I was more or less resigned to do so anyways, so he didn't do anything I wasn't going to do eventually, he just hastened it.
I wonder if EULA's accepted by a cat have any validity though :)
PD: I googled that and Slashdot has a story on a hardware to have cats accept EULAs :)
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/02/18/1817221/dont-li...
But no, it's not a good anti-lawyer method, a comment says, regarding children and cats "The child is an instrument of your will. Note - they are not acting as your agent, as a child cannot be an agent. Instead, they are your instrument, much like a pen signing your name or a cat clicking a button for you is an instrument. "
But if Microsoft automatically downloaded BankHacker 3.11 to your machine and set it to pop up a dialogue box so that hacking into a bank was so simple your cat could do it — and if then your cat "used your laptop to hack into a bank", then common sense says that Microsoft would be responsible.
It's time to move to Linux on laptop/desktop/tablet I think. While I love my surface pro 3 and the Windows 10 experience is overall a good one, I don't like them changing undisclosed stuff on me.
Getting an MCE remote (arguably the most common PC remote type) working with Kodi (formerly xbmc and very popular full screen media player) took some cumbersome steps.
On average one app breaks every 6 months or so after updating.
By comparison, omitting the privacy issues, MS has a much better track record with updates.
I've been stuck in an update hell with windows where security updates simply would not install the only solution I could find was a full re-install. I've been in a similar situation with Ubuntu and was able to fix it - but only because I understood it - otherwise I would have had to do a re-install.
The key with Ubuntu updates is to stick to LTS versions and to do a clean re-install (keeping /home as a separate partition makes this painless).
Both have rubbish audio systems. Windows breaks on my laptop every few suspend resumes (fixed by restart). Ubuntu every few months (fixed by restart).
At this point I'm disappointed by every system I use.
I agree there are aspects of every OS that I don't like... I just wouldn't single out Windows (again other than privacy) as particularly bad on updates... updating my mbp to el capitan took a wipe as the upgrade broke half way through.
TIP: Never update when you're tethered to your phone on vacation, always update a week before leaving for vacation by the way. lol
Drivers still breaking in S3 is often a result of lack of Windows driver workarounds for this case. And Ubuntu using slightly outdated kernel versions.
I keep running it, my point was that it's not exactly rosey with Linux all of the time either.
[0] Or 'OS X', which, technically, is just the tenth version of Mac OS rather than an OS name in its own right (despite what I think is the fact that most people think of it as the latter).
USB used to just work. Now it stops working after you connect ten or so devices - which is not a common thing, but not unusual in music studios. And external USB hubs only work if they have a specific generic name in the firmware ID.
Apparently if you hack your own kexts you can get it working again, kind of.
>At this point I'm disappointed by every system I use.
This. The Win 10 situation is beyond horrific. I would never have imagined that MS would set itself up for a class action suit like this. I know people who have had their PCs trashed by this forced upgrade, and they're really not happy about it.
But the alternatives are not great. Linux and OS X are both in similar "kind of works, mostly, except when not" states.
Consumer OS reliability and design has become an embarrassment for the entire industry.
Where do you start though when W10 changes the entire damned UI, replaces a bunch of apps, moves stuff around, creates two versions of some control panels, etc.? That is just a special level of “don’t give a crap” that is embarrassing for any company making billions of dollars.
Should we trust your anecdote, because it has more words, or mine, because it mentions more than one computer?
It's not that I don't believe Linux is that reliable. I use it daily.
I don't believe any software is that reliable.
Maybe you're not using it?
To answer your questions- Linux is my primary OS, at work and at home. I don't recall every single issue, especially way-back, but traditionally, I create problems by doing something stupid.
Maybe I'm just lucky with updates, but I stick to popular distros, and I specifically seek out Linux-friendly hardware. Others surely have a different experience. It just felt like OP was painting with too broad a stroke; their statement was valid in 2003, but not so much these days.
I'm much more scared of Ubuntu aptitude updates than I am of Microsoft updates.
Most updates in Ubuntu can be recovered from. That doesn't make it better/easier than recovery in Windows... as it depends on what got updated, how it got updated, and what all came with it.
Despite this, it's not too hard to fix, and I'm much more scared of forced Microsoft OS updates though.
Win7 will be my last Microsoft OS. The way they've been trying to trick people into updating is disgusting.
Plus for some reason every time I update I have to manually edit the grub file to boot the correct kernel and run the nvidia installer. I think it's because I'm still on an older version of grub or something.
I'm still much happier running ubuntu on my server/htpc than Windows. I'd be ecstatic to use ubuntu exclusively if I didn't need to run Ableton Live on Windows, which I can't run in a Windows VM.
For the past few months, my laptop pointer controls -- this is PS/2 mouse emulation, folks, what, 20+ years old? -- has broken thanks apparently to libinput.
Middle mouse button is only partially functional. Not that I use that ever....
Making increasingly complex things, and failing to keep an eye on the ball, ends up bolluxing stuff.
Happens on Microsoft (a lot), OS X (see Walt Mossberg's rant). Android, all the fucking time. And Debian.
I'm going back to a fucking sliderule....
I can't remember anything else breaking on stable. It's been a much experience than updating Windows.
NetworkMangler joins a long list of other FooMangler tools which are best destroyed with extreme prejudice. I manage WiFi with an /etc/network/interfaces stanza, and it mostly works. Static wired interfaces are, of course, vastly simpler.
I agree that the Linux experience is hugely better than Windows, and the Debian experience hugely better than RPM-based distros. This is why having the mouse, THE FUCKING MOUSE!!!!!! fail is .... I'm beyond words.
That it's been months is the other problem.
I swear to fucking god Linux has lost the beat.
It did, however, serve the needs and wants of those of us who'd experienced Unix and wanted that for ourselves. Doing a vastly superior job than the Unixes that started us off in the first place. Speaking for myself, 3.4BSD, Ultrix, SunOS, Solaris, HPUX, DGUX, Irix, AIX, and probably a few others. Plus some other platforms.
The rot started to show with the GNOME Project and PulseAudio. Both introduced a tremendous amount of complexity and gratuitous change with little benefit by way of utility or ease-of-management. Systemd has largely sealed the deal.
The lack of setting on a standard desktop offering has also hurt, and for fairly complex reasons. Red Hat is a commercial success (like Microsoft before it) because of its technical shortcomings, not in spite of them -- they directly feed its revenue model. This is quite unfortunate.
I think Ubutnu made missteps, but was (and may yet be) a superior option.
OTOH, building tools for the billions is hard. I'm willing to admit that. Microsoft only barely manages, as does Apple, and both have had quite notable failures.
The key is to remove all applications he has touched (logind/systemd/NetworkManager/PulseAudio/Avahi), and you'll find yourself with a stable system.
Good distros, such as Calculate Linux or Gentoo, help a lot with this.
However, should you continue to use Red Hat-based distributions (of which Debian, Arch, and Ubuntu should be considered, post-systemd; package managers notwithstanding), you will constantly experience these pain points.
Microsoft actually offers this. Enterprise customers requires it.
Disclaimer: Linux user. Can't check which settings are exactly where.
And this is why all manner of devices go unpatched, and another reason why IoT will be a nightmare.