Windows 11

[sibelman]

Never seen a line of COBOL myself. BASIC was my first language at age 11. I also learned a bit of Fortran then, followed by something called Focal, and then PL/C (structured!) in my one college programming class. C became my native language in the 80s, plus some shell scripting and SQL. vi is second nature for me.

I've acquired some elementary Rust literacy for fun now that I'm retired. I've supervised programmers, but my job title was never programmer/developer.

 

[Kent88]

vi is second nature for me.

The text editor of the beast?

 

[Jonakr]

I learned COBOL. That was precisely the time when I realized I wanted to be an electrical engineer, rather than computer science. What a drag that language was. I can still see some very wide green and white fanfold paper spewing out of a printer with a report I generated. So glad I escaped that.

The financial sector was still using micro focus Cobol through at least 2012. I would be surprised if they had completely moved away from it, even now.

 

[Jonakr]

The text editor of the beast?

Better that than EMACS, the one editor to rule (enslave) them all...

 

[balrog]

I think you'd be surprised to find how much COBOL still exists to this day

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

I think you'd be surprised to find how much COBOL still exists to this day

... and don't overlook the unique /1/ edge cases the existing application(s) contain /3/

-----

-----
/1/ OK, let's be honest, those edge cases are often absolutely WTF.
/2/ I've been involved in an application rewrite. I've watched application rewrites. I prefer the later.
/3/ MNLARS

 

[passedpawn]

Yesterday devolved into a mess. One of my drives was generating all sorts of errors and locking up my PC. I really do think I like storage spaces now. I was a little apprehensive when I set it up.

4 yrs ago I built this machine. I have a very fast SSD for boot and also one for VMs, but for bulk storage I have a 72 TB RAID5 array that windows manages under the "storage spaces" thing. One of the drives just recently started developing bad sectors. It got really bad yesterday, so I overnighted a new drive. Today, I just pulled the bad one out, shoved the new one in, and it's repairing itself as we speak. Didn't even shut down the PC!

The only negative thing I have to say about storage spaces is that it is terrible at warning of failures like this. If I didn't have CrystalDiskInfo, I would have no idea that this was happening. (Event Viewer did show errors as well).

 

[jtratcliff]

Ugh. Oh sooo long ago I did as well, along with Fortran,

I still use Fortran (with many modern post-f90 improvements). The main application I support is old f77 and newer f90+ wrapped in perl... with a smattering of C to do some things that were too painful to do in f77 back in the 80s and too annoying to re-write in "modern" Fortran. New things are written in Fortran 20XX (not sure of 2003, 2008, or 2018)...

I wrote some CFD code in f77 back in grad school... had it running on both an IBM mainframe and a Cray at some point, as well as some VMS work stations
and some HP/UX workstations... very vectorized but not especially parallelized

That's how I got my current job, I think: Making old code work on VMS, Unix (UNICOS, SunOS/Solaris, AiX, HP/UX, IRIX), and Linux...

Currently trying to learn some python to leverage some machine learning tools for time series forecasting.

 

[balrog]

CrystalDiskInfo

<LOVE>

 

[mashdar]

I really do think I like storage spaces now.

Is that builtin kernel RAID? Or some kind of magic file system?

I don't run one any more, but I used to always run a linux NAS because windows RAID was just too painful. (Nowadays I'd probably go nuts with XFS versioning.)

 

[day_trippr]

Raid-ish.

 

[passedpawn]

Is that builtin kernel RAID? Or some kind of magic file system?

I don't run one any more, but I used to always run a linux NAS because windows RAID was just too painful. (Nowadays I'd probably go nuts with XFS versioning.)

I don't know what part of the OS (kernal?) performs the disk pooling. But yea, it's software, so it's not gonna be as fast as a hardware RAID card (which I originally planned on using). When I built this machine, I benchmarked read/write speed of one drive, then for the virtual disk. There might have been a 25% hit on performance. I didn't really care because the OS and all my apps run from the SSD.

There are some really nice advantages to storage spaces. Your drives can be various sizes and still of that space is used. You can add to it by just plugging in another drive. Though I set it up with powershell commandline, it appears that most everything can be done under windows GUI now ( search for Manage Storage Spaces on your Win PC). I believe the entire array can be easily moved to another machine in the event of a motherboard upgrade or failure.

