Hear hear!

Agreed

Yes indeed. An excellent presentation, thanks very much Christopher.

I agree it’s very straightforward

Glad to hear that you've managed to breath new life into older hardware.

@@ExplainingComputers I managed to do something similar with a HP t620+ thin client

@Mehedi Hasan Some distros do a better job at setting up than others so you could try alternatives on usb and see how they perform. Besides that its basically a separate support process for every machine & distro to optimise graphics, so finding a support thread that is relevant to your hardware is the first step and often possible with a popular distro. In firefox about:config enabling gfx.webrender.all and gfx.x11-egl.force-enable can make a difference. My lowish powered Intel Haswell cpu&graphics laptop plays videos better in Manjaro KDE than Win10.

@Mehedi Hasan My main KZfaq machine is an HP Stream Netbook powered by an Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU N3060 @ 1.60GHz. Running the Xfce version of Mint, it works very nicely for playing KZfaq videos from the Google Chrome browser.

@Mehedi Hasan It's not a universal thing, just like in windows you will need browser specific, and maybe even graphics card/CPU specific instructions. I would start at the user forum of whatever browser you are using.

Hey, I'm a boomer, and I switched to Linux just before Windows 10 came out! I nuked windows completely and broke the installation disks! Not only did I hear about M$'s intentions, but I read the EULA, all 40+ pages, and was like "Hell no!". It didn't take me that long to learn Linux and have a stable worry free system, having no windows to fall back on forced me to get with the program: Best computing decision I ever made!

@@Bob-of-Zoid Was more gradual for me, but I see clearly what you mean. If anyone asked me to get back to Windows, I would really laugh for such an idea :D That would be like going back from a Tesla to Model T. It had it's time, thank you, but it is over.

I kinda like Windows 10. In the end it became a pretty good OS. Windows 11 however forcing you to constantly be online to access your computer is just straight up bullshit. I've always used a local account and I will buy Windows 11 Pro if thats what it takes to do so. I'm never gonna daily drive Linux either for that matter. I'm currently trying to learn as much as I can about Linux. And the more I learn. The less likely it is to be a viable option.

I think you're right MISTER FIAT. In many respects I think Linux is far superior to Windows version 8 onwards (they are horrible), but while Linux is fine on a great deal of hardware it is not as reliable as Windows on the majority. This is perhaps not the the fault of Linux but the hardware manufacturers not making driver info available. Having an abundance of distro's is nice for geeks, but for the general public it can be very offputting and less choice might encourage uptake. Only time will tell...it's a shame Windows 7 (not 10) wasn't the final version of Windows...oh yeah, that didn't work out did it, lol.

I'd love to see this channel test out that windows FX as that will be one I'm sure alot of people will flock to when switching over for the first time as it'll be most familiar.

@@shadowarez1337 You could be right though I haven't even seen it myself. To be honest, almost every Linux distro out there is as close to Windows 10 as Windows 11 is, Ubuntu possibly one of the furthest removed and even that is easy to get used to (even if you don't like it). The biggest issues with moving to Linux isn't the GUI front-end (they aren't massivly removed from one another or Windows), it's the different ways that you go about the same tasks (such as installing software) and Christopher nailed the first one because Windows users are so used to dealing with drive letters and considering them very different entities to one another. Thanks for the heads-up on Windows FX, I'll have to check it out!

@@watsoft70 for me it was wrapping my head around the address changes like /etc /home and getting Linux to be able to read NTFS drives that what threw me for a loop. I kept going through Terminal as it felt like home to me.

I guess your clients do not like Windows 11 I assume then?

Yes, I added this to my "Intro to Linux" lesson plans

Windows 10 was originally touted as the last version of Windows, I believe. ;-)

My sense is that even Microsoft has come to realize that Windows as a product for the masses of general computer users is nearing its end of life. Permanently. Their actions seem to support that. Windows 11 can only be installed on severely restricted hardware. Windows 365 PC Cloud available for those who need only the occasional Windows-like experience, accesses through lightweight devices. Or Linux. And how can their exorbitantly overpriced Office suite, including annual rental, compete with Libre Office Which I now use exclusively, excepting occasionally for Office 4.5 from the 90's.

@@KameraShy I'd add that many 'mainstream' users are happy enough just using their smartphones for personal stuff. Microsoft pivoting to online services with a more corporate-oriented focus is a savvy move. Oh, is LibreOffice's compatibility with MS Office documents 100% yet? I remember having a bunch of formatting issues when using it, although admittedly that was pre-DOCX.

RaspbianOS is also a good introduction, with lots of tools pre-installed, like Python, Mathematica, Wolfram, Scratch, and other program learning tools, along with dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of educational websites to take you from knowing nothing, to well on your way...

