Windows 11 upgrade?

[Sooner Boomer]

John, I don't know enough about Linux. My main concern is that I *must* use MS Word for textbook work. In fact all three co-authors use the same *version* of Word, because when working with 150 page (per chapter) documents with lots of formatting (super- and subscripts and other chemistry symbols and the like) we have found that different versions of Word sometimes give documents with slight differences. I know that's not supposed to happen but it has done so. Which is why we don't use the free MS-Office-compatible software.

If Word can be used within Linux, that should be satisfactory. If it has to run under Windows, even in a different partition or whatnot, there's little advantage to Linux for me. Oh well, so it goes.

Best -- Terry

I'm surprised you don't use LaTeX. I thought it was a sort-of defacto standard in technical academia.

https://www.latex-project.org/
The windows, linux, and mac versions DO format the same.

 

[ksaves2]

Ahhhhh, I think some of the word processors in Linux can save documents in MS compatible formats. I use Libre Writer (it's free) currently but I am retired and don't have to comply with an employer standard. WINE can be a bear to setup. Took me 18 months to get it working under WINE several years ago. It was weird as it ran faster under emulation. Some of the flight simulations/animations (Rocksim) were spotty in operation but the numbers crunching worked fine. Burnsim worked too along with a lot of programming and remote operating software for some ham radios I have. I don't know if Word would be easy to setup and run under WINE emulation. Could be a setup minefield.
Am on hiatus from rocketry for now and haven't had a chance to mess with WINE in Linux Mint after leaving Slackware. I found WINE worked better (at the time) if I compiled all the code from the downloaded packages and clicked all the options. On my 4 and 6 processor Pentium Pro network servers I bought second hand for cheap, it would compile very fast. Alas, I had to junk the machines as they drew a lot of power and my wife was tired of them. They were ALR machines later bought out by Gateway 2000.
I tell people put a Linux Distro on a leftover or extra computer/laptop and start playing with it. In the old days of Win 3.3, I'd stick a second hard drive in a computer tower and dual boot. I could choose Windows or the Linux distro Slackware I was using at the time. I find it harder to setup dual boot these days so I just put a Linux distro on and use it. My son is playing Frogger on the Windows 10 tower in the dining room. He's a master of it. I use Linux Mint exclusively on a dual core cheap laptop. That's all I need. Ah a lot of Linux software is free to download and use. Only issue is most of the time support can only be had on boards and groups. The price one pays for free software. Kurt Savegnago

 

[ksaves2]

I'm surprised you don't use LaTeX. I thought it was a sort-of defacto standard in technical academia.

https://www.latex-project.org/
The windows, linux, and mac versions DO format the same.

I tried LaTex in the 90's and it was much too hard for me to learn. I abandoned it and used the word processors that came with whatever Linux Distro I was using. I don't know if the interface has changed but it was said LaTex "could" do better formatting than Word. I felt the learning curve was too high at the time for me though that might have changed.

Kurt Savegnago

 

[prfesser]

I'm surprised you don't use LaTeX. I thought it was a sort-of defacto standard in technical academia.

https://www.latex-project.org/
The windows, linux, and mac versions DO format the same.

I've not used LaTeX but my understanding is that it's usually for highly technical textbooks, journal articles, and the like, where a lot of equations/expressions are needed. I've heard that Kurt is correct, the learning curve is steep.

The textbooks I write are general chemistry and consumer chemistry; Word's equation editor is adequate. Also, all the authors as well as the editors would need to learn it. It sounds like it's much more tool than is needed for what we do.

