IT problem (slightly OT)

Its rather hard to have a sales transaction when no money changes jamnds.

As for why its not as popular as it could be the answer is simple. Because its free. Therefore no one makes any money by promoting it.

Of course as Android, its wiped microsoft of the tablet smart phone market

Because android is helping to sell hardware.

In article , Chris French writes

For info, did you see this? (courtesy of comp.misc):

Quoting from the URL above:

Microsoft says tracking keystrokes and examining audio input helps it improve the new OS

Installed the Windows 10 Tech Preview? You could be giving more data to Microsoft than you realise.

Microsoft is not only tracking how long it takes to open different types of files, or the make and model of device you're using, but it's also logging keystrokes and collecting voice recordings.

The Insider Program terms of use that cover the Windows 10 preview states Microsoft "may automatically collect and transmit data" to itself and partners about your activity in the OS and personal information including "interface interactions, and feature and application usage, including third party applications".

I don't know about "admits", they stated that it did when you read the terms and downloaded it. It has on previous programs too.

Another good reason to change to Linux :-)

Have you ever actually tried any vaguely modern Linux?

Adding to that, I would hazard a guess that around 75% of home users only want to surf the net/get email/ watch Youtube/ check the news/write a letter/check the weather/ burn disks etc. Linux will do all of that and more, out of the box, so to speak.

So where is the linux equivalent of paperport and does it work with my networked scanner and produce fully indexed pdf files from multipage double sided documents, reliably and without me having to do anything other than press a button?

Which linux is going to run railmaster and talk to my elink controller?

Is there anything else you need to convince you that linux doesn't suit everyone else's needs just because it suits yours?

Indeed.

True, but in fact I use not-Windows about 97% of the time. FreeBSD in my case.

I am currently using two win 8.1 machines three linux computers, two androids (linux derivatives) and an embedded linux machine. I use whatever runs the *application* best, I don't care what the OS is and care even less that the 1% of the code is linux.

I actually download a ubuntu distro a couple of hours ago, used it for a specific job and deleted it. I will probably do it again next week as it doesn't find either my wireless network adapter or my wired network adapter so it can't update itself. One day it might find my adapters so I can avoid downloading the complete thing. In the meantime I find it useful enough to download 600+ Mbytes.

Yes, I have.

Tomorrow the IT department are bringing me a new machine. They can't work out why the old one takes 30 seconds to do a full screen repaint, so they're going to give me a clean one and take the other one away.

After all, it's 6 months old. You can't expect a machine to run that long without something major going wrong.

It's funny, it's usually the Linux wonks who accuse Windows of doing this. I've used Windows for many years, and it's never done this sort of thing to me.

Ubuntu 12 LTS FWIW. The new one is probably going to have 14 :)

Andy

Exactly. I use FreeBSD 97% of the time because it does what I want. I have the Windows machine around for the rest (e.g. the scanner and the chip programmer).

In fact there are 2 Windows machines and in excess of 7 FreeBSD machines, all running the same respective version. Updated infrequently as I have better things to do. They just run; the Asterisk box hasn't been rebooted since I did some UPS work, 213 days ago.

The rest of the family tend to have both systems too.

I don't get why some people want to make their, and others, lives more difficult by running the wrong application just because they don't like an OS. Barmy if you ask me.

I've got Linux Mint running in a VM from time to time under OS X and it has no trouble finding the ethernet and updating itself. Your setup must be hosed in some way.

If I'd said it did, I'd have been wrong. Just the same as if I'd said that about Windows or MacOS.

Which is why I didn't say that, merely questioned your statement about "googling, compiling, writing scripts and general messing about"

Paperport is a lot more than £30, btw. Unless it's the chopped-down and hamstrung version given away free with scanners - and there's a wide choice of better competition for that heap of steaming name-dropping s**te.

You must be using some deeply wierd hardware if Ubuntu doesn't find drivers, without loading them from some other media, but Windows does.

Its just a plain old thinkpad yoga with dock and windows 10 has no trouble finding drivers so its not hosed at all. The distro may be hosed but its not worth the effort to investigate for what i use it for.

You have it arse backwards. Choose the right application and then choose the OS. Which is largely what I do.

It cost me £30 for the full retail version.

Such as?

P.S. I was expecting some comment about my reference to how much expertise Dennis may have! I had my irony hat on.