Anyway, 4 years and a failed drive later, I can say I'm happy with it.

 

[passedpawn]

Also, note that if a hardware raid card fails, you're data can be FUBAR by the time you figure out what went wrong. Moving a RAID array to a different model or make of controller would be dicey ad probably not work. I'm not even sure if the SAME model could be replaced.

And, RAID is not a backup. I use a cloud service for automatic backups (crashplan). Restoring all from the cloud would be painful, so I do also occasionally do a local backup of some of it (to an external SATA drive).

 

[sibelman]

RAID is not a backup.

This.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

It's best to put the windows os on an M2 drive at least 512, this will save you lots of headaches, it's the fastest drive available

 

[day_trippr]

I have Win11Pro and all my applications on a dedicated M.2 NVME 2TB SSD, all user data on another M.2 NVME 2TB SSD, a live boot drive clone on a third M.2 NVME 2TB SSD, then finally a local backup 4TB SATA6G SSD. Behind all that is a Synology NAS with two pairs of mirrored 12TB magnetic drives doing automatic backups of all our PCs, tablets, phones, and my Raspberry Pi fleet...

Cheers!

 

[Snuffy]

I have Win11Pro and all my applications on a dedicated M.2 NVME 2TB SSD, all user data on another M.2 NVME 2TB SSD, a live boot drive clone on a third M.2 NVME 2TB SSD, then finally a local backup 4TB SATA6G SSD. Behind all that is a Synology NAS with two pairs of mirrored 12TB magnetic drives doing automatic backups of all our PCs, tablets, phones, and my Raspberry Pi fleet...

Cheers!

Mine has this cool light that blinks when the hard drive gets accessed.

 

[Kent88]

 

[balrog]

Truth

 

[day_trippr]

The One Drive nags seriously bugged the crap out of me, so I totally removed One Drive from everything under our roof months ago when I got my NAS up and running. Just did the KB5041585 update and it didn't nag me this time. Maybe it finally gave up?

Cheers!

 

[Kent88]

 

[sibelman]

"...On my computer...that I own..." My data, that I own!

Given how Microsoft deals with the installed base of its operating system, I have felt less ownership of "my" Windows laptop. MS actions indicate they feel that they own my machine: things like re-setting the default browser to Edge, and nagging to use MS credentials. (I've gotten over my annoyance with mandatory updates, though.)

Happily, it will become a Linux laptop when Win10 reaches end-of-life. A few Linux quirks have driven me to use Windows for a couple of things over the past few years: Zoom had a period of poor Linux reliability (might've just been my machine), and connectivity to older Android devices has been somewhat challenging. But I haven't needed Windows for anything for quite some time now.

 

[estricklin]

I sat down at my desk at the office a couple of weeks ago, in a huge hurry to start, I guess I accidentally clicked the "upgrade to Windows 11" at login and so now my office laptop has been upgraded. Not that it matters because 100% of my work is in VM. I may reinstall Windows on that machine anyway though, I need to setup a dual boot with Linux (for working with some PLCs) and I'm not sure if I can unpartition some space or not, never tried.

@passedpawn I need to retract what I said about VMware, since Broadcom bought them earlier this year, they have removed the free home user licenses. Long story short, I needed to rebuild my server and I ended up going with Proxmox. I'm really liking it so far. I setup a ZFS mirror pool for my cameras, really digging ZFS so far. I went ahead and used Windows 11 for my windows VMs when I set them back up.

We had a program at work where we were selling old laptops for $50 to employees, and I sorted through them and found ones that already had SSDs, but some of my coworkers decided to upgrade the ones they bought to NVMEs, so I ended up with 5 free 500gb HDDs. 4 of them have only 10k hours on them, so I put one in my gaming PC and the rest I stuck in my server (my NAS is fully populated). Hard to beat free!

As for the COBOL thing, I can assure you it's still being used in mainframes, I actually almost took a job as a mainframe programmer, the company was using Rexx mostly, so I had studied it every day for months. I'm glad I didn't end up there though.

 

[passedpawn]

There's an optional update available in Win11 now that can improve the performance of AMD Ryzen processor 10% - 35% depending on the app they are running. It's nuts, but verified. It won't make your excel spreadsheet do anything special, but it's free and can't hurt (I don't think LOL). Gamers with AMD CPUs who watch frame rates will definitely want to do this.

