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Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now

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  Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now "tdk" <forum.tdk@squte.com> - 2014-04-12 07:06 -0500
    Re: Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now Mike Easter <MikeE@ster.invalid> - 2014-04-12 05:49 -0700
    Re: Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now Randy Westlund <Vorzakir@invalid.invalid> - 2014-04-12 18:23 +0000
      Re: Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now Johny B Good <johnny-b-good@invalid.ntlworld.com> - 2014-04-13 00:11 +0100
        Re: Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now Randy Westlund <Vorzakir@invalid.invalid> - 2014-04-13 04:55 +0000
    Re: Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now Andy Burns <usenet.feb2014@adslpipe.co.uk> - 2014-04-13 07:28 +0100
    Re: Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now Kees Nuyt <k.nuyt@nospam.demon.nl> - 2014-04-13 10:35 +0200
      Re: Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-04-13 22:04 +0000
        Re: Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now Aragorn <thorongil@telenet.be.invalid> - 2014-04-14 10:40 +0200
      Re: Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now "Dirk T. Verbeek" <dverbeek@xs4all.nl> - 2014-04-13 20:06 -0500
        Re: Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now mm0fmf <none@mailinator.com> - 2014-04-14 17:54 +0100
          Re: Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-04-14 17:50 +0000
            Re: Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now Mike Easter <MikeE@ster.invalid> - 2014-04-14 12:00 -0700
              Re: Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now Jerry Peters <jerry@example.invalid> - 2014-04-14 20:19 +0000
                Re: Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-04-14 20:44 +0000
            Re: Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now mm0fmf <none@mailinator.com> - 2014-04-14 21:49 +0100
              Re: Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-04-15 09:15 +0000
            Re: Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> - 2014-04-15 11:23 -0400
          Re: Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us (Scott Alfter) - 2014-04-15 21:47 +0000
          Re: Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now "John" <j@j.j> - 2014-04-17 15:27 -0700
    Re: Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now Bryan Beicker <bryan@pipedot.org> - 2014-04-13 07:21 -0500
    Re: Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now "tdk" <forum.tdk@squte.com> - 2014-04-15 09:04 -0500
      Re: Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now Andy Burns <usenet.feb2014@adslpipe.co.uk> - 2014-04-15 20:08 +0100
        Re: Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-04-16 10:33 +0000

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#2367 — Ask Usenet: XPocalypse Now

A friend is still running XP on an old low power PC (an EeePC), and I end up giving 
her tech support. 
It runs OK if a bit slow due to crapware. 
She spends most time on her iPad and mostly uses the PC to run iTunes and store 
her photos and videos. 
She is also very unsophisticated about computers, and the PC would be riddled with 
viruses if she wasn't always logged on as non-admin. There is a router with a firewall. 

What's the best option? Assuming I want the least support work long term. I'm 
thinking Ubuntu, a new PC with Windows 7, carry on with XP, or have a separate file 
server she can access from her iPad. 
Is it possible to run iTunes on Linux? Is iTunes necessary nowadays, or can the 
iPad update itself and sync over the 'net? 

-- 
regards
~tdk
View this thread at http://squte.com/node/5791

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#2368

tdk wrote:

> A friend is still running XP on an old low power PC (an EeePC), and I
> end up giving her tech support. It runs OK if a bit slow due to
> crapware.

Why not get rid of the crapware (if not going over to linux).

> She spends most time on her iPad and mostly uses the PC to run
> iTunes and store her photos and videos.

What XP apps does she like to handle her photos & vids?

> She is also very unsophisticated about computers, and the PC would be
> riddled with viruses if she wasn't always logged on as non-admin.
> There is a router with a firewall.

> What's the best option? Assuming I want the least support work long
> term. I'm thinking Ubuntu, a new PC with Windows 7, carry on with XP,
> or have a separate file server she can access from her iPad. Is it
> possible to run iTunes on Linux?

Some iTunes v. run under WINE or PlayOnLinux, but it doesn't sync. Most 
Linux users instead recommend native apps such as Songbird, Banshee, Amarok.

> Is iTunes necessary nowadays, or can the iPad update itself and sync
> over the 'net?

