Re: [PLUG] [just ignore this] W10

Windows 10 has seen moved many things in good directions. I support developers on Linux, Windows, and Mac at $WORK, so I have to be familiar with all of them. Of course Microsoft is going to make the defaults what is best for their business; they're beholden to their shareholders.

As far as why your $WORK chose Windows 10, it is because their concerns with HIPAA aren't privacy, it's about CYA and pointing their finger at Microsoft if anything goes wrong. There are enough shortcomings of Windows 10 that one doesn't need to exaggerate, but there are plenty of shortcomings of all desktop OS options.

MacOS takes away configuration options I like every new release, and changes the command to clear the DNS cache every damn time. And catatonic Catalina broke a lot of stuff for a lot of people.

Linux on the desktop? Don't even get me started on trying to get Linux desktops to work with projectors or video conferencing. They all have their weaknesses, Microsoft's is just that you need a slew of settings changed to make it usable. And my usable and your usable aren't going to be the same.

WSL-2 is fantastic. I've been running on the fast ring of updates for Windows 10 with WSL-2 running Ubuntu 18.04 for a while, and as a developer, it is the best of all worlds. All four of my monitors and my docking station on my Lenovo work, at the proper resolution, and come right back up after I've unplugged for a meeting. And by unplugged, I mean unplugged one, single USB-C cable. Good luck with that on Ubuntu native... I have tried.

But now I have a native Linux kernel in a VM that actually shares and releases memory properly. I can test DB drivers and engines I help write across platforms within the same machine. It's kind of glorious.

I sign onto my work Windows 10 machine with a domain, as you likely will, and you probably have Windows admins smart enough to lock things down privacy wise with group policies. I'm guessing you're running the free, downloaded version of Windows 10 in your VM with all default settings that you can't modify. In a paid environment, things are very different.

Microsoft has been the best corporate friend to open source out of the megacorps by leaps and bounds for years now. They handle support for two Python packages I contribute to, pyodbc and django-pyodbc-azure. I don't get the continued snarkiness - it was last pertinent around the same time the Phillies had the best pitching staff in baseball. Nadella is headed in the right direction.

Regards,

Tim

On Thu, Dec 12, 2019 at 5:11 PM Chris Thistlethwaite via plug <plug@lists.phillylinux.org> wrote:

I agree that Microsoft would love to move away from any thing "local" and have a fully online/cloud OS something like ChromeOS. Just look at Office365 with won't offer a local installer soon. I'm not sure what that looks like but it's super interesting and I'd love to see more of it in other OSes. If you push the privacy issues aside, being able to have a ChromeOS-like experience in Windows or Linux would be amazing. Laptop falls off a cliff? No worries, open another and you literally pick up where you left off, probably before your old one hits the ground.

One more thing to add. You can install Windows 10, for free, and use it, for free. You don't need to buy a product key. That's why you can't change your background or use some other features. https://www.howtogeek.com/244678/you-dont-need-a-product-key-to-install-and-use-windows-10/ You can't say that about any other version of Windows in Microsoft's history.

-Chris T.

PS. I use any OS that boots and some that don't.

On Thu, Dec 12, 2019 at 3:35 PM Rich Mingin (PLUG) via plug <plug@lists.phillylinux.org> wrote:
While I agree with the great majority of what you’re saying, and the intent at least, there are some factual issues with a few points.

“You can’t do anything without logging into MS first” - Not true. MS wishes it was true, and they’ve been toeing the line with how far they can go to “encourage” universal use of Microsoft accounts, it’s still possible to use a local account. In 1809 there was a bug that effectively made the offline/local account options invisible unless you unplugged all networking first, but in 1903 and 1909 that’s been corrected. It’s still completely non-obvious, but that’s by design.

“You can’t even change the wallpaper without going online” - This is only true in a very narrow and specific case. While you do technically need to go online first, to activate the OS, you do not need to stay online to change wallpaper, you do not need to be signed in to a Microsoft account, and MS doesn’t directly exert *any* control over your wallpaper choices aside from requiring you be activated first.

And if you’re going to lump activation in alongside your other complaints, you’re fighting a war that ended 15 years ago.

As for HIPAA violations, why would my employer do dis to mes? Because that same instrumentation and monitoring is available to your domain admins. They can flag the OS not to pass along info to MS, but to report it to a local server instead, and Big Brother can watch you all he likes. Most corporations *love* that part.

On Thu, Dec 12, 2019 at 15:27 jeff via plug <plug@lists.phillylinux.org> wrote:
$WORK has mandated Win10 Real Soon Now.
While waiting, I downloaded Microsoft's VM to learn my way around.

It's draconian.
It's an ad platform.
It's a profiler.
It's The Cloud.
You can't do anything without logging into MS first. You can't even
change the wallpaper without going online.
To say this is out of scope for an OS is to be polite.

$WORK is very concerned about privacy and security. I'm even crazier.
How this wound up on our desktops is completely beyond me. It's a
rolling HIPAA violation, if nothing else.

The browser crashed right out of the box, just before the OS decided to
reboot without notifying me. Had I been working on something important....

One of my favorite sayings, that always gets a laugh, is "Windows: it's
not an OS, it's a virus." I never thought I'd long for Win 7.

W10 should have caused a major exodus to a different OS. Any OS.
Yet people accept it. It's like Win is in a race to the bottom with Google.

It's probably a tolerable OS, if it weren't for the intrusiveness.
I'd be saying this same stuff if I didn't use linux.

Proceed with insults, comments about being a few years late to the
party, speculation on my age, compliments on my tin foil hat, and
something nasty about my dog.
___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
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___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

--
-Chris
___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug