Windows 7, Windows 10, Linux...
Jul. 11th, 2021 11:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starseerdrgnSo, I'm back on Windows 7 on my laptop, because an update broke compatibility with the one thing I need working on said laptop: the E-Port docking connector. Let me break it down for you.
I have two primary machines right now: an iBuyPower desktop tower, and a Dell Latitude E6430 laptop. The former is my gaming rig, but the latter is a laptop that I use to work on things separately from gaming/streaming. It's that way because I prefer having a system I can take with me when I feel like it, and not have to worry about storms ruining a writing session. And because of that, I bought the E-Port Replicator/docking station for it as well.
The docking station provides power, USB 2.0 ports, DVI/VGA/DisplayPort. and a few other things. I use this thing to have a "desk setup" with monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers, and ethernet tied down to it, and when I want to go somewhere, I can just eject the laptop without having to pull wires from all over the thing. It's really nice.
I had Fedora Linux running on it, but a recent update made the docking port just stop working. So, I switched to my Windows SSD and tested it, but the docking port was fine. Fedora was the problem, again.
The thing is, I'm tired of constantly having to fight against updates. One quote of mine rings true today: "End of Life was the best thing to happen to Vista, because I don't have to worry about updates breaking shit all the time." Windows 7 is EoL, and it's the best thing to happen to it, because it doesn't break with updates anymore. And with this laptop not being able to run Windows 11 (TPM 1.2, no way to upgrade, and older CPU), I'm not even going to bother with Win10, since they'll probably make it nearly impossible to use once they EoL that thing.
The only things Windows 7 and Vista don't have that I need for productivity are: modern web browser (because everything is stupidly web), and support for most newer emoji (because they're so overused now that it makes some documents unreadable). Otherwise, Office 2007 and LibreOffice (OpenOffice on Vista) work perfectly fine, FocusWriter is a dream to use on Windows I have Adobe CS3 that suits my needs perfectly, I can access a crapton of software that just works, and so on. And of course, Perl works on Win7 (Python 3 dropped support, as expected). But otherwise, I'm able to do everything I need to on Windows 7, or Vista if I really wanted to go back.
The sad part is, I do like Linux. I love the terminal, I love KDE, I love using all of the pro tools. But the desktop experience has been going down the drain since focus on Wayland and systemd started taking over. And with pipewire becoming a forced standard, it feels like everything is back in perpetual beta again. You know, just like Windows 10, and its "We're unstable, but we're going to update anyway, and whoops! You need to reinstall the OS now" attitude. It's not no one cares about quality control anymore.
I'm much happier on Win7. And that's telling of the state of modern computing.
I have two primary machines right now: an iBuyPower desktop tower, and a Dell Latitude E6430 laptop. The former is my gaming rig, but the latter is a laptop that I use to work on things separately from gaming/streaming. It's that way because I prefer having a system I can take with me when I feel like it, and not have to worry about storms ruining a writing session. And because of that, I bought the E-Port Replicator/docking station for it as well.
The docking station provides power, USB 2.0 ports, DVI/VGA/DisplayPort. and a few other things. I use this thing to have a "desk setup" with monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers, and ethernet tied down to it, and when I want to go somewhere, I can just eject the laptop without having to pull wires from all over the thing. It's really nice.
I had Fedora Linux running on it, but a recent update made the docking port just stop working. So, I switched to my Windows SSD and tested it, but the docking port was fine. Fedora was the problem, again.
The thing is, I'm tired of constantly having to fight against updates. One quote of mine rings true today: "End of Life was the best thing to happen to Vista, because I don't have to worry about updates breaking shit all the time." Windows 7 is EoL, and it's the best thing to happen to it, because it doesn't break with updates anymore. And with this laptop not being able to run Windows 11 (TPM 1.2, no way to upgrade, and older CPU), I'm not even going to bother with Win10, since they'll probably make it nearly impossible to use once they EoL that thing.
The only things Windows 7 and Vista don't have that I need for productivity are: modern web browser (because everything is stupidly web), and support for most newer emoji (because they're so overused now that it makes some documents unreadable). Otherwise, Office 2007 and LibreOffice (OpenOffice on Vista) work perfectly fine, FocusWriter is a dream to use on Windows I have Adobe CS3 that suits my needs perfectly, I can access a crapton of software that just works, and so on. And of course, Perl works on Win7 (Python 3 dropped support, as expected). But otherwise, I'm able to do everything I need to on Windows 7, or Vista if I really wanted to go back.
The sad part is, I do like Linux. I love the terminal, I love KDE, I love using all of the pro tools. But the desktop experience has been going down the drain since focus on Wayland and systemd started taking over. And with pipewire becoming a forced standard, it feels like everything is back in perpetual beta again. You know, just like Windows 10, and its "We're unstable, but we're going to update anyway, and whoops! You need to reinstall the OS now" attitude. It's not no one cares about quality control anymore.
I'm much happier on Win7. And that's telling of the state of modern computing.