I think people use libimobiledevice on linux 
http://www.libimobiledevice.org/


-- 
Mike Easter

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#2371

On 2014-04-12, tdk wrote:
> A friend is still running XP on an old low power PC (an EeePC), and I end up giving 
> her tech support. 
> It runs OK if a bit slow due to crapware. 
> She spends most time on her iPad and mostly uses the PC to run iTunes and store 
> her photos and videos. 
> She is also very unsophisticated about computers, and the PC would be riddled with 
> viruses if she wasn't always logged on as non-admin. There is a router with a firewall. 
>
> What's the best option? Assuming I want the least support work long term. I'm 
> thinking Ubuntu, a new PC with Windows 7, carry on with XP, or have a separate file 
> server she can access from her iPad. 
> Is it possible to run iTunes on Linux? Is iTunes necessary nowadays, or can the 
> iPad update itself and sync over the 'net? 

If you want to continue with XP, you could put the important
song/photo/video files on a network share with samba.  An old laptop
or a raspberry pi with an external HDD would work just fine.  If I'm
not mistaken, routers with DD-WRT firmware support this directly.
You could even install important programs on the samba share, if you
make sure the DLLs are in the right place.  Then whenever the XP
machine has a problem, you just restore/reinstall and the network
share is already waiting for you.  Run clamav on the samba side to
keep it clean.  For bonus points, name the drive H:\, for hyper
drive :)

For a linux option, I think Mint with Cinnamon is a more popular XP
replacement than stock Ubuntu.  I don't have any advice for making
iTunes work with linux, but if she wants to part with iTunes, it's
very easy to convert to MPD or Amarok or whatever.

If spending money is an option, skip windows and get her a Mac.
It's a sane OS with an excellent UI, very good for nontechnical
people.  And it would integrate nicely with her apple devices.  I'll
always recommend Mac over windows for home users.

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#2372

On Sat, 12 Apr 2014 18:23:43 +0000 (UTC), Randy Westlund
<Vorzakir@invalid.invalid> wrote:

>On 2014-04-12, tdk wrote:
>> A friend is still running XP on an old low power PC (an EeePC), and I end up giving 
>> her tech support. 
>> It runs OK if a bit slow due to crapware. 
>> She spends most time on her iPad and mostly uses the PC to run iTunes and store 
>> her photos and videos. 
>> She is also very unsophisticated about computers, and the PC would be riddled with 
>> viruses if she wasn't always logged on as non-admin. There is a router with a firewall. 
>>
>> What's the best option? Assuming I want the least support work long term. I'm 
>> thinking Ubuntu, a new PC with Windows 7, carry on with XP, or have a separate file 
>> server she can access from her iPad. 
>> Is it possible to run iTunes on Linux? Is iTunes necessary nowadays, or can the 
>> iPad update itself and sync over the 'net? 
>
>If you want to continue with XP, you could put the important
>song/photo/video files on a network share with samba.  An old laptop
>or a raspberry pi with an external HDD would work just fine.  If I'm
>not mistaken, routers with DD-WRT firmware support this directly.
>You could even install important programs on the samba share, if you
>make sure the DLLs are in the right place.  Then whenever the XP
>machine has a problem, you just restore/reinstall and the network
>share is already waiting for you.  Run clamav on the samba side to
>keep it clean.  For bonus points, name the drive H:\, for hyper
>drive :)
>

 That, I'm afraid, will leave the share vulnerable to the attentions
of the cryptolocker trojan.

-- 
Regards, J B Good

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#2373

On 2014-04-12, Johny B Good wrote:
> On Sat, 12 Apr 2014 18:23:43 +0000 (UTC), Randy Westlund
> <Vorzakir@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>If you want to continue with XP, you could put the important
>>song/photo/video files on a network share with samba.  An old laptop
>>or a raspberry pi with an external HDD would work just fine.  If I'm
>>not mistaken, routers with DD-WRT firmware support this directly.
>>You could even install important programs on the samba share, if you
>>make sure the DLLs are in the right place.  Then whenever the XP
>>machine has a problem, you just restore/reinstall and the network
>>share is already waiting for you.  Run clamav on the samba side to
>>keep it clean.  For bonus points, name the drive H:\, for hyper
>>drive :)
>
>  That, I'm afraid, will leave the share vulnerable to the attentions
> of the cryptolocker trojan.
>

Ah, that's a nasty one.  Fortunately, running rsnapshot or similar
on the device hosting the share should mitigate that.

