What sends noobs running back to Windows?

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Lady Fitzgerald
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

Post by Lady Fitzgerald »

Infidelus wrote: Fri Jul 22, 2022 5:42 pm
Lady Fitzgerald wrote: Fri Jul 22, 2022 3:49 pm Exactly. The desktop is a convenient place to access data but data can be highly volatile there and isn't easily backed up so I use symlinks (shortcuts) on the desktop to access files from there.
I use quite a number of symlinks too, mostly to back up my LM settings so I can just re-link them after I do a fresh install. I also keep all my data on separate drives and just do a custom partition setup when I reinstall so I can mount all the bits where I want and then run a couple of post-install scripts so almost everything is set back up in a very short amount of time...
I may be the symlink queen here. I have well over 1200 symlinks in just my movies folder (the nested symlinks don't show up in the folder file count). My movies are spread over three data drives. I have my default player set for VLC. Instead of some fancy dancy media program that I can't figure out to use and has a lot of extra crap I don't want or need, I just made a symlink of each movie and put it into a folder in my Video folder on one of my data drives, then made a symlink to that folder on my desktop. Making the symlinks was easy. I just highlight the file or folder I want a symlink for (I can do multiple files and/or folders at the same time; there seems to be no limit on the number), then, while holding down SHIFT and CTRL at the same time, left click and drag the highlighted file(s) and/or folder(s) and drag them to where I want the symlink. That creates the symlink(s), easy peasy, slick and sleazy. I also use nested symlinks--symlinks that lead to symlinks--sometimes as much as four deep. I set the folder to display List View, unchecked all the options to view, leaving only the file or folder name, then zoomed it all the way out. Now, I can easily read the movie tiles on my TV screen from ten feet away and use a wireless mouse as a remote.

Infidelus wrote: Fri Jul 22, 2022 5:42 pm ...
The vast majority of the time, I'm now finding Mint to be more intuitive and easier to use than Windwoes. I recently bought a used laptop that had Win 10 on it and I went nutz trying to navigate it (and never did nail it). Fortunately, I bought it with the intent to install Mint on it, which I have successfully done.
I still know my way around Windows for the most part as I have to use it for work sadly. I did install Windows 11 in a VM and on my NUC just to have a look, then binned it off both :p
Luckily, I'm retired and can use whatever OS I jolly well please (said Jeannie smugly). :mrgreen:
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

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Lady Fitzgerald wrote: Fri Jul 22, 2022 6:19 pm I may be the symlink queen here. I have well over 1200 symlinks in just my movies folder (the nested symlinks don't show up in the folder file count). My movies are spread over three data drives. I have my default player set for VLC. Instead of some fancy dancy media program that I can't figure out to use and has a lot of extra crap I don't want or need, I just made a symlink of each movie and put it into a folder in my Video folder on one of my data drives, then made a symlink to that folder on my desktop. Making the symlinks was easy. I just highlight the file or folder I want a symlink for (I can do multiple files and/or folders at the same time; there seems to be no limit on the number), then, while holding down SHIFT and CTRL at the same time, left click and drag the highlighted file(s) and/or folder(s) and drag them to where I want the symlink. That creates the symlink(s), easy peasy, slick and sleazy. I also use nested symlinks--symlinks that lead to symlinks--sometimes as much as four deep. I set the folder to display List View, unchecked all the options to view, leaving only the file or folder name, then zoomed it all the way out. Now, I can easily read the movie tiles on my TV screen from ten feet away and use a wireless mouse as a remote.
I have my movies and TV-shows on two HDD's on three partitions.. I made a own local homepage instead of my old "video-list"word document that list it all movies/shows name, category, year, and length.. it contains one link to IMDB if I or someone visiting me wants to read about the movie/show and a link to my local storage, so I just can click it and it open my media player and plays the movie.. so no shortcuts or symlinks needed.
Just a tip if you want to get away from the symlinks. :D
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

