BeechCraft118

I'll take one, please.

I tried LMDE, but realized I didn't like it not being built upon Ubuntu as I am most familiar with that family of distros. I chose Linux Mint MATE since it focuses more on performance than Cinnamon. I get very good performance out of it, but have to use open source drivers as the proprietary ATI drivers can't seem to be installed. I am not sure why. It could just be the hardware is just old. It has a Radeon Xpress X1200 series onboard graphics card, and it seems to have a lot of problem with modern operating systems. I know this system is on borrowed time. Makes me wonder if I should reinstall Linux with the Xfce version just to get maximum performance. I will play with MATE for awhile and see how I like it before making that decision. I've learned, over the years, Linux takes time to customize and tailor to your desires, so I will just mess around for awhile and see if I run into any big issues. The one big problem I have with Linux is its font rendering. I miss not having Cleartype quality rendering. It is not a big deal on Linux's native fonts, but I have to use the TrueType and ClearType fonts for a lot of the projects I work on, so the standard font rendering in Linux can make it look strange unless zoomed in. There was this replacement font rendering software called Infinality I used to use; however, it appears to be very outdated now, and the PPA is probably vulnerable. Overall, I could see Linux Mint being a replacement once Windows 7 reaches EOL/EOS. It's quite nice, and I can probably just tweak these small issues I'm having. I may do a live-boot of the Xfce version just to see how it runs differently. It may be worth a switch from MATE just for that extra reduction in RAM footprint.

Thanks a bunch for the suggestions. I am probably going to go for LMDE for that performance boost. It looks like it'll come out-of-the-box pretty much how I need it aside from needing to do a few driver tweaks. I visited the website and watched a few videos on Linux Mint earlier today, and it looks rather elegant. I will probably play with an installation over the weekend if I don't get some free-time later this week. I plan to use it dual boot for now until Microsoft actually kills 7.

I've tried both OpenOffice and LibreOffice. I definitely prefer Libre more, but the file formatting changes really can mess things up. It is probably what I will end up using. The problems I had were all very minor formatting issues. More than liveable. Honestly, if worse comes to worse, I could always just deal with Google Docs. I just wish you could download it as a client instead of having to rely on an Internet connection. Thanks for the distro suggestions. I have, so far, tried Ubuntu and a few of its lightweight counterparts, but from what I've seen of the newer versions of Ubuntu are even more resource intensive now. I may dual boot on the laptop to do some tests with Mint to see if it fulfills my needs that way I can just transfer directly to it after 2020 comes.

Undoubtedly one of their better decisions. I really hate that Windows 7 support is coming to an end because my utility laptop that I use expressly just for work is going to become obsolete. It is too old to really make use of Windows 10 as the AMD graphics drivers are legacy and prone to BSOD in the new o/s. It can be jerry-rigged to work, but it is the kind of duct tape fix that would light all of OSHA on fire. The laptop was designed for Vista 32/64-bit, but the RAM is unexpandable beyond 4GB, so there is not much room for expansion to even make use of its 64-bit processor. It's an old Dell Inspiron 1521. Nice, bulky laptop. When the comes that 7 is unsupported, it will probably have to become a lightweight Linux machine... my only qualm with this being I will not be able to use MS Office - at least - not conveniently. Kind of hoping 2020 rolls around and MS announces continued support for 7. It is truly the last robust O/S they made. Shame it's about to be put on the chopping block.

I love that not even Microsoft knew what they did "right" with Ultimate. What a silly company.

WIndows Vista was an interesting time for Windows. I would not ever call it a favourite, but it was a great stepping stone toward the development of Windows 7 which, in my opinion, was the last good Windows. Vista always gave me problems, and far-taxxed my system's resources back in the day. I was only ever on the Home version. What did Ultimate do differently?