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#2374

tdk wrote:

> A friend is still running XP on an old low power PC (an EeePC)
> She spends most time on her iPad and mostly uses the PC to run iTunes and store
> her photos and videos.
> She is also very unsophisticated about computers

Could she live without a PC by shoving everything into Apple's cloud?

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#2375

On Sat, 12 Apr 2014 07:06:41 -0500, "tdk" <forum.tdk@squte.com>
wrote:

>A friend is still running XP on an old low power PC (an EeePC), and I end up giving 
>her tech support. 
>It runs OK if a bit slow due to crapware. 
>She spends most time on her iPad and mostly uses the PC to run iTunes and store 
>her photos and videos. 
>She is also very unsophisticated about computers, and the PC would be riddled with 
>viruses if she wasn't always logged on as non-admin. There is a router with a firewall. 
>
>What's the best option? Assuming I want the least support work long term. I'm 
>thinking Ubuntu,

For that kind of hardware, Lubuntu (currently 13.10) will do fine.
That would be the cheapest solution.
Ubuntu itself demands more of the hardware.

> a new PC with Windows 7, 

Hard to get. Would be MS Windows 8 or 8.1 by now.

> carry on with XP, 

Assuming it has the latest updtaes that would only be viable for a
few months, too risky after that.

> or have a separate file 
> server she can access from her iPad. 

Possible.

> Is it possible to run iTunes on Linux? 
> Is iTunes necessary nowadays, or can the 
> iPad update itself and sync over the 'net? 

I don't know, but a little research on the interwebs will tell
you.
-- 
Kees Nuyt

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#2377

Kees Nuyt <k.nuyt@nospam.demon.nl> Wrote in message:

>> a new PC with Windows 7, 
> 
> Hard to get. Would be MS Windows 8 or 8.1 by now.
> 
>> carry on with XP, 
> 
> Assuming it has the latest updtaes that would only be viable for a
> few months, too risky after that.
> 

The few friends I have with netbooks running Win7 are pretty
 unhappy with it: Win7 seems to run slowly on that hardware and
 require well more than half the diskspace of your average netbook
 for the OS alone.

"Run Linux" is the obvious answer, but that too brings challenges
 and a learning curve.  Linux Mint I agree is a good choice for a
 non-technical person.

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#2379

On Monday 14 April 2014 00:04, RS Wood conveyed the following to 
comp.misc...

> Kees Nuyt <k.nuyt@nospam.demon.nl> Wrote in message:
> 
>>> a new PC with Windows 7,
>> 
>> Hard to get. Would be MS Windows 8 or 8.1 by now.
>> 
>>> carry on with XP,
>> 
>> Assuming it has the latest updtaes that would only be viable for a
>> few months, too risky after that.
>> 
> 
> The few friends I have with netbooks running Win7 are pretty
>  unhappy with it: Win7 seems to run slowly on that hardware and
>  require well more than half the diskspace of your average netbook
>  for the OS alone.
> 
> "Run Linux" is the obvious answer, but that too brings challenges
>  and a learning curve.  Linux Mint I agree is a good choice for a
>  non-technical person.

Please note that *everything* has a learning curve, including Microsoft 
Windows, and that this often-touted learning curve for GNU/Linux as 
reported by newbies mainly comprises of un-learning Windows habits.

The claim that GNU/Linux would be an operating system for geeks only is 
only a myth, stemming from over-hyped and very subjective opinions.  It 
is every bit as user-friendly as Microsoft Windows or Apple OS X - and 
in some cases even more user-friendly because it makes more sense - but 
it is just /different/ from Microsoft Windows, in the same way way as a 
Lamborghini is different from a Ford Pinto or a McLaren from a Zastava 
Yugo. ;-)

-- 
= Aragorn =

         http://www.linuxcounter.net - registrant #223157

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#2378

op 13-04-14 03:35 schreef Kees Nuyt:
>> a new PC with Windows 7,
> Hard to get. Would be MS Windows 8 or 8.1 by now.
>
The (Dutch) websites I check offer all serious computers with an 
inclusive upgrade to Win7.

