Who no longer uses Windows?

[ud6]

I used to use Windows at work as there were statistical packages necessary, but then everyone moved to R, which is just as good in linux. Also video editing I used to use windows, then swapped to Kdenlive in linux as it had improved and I could edit HD video only in linux (on dual boot).

Recently I was given a windows 10 laptop to use. But was all blocked by pointless admin restrictions. I had installed mint as dual boot for safety (many times at talks I've saved the day by having a reliable linux system to display PowerPoint slides). After having repeated problems with onedrive, printing and the internet, and having to ask (useless) admin to sort it out, I just booted in to mint instead, copied all my files across to linux partition, and never used windows again.

Linux can take some getting used to, but once you have it how you want it's simply reliable, fast (faster tham windows 10 on my pc) and I trust it. Windows was also allowing lots of rubbish advert messages and firewall problems, huff. Good ridence, and thankyou mint!

[Tomgin5]

I made the switch in the spring of 2016 after essentially giving up on computers. My daughter wanted a reliable and secure laptop to do church work on. I picked up one with Linux 17.2 Cinnamon for her at Freegeek. I updated it to 17.3 then 18.3 last spring. Since I picked it up I converted my old Dell Destro 1000 to to Cinnamon 64 17.3 then 18.3 dual boot with XP 32 to run some of my old expired CAD programs. I have also converted over 200 laptops and desktops to various 17.0 to 19 LM Cinnamon 64 and 32 (depending on hardware capabilities ) with very few failures except SATA plugs and damaged hardware ( ethernet plugs) 95% were dead machines that were bricked with windows. Smallest machine is a 32 bit single core ATOM MSI 8" netbook with 1 MB Ram. The largest is a gaming tower with an i7-4770k ASUS Z97S SLI Krait In a Corsair SPEC-02 case and Hyper cooler and triple 120HZ 24" monitors, GPU 780.

[fidddlur]

I would like to use Mint for everything, but mine wont do bank authorisations and I have to do the whole transaction again on Windows. Is there a way to make it work?

[ingeva]

I changed to Ubuntu in 2007, and to Mint when Ubuntu released the (hopeless) Unity GUI.
Been stuck with it ever since, and it saves me a LOT of time, money and frustration.
Some of my friends are still using Windows, and I don't envy them for a second.

One of them recently sent me a zip file containing a bunch of files, many of them with Norwegian characters
in their file names. Windows uses another encoding in file names. The documentation claims that it's UTF-16, but the
supported functions in php can't translate it. So I have spent some time researching, and have made a php function
that does the translate for me. I have also added translation for some other European characters, and it also covers
translation from another (older?) coding so that most filenames (or strings) can be converted to utf-8, suitable
for linux:

Code: Select all

<?php

// toutf8($string)	- Changes $string to UTF-8 encoding

function toutf8($string)
{	$old = array();
	$old1 = array(146,157,143,145,155,134,181,160,144,130,148,153,129,154,164,165,133,183,138,148);
	$old2 = array('æ','ø','Ã¥','ã','Æ','Ø','Ã…','è','ò','é','È','ä','ö','õ','ü','Ãœ','Ä','Ö','Å','Ø');

	$new = array('Æ','Ø','Å','æ','ø','å','Á','á','É','é','ö','È','ü','Ü','ñ','Ñ','à','À','è','È');
	for ($i=0; $i<count($new)-1; $i++) $old[] = chr(194).chr($old1[$i]);
	$old[] = chr(195).chr($old1[$i]);
	$old = array_merge($old,$old1);
	$new = array_merge($new,array('æ' ,'ø' ,'å' ,'å' ,'Æ' ,'Ø' ,'Å' ,'é' ,'ó' ,'é' ,'É' ,'ä', 'ö' ,'ö' ,'ü' ,'Ü' ,'Ä', 'Ö', 'Å','Ø'));

	return str_replace($old,$new,$string);
}

[Moem]

Is there a way to make it work?

I suggest making a separate topic for that question, on a suitable section of the forum... instead of burying it deep inside a chat thread.

[rene]

Code: Select all

function toutf8($string)

You may also wish to note man iconv and/or man 3 iconv.

[ingeva]

Code: Select all

function toutf8($string)

You may also wish to note man iconv and/or man 3 iconv.

Have you actually tried these?
The problem is that if you specity from_encoding as utf-16 and to-encoding as utf-8 (with or without the hyphen), no translation takes place, at least not with an input string from a Windows file name. That's why I had to write this routine. Of course, any corrections and especially supplements, are welcome.

[ingeva]

I changed to Ubuntu in 2007, and to Mint when Ubuntu released the (hopeless) Unity GUI.
Have used it ever since, and it saves me a LOT of time, money and frustration.
Some of my friends are still using Windows, and I don't envy them for a second.