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Marie SWE wrote: Fri Jul 22, 2022 6:58 pm
Lady Fitzgerald wrote: Fri Jul 22, 2022 6:19 pm I may be the symlink queen here. I have well over 1200 symlinks in just my movies folder (the nested symlinks don't show up in the folder file count). My movies are spread over three data drives. I have my default player set for VLC. Instead of some fancy dancy media program that I can't figure out to use and has a lot of extra crap I don't want or need, I just made a symlink of each movie and put it into a folder in my Video folder on one of my data drives, then made a symlink to that folder on my desktop. Making the symlinks was easy. I just highlight the file or folder I want a symlink for (I can do multiple files and/or folders at the same time; there seems to be no limit on the number), then, while holding down SHIFT and CTRL at the same time, left click and drag the highlighted file(s) and/or folder(s) and drag them to where I want the symlink. That creates the symlink(s), easy peasy, slick and sleazy. I also use nested symlinks--symlinks that lead to symlinks--sometimes as much as four deep. I set the folder to display List View, unchecked all the options to view, leaving only the file or folder name, then zoomed it all the way out. Now, I can easily read the movie tiles on my TV screen from ten feet away and use a wireless mouse as a remote.
I have my movies and TV-shows on two HDD's on three partitions.. I made a own local homepage instead of my old "video-list"word document that list it all movies/shows name, category, year, and length.. it contains one link to IMDB if I or someone visiting me wants to read about the movie/show and a link to my local storage, so I just can click it and it open my media player and plays the movie.. so no shortcuts or symlinks needed.
Just a tip if you want to get away from the symlinks. :D
Sounds like a lot of work to me to set all that up. All I need is a place where I can browse to find a movie or TV show I want to watch, then click on it to watch it. I can go to a folder that has PDFs of the liner notes of all the movies/TV shows if I do want to see more than just the movie title (all the movies have a reference number assigned to them for cross referencing).

Making the symlinks is stupid easy. Since I've been reorganizing many of my movies and TV shows into folder to make my movie list less cumbersome, there was a chance I might have lost a link or few. To fix any missing links (pardon the pun), I started over with a new Movie folder, then, one at a time, opened up each data drive that had my movies, highlighted all of them with CTRL+A, then, while holding down SHIFT+CTRL, left clicked and dragged the lot to the new movie folder, then waited a few seconds for the drive activity to stop madly flashing me, then move on to the next drive. The entire process took less than 30 seconds, if that long (and yes, I had lost a few symlinks).

I have no reason for me to want to get away from symlinks. Those little jewels are handier than sliced bread and indoor plumbing combined. For me they are a valuable tool.
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

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Lady Fitzgerald wrote: Fri Jul 22, 2022 7:24 pm Sounds like a lot of work to me to set all that up. All I need is a place where I can browse to find a movie or TV show I want to watch, then click on it to watch it. I can go to a folder that has PDFs of the liner notes of all the movies/TV shows if I do want to see more than just the movie title (all the movies have a reference number assigned to them for cross referencing).

Making the symlinks is stupid easy. Since I've been reorganizing many of my movies and TV shows into folder to make my movie list less cumbersome, there was a chance I might have lost a link or few. To fix any missing links (pardon the pun), I started over with a new Movie folder, then, one at a time, opened up each data drive that had my movies, highlighted all of them with CTRL+A, then, while holding down SHIFT+CTRL, left clicked and dragged the lot to the new movie folder, then waited a few seconds for the drive activity to stop madly flashing me, then move on to the next drive. The entire process took less than 30 seconds, if that long (and yes, I had lost a few symlinks).

I have no reason for me to want to get away from symlinks. Those little jewels are handier than sliced bread and indoor plumbing combined. For me they are a valuable tool.
noo it don't flash madly at you... it's flirting with you. :wink:

it was some job the first time, but I had my old word document with all the info, so I just copy the text, then made links to the folders and files.. the most work was to get the IMDB links.. but I did it in waves.. and now when I get new ones, it is only one or two at the time to edit in.
It just a basic HTML code I use to do 15years ago, so no fancy scripts or looks.