But I'm told Win8.1 did get the regular start button back and you can 
now run all applications in desktop mode, not just tablet style full screen.

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#2380

On 14/04/2014 02:06, Dirk T. Verbeek wrote:
> op 13-04-14 03:35 schreef Kees Nuyt:
>>> a new PC with Windows 7,
>> Hard to get. Would be MS Windows 8 or 8.1 by now.
>>
> The (Dutch) websites I check offer all serious computers with an
> inclusive upgrade to Win7.
>
> But I'm told Win8.1 did get the regular start button back and you can
> now run all applications in desktop mode, not just tablet style full
> screen.

If you try Win8.1 you may find you have a start button but not a start 
menu the way you expect.

 From my experience Win8 is horrible to use but the OS seems much faster 
on the same hardware than Win7 was. The Win8 fix that worked for me was 
to install the free utility, ClassicShell. This makes it as near 
Win7/XP/2k as you want. It turns an unusable heap of junk into something 
I'm happy to use. I prefer Win7 though.

Win7 is readily available, look under "business" not "home" on vendor 
websites.

As for Linux, I've been using it since 1998 and would recommend it only 
under caution. Again from experience, computer users sit in 2 camps. 
Those who want to do something and need a computer to do that thing and 
don't care what goes on to achieve it. Those who care how the computer 
does that thing. Giving Linux to anyone in the 1st group will give you 
lots of IT support issues nobody pays you to fix.

My solution: a tablet for general internet nonsense (iOS or Android, it 
doesn't matter) and a cheap Win 8 laptop with a touch screen. Bring them 
into the 21st century. When the Win machine gets owned, slows down etc. 
then reinstall from the rescue partition. This doesn't move forward 
"Linux on the desktop" or reduce Msoft dependency. It continues all the 
grief Windows users find themselves in if they don't want to know how 
computers work. But it massively reduces the support load from friends 
and family. "Oh got an issue? Well it's time to reinstall the rescue 
disk." They get the PC working and you don't loose your free time.

Cynical yes, but based on years of providing free IT support.

YMMV

;-)

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#2381

On 2014-04-14, mm0fmf <none@mailinator.com> wrote:
>  From my experience Win8 is horrible to use but the OS seems much faster 
> on the same hardware than Win7 was. The Win8 fix that worked for me was 
> to install the free utility, ClassicShell. This makes it as near 
> Win7/XP/2k as you want. It turns an unusable heap of junk into something 
> I'm happy to use. I prefer Win7 though.
>
> Win7 is readily available, look under "business" not "home" on vendor 
> websites.


Do you - or does anybody - have Win8 working on a Netbook though?  I
know people have gotten used to it on desktops, with some complaints,
but I have never ever seen a single netbook running Win8 and I suspect
its hardware requirements in disk space and memory are both too high to
run on existing netbook hardware.

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#2383

RS Wood wrote:

> Do you - or does anybody - have Win8 working on a Netbook though?

The 'stereotypical' (early) netbook is the Asus Eee with 1 G ram, a 900 
MHz Celeron and a small SSD storage.

I think the Aspire One/s were also more frequently sold with less than 
2G ram.

So, the range of hardware on netbooks went from really low resources to 
comparable to laptops, with more of them pretty low for anything 
requiring more resources than XP than those with more hardware.

Supposedly Win8.1 uses its resources/ram more 'resourcefully' than does 
Win7.


-- 
Mike Easter

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#2384

Mike Easter <MikeE@ster.invalid> wrote:
> RS Wood wrote:
> 
>> Do you - or does anybody - have Win8 working on a Netbook though?
> 
> The 'stereotypical' (early) netbook is the Asus Eee with 1 G ram, a 900 
> MHz Celeron and a small SSD storage.
> 
> I think the Aspire One/s were also more frequently sold with less than 
> 2G ram.
Original AA1's came with 512MB. By taking the unit apart it's possible
to increase that to 1.5GB. The 512M is soldered to the MB and the
chipset only supports 2GB, so the most you can add is an additional
1GB.

