics even at this stage. Disassembled MS code that somehow gets reimplemented exactly the same way including bugs......
Personally I don't understand the appeal of an FOSS windows implementation at all. Just thought I threw it into this weird discussion.
Personally I'm running Linux and/or OpenBSD on all my machines. Forced to use windows @work
Comments
What a refreshing response, no accusation, incrimination, justification, flat out denial, ..., etc. Truthfully, when I posted the query, I was expecting one of two things, a specific OS that did meet the criteria or just no responses. I would have taken that to mean, there is nothing available, period. I did not post to create a new debate or to start a war, maybe I will have to work on my self control, and not be so impulsive.
I have sort of narrowed down the "Free OS" that I will be experimenting with, I guess if it fits some of my criteria, I guess that is close enough, oh what times we live in. And no I will not be revealing the system that I will be working with, "just works for me" just might be my response to the masses.
Ray
They are always specific to some distribution or other and they are always out of date. Same applies to books about commercial operating systems and programs.
Better to go to the current docs online regarding whatever it is you want to do.
Except, the "Linux From Scratch" book. If you want to get really hard core and build a Linux system of your own: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
This is totally fair.
Let me clarify. Take the printer example. In Linux land, you can hope your printer is one of the simple ones that's more or less taken care of. You can load one of a couple printing systems (been a while since I used a printer in Linux) and configure, test, etc... Once it's done, it's done. If your printer isn't one of the simple ones, you can generally figure out what other printer is like your printer, and do the same thing. If it's an oddball, then you are out of luck, but you still can go get the code, add that bit once you know what it is, and then it's done. In the end, it almost always can get done, but you might have to do the doing of it.
When people share this stuff, it gets rolled up into the various distributions and we all are better off. Cool beans.
In Windows land, Microsoft has collected a pile of printer setups. Vendors work with them to make sure theirs is in the list of "shipped with the OS" drivers, or not. Some, like HP, prefer to ship their own pile of driver and "sell you ink" code. Whatever. In Windows land, users are basically limited to a few things. Configure OS driver, load vendor driver, registry tweak, maybe some other setting or file (rare these days) tweak.
Googling a Linux printer problem can yield you everything from, "get this, click on it, do what it says...", to "get this, edit files, compile code, configure..."
Googling a Windows printer problem usually boils down to, run this thing, make this setting.
The big difference is in what users know. If you've been running Linux, you know stuff. You typically know a lot more stuff than the average user knows. That's a time investment. If you've been running Windows, you may also know a lot of stuff, but quite frequently, windows users don't know as much and they don't want to know either. They want to know what they have to do in order to make it work.
Vendors satisfy this last requirement as does Microsoft by closing most things down, and working hard to package all the variable things up and into mere settings and programs you load, and run to do things.
Both will take some of your time. Either can take a lot of your time. But, the Windows land expectation is that users just don't know too much, and they can spend their time running something that some others have packaged up for them. Those others know stuff, and that's fine.
And to make it more clear, everything costs something. This post probably cost me a buck, when it's all added up. It costs us to exist, if nothing else, and so time has a baseline, minimum cost aside from it's value as determined by each of us.
I value my Propeller time, for example. When I get Propeller time, I want to spend that time doing something on the Propeller, not some meta-tasks that get me to the point of doing something on the Propeller.
Just last night, I really, really, really wanted to get a Prop Plug working on the Mac with Virtual Box. The Altera USB Blaster worked finally, but no Prop Plug. Spent a couple of hours, and the Mac being somewhat closed meant dorking around with .kext files, installing things, and configuring things, along with some terminal work. That was expensive time!
It was expensive, because I wanted to be writing and running PASM.
Of course, on the Windows machine, I fetched a couple bits of software, ran them, next, next, yes, yes, finish. I don't care what they did. I do care that when I plugged in the Prop Plug, it talked to the Prop. In fact, that's all I cared about.
This is what people pay Microsoft and the various vendor ecosystems for. It is a straight up trade of time for dollars. Most things are.
There are other nice things, like the GUI for working, how the mouse or trackpad works, etc... that impact this. So for me, Linux is good in that I could get something working and then keep it for a long time. (recommended) But I don't do much else in Linux, so that's like a little island. I am in Mac OS and Windows all the dang time professionally.
I can know less by just running Windows, and that means I can focus on my task, not meta tasks, which is typically why I do not currently run Linux as a primary OS for anything at all right now. It's expensive to me.
But I do have a few tasks that Linux is great for, and I've set one up for those tasks, and it's actually on my keychain. Boot it, do it, leave. Perfect.
That's just me. Others may vary.
For someone who has used Linux as a primary OS, and I used to be in that camp, this equation changes quite a bit. Meta tasks aren't too tough, and the more you know, the quicker you do them too. It can approach what the Microsoft and Apple "just install it" model does, in terms of your time.
This is why I've always advocated people who want a free OS, and that means free in terms of both dollars and freedom to compute, need to make the investment to get onto the OS. I've done that in the past, and most of it is still good understanding. I jump on a Linux today, and it's a Linux. No worries. I get it done way more than I don't.
But, if you value your time being available for tasks you want to do, and you don't know much about a Linux, you are going to have to invest your time and you are going to have to know some stuff too. This is different from a Windows or Mac. Those "have to know stuff" investments are much smaller, and a person can "monkey see, monkey do" to get a lot of basics setup more frequently than they can on a Linux.
And none of this is bad. It's just trade-offs and what you value and why.
In Microsoft and Apple land, the expectation is that somebody has packaged it up for you. All you do is the few things needed to set that package in motion.