It was just a tip of an idea if you wanted something else then just a folder library. :) noting more, nothing less, so to speak. :mrgreen:
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

Post by diabolicbg »

rambo919 wrote: Fri Jul 22, 2022 2:21 pm I can't for the life of me understand why some people store everything right on the desktop.
As we say in Bulgaria, such people "pull the devil by the tail" and look for their own problems. :D
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

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Lady Fitzgerald wrote: Fri Jul 22, 2022 6:19 pm I may be the symlink queen here. I have well over 1200 symlinks in just my movies folder ...
That's a lot of symlinks! :)

My movies / TV shows are all on my Unraid server (and backed up to a second server) and I have a couple of RPis with OSMC on that I use for watching media. My LM PC is for grunt work and gaming, the latter of which I seem to spend way too much time doing (badly ;)).
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

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I just watch movies on Netflix and Prime . . . . . saves me all that drive real estate - and really I very seldom watch a movie more than once - actually almost never. I did go back and watch the original Top Gun on Prime before going to see Maverick. Just saying . . . . :D
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

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I'm the opposite. There's a fair number of movies & TV shows I've watched over and over again (Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Friends, Blackadder, Red Dwarf ... the list goes on) and, while I do have an Amazon Prime subscription, I mostly use it for delivery and Prime Gaming. I do watch the occasional show on Prime Video, but not enough to warrant paying for a separate streaming subscription.
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

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Infidelus wrote: Sat Jul 23, 2022 2:16 pm I'm the opposite. There's a fair number of movies & TV shows I've watched over and over again (Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Friends, Blackadder, Red Dwarf ... the list goes on) and, while I do have an Amazon Prime subscription, I mostly use it for delivery and Prime Gaming. I do watch the occasional show on Prime Video, but not enough to warrant paying for a separate streaming subscription.
I also rewatch movies and TV shows. After a year or two, rewatching a movie or TV series is almost like watching a new one. I stopped going to theaters well before Covid hit, partly because movies kept getting longer and my bladder kept getting smaller but mostly because people couldn't keep their big mouths shut or make their children behave during the movie. I usually can buy movies for less than it costs to go to the theater, especially if I'm patient and wait for the prices to go down.

I refuse to pay Amazon for their Prime extortion.
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

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Not to mention they can't seem to leave their phones alone for two hours! I don't need to be distracted by your phone lighting up just because you 'just have to reply to that last tweet/text/whatever' thankyouverymuch! Turn the damn thing off! Imagine transporting these people back to the 70s/80s/90s. They'd never survive!

I think the last film I was at the cinema was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the ruined franchise! :)
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

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My wife is a prolific reader - literally reads three or four hours a day which means several books a week. She has a college friend with whom she trades books back and forth and of course belongs to a book discussion group. I bring this up just to say we began and have been members of Prime for years primarily because we get second hand books delivered weekly . . . . . And a benefit of that is Prime video. I get it folks hate Amazon for all kinds of reasons - (I read a book several months ago that I would have had no interest reading except that Amazon banned it so I wanted to see what the hub bub was about) so I make no judgement on that, but for me it is a service that has value. I get all my second paperback Jack Reacher books pretty cheap from Amazon and so on. My impression is that there is a single fee for Amazon Prime which includes video, shopping and other stuff . . . maybe I am wrong on that but that is what my experience has been.

As far as how folks behave in the theater . . . . I guess that depends a lot on where you live and I suppose the movies you go to see. I live in an unincorporated (not in a municipality of any sort) area in a rural county in NC. Although we are not all that far from a small city, Winston-Salem. People are polite and young people are respectful. I am accustomed to "sir and "ma'am" from so many years in the military but grew up in the north (Philadelphia) and some of my family and friends from up north are amused by use of "sir and "ma'am" by people just a few years younger than them - they say it makes them feel old. Anyway I have not run into people talking in the movies or using their phones during the show.
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

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The mention of books, doesn't anyone here use a library?
Our library also has a wide range of magazines available online so I don't always have to drop in on my bicycle. However I do prefer paper so off to the library before picking up the groceries, on my bike.
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

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Funnily enough there's a library less than 50 yards from my house, but I don't think I've used it for well over 20 years!

I used to be a fairly avid reader when I was younger, but getting my first PC in the mid 90s pretty much put a stop to that as I found I was much more interested in playing on the computer; breaking it, reinstalling it, wondering 'what does this .exe or .com file do ... oops - don't do that again' :), and of course the mandatory hours wasted gaming (which I still spend way too much time doing).

