Alternatives to Windows10

[Alvin]

Recently, I learned that when Windows7, my current opsys is no longer supported, next year, upgrading to Windows10 - at a price - will not assure me of a long period of its use. It is possible in the future that Microsoft will impose a monthly charge not only for business users of Windows10, but even for home computer users. I turned to Linux for an opsys and chose Mint cindarella from numerous choices.

I was pleasantly receptive to it as it opened in my dual boot system. I thought it a good idea to do a dual boot, until I found my way in Mint. I found two discouraging realizations:
1. I could not easily get my Brother HL-2140, dependable and low-cost printer operational on Mint. Mint recognized the Brother HL-2140 by manufacture and model number, but it could not transfer data to be printed to it. I assumed it needed a missing driver. This was a disappointment, because new to the Mint opsys I faced difficulty, as I learned, in downloading, extracting, and running the driver installation. I learned I would have to do it by means of the terminal. The GUI method would not do that job. I made a few tries in the terminal, but they failed. I tried to follow the instructions provided to me by Brother, but they did not include details of using the Mint terminal. I realized I would have to learn the terminal language. That language is case sensitive, I found out to my chagrin - unlike the Windows7 command script.
2. I searched for documentation of the Mint terminal language. I found one documentation - very bare bones- that did not help me at all. Later I found, through this forum, a somewhat more comprehensive list of commands. I realized that I should probably have to spend an equal amount of time using it to install the driver correctly. I thought about alternatives.

This is what I decided: I have an Amazon Fire 10 HD tablet that I recently bought as a trade in from my old Kindle Fire HD 7. The new one is large, good resolution, and has all the apps I need. I did not have to learn a new command language; it is easy to use. Most importantly, I can use it with my desktop computer, on which I have been trying to use a dual opsys with Mint and could not easily install my printer. In 2020, when Windows7 is no longer supported, I shall simply disconnect my Dell Inspiron 660s from the internet and continue to use all of the peripherals I have with it, my Brother printer, my scanner, HP2027a monitor, and my audio system. I can keep up with the internet by using my Amazon Fire 10 HD. If I need to print something, I can transfer it to my desktop and print from there. I may even be able to print from my tablet to my shared printer.

In conclusion, it seems that I shall not need Windows10, nor shall I need to devote more hours to learning the terminal commands and other details of Mint.
I think I have solved my problem by putting the "cart" (my tablet) in front of the "horse" (my desktop)! I hope this helps another "newbie" who has similar problems.

[deepakdeshp]

For brother
https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.c ... s.html?m=1
Terminal command language.
It's not mandatory to learn these. But if you want to explore on depth, this is useful guide.
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/unix/shell_scripting.htm

[deepakdeshp]

An easy read for a beginner.
easylinuxtipsproject.com

https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.com/p/1.html?m=1

[Alvin]

Dear Sir: I cannot marked "Solved", because I have not tried your kind offering. I shall proceed with using my tablet as my internet connection and my desktop with Windows7, disconnected, for more complex data handling and storage.

Thank you for your suggestions!

[Moem]

Dear Sir: I cannot marked "Solved", because I have not tried your kind offering.

The part of the post below the thin horizontal line is the user's signature; don't take it personally, it's shown below every post.

[AndyMH]

Brother are normally good with their linux support, you can download the drivers here:

https://support.brother.com/g/b/downloa ... all&os=128

You need to download the LPR file and the CUPSwrapper file. Both are deb files. This means you don't have to mess around with the terminal. In the file manager just navigate to where you downloaded the files and double click on them.

Install the LPR file first, the cupswrapper must be done second, it has dependencies on the other package. From when I installed my HL4140, the cupswrapper seemed to take a long time to install.

There is a Driver install tool which will install everything for you, but this is a compressed file that you have to unpack using commands in the terminal - the website gives you instructions on how and what you have to do - more complicated so I suggest you just install the LPR file and CUPSwrapper as above.