I tried an actual distro on my pi4 (I think it was majaro xfce) and it felt really sluggish, it had some processes taking up 90% of the cpu for a long time so I ended up going back to rasberrypi os, it boots as fast as my main pc that has an ssd and is just silky smooth. really was put off testing other distros

@@Mmmm_tea The official Fedora pi version have the same sluggish problem. I download a modify version. So far so good. Audio is ok for steaming and playback.

You can actually install pretty much whatever desktop you want without changing distros. On my laptop I have pop_os as my distro which comes with it's own desktop, but I also installed Cinnamon for when I'm running with just the laptop monitor because I prefer that desktop manager sometimes, and when I'm plugged in at the office I'm hooked up to multiple monitors and use i3wm which is a window manager rather than a desktop manager (no menus or shortcut icons). You can change desktops just by logging out and logging back in under that desktop. When I installed linux for a young friend headed to college I installed linux Cinnamon plus 6 or 7 different desktops so she could play with each and figure out which she liked best.

I am very impressed by the Raspberry Pi 4. Works so well.

Very interesting to hear.

Same! Though I might try Zorin to see if it can really run Windoze programs without a lot of fuss.

@@fredashay what kind of issues? i have problems with delayed mouse reaction.

been testing 20.1 on an older machine.. and so far it's been flawless on the hardware. I have to say I'm impressed.. only one warning.. if updating the xfce version from 19 to 20 make sure you have no desktop customisations which WILL break your fonts.. nobody on the internet seems to have a solution.. look in your .config xfce files and where it says anything about fonts (xml files.. easy enough) make sure it says "empty" rather than any font being defined

i used fedora for some time in both kde and default de, then moved to mint, yes, is nicer, simpler and easier to maintain in my opinion

Mint is decent. But not the only one. I would strongly advise beginners to take Mint, yes. Was struggling with Ubuntu after they went away from normal desktop, made some startup cluttering and the last drip was piece of garbage called Snap. They became the new Microsoft. Making my choice less, doing some stuff without my permission, making duplicates of unnecessary software take spaceon my disk, making startup of a browser on nvme like on a floppy etc. Now I am free again. My PC just works.

this video is very well timed indeed.

I've already moved to Linux Mint Cinnamon a few years back but my wife and both daughters are wanting Windows 11. My oldest sister already got the Win11 update on her laptop.

It genuinely worries me that a multi billion dollar company thinks its acceptable to have 3 settings windows (yes there are 3 now).

I tried Win 11 three times because once you sign up to the Microsoft bumf it's a pain to get out, When running 11 i had issues playing videos on youtube in HD(couldn't get above 480P) and was completly locked out of facebook(i like the marketplace), To get rid of the microsoft bumf(win 11 updates) i had to reinstall win 10,Linux mint look good to me but i will buy a cheap laptop or desktop to test it out on first.

No, you won't.

There has been no real problem with Linux hardware for more than a decade now, probably even longer than that. Just for the record, there is a lot of older hardware (scanners, printers, etc.) that are no longer supported by Windows because they stopped making drivers back in the days of Windows XP or Windows 7. In most cases, that hardware will still work in Linux. Nobody in the Linux community has ever said that Linux supports ALL hardware, it just happens to support MOST of it. So that's therefore on you to do your research, exactly as you would expect anyone to do when they waste money buying a Windows computer that Microsoft then "rents" back to them, and to find out if what you plan to buy is fully supported by the OS that you going to run on it. Remember, Windows always has the advantage here because it's usually already the "parasite" OS that your computer comes with. If you're going to free yourself from your Microsoft abuser, you need to put in some of the leg work yourself - Google searches should tell you very quickly whether or not Linux supports a particular piece of hardware or computer system.

@@terrydaktyllus1320 We're talking circa 2003 so way more than the past decade (way back in the early days of Google even) 😀 But yeah, finally got away from Windows in 2008 for good and honestly have never looked back.

Greetings Leslie.

Nice.

*DER RÜTTLER:* Yes, everything on Unix-like operating systems is represented by files that exist somewhere in or below the root of the filesystem. This is a crucial concept to understand when learning about Linux, etc.

I think that having a visual that showed the difference would have been valuable. You know, "show, don't tell" and all that.

I've been using Linux for close to 10 years now and I have no idea what that analogy is supposed to mean.

@@jb888888888 Directories are trees in the computer science sense of the word: each directory either contains files (the leaves) or other directories (branches) that can lead to more files/directories. On Windows you have separate volumes parallel to each other (thus trees next to each other). On Linux you mount volumes somewhere on your root filesystem (thus trees on another tree).