I do occasionally pick up a book, but I just don't have anywhere near as much interest anymore.
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

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Infidelus wrote: Sun Jul 24, 2022 5:21 amFunnily enough there's a library less than 50 yards from my house, but I don't think I've used it for well over 20 years!
Dreadful (20 years).

There are 3 books of mine right in front of me, Scottish folk music (one is printed 1920, 6th edition, and the second is older) and I'm tracking the songs via YouTube. I'm also (from the library) reading about the geology of this country, written by a person who ran the trip we did to an island about 350 km east of here. I'm a bit worried by it as one of the biggest volcanic explosions in the world happened not far up north. It happens every 900 years so he says and hasn't happened recently for 1800 years.... Hmmmm...

Actually there are books everywhere here. I suppose it helps having some written and published by myself (sea kayak touring guide books) and by my father (poetry).

Yes, I believe in paper. Cut the trees down so more can be planted.... maybe.
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

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I prefer ebooks. They take up almost infinitely less room than dead tree (paper) books. An eook reader is easier to carry around and pretty much contains my entire library of of books. ebooks can be easily backed up, unlike dead tree books that are easily lost, damaged, or destroyed. I can adjust font size and type on an ebook reader or on my computer (I read from my TV, which is patched into my computer), making my old eyes much happier. Also, ebooks usually cost far less than their dead tree versions.

As far as liking the smell and/or feel of books goes, I just don't get that. I read books for their content, not their smell (and some used books can be pretty nasty) or feel. I'll grant a wall of shelves filled with nicely bound books can look impressive but I don't have room for almost a thousand or more books displayed that way.

I haven't used a public library in years. Just going there is inconvenient since I have do so during their hours. Books I want aren't always available. Also, I have to read on their schedule, even if I check out ebooks, which is inconvenient. My reading time varies all over the clock and calendar. Earlier this year, I didn't do much reading because I was too busy working outside on home improvement projects. Now that it's too darned hot to do anything like that, I have far more time to read (and do so).
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

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Books like computers are whatever works for you. I have a library card but never use it. It always seemed they never had what I wanted or if they did I was on some waiting list - even for the e-books which I don't really like - I want to hold a book in my hands - same with the newspaper. Also with the library you have to read the book on their schedule - that's usually OK but sometimes I am reading fiction and non-fiction at the same time and may set one or the other aside and before I can get back to it, times up with the library.

I read in bed for an hour or two every night until I can't keep my eyes open usually around 2300 (11pm). My wife reads, sometimes a few hours in the afternoon and always for a few hours before bed - typically until midnight. The other night she just had to finish a book and did not come to bed until 0430 but that is very unusual. Like movies I don't read books twice. During the pandemic one of my brothers (I have 5) decided he was going to re-read the "classics" . . . . yeah, no, I don't think so. But he is an Ivy Leaguer (U of Penn) and a retired college professor (Math) so I guess it fits.
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

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RollyShed wrote: Sun Jul 24, 2022 6:57 am Dreadful (20 years).
:)

I should qualify that the library by me is only a small community library, so doesn't have a huge range of content and, more recently they've had to give up some of the book space to make way for a little cafe as the local council stopped funding it, so it's now run by volunteers and has to pretty much pay for itself.
Lady Fitzgerald wrote: Sun Jul 24, 2022 10:50 am I prefer ebooks.
I do too for the space saving. I've probably got around 1000 in my Calibre library, and one day I may actually read a few of them :lol:
I do still have one bookcase full of books, but since ebooks came out I haven't bought any more paper tomes.
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

Post by MurphCID »

I ran out of room for actual books, and am having to get rid of some books these days, so I am getting books on my iPad with the kindle, and ibooks app. Right now I am reading Gordon Prange's book Miracle at Midway.
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

Post by MurphCID »

How about this: What sends noobs running back to Windows? Richard Stallman.
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Re: What sends noobs running back to Windows?

Post by antikythera »

He's comparable to a 70s Radio 1 DJ... So yeah, in the immortal words of Monty Python, "run away! run away! run away!"
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