Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Ubuntu -- passed a personal milestone

I'm not trying to crow here. I'm not all THAT great at personal computers.

I woke up this AM at 0530. My main desktop computer at the house has been fritzing out since I upgraded to Ubuntu 18.04. The latest problem was that Youtube had stopped working. That isn't a catastrophic failure, but it is annoying. I got myself a cup of coffee and went to work, reloading the operating system.

In order to understand this morning as a milestone in my life, you have to understand that I've been involved with personal computing since 1979. I've had my own computer since 1981. In the intervening years, PC's have been a major part of my life, both professional and at home.

Since the advent of hard disk drives and their associated operating systems, I've had kind of love/hate thing going on. Yes, they're great as long as they work. However, it can really screw things up when a hard drive goes bad or the operating system goes wonky. It is a quick way to lose a weekend, or a week, or more. If you're not meticulous about backing things up, a lot of family memories or important documents can vaporize as well.

Starting about 3 years ago, I started seriously playing with Ubuntu, a flavor of LINUX. Besides being free, it does a great job of speeding up old hardware. The machine I rebuilt this morning is a 2012 vintage Dell. It originally had Windows XP on it. It crawled. It was upgraded to Windows 7 at some point, and it slowed down even more. With Ubuntu, it flies. I was out of work for 9 months in 2016. I need computing resources. I didn't have the money for new stuff. I had been living off work-provided hardware for several years. All I had was old stuff. I tried Ubuntu and was flat-out amazed.

So here's why I feel I passed a milestone. I woke up this morning with a wonky computer. Rather than waste my time trying to diagnose the trouble, I just blew away the operating system and reloaded it. No muss, no fuss, no belts, no pins. I didn't think twice. Bam! Gone! Fresh OS loaded, and sipping my second cup of coffee at 0700 and everything is back the way it should be. It isn't just the Ubuntu OS. It's a bunch of things that got me there.

1) I use Firefox Sync to synchronize all my passwords, history, bookmarks, etc. All I had to do was log into my Firefox account and tell the browser to sync, and everything was downloaded in a matter of minutes.

2) All my photos are out on Amazon Clouddrive. I've got Amazon Prime which comes with unlimited photo storage. I purchased an extra 100 GB for PC system backups as well as backups for my various websites.

3) All my documents are stored out on Google Drive. I have backups of everything elsewhere, but my main storage is on Google Drive and Ubuntu allows me to map it as though it were a local drive.



Bottom line: I'm past the point where I worry about my home PC. It's become an appliance like a toaster. I'm past the point of babying sick operating systems and wonky hardware.

Suggestion to y'all: A lot of us have old PC systems laying around. They're no longer our main system. We keep them around for archival purposes, or just because. My suggestion to y'all is take one of those turds and try Ubuntu on it. It ain't rocket science-- Ubuntu can load off a memory stick. If you're not using Firefox Sync, LastPass, or something like them, give it a try. Also: get a copy of all your pics out to the cloud!

Alright Shaman. I now got that line x on my laptop. What's next?

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/gallery/80/full/72603.jpg

L O L ! ! !

I have four computers. This desktop (Win 10), the previous desktop sitting in the closet, and two laptops. I installed Linux Lite on the oldest laptops as a test, and it flies. Then I put it on the old desktop. Amazing change. I'd put it on the other laptop, but that one has some factory setting that prohibits booting from a USB stick. It "upgraded" itself to Win 10 a while back and is now almost unusable it is so slow.

The only thing keeping me from going Linux on this desktop is the fact that Linux won't run Quicken - and I use Quicken for all my finances. If I could find a Linux finance program I liked as much as Quicken, I'd jump. But I've looked and I can't find one as simple and easy as my old Quicken 2010.

So my summary is: if you have a clunky old computer that drags on Windows, and you don't run Quicken, give some version of Linux a try. There are dozens of Linux variants. Do a search and read the reviews for some of them. You'll find one that is best for you.

Congrats, Shaman.

I'm not so sure Quicken won't run on Linux. You've got WINE. I'm amazed at what WINE will run without a bunch of fuss. In fact, I have not found a Windows program that won't run on WINE. There's also GNUcash. It might be worth checking out.

Rocky: Check this out:

https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=107

Oh, and one other thing I forgot to mention:


I heard a rumor (just a rumor mind you) that Microsoft is in the process of de-emphasizing its PC operating system biz in order to concentrate on its online offerings.

All that complaining about Windows? All that Wingeing about not wanting to leave XP and then Windows 7? Microsoft listened and they're going to dump us.

Most tech companies are moving to an XaaS (Anything as a Service) model. Software, Devices, whatever. Simply lease it for a month, a year, or however long. Need more of something? No effort to purchase, install and configure (eg: MS software). Just call, and start paying for the extra seats next month. Want the latest mobile device? No worries, just trade in your old one, receive a newer, bigger, better device. Start paying a new price next month. All OpEx. No CapEx. No maintenance. No support. Just pay the bill each month. Company is downsizing. No worries. Just contact the provider and advise the turn down date. No obligation outside of the contractually agreed minimum number of months...

Ain't that the truth!

BTW: Orion2000, how's life in Pendleton County?