Running Salix 13.37 on the AA1 is fine. I wouldn't run graphics
intensive applications, but then the reason I bought it was for
portability, not performance. Carrying the AA1 around an airport was
way easier than carrying my laptop.


> 
> So, the range of hardware on netbooks went from really low resources to 
> comparable to laptops, with more of them pretty low for anything 
> requiring more resources than XP than those with more hardware.
> 
> Supposedly Win8.1 uses its resources/ram more 'resourcefully' than does 
> Win7.
> 
> 

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#2385

On 2014-04-14, Jerry Peters <jerry@example.invalid> wrote:
>> 
>> So, the range of hardware on netbooks went from really low resources
>> to comparable to laptops, with more of them pretty low for anything
>> requiring more resources than XP than those with more hardware.
>> 
>> Supposedly Win8.1 uses its resources/ram more 'resourcefully' than
>> does Win7.

So far, we've got speculation here, and no one running Win 8.  What
about all that secureboot nonsense?  Doesn't Win8 now require secure
BIOS and all sorts of other stuff that would preclude it running on a
netbook?  I'm not fanatic about my position, just remain unconvinced
that you can even get Win8 on a netbook.  If anyone has done it, I'd be
curious to hear about it.

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#2386

On 14/04/2014 18:50, RS Wood wrote:
> Do you - or does anybody - have Win8 working on a Netbook though?

What do mean by a netbook? Something from when dinosaurs roamed the 
Earth like my Asus eeePC701 or a modern netbook with a fast(ish) processor?

I don't know about you but I have significantly fewer tomorrows than I 
have had yesterdays. When you realise that, it's not worth peeing about 
with old tat that should have been landfill years ago. Go and buy 
something modern and fast. It runs the software better and the battery 
lasts long enough to actually do something with the machine!

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#2389

On 2014-04-14, mm0fmf <none@mailinator.com> wrote:
> On 14/04/2014 18:50, RS Wood wrote:
>> Do you - or does anybody - have Win8 working on a Netbook though?
>
> What do mean by a netbook? Something from when dinosaurs roamed the 
> Earth like my Asus eeePC701 or a modern netbook with a fast(ish) processor?
>
> I don't know about you but I have significantly fewer tomorrows than I 
> have had yesterdays. When you realise that, it's not worth peeing about 
> with old tat that should have been landfill years ago. Go and buy 
> something modern and fast. It runs the software better and the battery 
> lasts long enough to actually do something with the machine!

"Old tat:"  If you have a working machine whose hardware is still
viable, it is *not* landfill-fodder.  If you have money burning a hole
in your pocket you are welcome to toss your dinosaur aged netbook and
buy something new (or rather, donate it to me!).  Others find value in
keeping working hardware in use for as long as possible, for financial,
ethical, or environmental reasons.  Or because they're cheap
sons-of-bitches, like me :)

I kept a Pentium III laptop running and productive for about 9 years,
while a friend upgraded his hardware about 4 times in that period.
That's a lot of money.

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#2395

On Mon, 14 Apr 2014 17:50:07 +0000 (UTC), RS Wood
<rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:

>On 2014-04-14, mm0fmf <none@mailinator.com> wrote:
>>  From my experience Win8 is horrible to use but the OS seems much faster 
>> on the same hardware than Win7 was. The Win8 fix that worked for me was 
>> to install the free utility, ClassicShell. This makes it as near 
>> Win7/XP/2k as you want. It turns an unusable heap of junk into something 
>> I'm happy to use. I prefer Win7 though.
>>
>> Win7 is readily available, look under "business" not "home" on vendor 
>> websites.
>
>
>Do you - or does anybody - have Win8 working on a Netbook though?  I
>know people have gotten used to it on desktops, with some complaints,
>but I have never ever seen a single netbook running Win8 and I suspect
>its hardware requirements in disk space and memory are both too high to
>run on existing netbook hardware.

Win8 runs fairly well on my new(ish) Acer 11' netbook. It has anAMD
A4-1250 processor and 4GB RAM; Windows 8 is pretty snappy. Of course,
I'm not doing anything really processor-intensive on this machine, but
it handles my basic email, websurfing and word processing fairly well
(it can even play games streamed over the Steam In-Home network fairly
well, although obviously it's my big desktop PC which is handling all
the heavy lifting there). 