When AMD released their Ryzen processors, they claimed (whined?) that Microsoft was hobbling their processors. Turns out that might have been true. Something about optimizing branch prediction in code.

Anyhoo, it won't (yet) get installed with regular updates - you have to open Windows Update in Settings, selecting Advanced Options, and then Optional Updates. (search "windows update" in Win toolbar). Look for KB5041587 .

 

[passedpawn]

Q: You know how to tell if somebody uses linux?
A: Don't worry, they will tell you.

 

[Kent88]

Q: You know how to tell if somebody uses linux?
A: Don't worry, they will tell you.

I'm having another conversation in a group chat where I probably really sound obnoxious.

Someone shared this video


and this guy just strikes me as frustrating.

He complained about having to use command line a bunch, but he also seems to know nothing about what the package manager / software center is, which is something desktop Linux users should learn about in the first couple days of heavy use at the latest, or before the install even when looking through tutorials. It's a key piece of software that elevates user friendliness.

The other gripe I have about his rant on the command line is that he said he's basically made a couple backup servers and uses the software WINE. Server specific distros that I've tried out haven't had GUIs at all, nothing else needs to be said about that as that obviously would be a terrible thing for a novice to start with. I haven't attempted to use the WINE software lately, but I remember that being a really finicky piece of software that isn't user friendly on it's own, and I would recommend other software that improves it's user friendliness like Crossover, or other WINE frontends (a Google search shows WineGUI, Bottles).

So he is clearly still a Linux novice, dealing with the kinds of things that people dealing with any new operating system deal with, making less educated decisions about what niche software to use and how to manage it, but I felt like he presented himself as someone who knows what he's doing. Someone completely new to Linux watching the video would get the wrong impression about what it's like.

 

[mashdar]

I haven't attempted to use the WINE software lately, but I remember that being a really finicky piece of software that isn't user friendly on it's own, and I would recommend other software that improves it's user friendliness like Crossover, or other WINE frontends (a Google search shows WineGUI, Bottles).

I used WINE hardcore for WoW/D3/etc around 15 years ago, and less hardcore for hearthstone ~8 years ago.

Game updates regularly devolved into reading traces and adding/updating DLLs. After an hour or two of fiddling, it was usually up and running. But definitely not user friendly.

I tried crossover, but it was much less likely to "just work" on newer games than bleeding edge WINE, and when it didn't work, fixing it was a bit clunkier.

My ultimate conclusion was that it was only worth using if it was a passion project and you knew how to read a trace and monkey with whatever font/DLL/etc was the problem. Otherwise, pony up $120 or whatever for a windows license and dual boot or virtual machine if you must.

 

[passedpawn]

zero chance I'll mess with linux. it's easy to point out flaws or corporate fearmongering of Windows/MS, but what it gets right is pretty amazing. Plus, I run a LOT of different software that often needs to communicate with external hardware and I don't have time to feck around with every one of them.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

I've beta tested hundreds of operating systems, web scrips, server systems and Linux does have potential but not nearly as fast or stable as windows for the every day user, for the technically inclined sure but not the average joe

 

[mashdar]

zero chance I'll mess with linux. it's easy to point out flaws or corporate fearmongering of Windows/MS, but what it gets right is pretty amazing. Plus, I run a LOT of different software that often needs to communicate with external hardware and I don't have time to feck around with every one of them.

On an enterprise level with supported configurations, it pretty much the same (with different certifications, obviously). On the network/infrastructure side of things, I don't think I've seen a big windows deployment in ages.

 

[Kent88]

I used WINE hardcore for WoW/D3/etc around 15 years ago, and less hardcore for hearthstone ~8 years ago.

Game updates regularly devolved into reading traces and adding/updating DLLs. After an hour or two of fiddling, it was usually up and running. But definitely not user friendly.

I tried crossover, but it was much less likely to "just work" on newer games than bleeding edge WINE, and when it didn't work, fixing it was a bit clunkier.

My ultimate conclusion was that it was only worth using if it was a passion project and you knew how to read a trace and monkey with whatever font/DLL/etc was the problem. Otherwise, pony up $120 or whatever for a windows license and dual boot or virtual machine if you must.

My go-to for discussing what kind of software Crossover would be good for was Microsoft Office (which I hated. I've primarily used OpenOffice/LibreOffice since the late aughts) (is it all cloud based Office365 now?). That's much different from games, which this guy in the video was talking about, and apparently what you're doing.