Hi, So, 1809 no longer has the infamous CPU resource utilization problems as it did previously; however, my wallpaper and default application settings were altered in the update. While these personal settings being changed is annoying, I can detect no data loss within my user folder as I did before. My PC was still using double the RAM it did on 1803 and in previous builds, so I decided to do a little investigating since something felt out of place. I performed a clean boot on my system, so that only Windows services and processes would be running at start up. The resource usage at idle returned to normal, indicating Microsoft, and 1809, were not the direct cause of this sudden jump in resource usage. After re-enabling processes one-at-a-time, I discovered “Killer Network Service” was experiencing a memory leak in this new build, and was the culprit from the high RAM usage. Because I have never used wireless cards in a desktop PC before buying this new one, I thought this software was necessary to run the card. It turns out this software suite is completely unnecessary and only sits atop Windows’ own networking software. So, Windows 1809 seems usable now and does not seem to be deleting data or wasting system resources. The high RAM usage I experience was a memory leak from a supplemental software suite that came pre-packaged with my PC. Moral of the story: clean-boot before you fully blame Microsoft so you confirm non-Microsoft services are not causing the errors you experience; however, remember that Microsoft is still an evil company that doesn’t QA before feature updates because, in the end, they still pushed out a broken upgrade last Fall.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-officially-designates-windows-10-1809-as-ready-for-broad-deployment/ For anyone interesting, Microsoft has officially okay'd build 1809 for Windows 10 for public updating. Allegedly, it will not delete user files anymore, and it won't double your idle resource usage. I will update tonight and see if it still gives me the same errors. (read above comments for more elaboration on the problems I, and others, had with the build last month). I will report on the effects of the update after installation. If the same problems still occur, I guess I will just have to stick with build 1803.

@RaTcHeT302 Thank you for sharing that information about Windows updates. I have not watched the video yet, however, I anticipate hearing Ross complain about the recent October 2018 build of Windows 10. I had installed this wretched update a few weeks ago and had my user settings wiped and some data loss, along with Windows doubling my RAM usage at idle (2.5gb-ish to 5gb-ish). I also saw the anti-malware process and system idle process start over-using my CPU, so the system turned into a complete slog. As if it wasn't bad enough already, as long as you were booted into the O/S, the system would start using more RAM as the day progressed... Completely idle: no-tasking whatsoever. I reverted back to build 1803 which worked flawlessly for me before the update. I am unsure why this occurred on my desktop as several other systems I manage were updated to build 1809 (the October 2018 build) with no problems whatsoever. At any rate, I hate this all-or-nothing mentality Micro$oft perpetuates with its update system. I understand security is important and forcing updates promotes cyber-security resilience, but taking away an easily accessed inhibit function for updating is infuriating. Not everyone with a personal computer is an irresponsible dolt. Removing inhibit options is just them treating every PC owner as children. Oh yeah by-the-way: there is an inhibit function in the advanced windows updates settings that allows you to disable updates for a certain number of days, and an option to furlough feature updates for as long as 90 days. Yeah... Those settings don't work. I tried to use both of them and was given a confirmation window that my settings were applied. On reboot Windows was downloading away and scheduling an installation restart. Even those running the professional edition are not exempt from oversight by almighty Microsoft. Spyware, bloatware, and restriction-ware. No personal freedom at all in Windows-- though I guess it never existed to begin with. I wish it was as simple as just switching to Linux, but that is a whole different discussion.

Ross, You mentioned Elon Musk's self-driving (electric) cars, and that you think the problem of automobile transportation has gotten a bit too large for them to be effective (1:53:26). What do you think is the problem, and why is it too massive? I have my own doubts about the future of self-driving cars as the infrastructure change necessary to make it a viable option is rather high even if you were to reduce roadway traffic volume through use of busses and carpool solutions to reduce traffic density. It comes to a point where the population and sheer traffic density makes self-driving cars seem like an economically and logistically infeasible option as a private or public transportation solution, or even a mass-transit solution in general. This might not be the case in other countries, but in the USA this seems especially problematic. What do you think about automating other forms of transportation? While we might not get total automobile automation, I think we could easily see fully-automated air and seafaring transportation where human crews are eliminated altogether, or at least reduced to a system analyst role. I was wondering what your thoughts are on this. Thanks, Samuel

Hey Ross, Glad to hear you're out of mold town. After seeing you go through that whole situation, it prompted some fear in me since I live in Florida where mold is common following hurricanes and severe thunderstorms. Have you considered collecting your used egg containers and pinning them to the walls for sound-dampening? I know some other YouTubers, like LifeOfBoris, use them as a solution to sound propagation and acoustic problems in his apartment. They are sort of like a poor-man's acoustic foam. Hope the new place is adequate for y'all. -Jamie

Hiya, I love the new website design. Thanks for all the work that undoubtedly went into recreating the site!

Nice new episode. Freeman was so sporadic in this one lol.

I would honestly expect him to say something about the pods the martians came to Earth in-in "War of the Worlds." Good H.G.Wells moment there.