[michael louwe]

In conclusion, it seems that I shall not need Windows 10, nor shall I need to devote more hours to learning the terminal commands and other details of Mint.
I think I have solved my problem by putting the "cart" (my tablet) in front of the "horse" (my desktop)! I hope this helps another "newbie" who has similar problems.

As an average home-user, I am also in the same predicament as you, ie facing Win 7 EOL in Jan 2020 and problem finding a good alternative.

Because I am on a cheaper Cellular 4G/LTE Mobile Broadband Plan for unlimited voice-calls and Internet data/connection on an Android 8.0 mobile device(= a 4G/LTE smartphone or tablet that uses a SIM card), I have to use Windows on my laptop for Mobile Hotspot sharing. Many Android apps do not support Linux, ie only support Windows. I prefer to surf the web using the larger Windows laptop than the Android tablet/smartphone, especially for streaming videos.

My approach to this predicament is to use Win 10 Ent LTSB/LTSC 2019 in VirtualBox(avoid buggy LTSB 2016), either unactivated or surreptitiously-activated(= forced to do so by M$'s underhanded tactics.?) on my Win 7 laptop as the host machine. It is insane to run Win 10 Home/Pro/Ent since M$ forces auto-updates/upgrades regularly on the users and "steals" their Telemetry & Data, including possibly forced subscriptions post-Jan 2020. Eg forced auto-upgrades by M$ at least once per year for Win 10 Pro/Ent. .......
https://www.howtogeek.com/244678/you-do ... indows-10/ - You Don’t Need a Product Key to Install and Use Windows 10 - CHRIS HOFFMAN - UPDATED OCTOBER 30, 2017
....... My fallback is to use the 10" Android tablet for web-surfing.
.
.
P S - Compared to 3G/Edge/GPRS/HSPDA+, 4G/LTE cellular mobile broadband Internet is quite fast = up to 100Mbps but average about 15Mbps in download/upload speed; and low latency/ping of about 50 milliseconds = can play online games with little lag.

Win 7 does not support TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2 signed certificates for https web encryption, ie only supports the older SSL 2.0/SSL 3.0/TLS 1.0. TLS 1.1 & 1.2 need to be manually enabled via M$ Update, ie KB3140245. ....... https://support.microsoft.com/ha-latn-n ... cols-in-wi
....... Many websites and browsers are deprecating or disabling TLS 1.0 and 1.1 = may suffer slower or broken web-surfing with unpatched Win 7 = use older versions of the browser. .......
https://www.zdnet.com/article/chrome-ed ... 1-in-2020/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security
.
P P S - Previously, I was on a more expensive Home Fixed Broadband ADSL unlimited plan for Internet data/connection and there was not much problem running LM Cinnamon from an external USB HDD as my primary OS on my dual-booted Win 7 laptop.

[Pjotr]

Looks like we've found ourselves a redeemer, who's showing us the golden road to salvation from the horror that's Linux.

[Pierre]

the real point, is that any Linux System is Not always an ideal solution.

in fact, there is an surprising number of folks, who are doing something similar to that which Alvin has settled upon.
1/ take your existing windows system - - OFF-line - permanently.. no more updates .. no more warnings ..
2/ use their smart-phone / tablet to deal with those on-line issues, that do need attention.

this is why the Google corporation, is doing some-what better than the Microsoft corporation is doing.

The Desktop is in Decline - - the statistics are showing that fact.

yet another example, that I've always remembered::

some years ago. I'd met up with a guy who was still using an W98 based machine:
- which was running some piece of Music Software, that he couldn't replace
so I'd asked the obvious question - - what happens, when the PC hardware finally dies
- - there was no immediate answer, to that issue
since I've never run into him again - the answer will always be an mystery.

[Hoser Rob]

... I turned to Linux for an opsys and chose Mint cindarella ....

Do you mean LMDE 'Cindy'? If so you should post this in the LMDE section otherwise you'll get a llot of answers that'd work in Ubuntu based Mint but not LMDE.

You need to post better info, copy/paste this to the terminal and copy/paste the text output here in code tags (no screenshots plz):

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxz