WIN10EXIT: Don't upgrade if Samsung

[Adrian Caspersz]

Advice for Samsung laptop or PC owners... "Don't upgrade to Windows 10"

Whoops ...

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well since they are firmly wedded to android, what do you think if the next batch come with Linux Mint pre-installed?

And the lord knows who many dollars of fees they would have paid to Microsoft, goes to a third party company to support it?

[David]

Wonder if Samsung will pay the upgrade fee once it is no longer free?

[TMack]

The problem appears to be incompatible Broadcom wifi cards - an issue that MS and Broadcom need to sort out between them - if it is possible to do so. However, the problem may be one that can't be resolved. Broadcom seem to specialise in wifi chipsets that have compatibility problems. I have encountered numerous examples of Linux installations that have to be tweaked post-installation because of driver issues with Broadcom wifi cards. To be fair to MS, the Broadcom hardware that is incompatible was introduced before

2010. So...we have a wireless chipset that was at least 6 years old at the time Win 10 was introduced, which turns out to be incompatible. It's unfortunate but not particularly unusual that some old hardware doesn't run on a later OS. This is not a scandal or a major oversight by MS, just "one of those things". What now needs to happen (if it hasn't already) is that, until a solution is found, the Win 10 install routine needs to check for this and refuse to install if an incompatible wireless card is detected. Meanwhile, Samsung owners desperate to run Win 10 need to swap out their Broadcom cards for something that is compatible.

[The Natural Philosopher]

1/. Who is that desperate? Most people I know are struggling to avoid it... 2/. How do you change the wifi card on an integrated laptop where built in wifi is standard? And there are no 'card slots'

[dennis]

Very few laptops have the WiFi on the mainboard. Most use a mini PCI card or similar.

I have swapped a few of them in the past to get faster WiFi.

Remove

and fit

[Chris Whelan]

+1

I've never seen a laptop where wireless is not provided by a plug-in card of some description. (Although they may exist.) Changing them is not usually too difficult - I do it all the time to avoid the few remaining chip-sets that are hard to get working in Linux.

An alternative would be one of the tiny USB wireless devices; these do work quite well.

Much better to use something other than W10 of course!

Chris

[The Natural Philosopher]

No laptop I have ever dissassembled has this.

[dennis]

Well I have swapped them in Fujitsu, dell, samsung, toshiba and lenovo laptops so I guess yours are too old to have modern stuff.

[T i m]

I don't think he has *ever* taken a laptop to bits because every laptop (of the many) I have has an add-on WiFi card. Even my Fujitsu Q550 X86 tablets have them!

Here is a little 'Where's Wifi' game for him (on a 27" iMac, being it's the same as in many laptops):

The reason I've had to change the cards on many laptops was (in

*every* case) to placate Linux.

Cheers, T i m

[Chronos]

Assuming the ruddy BIOS isn't locked to the PID/VID of the Broadcom part, that is.

[Rob Morley]

Those sounds like the words of a MSFT apologist. MSFT is pushing the WinX "upgrade" on everything since Windows 7, which launched September

2009, so they /really/ need to be sure they support common hardware from then if they're going to maintain any credibility (some would say that horse has already bolted).

[Rob Morley]

I thought laptops have mini-PCI or mini-PCI-Express slots for that sort of thing.

[Clive George]

IME Wifi is put on a separate module. (Dell and HP).

[TMack]

I didn't suggest otherwise.

I have never found an example of a laptop or notebook that didn't have a removable wireless card. It will involves some disassembly to get to it but they are removable and can be replaced. I have done quite a few replacements over the years. They are usually found in mini pcie slots. For example, AFAIK the Samsung NP- R590 referred to in the article has one of these:

[Chris Ridd]

Use a USB wifi dongle? Personally networking via USB makes my skin crawl, but if needs must...

[T i m]

Whilst that horse had the chance to bolt several times over the years (and the Linux donkey jump into it's place) it hasn't happened yet and doesn't look likely to. ;-(

GNU / Linux is and has always been in an even worse position re drivers because of how few manufacturers don't cater for it and how few men_in_sheds there are reverse engineering the more important ones (and / or doing so fully and effectively when they do).

Don't get me wrong, I'd be using Linux more if it worked (fully) on the hardware I happen to have (I'm not going out buying stuff specifically for Linux) and if it ran more of the things *I* want and need to use.

However, if you actually buy something that has been tested to be 'Linux compatible' and you are happy with the (limited) range of software available for it (and don't still have to run Windows, on raw iron / dual boot / VM to cover the stuff Linux can't) or just use your PC as a web terminal (and don't own an iPod/Phone and want to use the iTMS etc) then you could be equally serviced running Linux.

I must have 6 x P4 spec machines here I need to get rid of and it would be an ideal position for me to be able to stick say Mint 17 on them and give them away ... if only Mint 17 would run on them and anyone would want them with Linux. ;-(

And I think it says something that you can't give a free OS away pre-installed on free hardware! (And I've tried). ;-(

Cheers, T i m

[TMack]

I am no great fan of Windows or MS. However, I like to add a bit of balance to discussions. I am not particularly outraged to find that Win 10 has problems with some old hardware, particularly when that hardware is a wifi card with a Broadcom chipset. As I said, I have experienced lots of hassle in the past with Broadcom chipsets under Linux too.

FWIW. it's arguable how "common" the problem wifi cards are. They aren't all that common. However, Samsung appear to have used quite a lot of them - probably because they were cheap. Unfortunately they were/are both cheap and nasty. They didn't work well with 8.1 and they seem to have fundamental problems with Win 10. Samsung, Broadcom and MS will have to try to sort it out because they all bear some responsibility. However, I doubt that they will be in a rush to do so because it's old hardware and they are more interested in contemporary stuff.

I have great sympathy with anyone caught out by the MS push to get Win 10 on everything. However, I suspect that MS would rather bear the cost of a few pissed-off punters for the sake of further rolling out their

30GB spyware/keylogger. Possibly those Samsung owners should be grateful that it doesn't run on their PCs. As for me, I have killed Cortana permanently, switched off all the data logging options and installed Classic Shell. I am quite happy with the remaining parts of Win 10.

[John Rumm]

Modern laptops (read anything 5 years old or less) almost always have their WiFi module as a plug in internal unit.

[Andy Burns]

Five years? Make that fifteen!