Win8
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Ridcully May 27, 2015 1:17 AM EDT |
This story item has given me the chance to vent some sincere frustrations. Recently, I undertook a data basing project and as part of that I received as part of the deal, an HP Pavillion 15-p235TX laptop. Now this machine is a ripper......i7, 8Gig RAM, 1TB HDD, and a Geforce card with 2Gig on board. It should have FLOWN. It was loaded with Win8.1, and I have no choice on this because Windows is essential for the project.........Right.......first of all, all the ads and unwanted stuff had to be stripped. Luckily the person who I am doing the work for is a computer "nerd" and he then installed something he called "Pokki" which puts a standard Windows start menu onto the machine.......thank goodness. The machine behaved like a clamped snail. Compared to my old dual core HP running openSUSE 11.4, this new laptop was slow.......I've managed to increase speed by getting some items NOT to start automatically, but every so often, there will be a popup from HP, or Norton, or .......something and all of them are trying to get me to do something I don't want to do........Windows........you can have it. It's been at least 5 years since I was previously exposed to WinXP, and I can understand now why users in the UK Government really DON'T want to give up their software if Win8 is what they are gonna get STUCK, (or is it STUNG ?), with. Sure, I've got it doing the needful......but it is sure a step back into the darkness to NOT have any virtual desktops, or a file manager that can split screen.......Windows ? You can have it, and in another couple of months, Win8 gets wiped from my machine and Linux will allow it to show its true ability........if ever there is a need for Windows in the future, it's gonna be in a virtual machine, nothing else. |
| jdixon May 27, 2015 8:31 AM EDT |
And while Windows 7 largely retains the WinXP style interface, it's almost equally bloated and slow. Of course, a clean install without all the vendor add-ons helps that quite a bit. |
| seatex May 27, 2015 9:39 AM EDT |
> Ridcully I felt the same way after seeing Win8.1 running on an i7 Dell laptop with 8GB of memory. It was not fast at all. and these laptops sell for $1,000+. |
| Steven_Rosenber May 27, 2015 12:06 PM EDT |
I have a couple-year-old HP laptop, not as well-appointed as yours, and I can confirm that Windows 8 doesn't run all that well on it. Fedora 21 is much more stable. |
| CFWhitman May 27, 2015 1:56 PM EDT |
My brother had a cheap Windows 8 (upgraded to 8.1) laptop that he bought, and it was really slow, to the point that he considered it nearly unusable. He noted that my old laptops that I provide for guests to use at my house were much faster, even though they were more than six years old. This inspired him to ask me to put Linux on that laptop. I put Ubuntu Studio 14.04 on (which is the same distribution on the old laptops that are 64 bit). He is much happier with the machine with Linux on it. He has another laptop with Windows 8.1 for anything that he needs that requires Windows. I do have a drive with Windows 8.1 on my desktop, and it seems OK, but it has a retail version of Windows with no crapware. Also my desktop is still fairly powerful. Of course Linux still runs faster on it, but Windows doesn't seem nearly as bad as it does on the cheap laptops I have used it on. |
| Steven_Rosenber May 27, 2015 3:45 PM EDT |
Mine won't upgrade from 8 to 8.1. It could be due to the Fedora encrypted dual boot, or who knows? |
| gru May 29, 2015 2:56 PM EDT |
You could try using "decrapify" for Windows 8 (http://en.softonic.com/s/decrapify/windows-8). Then install CCleaner and finish the job (https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download). Removing every single "app" from the machine and blocking some things on the firewall will help too. That should help a bit, but only a bit... |
| Ridcully May 29, 2015 5:28 PM EDT |
Not to worry........the Win8 installation is ONLY for the purposes of this project. It has only one function: project work......That involves running the specialised database software and using Chrome to search for information about very specialised plant species on the internet.....I use the machine for absolutely NOTHING else, and all my other work is done on this dear old HP Compaq 6710b dual core .......I initially just wanted to vent my utter disgust at what I saw when hit with Microgarbage after an absence of 5 or 6 blissfull years where I have had NOTHING to do with the Micromuck that Redmond constantly pours into consumer throats - and worse still, has the hide to charge for their rubbish. I feel much better for having said that. |
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