"We love Linux" may in fact be Microsoft's biggest 'scam' yet.....

[mikewalsh]

Afternoon, gang.

Some of you may find the following video to be pertinent. eBuzz, the channel who produced it, exposes some of the hardware targets M$ are steadily going after, and how he thinks this will relate to Linux usage at some point in the not-so-distant future...

Some good points are made, and despite the guy perhaps coming across as a total neckbeard, much of what he says makes sense when you start "dotting the i's and crossing the T's". Especially the stuff about AMD, Ryzen and M$'s "Pluton" chip.....

Obviously, you make your own minds up on this stuff, but it's well worth watching if y'all have an hour to spare. See what you think.

Mike.

[sonny]

On my desk, I have three computers:

Computer #1: "SLIDEMAKER" = Windows 11 + Proshow software = Generic Desktop (an exclusive Win app, used once or twice a month)

Computer #2: "TRASH" = Windows 11 + random downloads = Lenovo Laptop Computer #2 ("computing dangerously" aka to be reformatted at will)

Computer #3: "PRODUCTION" is a MacBook Pro laptop. It has macOS for Adobe stuff and 24/7 plugged in PC:IMPOSSIBLE (Fossapup64 makeover) on a Samsung 256GB USB 3.1 drive (the fastest & the longest lasting USB flash on earth).

Doesn't get any better than that.

[geo_c]

Obviously, you make your own minds up on this stuff, but it's well worth watching if y'all have an hour to spare. See what you think.

Mike.

Yeah he's a bit annoying, but the info pretty straight forward. Windows 10 is a service. That's all it took for me. It's good to know which hardware not to buy. Honestly, I was listening to this thinking, "How many more used computers could I afford right now? How big of a stash do I need to keep in the closet on hand?"

Kind of like being a digital "prepper."

[mikewalsh]

@geo_c :-

Aye, it's been one big "love-fest" the last 7 or 8 years, but I suspect Ballmer's blunt, in-yer-face statement 20 years ago about Linux being a "cancer" has still been echoing around Redmond HQ for ages, and I guess for them it just rankles. Despite Satya Nadella coming across as a more modern type of guy - one of the lads, yet "caring" with it - my take is that this sounds like a long-term 'planned' response.....fully intended to take years to come to fruition.

Softly, softly, catchee monkee.....so gradual and stealthy that no-one notices. Remember, this is still the same company who started the 'Browser Wars', who enacted the notorious "Embrace, Extend.....Extinguish", and who have employed all kinds of underhand legal trickery to achieve their goals over the years of their existence....

I don't hate Microsoft.....but I still wouldn't trust 'em any further than I could throw 'em. Which is no distance at all.

Mike.

[ozsouth]

From article linked below, Pluton sounds like TPM on steroids. Could cause us bootloader issues down the track & can be rolled out on 'older' (recently older, I think) PCs.

https://www.howtogeek.com/779095/what-i ... processor/

[wiak]

From article linked below, Pluton sounds like TPM on steroids. Could cause us bootloader issues down the track & can be rolled out on 'older' (recently older, I think) PCs.

https://www.howtogeek.com/779095/what-i ... processor/

I had enough early trouble with my relatively new HP laptop, but managed to use it for all my needs in the end even with secure boot enabled. nvme disk was early issue, TPM maybe problematic too, and secure boot used with secure grub2 a nightmare for booting other than the likes of official ubuntu... However, okay once secure boot off. I'm glad however I didn't wait and choose any even newer laptop - not if the likes of Pluton was involved. I regret not getting Thunderbolt port, but couldn't afford the machines on offer here that included that along with sufficient RAM. Main thing for me was a reasonably huge amount of RAM, since over time, that more than anything limits machine lifetime (aside from it breaking down via dust and so on).

So this laptop has 32GB RAM and 1 TB nvme SSD drive so I can imagine my never buying another computer again as long as I can keep this one running. I do have an assortment of (around 14 yrs) old mobile intel core 2 duo laptops (4GB RAM) which, for the most part do everything I want perfectly fine: exception might be virtual machine use, where I would be using up too much RAM in running a few virtual machines, but fine on this 32GB HP.

Basically I have no real need for a laptop as powerful as this one - after years of using old junk it almost feels excessive to me - even worse is the super duper android phone I was given for business uses - I hardly use it for anything but browsing Puppy forum when out at the cafe, or playing on some chess site or other. Okay, an occasional hi-res photo of the moon or something equally daft.

Christmas has come and gone (thankfully). Does anyone else feel they don't need any more stupid 'presents' that just take up even more junk cupboard space such that the house is over-flowing? Nowadays, even a phone does most all the computing I really need (though I prefer laptop by far) - what toys do kids need anymore - all they do is sit on their computers anyway! Me too. I need nothing, other than food and coffee too of course. I should sell the house and just buy a tent and take of with bicycle and laptop - all that I need. Don't have electric bicycle - it is flat around here so why would I???!

[mikewalsh]

@wiak :-

Same for me, really. When I bought this HP Pavilion desktop - had to, after the old Compaq expired - I didn't worry too much about RAM at the time, or storage.......I was intending to upgrade those further down the line anyways.

Over the last couple of years, the original 4 GB DDR4 got maxed-out at 32 GB, and the original 1 TB Toshie 'spinner' became a 1 TB Crucial MX500 SSD (not NVME, but it's plenty fast enough for my use-case). That, and stripping the guts out of the 3 TB Seagate USB 3.0 external desktop drive, and installing the 3 TB Barracuda 'data' drive internally should hopefully mean it'll keep me going for quite some time to come.....barring breakdowns, of course.

If I want to keep Mama company in the front room, the recently-acquired Dell D630 Latitude - one of those Core2Duo, 4 GB items! - will do all that's required. And then some.

(The Pavilion's got TPM, yes, but it's early, first-gen TPM.....and I'm pretty certain it was manufactured long before those that include the subject matter of this thread.)

Mike.

[BologneChe]

Bonjour à vous;

I recently acquired a device running on an M1 chip. The integration of Linux under this type of chip is still to be developed according to my experiments. The ARM chip revolution is on the way and it will also be another challenge for the Linux universe. The PC world is changing. Is it evolution? I don't have the necessary hindsight but I can say that in terms of performance, it's solid!

Salutations du Canada!