From what I can tell, this processor is about 1.75x faster than my
older Atom-based netbook which struggled with Windows7, but that was
more likely due to the limitations of operating with only 1GB RAM.
Were I able to upgrade it, it probably would also handle Windows8
fairly well.

So, yes, Windows8 can run on modern netbooks. With ClassicShell, it's
actually a pretty good experience.

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#2398

In article <VoU2v.181985$2e5.97902@fx27.am4>,
mm0fmf  <none@mailinator.com> wrote:
>The Win8 fix that worked for me was to install the free utility,
>ClassicShell.  This makes it as near Win7/XP/2k as you want.  It turns an
>unusable heap of junk into something I'm happy to use.

This.  I have it on all of my Win7 machines and VMs.  My work desktop, at
first glance, doesn't look too different from the way I used to have Win2K
set up way back when.  I've never cared much for either Luna or Aero; about
the only "eye candy" options I leave enabled are "smooth edges of screen
fonts," "show window contents while dragging" (thought that was kinda neat
when I first saw it on a NeXTcube back in '89 or '90), and "show thumbnails
instead of icons."

  _/_
 / v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( http://alfter.us/            Top-posting!
 \_^_/                              >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

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#2417

"mm0fmf" <none@mailinator.com> wrote in message 
news:VoU2v.181985$2e5.97902@fx27.am4...
> On 14/04/2014 02:06, Dirk T. Verbeek wrote:
>> op 13-04-14 03:35 schreef Kees Nuyt:
>>>> a new PC with Windows 7,
>>> Hard to get. Would be MS Windows 8 or 8.1 by now.
>>>
>> The (Dutch) websites I check offer all serious computers with an
>> inclusive upgrade to Win7.
>>
>> But I'm told Win8.1 did get the regular start button back and you can
>> now run all applications in desktop mode, not just tablet style full
>> screen.
>
> If you try Win8.1 you may find you have a start button but not a start 
> menu the way you expect.
>
> From my experience Win8 is horrible to use but the OS seems much faster on 
> the same hardware than Win7 was. The Win8 fix that worked for me was to 
> install the free utility, ClassicShell. This makes it as near Win7/XP/2k 
> as you want. It turns an unusable heap of junk into something I'm happy to 
> use. I prefer Win7 though.
>
> Win7 is readily available, look under "business" not "home" on vendor 
> websites.
>
> As for Linux, I've been using it since 1998 and would recommend it only 
> under caution. Again from experience, computer users sit in 2 camps. Those 
> who want to do something and need a computer to do that thing and don't 
> care what goes on to achieve it. Those who care how the computer does that 
> thing. Giving Linux to anyone in the 1st group will give you lots of IT 
> support issues nobody pays you to fix.
>
> My solution: a tablet for general internet nonsense (iOS or Android, it 
> doesn't matter) and a cheap Win 8 laptop with a touch screen. Bring them 
> into the 21st century. When the Win machine gets owned, slows down etc. 
> then reinstall from the rescue partition. This doesn't move forward "Linux 
> on the desktop" or reduce Msoft dependency. It continues all the grief 
> Windows users find themselves in if they don't want to know how computers 
> work. But it massively reduces the support load from friends n and family. 
> "Oh got an issue? Well it's time to reinstall the rescue disk." They get 
> the PC working and you don't loose your free time.
>
> Cynical yes, but based on years of providing free IT support.
>
> YMMV
>
> ;-)
>
>

In my experience, it's the other way around - if I put a good recent ubu or 
mint on a lap/desktop for someone who doesn't know anything about computers, 
they are satified and very little problems. OTOH, win 7, 8, xp etc, if you 
give them a rescue disk, then they end up with bigger problems than they 
started with.  Also, since with any linux, I can separate /home from /, then 
they run practically 0 chance of loosing any of their data. - not so with 
windows, hours and hours of sorting through MS bullshit to recover their 
data from clogged  up windows installs. Based on decades of free IT support 

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