Great to hear that ChatGPT sent you here. :) There is indeed lots of Linux content -- there is a lot of all of my Linux videos on this page: www.explainingcomputers.com/linux_videos.html

Yes, the distinct way of speech with specific pauses and slowdowns at start feels like strange. But when you get to the core, it is brilliant. And I have yet to spot any discrepancies :D The background work is superb. Looks like expert level knowledge over 10K hours. This is quality you don't get from paid courses.

He did many distro already

You are the second person to mention this, but I did not know!

@@ExplainingComputers Well the stars aligned on this. I think it will be super helpful to the influx of new Linux users.

ROFL... was thinking the same; they should have contacted you beforehands 😁

@@ExplainingComputers I wonder, Chris, have you ever watched Linus Tech Tips? (Because, in case you haven't, that's the Linus and Luke that people are referring to. And, no, not "the other Linus" we're usually talking about with Linux.) Basically, with the coming of the Steam Deck, there's been talk in gaming circles about Linux and Proton - will everyone be able to play all their games on Linux? - and this lead to them, in their "WAN show" podcast, deciding to do a "Linux challenge". Both of them will attempt to use Linux as their daily driver OS and the first one who gives up will have to do a forfeit (don't know if they've yet decided what that forfeit will be). While Luke has previously used some Linux Mint (but quite a long time ago), Linus is coming at this completely fresh (well, they use some Linux for their servers, but he's never daily driven any Linux). This is generating some buzz, as Linus Tech Tips has 14 million subscribers. It's one of the biggest tech channels out there - with a hardware and gaming focus - and they're going to be having a video series about their "Linux challenge", which'll be viewed by millions of people. It's going to be big exposure for the process of transitioning over to Linux, to a more general "gamer" audience. Yes, Valve's Steam Deck is really generating a buzz around Linux, just exactly as Windows 11 is turning people off. This probably is the best time - Algorithm-wise - to be making content like this, as you'll possibly be getting some "recommendation" hits to your videos for this. It'll be "the year of the Linux desktop" one of these days, I tell you. One of these days. ;D

@@klaxoncow Thanks for this. I do keep an eye on Linus Tech Tips, but had not come across their Linux challenge until it was pointed out yesterday, as there is no video with an associated title on the main channel. Interesting times for Linux indeed! :)

I remember back in 1998, seeing Linux for the first time. My personal opinion was that it was not useful and usable for a mainstream audience... for the moment. I saw that it was the way forward, it just needed time to mature, and develop. This moment happened about a decade ago, in my reckoning. And since then, has become more and more mainstream friendly, too. Really glad, as it shows what people power can generate.

I think a lot of people have gone this route -- the Pi provides a great "learn Linux without risking messing your PC" platform.

Thanks Mark. :)

Good luck and happy Linux! Extreme Tux Racer is waiting for you!

Well, you can say no more than this! :)

Probably a good idea to start a soft move already. I decided the same, and currently using only software that are Linux compatible. I don't think I will move to Win 11 even if they remove the arbitrary limitation. Linux is maturing fast.

Wow. 25 is some tally! Another gold.

You wouldn't like the way Linus Torvalds (the father of Linux) originally pronounced it then... He changed the way he pronounce it to ease communication with developers etc. and he has explicitly stated that there are many ways to correctly pronounce it.

Exactly! Ubuntu - Mint Cinnamon +

Hope so!

This was also useful to me running Windows Media Center on Windows 7. I didn't want all the recorded videos to be stored on the boot partition in case I had to re-install Windows. Making the "C:\Users\Public\Recorded TV" folder a shortcut to the video storage area didn't work, so I simply mounted my big (4GB) hard drive partition on top of "C:\Users\Public\Recorded TV".

Good idea -- noted!

@@ExplainingComputers On the topic of security, perhaps an idea for a future episode....making a TRUE random number generator wich writes to xlsx-format??

@@Peter_Enis An interesting idea! :)

Thanks! You too!

Windows drive letters used to annoy the hell out of me since it assign drive letters according to the sequence that the device is plugged in. On a standard Windows install, it is usually A, C, D and then whatever was plugged in next instead of the Linux way of showing the partition name, so E, F etc. can be anything.

You're not alone. Old habits die hard. I switched to Linux 4-5 years back when I couldn't see any usefulness in all the telemetry etc. that Microsoft suddenly installed without notice. I sometimes miss the paradigm of storage volumes represented by separate device icons each with their own directory structures inside their own root directory separate from everything else. The Unix/Linux way of representing the system and it's drives is far superior in many ways for power users though.

Drive letters are a legacy thing that are just being dragged around by microsoft. Does anyone still use floppy drives A and B? Linux and Unix have had their file system arrangement for a long time and it has stood the test of time.

