Finding a desktop PC with minimum bloatware

In message <q44mb6$j7j$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me, Vir Campestris snipped-for-privacy@invalid.invalid writes

Funnily enough, the person who I have been giving the most assistance to with his Windows machines rang me this week to say he had just ordered a refurbished iMac for £400. It arrived on Wednesday and on the phone I talked him through getting it connected to the internet and Teamviewer installed. Then there was the usual nonsense of unremembered login passwords, and after a session this afternoon we finally got email working and a couple of his big (2GB and 4GB) external usb drives connected to get some of his files onto it. I have not used a Mac since they were just Apple, so there was a lot of finding my way. The blind leading the blind. He said it looks pretty when switched off and I said he was starting to think of computers like jewellery. He said it seemed very slow compared with his Windows machine. I reminded him that the Windows machine had an ssd plus a big data drive, whereas this Mac just had one 500GB drive. He seems still convinced that his iMac is "better". I hadn't the heart to remind him that the Thinkpad laptop I was controlling his Mac from has a 500GB ssd plus a 500GB data drive, has the same 8GB memory, swivels into a touch + stylus tablet and cost almost exactly half of what he paid for the Mac.

It has been, and I think will continue to be, quite interesting.

Probably easier.....

Definitely not. And considerably more expensive too.

this is nonsense of course, the cheapest suppliers don't waste their time/money creating bloated OS installs.

Macs already run their version of SMB networking (samba) as deos linux that is compatible with windows file sharing

Indeed. Cheapest and best performing option is of course Linux.

Unlike the other two its not designed to drive hardware sales by being pathetic on two year old hardware..

My server is more than fast enough on 16 year old hardware.

Every NAS in te world runs linux and every apple running OSX is running a version of BSD unix that is VERYT close to linux in terms of what may be ported to it.

There are excuses to use windpows as a desktop, but none to use it as a server.

They do if they are accepting sponsorship from the suppliers of the bloatware. Why do you think so many new systems come with partially functional commercial applications pre-loaded.

IMHO the biggest *single* reason against advancing Linux for desktop use in a non-domestic environment is the lack of anything remotely approaching Outlook - supported by the total lack of any effort into providing a FOSS equivalent. That might be something to do with the proprietary nature of Exchange, but it's the "killer app".

Mind you, with MS latest suggestion that Office365 is better than Office2019, there may come a time when it will all be browser based. At which point it's of little import what the underlying OS is ......

Thanks, that's a good idea.

FreeBSD has the problem that it won't run on hardware unless it is two years old. At least that is the case for my WiFi adapter drivers.

I would go with Linux (Ubuntu) for that reason, better device driver support.

I'm a great Win 10 desktop fan but I certainly wouldn't consider using windows for a server, unless it was serving a desktop (RDP).

those are not the cheapest suppliers.

NT

Which would be £200??? Where did you get that from?

Nothing is easy on linux for a newbie unless they can download a preconfigured image.

Its bloody difficult to install some stuff on a RPi if you have to configure and buildit to make it work.

Maybe if all you want is to browse the internet then a live distro is OK but don't think developing code or things like that is easier than windows.

There speaks the man that doesn't run the latest windows or have anything else to actually compare it to.

I expect his sources of information are just as wrong as his sources on brexit.

Win10 runs much better than the previous versions on less hardware if anyone wants to know the truth.

Well since Linux copied the Unix kernel you would expect them to be similar.

Big databases run quite well on windows server. Not piddling mySQL ones,which run quite happily on windows anyway. Virtually all the good opensource apps run on windows so there isn't actually a need for Linux on PCs at all.

Of all the things that stop my daily use of Linux it is the lack of Office Outlook. Mind you I'm still using Outlook 2002 on an XP which syncs to a Win CE HP phone via Bluetooth now the USB ActiveSync doesn't work on my setup.

Linux syncing Tasks Calendar and Contacts to Android without the Cloud would be immense.

Plenty around. You sound sore ...

That's what Docker is for, it runs fine on a RPi.

Look on Dockerhub to see if they have an image for the app you want

Just search for rpi for appropriate apps.

You've been smoking something. My Mini is from 2012, with 10Gig and an SSD. Plenty fast enough. SWMBO's is a year older.

That's not my experience.

Windows drivers come with the PC,, that cannot be guaranteed for Linux.

If you want Linus, get one pre-installed with Linux. Older machines may fare better.

Also there is one current flavour of Windows and there is a virtual guarantee at the end you will have a working PC. Although the drivers I mentioned may have to be installed.

The same is not true for Linux.

I'm not a newbie, I designed hardware and unix systems that still run on System X telephone exchanges now (8 years later).

Linux is still pretty bad for a newbie though.

Its fine on things like Synology NAS boxes where you don't even need to know its linux, not so on WD NAS boxes where you have to hack the kernel to add some things.