One of them recently sent me a zip file containing a bunch of files, many of them with Norwegian characters
in their file names. Windows uses another encoding in file names. The documentation claims that it's UTF-16, but the
supported functions in php can't translate it. So I have spent some time researching, and have made a php function
that does the translate for me. I have also added translation for some other European characters, and it also covers
translation from another (older?) coding so that most filenames (or strings) can be converted to utf-8, suitable
for linux:

Code: Select all

<?php

// toutf8($string)	- Changes $string to UTF-8 encoding

function toutf8($string)
{	$old = array();
	$old1 = array(146,157,143,145,155,134,181,160,144,130,148,153,129,154,164,165,133,183,138,148);
	$old2 = array('æ','ø','Ã¥','ã','Æ','Ø','Ã…','è','ò','é','È','ä','ö','õ','ü','Ãœ','Ä','Ö','Å','Ø');

	$new = array('Æ','Ø','Å','æ','ø','å','Á','á','É','é','ö','È','ü','Ü','ñ','Ñ','à','À','è','È');
	for ($i=0; $i<count($new)-1; $i++) $old[] = chr(194).chr($old1[$i]);
	$old[] = chr(195).chr($old1[$i]);
	$old = array_merge($old,$old1);
	$new = array_merge($new,array('æ' ,'ø' ,'å' ,'å' ,'Æ' ,'Ø' ,'Å' ,'é' ,'ó' ,'é' ,'É' ,'ä', 'ö' ,'ö' ,'ü' ,'Ü' ,'Ä', 'Ö', 'Å','Ø'));

	return str_replace($old,$new,$string);
}

[ingeva]

I changed to Ubuntu in 2007, and to Mint when Ubuntu released the (hopeless) Unity GUI.
Have used it ever since, and it saves me a LOT of time, money and frustration.
Some of my friends are still using Windows, and I don't envy them for a second.

One of them recently sent me a zip file containing a bunch of files, many of them with Norwegian characters in their file names. Windows uses another encoding in file names. The documentation claims that it's UTF-16, but the supported functions in php can't translate it. So I have spent some time researching, and have made a php function that does the translate for me. I have also added translation for some other European characters, and it also covers translation from another (older?) coding so that most filenames (or strings) can be converted to utf-8, suitable for linux:

Code: Select all

<?php

// toutf8($string)	- Changes $string to UTF-8 encoding

function toutf8($string)
{	$old = array();
	$old1 = array(146,157,143,145,155,134,181,160,144,130,148,153,129,154,164,165,133,183,138,148);
	$old2 = array('æ','ø','Ã¥','ã','Æ','Ø','Ã…','è','ò','é','È','ä','ö','õ','ü','Ãœ','Ä','Ö','Å','Ø');

	$new = array('Æ','Ø','Å','æ','ø','å','Á','á','É','é','ö','È','ü','Ü','ñ','Ñ','à','À','è','È');
	for ($i=0; $i<count($new)-1; $i++) $old[] = chr(194).chr($old1[$i]);
	$old[] = chr(195).chr($old1[$i]);
	$old = array_merge($old,$old1);
	$new = array_merge($new,array('æ' ,'ø' ,'å' ,'å' ,'Æ' ,'Ø' ,'Å' ,'é' ,'ó' ,'é' ,'É' ,'ä', 'ö' ,'ö' ,'ü' ,'Ü' ,'Ä', 'Ö', 'Å','Ø'));

	return str_replace($old,$new,$string);
}

[rene]

You may also wish to note man iconv and/or man 3 iconv.

Have you actually tried these?

In the context of a fairly long time ago translating iso8859-1 to and from utf8, yes. If there's an issue with utf16 I wouldn't know though...

[ingeva]

As mentioned before, I stopped using Windows in 2007 and have never looked back. I remember it used to take 90 minutes to install the basic OS, and then the rest of the day to install the programs I needed. It took about 90 seconds to boot (until the GUI was ready to start). Later versions are faster of course, but I don't know how long it would take to install a complete Windows 10 system. However, I don't think it comes near LinuxMint:

My main computer is self built with an about 4 years old Asus board and an Intel I7 4.gen processor. 8GB RAM (Overkill, I know). The boot disk is a 500GB SSD.
Install of LinuxMint MATE 19,2 took under 5 minutes. Loading all the programs I need, including PHP, MySQL, Apache, SMB and NFS plus several utility programs, took less than 20 minutes, including a few lines of user input. I run the procedure from scripts, which I found very hard to do in Windows. I had to sit there all the time, waiting for the next prompt.

I had to re-install Windows at least a couple of times each month, because it was often the easiest way to deal with problems. This is only ONE reason why I'll never use Windows again.

I have 5 computers running in a network; 2 of them running Ubuntu servers as backups, one as a web server, and one laptop for travelling. Updates/backups are automatic, run with about 8 hour intervals. I can't imagine doing this with sluggish, vulnerable, EXPENSIVE Windows.

[rjhoklahoma]

I have a dual boot (LM 19.2 and Win 10). I only have Win 10 due to some work apps that need it. If my work support would get on board.....no windows at all. haha.