@@bertblankenstein3738 the Unix/Linux way will also become obsolete one day. At that time maybe drive letters see a new renaissance. Who knows?

@@tbone9900 the other operating system I used before microsoft stuff was amiga workbench in the late 90s (though it dates back to the 80s and has some unix roots afaik) it had drive names such as df0 for the first floppy drive, hd0 for the hard drive incrementing the number but it also had a command "assign" so you could do something like "assign system: hd0:" then you could access the drive under system: or its device name hd0: that is what really got me hooked on driver "letters" the Microsoft version was inferior but still kept me in the habit

And I still like to use the "Oxford comma."

I too very much favour the Oxford comma, especially in technology writing where lists can have complex compound terms, even though it is frowned on by UK copy editors! :)

@@ExplainingComputers _et al:_ According to the OED, the Oxford comma is purely a matter of personal preference for British English, and compulsory for American English. Full stops do indeed go inside quotes, so Warren Gibson is correct. Another one is -ize versus -ise, where the rules for this are the same as for the Oxford comma. :-)

@@cdl0 The "z" spellings are easier for me -- I've published a lot of books that end up on the business shelves, where "organization" is more commonly used than "organisation" (very different to in economics publishing). And most of my book sales have been in the United States, so for a couple of decades no desk or copy editor has even attempted to argue for "s" based spellings. :)

@@ExplainingComputers Yes, '-ize' keeps Americans happy, while people using proper English don't care. ;-)

It's been my daily driver since around 7 .. if my memory works it was when Debian decided to mess with drive ID and the stupid boot order and dropped the stock xconfig. Squeeze?.. plus I swapped from Gnome2 (3 was imho awful and kde has never done what I want/need) to xfce and never looked back.

@@PaulaXism i really see your point, but in my heart will always be kde, xfce is light, simple and fast, but kde always make me go back

It's interesting. You try one and you can say immediately "nope, i can't work with it". The others "if i have to, then maybe". And the third "that's nice, i can stick with it".

I choose Kubuntu for my HP laptop because it knew the keyboard mappings for volume control 'out of the box', you know what Im saying? sometimes a glass slipper just fits!

@@stalinvlad I have found the same thing with Manjaro on older laptops.. and then Arch people go and break the usb ..

i hope you can eventually take a look at kde, lxde and other desktop environments, gnome is decent, but there are better nicer ones i always heard that debian is too complex for beginners, right now mint is my beginners recommended distro

@@arch1107 i did take a look at all the linux desktops Kde was good but too unstable on 13 year old hardware Xfce 4.16 is horrible compared to 4.14 Lxde doesnt have enough apps for it Patheon performs terribly on xorg(hope they move to wayland soon) Again its mostly my horrible hardware and i will move to kde once i get a better pc

Natural Language (the ones we communicate with) are usually very informal and assumes knowledge about concepts that might not be same as other natural languages due to various reasons. On the other hand, machines and programming languages are very formal, predefined and shares concepts with usually the things they're inspired from. But that doesn't mean everything natural language is different that you would be unable to comprehend them, for example english shares stuff with spanish and other romance languages, but not with something like korean. Also many programming languages uses english keywords so it seems familiar. I suggest you to try Symbolic and Non-english programming (if possible). BTW, Have a nice day. :]

Computer languages are logical constructs. Human languages? Not so much.

I too am only programmed for one human language.

cringe

Fedora is sponsored by Red Hat.

Mr Scissors: Knighthood? I demand the title! Sir Scissors!

@@musicalneptunian Sir Stanley of Knives

Same here. Win 3.10 was my first Windows and Win7 was my last. I'm now using Ubuntu Mate, Debian and of course Raspbian OS on my PIs.

lol, isitched and had to switch back while linux is great, it is not perfect in terms of hardware support, windows is not perfect either, but gives me less problems there, so, well, happy that some can stay on linux all the time

@@arch1107 I had problems but I could solved them.I had problems with some games, printer and even with keyboards but I could solve them all and I'm not an expert or anything I just look stuff up.

@@hungariancuman2835 you had my same experience then, but eventually i had hardware problems that i couldn't solve and i realized that i was fighting a fight that i never had on windows, not with hardware, not like this so for peace of mind and avoid hassle, i had to put linux as plan b, instead of being my plan a i guess that all depends on the type of problems one encounter, and if there is or isn't a solution different to just buy new hardware

@@arch1107 I love Linux but I'm not pushing it I know its not for everyone but it's in a better and better state now. I had so many problems with windows that I don't want to go back to it just thinking about it makes me a bit angry it was so bad.My main problem is solved by Linux and the other things are just minor.