I'm really starting to get tired of Windows 10, and it's updates. I thought I will give it a try, truth be told I bought a cheap hardware, with the option of being able to use it as a tablet since it has a touch screen, Acer 11.6". I've had it for less than 2 years. The reason I got it was because I couldn't find a way to automatically sync to Amazon Drive, and Google Photo's. Well that didn't work out too well since the Amazon drive client pegged my underpowered CPU, and Amazon wasn't able to help. That was fine I found an alternative, but then Amazon decided to change their pricing plan, so now I lost trust in them. First they had the perfect plan at $12 which I started to use back in March 2015. Well Amazon decided to cancel that plan, and went with a unlimited storage either $79 or $59/year, which really didn't last that long as that plan was also canceled and now it's $59/year for 1 TB of storage. While I know that it will take me another maybe 10 years to fill it up with pictures, what assurance do I have they won't change again? I'll just stick to SmugMug. I've been using them for a while, but never thought of them as a backup service, they still offer a great unlimited photo's since 2009, so I trust they will stick to their plan, and honor what they offer. Great organization possibilities, excellent sharing, and embedding options. Also another plus, they have integration with Amazon Drive, so I can transfer pictures from Amazon Drive to SmugMug.
Anyhow, back to my rant about the laptop which was so sluggish and slow. I remember once waiting for more than an hour for a Windows update to finish. Not a re-install, but an update. Also surfing the net was becoming annoying, Chrome (I wouldn't dare start) Firefox was kinda OK, but still slow, click on a link and wait for the spinning hour. My Internet connection is fine, as I tested with my desktop, tablet, and phone.
I grabbed my old beaten Dell Insprion 1318 laptop, and installed Artengos Linux on it. And started testing/playing with it, this old laptop was faster than my less than 2 year old one, though spec's wise, they are similar.(I'm actually typing this post on it) So I grabbed the newer laptop, and tried another Linux distribution. Manjaro Linux live USB. And it worked fast, browsing was lighting fast compared to browsing on Windows 10. Is it the anti-virus software? Well that's required, so un-installing that is not an option. Background processes were keeping the CPU busy, that's fine, but sometimes to the stage that Firefox becomes un-responsive. And after a bit of digging, it was the windows updates.
What I'm trying to decide on, is if I need windows10 at all. I'm contemplating installing Manjaro Linux XFCE on the newer laptop, or Artengos Linux, both are Arch Linux derivatives, which I also used for some time, before I lent the laptop to a relative, for them I installed Ubuntu.
I like Artengos Linux, works like a charm on this old laptop, even photo processing isn't a pain. Photo editing software is abundant on Linux, some are great, others have a big learning curve (but they work)
My blog about using Linux in a windows world as the title suggests :) and lately experimenting with Chromebook, since then I've tried using Windows 10 dual boot with Linux :) Windows 10 dumped!
Showing posts with label windows10. Show all posts
Showing posts with label windows10. Show all posts
Sunday, October 1, 2017
Saturday, March 12, 2016
Back to the windows world
In my previous post, I wrote that I got a Lenovo Windows10 laptop, well since then, I've sold it and got another one. This one is an Acer, the R3, 11.6", touch screen little white clamshell laptop. The 14" wasn't to my taste as I prefer smaller screens, and I don't need a beast since I don't do, or use anything that really requires a strong CPU. I have to admit the two core Celeron processor is a bottleneck at times, but I can live with it, since it's a passive cooling laptop, no fans, no noise. The one thing I wish it had would be an SSD. The reason I switched back to Windows was automation, and my hobby. I love and enjoy taking pictures, of nature, life, and family, and I want to make sure those memories are saved, not just locally or on an external hard drive, but in the cloud as well. I couldn't achieve that with Linux, since I couldn't find a single automated solution to upload my images to google photo's, amazon, or smugmug. Currently the google photo's is the only fully automated solution, the amazon client is semi-automatic, as I need to tell it which folder to upload, as is the case with the smugmug solution. I'm happy with this as I have a great workflow to check out my images, edit if needed, then just drop the pictures in a folder which then get's uploaded. The Chrome-book had one disadvantage, I couldn't sort, and pick my pictures it would just automatically upload all, then I would need to go and pick and choose online. The linux laptop didn't do the auto backup for me (except when I used Crashplan for backup) but with that I couldn't retrieve and view my images easily as with both the google photos, and amazon photos. All in all, I am happy with this little laptop, and to my surprise, Windows10 isn't bad either. I stopped actively using windows with Windows XP. So I could say that Windows10 is a step in the right direction. I would say I wish they had good tablet offering when I bought my Android tablet, and maybe even a decent phone offering starting to lean towards getting a Lumia, as it's would be well integrated with my laptop. The Apple eco-system is great, phone/tablet and laptops work great together, but their prices are a bit high to my taste. This little laptop I got is 1/3 the price of the 11" MacBook Air, and it can do everything the MacBook could, though slower no doubt.
I think my next move will be either to change my tablet to a Windows10 one or replace my phone.
I think my next move will be either to change my tablet to a Windows10 one or replace my phone.
Labels:
11.6"laptop,
acer,
chromebook,
ChromeOS,
laptop,
photography,
windows10
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