But my point was user friendliness. This guy judged the whole operating system based on his experience with one piece of niche software, probably a server specific distros, and he hasn't figured out what a package manager is. This is not someone who anyone Linux curious should be checking out as a credible source, but he presents himself as someone who knows what he's doing.

 

[Kent88]

... Linux [is] not nearly as fast or stable as windows for the every day user, for the technically inclined sure but not the average joe

I respectfully disagree.

 

[sibelman]

This is a Windows thread, and I respect that, for many, motivation to try alternative O/Ss is low.

In my experience, most ordinary Windows desktop users would do just fine with a similar Linux GUI like Kubuntu. But it's not for everyone, and evangelists have not gotten much traction. Until MS annoys someone seriously enough, they're not gonna mess with this.

 

[Kent88]

zero chance I'll mess with linux.

it's easy to point out flaws or corporate fearmongering of Windows/MS,

It is.

but what it gets right is pretty amazing.

Is it? I dunno. I haven't used Windows much since XP, but every time I have it's been frustrating.

I would question what Windows gets so right these days that it merits the monetary and privacy cost a user spends to use that rather than Linux.

Plus, I run a LOT of different software that often needs to communicate with external hardware and I don't have time to feck around with every one of them.

Then just... use Windows.

I may be pro-penguin, but I get it that sometimes mission critical stuff has, unfortunately, only been made to run on Windows.

 

[Snuffy]

I'm a Linux Mint fan. Most windows-like distro IMO. Default utils and apps bundled are relatively solid. You can always find a piece of hardware that gives you the finger, but a little googly work will usually iron it out.

 

[Kent88]

I'm a Linux Mint fan. Most windows-like distro IMO. Default utils and apps bundled are relatively solid. You can always find a piece of hardware that gives you the finger, but a little googly work will usually iron it out.

Mint is good.

I had an atom powered netbook years ago that had a WiFi chip that wasn't picked up by default. I just had to grab a .deb, keep it on a USB drive, copy it on to each install I did on that, double-click, and it was fine.

Windows didn't always identify hardware properly back when I used it.

 

[sibelman]

Compatibility woes have lessened over the years. Plug and Pray has generally become a smooth plug and play experience, and Linux took longer to get there than Windows, but I've had great experience with both in this regard.

 

[estricklin]

I've been using red hat since around 2002, and started using Ubuntu as soon as it was released. I primarily use Windows, but for me, I need both. My job also requires me to use Linux, so there's that.

I absolutely love Linux for servers, it's lightweight and pretty damn stable. As I've gotten older, I have come to appreciate Windows more and more. When I was younger I would rant about the MS giant and how crappy Windows was, but I'm a little older and wiser now. Linux is ANYTHING but user friendly. Can you imagine a new Linux user finding out they have to "mount" a drive in order to use it? Cron vs. Scheduled Task? No contest! Endless ocean of config files vs. registry. There's almost no operation I can do in Linux that doesn't end up with me editing yaml files, using the terminal, and googling for help. The average Windows user (non technical) will NEVER open CMD. And now, I can't even go on about the price tag, because you can literally use Windows 10/11 for free.

The distro that I use most, and that I find to be the most user friendly is Linux Mint. Very easy for Windows user to jump into.

I would also mention, that in a twisted way, Linus has already won. There's probably 2-3x the number of Androids as there are PCs, not to mention the countless other devices that have Linux based OS, such as Roku and the embedded IOT stuff I work with.

 

[mashdar]

I'm a Linux Mint fan.

Mate or Cinnamon? (I think that's the name of their other window manager?)

I switched to Mate to undo some Gnome 3 insanity and never looked back. But Ubuntu has a Mate distro, now, and I frequently need newer kernels than I could get on Mint. (Mostly for drivers.)

If you use Mint Mate, you might try Ubuntu Mate.

(For the Windows folks, Mate is like someone forked the WinXP desktop manager and you can run Win11 with a WinXP graphical environment.)

 

[sibelman]

have to "mount" a drive in order to use it? Cron vs. Scheduled Task? No contest! Endless ocean of config files vs. registry. There's almost no operation I can do in Linux that doesn't end up with me editing yaml files,

This is curious. If these things were generally true then desktop Linux wouldn't be growing. Maybe you're talking about server admin?