In Linux land, yes. Some stuff is packaged, but it might not be, or you might have to do stuff... and you might have to know stuff. What is there is there, and it's open, so you do what you have to. Microsoft and Apple are closed. So you sometimes and often CAN'T do what you have to, which changes the dynamics of things considerably.
And that's the dollars / time equation right there. I've seen this play out with people, and myself over the years consistently. Open stuff will take your time more than your dollars, but once you've invested that time, you get that setup or capability gratis! Heck of a deal. Closed will also take your time, but there are dollars there too, and those dollars mean somebody else owns the problem. You don't.
Ray
Humans all over the world sell their time for money. Perhaps by the hour, or the week, or the month, or year. Or perhaps they get paid to get some job done without any time keeping, but there is always a deadline. Unless you are a tenured professor or some such.
Unless we are crazy or desperate we take time out. After you have discounted all the work time and all the sleep time we have precious few hours left in a lifetime for ourselves.
Your post cost you a lot more than a dollar. It ate that little time you have for yourself.
It was priceless.
Less philosophically, what I mean is that not every hour of your life has a dollar value. Simply because it's impossible to spend every waking hour making dollars.
I think your comment above may have been a bit off target:
I don't think anyone has said, "Sure, I have something that meets all your criteria but I'm not telling you!" The situation has been at the other extreme if anything on most responses to OS questions: "I found this to work on my PC! It may work for you or it may not or it may need some tweaking".
I mostly abandoned windows this last time for Linux because my FTDI drivers would not work with one combination of boards/software. I spent a weekend doing and redoing and trying what other people had success with - it never worked for me. I loaded Fedora and in 20 minutes I was back in business - it worked for me! Did I share that information? Sure! Did I comment on my windows experience? Sure! Were people successfully using Windows on THEIR HARDWARE COMBINATION where I couldn't with MY HARDWARE combination surprised? Probably not!
I have Fedora on my main laptop (works great for me!). I went to put it on my daughters (much) older laptop and WiFi didn't work. It's an old, strange Wifi chipset. Solution: plug in a $3 WiFi dongle - works for her! Am I going to condemn everything else Fedora gives me and search for another distro that support that WiFi chipset and everything else Fedora does? No way!
I don't get it.
As to the request of the community, I already stated that the "Free OS" that I refer to, does not meet my criteria, I will have to make all kinds of concessions and states of denial, after I get past the keyboard and mouse working part. Those are the facts, as I see them, and it just works for me.
Ray
Another good thread, resources shared, experiences shared, someone may stumble upon it and find a useful book to read or tidbit to try.
Time to ride off into the sunset and find new adventures!!
In other words, you have begun a journey we are all on.
There isn't a perfect OS by any criteria. But some are easy while others are interesting for other reasons.
There isn't much out there that has a binary already available for Simple IDE and is free for the taking... unless you are related to someone at MS or Apple.
unless you really hope to run Windows 7 in free trial mode or got an old set OEM Windows XP from somewhere.
You could always pirate Window 7 or 8 and then take your free upgrade to a legal copy of Windows 10
Legitimately of course.
What is this "keyboard and mouse working part." ?
I have have not had a "keyboard and mouse working" issue with any OS since Win 3.1
What is this about exactly?
A friend of mine just pulled me over to look at some pop up dialogue box on her Win 7 laptop. Seems a Java update is asking to make Yahoo the default search engine and take over the machine. Even worse than the old Ask tool bar trojan.
Just reminded me of what a corrupt world Windows users have to suffer.
F'it. I'm running back to FOSS. Good luck you guys out there.
Shoot! I wanted a "selfie" of you in front of a Windows 7 Desktop on a nice big monitor!!
I have no idea if a trial mode Win 7 can be converted to Windows 10.
I think I read somewhere that Microsoft was actually considering upgrading illegal installations of other versions to Windows10. They've been acting pretty desperate here lately. I'm not sure Windows 10 has gone over as well as they try to put on.
You can also get Win 7 trial ISO images. That is what I have in Virtual BOX. If you don't do much configuration, just reload it every few months, or keep it in isolation and never run out the clock.
I'll use those for demos, proofs of concept and other things that I one off. Easy.
Oh yeah, shovelware. Gotta hate it. I keep mine plain vanilla mostly. Easier that way.
Both Linux and Apple are very nice about not popping up a sales job or con when you just want to update or get a utility.
Sometimes I wish my IBM/390 back. It just worked as promised. Sure the assembler was cruel, the terminals small but - well - it worked 24/7 without disturbances.
There are some other OS out, written in assembler. Mostly connected to FASM, a very wonderful macro assembler. MenutOS, Kolibrie and other. Some even have Web-Browser and TV/Video support. Sadly I found none supporting RDP-Protocol and that is what I use most for work.
The list of supported hardware is thin.
Enjoy!
Mike
My Windows 7 Starter will not upgrade to Windows 10, not sure exactly why but absolutely sure it will not do so... even though MS created an icon in it inviting me to do so. Just a bit of tease to make one feel inferior.
I suppose one could install Linux with Wine and run Windows inside Linux to 'make it easier'. But a more direct solution is going to be more rewarding over the long run.
I hate pop-ups in any form. Windows seems to like using pop-ups which have to be told to go away.
Oh yeah, that one would have been nice 10 years ago but don't expect much beyond basics even at this stage. Disassembled MS code that somehow gets reimplemented exactly the same way including bugs......
Personally I don't understand the appeal of an FOSS windows implementation at all. Just thought I threw it into this weird discussion.
Personally I'm running Linux and/or OpenBSD on all my machines. Forced to use windows @work