Windows XP home users should upgrade to Linux -- not Windows 8.1

Beta News ^ | 30 January 2014 | Brian Fagioli

[angryoldfatman]

Dang, who’s got XP anymore.

LOL! You're funny.

I'd like to see you try and take my wife's XP laptop away.

Say, is your organ donor card signed? How's your pancreas? Just curious.

[Jeff Chandler]

You’re not alone.

[angryoldfatman]

Mint is a pretty good substitute for Windows XP when it comes to the unsophisticated user who has older hardware.

Somebody who only does Facebook, Twitter, solitaire, and/or e-mail and has gotten accustomed to nearly 20-year-old icon/desktop Windows interface will take to Mint easily and quickly. ESPECIALLY if they learn they can get it and use it FOR FREE, no strings attached.

[struggle]

I got a laptop without a hard drive and bought a 16 gig flag drive and installed Linux Slax wear. It’s an awesome and very small OS. I’m seriously considering dumping my Windows 7 OS desktop for Linux as well

[NewHampshireDuo]

My XP Pro machine (love it) is now off line. Anything connected is with a separate machine running Mint 16. I also have a Win 7 Pro PC with Mint and my “no Linux equivalent” Windows applications running under Wine.

Except for two ham radio programs that have to have Windows, I can be pretty much Windows free.

[gura]

I like crunchbang:

[libbylu]

So happy to read that. I bought Windows 7 pro 4 years ago, was not compatible with my work although techs had said it would be. Had to go back to XP. Still on IE7 which I only use for work.

[gura]

At some point there was one guy who was the last selling whale oil.

[afraidfortherepublic]

I just had 2 computers built and one upgraded to Win 7.

[freeandfreezing]

Good points about keeping old operating systems running - something necessary for many purposes. Another useful approach is to round up some old Windows XP retail media, and "install" it into a virtual machine running on whatever modern OS and hardware you prefer. Then fetch the updates - before Microsoft shuts off support - and save the virtual machine image.

Once you have that configuration working you can re-create your Windows XP system as needed. You can also control how much network access you allow to the VM installation of Windows XP.

[Dalberg-Acton]

I gave my Mom an Averatec laptop several years ago and I suggested we replace XP with Linux. She only uses it for e-mail, face book and solitaire.

The only 32 bit linux disk I had on hand was Ubuntu 9.10, so I booted to the live cd to test out the hardware. Everything worked, so I ran DBAN on the hard disk and installed Ubuntu 9.10. Once that was done, I found out the repositories had nothing to update it, so I downloaded, burned and tried to install Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS. The install would not finish, but hung up in the middle of the process. I tried Ubuntu 12.04.3 and got the same thing. Then Xubuntu 13.10, same thing.

I switched gears and tried Fedora LXDE v20 and it installed, but insisted the internal WiFi hardware switch was turned off. Went to the trouble of installing “rfkill”, but that was not able to unblock the hardware (RT2500 pci).

Last attempt was Debian 7.2 and it works. Only idiot-synchrocy is when you log out a user and log in again, the WiFi won’t connect and it has to be rebooted.

Total time spent fooling around with all of this was still less than installing XP and all updates from scratch.

[Jeff Chandler]

The patches will continue for Windows 7 and Windows 8. Both of those operating systems share code with XP. All a hacker has to do is analyze the Windows 7 & 8 patches to find exploits they can use on XP, which will not be patched. Ever.

You are wrong in your assertion that there is no profit in hacking XP. XP machines are all over the place, and in incredibly sensitive uses.

Why you should upgrade Windows XP.

Two of my computers run XP and I have already installed Linux Mint on one of them, with the other to follow. Mint is okay. My other computers/devices run Windows 7 or Android. The Mint machines won't be used for anything critical.

[Dalberg-Acton]

I forgot to mention I tried PC Linux OS also. The laptop has an AMD Sempron 2800 CPU, 80 gig HD and 1 gig of RAM.

[ThunderSleeps]

I like the GNU tool chain along with netbeans as an IDE.

[dalereed]

I’m staying with XP, I just went back to it after dumping 7!!

[AlexW]

“There is no need for anyone to upgrade (?) from XP.”
______________________________________________________
I am with you. I have had XP for years. It is on my 6 yr old Toshiba laptop. If I were still a kid I would be into trying new tricks, but I am now too old to do that.
My wife and kid are using a Dell that I took on hock. It has W7, I think. I do not like trying to use it.
I may soon have to replace the hard drive in my old Tosiba. I do not look forward to doing it, but when I do, I will stay with my XP.

[T Ruth]

Thanks for the helpful post.

[TigersEye]

btrl

[rlmorel]

My entire hospital has Windows XP. Upgrading from XP in the medical community has been a challenge because of the many specialized applications that are wedded to Windows XP. It finally began changing in the last several years as vendors realized that time was running out on them.

There is a huge logistical tail involved. We have been trying for a few years to be able to upgrade to Windows 7 64 bit in my department, simply because the memory benefits were huge to the radiologists...we were hogtied performance-wise due to the memory limitations of XP.

But there is a LOT of money that has to be thrown at it throughout the institution.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

The sane way to do things is to get a second computer, pre-loaded and troubleshot with Linux. Then, you gradually migrate you Windows system off the Internet, as your Linux system takes over just that. Thus you have all the goodness of Windows for non-Internet apps, with little risk.

You might even connect the two together, so that your Windows system acts like a peripheral to your Linux system, happily insulated from the Internet.