Good for you! You sound great to me.

I was able to follow and understand all of your post to the point I quoted above. I did understand some of the words after that, like reload, but not what they mean in your context.

I thought that the Unbuntu word in your title was about a tribe in Africa and opened the thread to read about them.

My computer has a wire coming off of the back with a two-prong electrical plug (maybe it is 3 prong?) on the end that I insert into a wall outlet, and I am proud to know how to do that. Beyond that is difficult for me.

For the past few weeks I keep getting a message on my screen that my Outlook is out of date. I have no idea where Outlook came from nor how it got on my computer but I do know that uninvited and against my will it took over my photos six months ago and messed things up. Some photos have totally disappeared and I cannot do anything with those in the Outlook thing that keeps aggressively trying to take over my computer. Best of luck in keeping control of yours and not letting the software mysteries take over.

I've been struggling with KMyMoney all day, trying to get it to import my Quicken files. It is supposedly the easiest finance program for Linux. But if this is easy, I don't want to consider something difficult. And all the "helpful" advice I can find is written in turbogeek. Sigh...

Rocky: I gave up on Quicken about a decade ago. My bank has an online app that cuts checks. I migrated to it and stopped worrying.


Okanagan:

Ubuntu is a flavor of LINUX. It is an operating system like Microsoft Windows, only it's free to own.

Outlook is your email application.

Beyond that, all I can do is wish you good luck for now. It sounds like someone knowledgeable needs to sit down in front of your box and fully diagnose what's going on. It is probably fixable, but I can't say how without being there.

I have ubuntu and windows as a dual OS on my laptop. (Someone else did it for me) . It will launch ubuntu first, but if I need windows I can interrupt the launch and select windows. I'm no computer guru (far from it) but it appears to do most things as well or better than windows (without windows's self-reporting, and self-promoting, and windows dependency.
It does require a bit of a learning curve, at least for me, and while there are games built to run on linux, games do run best on windows.

Not a bad idea.. Never thought of that....I have a couple old PCs laying around doing nothing.. WTH, might as well give it a go.. Sez you.. (gulp).. Oh, well, those PCs would have eventually been tossed anyway, so .............

I actually tried my hand at rocket science for a while. It's one of the few times I've had to think hard enough to break a sweat. Computers are much easier.

The important thing with Ubuntu is realizing that, whatever the problem, somebody has already had it, and written about it in a place where Google has indexed it. The trick is formulating the question so that Google gives you what you need.

I am back on Ubuntu. Should have never left.

I used Ubuntu on my old laptop, still have it, but was given a fairly new MacBook. Ubuntu has a specific forum too that can answer questions. I wouldn't go back to anything Windows.

Rocky: I gave up on Quicken about a decade ago. My bank has an online app that cuts checks. I migrated to it and stopped worrying.


Okanagan:

Ubuntu is a flavor of LINUX. It is an operating system like Microsoft Windows, only it's free to own.

Outlook is your email application.

Beyond that, all I can do is wish you good luck for now. It sounds like someone knowledgeable needs to sit down in front of your box and fully diagnose what's going on. It is probably fixable, but I can't say how without being there.

I've been following the Linux bandwagon for over 10 years now. Mostly using Mepis, Kubuntu and Mint (KDE version).

I can echo most of Shaman's comments. Once Linux is installed it just works. Using a web based email simplifies things too.

Our Dad viewed computers as his hobby in his later years. He really enjoyed thrashing around with windows, doing updates, defrag, virus scans etc. He had ghosted copies of the OS on multiple hard drives just in case windows puked, which it usually did.

Several times I helped him install Linux on some box or another, but he always lost interest. He would COMPLAIN that there was nothing to mess with, they just worked fine. He compared a Linux install to an appliance that just worked without any drama.

That's a good endorsement in my opinion.

Thanks. Kidding aside, I am impressed with your computer knowledge. I didn't know Ubuntu was connected to Linux, and am not sure I understand what LINUX is though have read people commenting on it. I would not have guessed that Outlook was my e-mail, though dimly recall that it is/was one of the options for e-mail. Every once in awhile I pay a local computer guru to come in and get my computer working again when it bogs down or starts acting too oddly. I always have him set up any new computer. I'm due to get a new one. Does LINUX keep expanding and trying to take over more of my computer actions than it is originally set up to run?

A chronic characteristic of computers is the aggressive nature of software that tries to expand and take over functions I do not want it to. They are "friendly" viruses. Google is terrible that way and now Outlook has taken over functions that I did not want it to, don't know how it did that, and is bugging me to let it do more things I don't want it to. Everyone I know who seriously uses Microsoft Word for writing, be it author or secretary, spends a ridiculous amount of time figuring out how to thwart the automatic features, especially formatting features. Uncle Bill Gates knows best. Some of those automatic functions cannot be turned off, but must be "fooled" in some way to put on the page what I want rather than what Microsoft insists on replacing it with.

I use a computer like a typewriter, and little else. I write, and still get paid for it at times. I want the word processor to work and work well. Beyond that I don't care, except to browse a few sites like this one, e-mail grandkids and swap photos with them. I suspect that I would be better off with a computer stripped of all but those functions.