Best -- Terry

 

[John Kemker]

Ahhhhh, I think some of the word processors in Linux can save documents in MS compatible formats. I use Libre Writer (it's free) currently but I am retired and don't have to comply with an employer standard. WINE can be a bear to setup. Took me 18 months to get it working under WINE several years ago. It was weird as it ran faster under emulation. Some of the flight simulations/animations (Rocksim) were spotty in operation but the numbers crunching worked fine. Burnsim worked too along with a lot of programming and remote operating software for some ham radios I have. I don't know if Word would be easy to setup and run under WINE emulation. Could be a setup minefield.
Am on hiatus from rocketry for now and haven't had a chance to mess with WINE in Linux Mint after leaving Slackware. I found WINE worked better (at the time) if I compiled all the code from the downloaded packages and clicked all the options. On my 4 and 6 processor Pentium Pro network servers I bought second hand for cheap, it would compile very fast. Alas, I had to junk the machines as they drew a lot of power and my wife was tired of them. They were ALR machines later bought out by Gateway 2000.
I tell people put a Linux Distro on a leftover or extra computer/laptop and start playing with it. In the old days of Win 3.3, I'd stick a second hard drive in a computer tower and dual boot. I could choose Windows or the Linux distro Slackware I was using at the time. I find it harder to setup dual boot these days so I just put a Linux distro on and use it. My son is playing Frogger on the Windows 10 tower in the dining room. He's a master of it. I use Linux Mint exclusively on a dual core cheap laptop. That's all I need. Ah a lot of Linux software is free to download and use. Only issue is most of the time support can only be had on boards and groups. The price one pays for free software. Kurt Savegnago

WINE is much easier to install and configure these days, especially under Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop environment (DE). I'm currently running EVE Online, a Windows-and-Mac-only game under WINE on Linux Mint 20.2.

Output of neofetch:

✦ ➜ neofetch
             ...-:::::-...                 MyHostNameIsHidden
          .-MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM-.              -----------------------
      .-MMMM`..-:::::::-..`MMMM-.          OS: Linux Mint 20.2 x86_64
    .:MMMM.:MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM:.MMMM:.        Host: X570 AORUS ELITE WIFI -CF
   -MMM-M---MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.MMM-       Kernel: 5.4.0-89-generic
 `:MMM:MM`  :MMMM:....::-...-MMMM:MMM:`    Uptime: 13 days, 2 hours, 20 mins
 :MMM:MMM`  :MM:`  ``    ``  `:MMM:MMM:    Packages: 4328 (dpkg), 12 (flatpak),
.MMM.MMMM`  :MM.  -MM.  .MM-  `MMMM.MMM.   Shell: bash 5.0.17
:MMM:MMMM`  :MM.  -MM-  .MM:  `MMMM-MMM:   Resolution: 1920x1080, 1920x1080
:MMM:MMMM`  :MM.  -MM-  .MM:  `MMMM:MMM:   DE: Cinnamon
:MMM:MMMM`  :MM.  -MM-  .MM:  `MMMM-MMM:   WM: Mutter (Muffin)
.MMM.MMMM`  :MM:--:MM:--:MM:  `MMMM.MMM.   WM Theme: Mint-Y-Dark (Mint-Y)
 :MMM:MMM-  `-MMMMMMMMMMMM-`  -MMM-MMM:    Theme: Mint-Y [GTK2/3]
  :MMM:MMM:`                `:MMM:MMM:     Icons: Mint-Y [GTK2/3]
   .MMM.MMMM:--------------:MMMM.MMM.      Terminal: gnome-terminal
     '-MMMM.-MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM-.MMMM-'       CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X (12) @ 3.700G
       '.-MMMM``--:::::--``MMMM-.'         GPU: AMD ATI Radeon 540/540X/550/550
            '-MMMMMMMMMMMMM-'              Memory: 23856MiB / 32119MiB
               ``-:::::-``

 

[ksaves2]

John,

I gotta give it a try. Maybe I'll try it on a quad core laptop I have lying around.
Man o' man it used to be a beech to get setup properly.

Kurt

 

[John Kemker]

John,

I gotta give it a try. Maybe I'll try it on a quad core laptop I have lying around.
Man o' man it used to be a beech to get setup properly.

Kurt

Steam is driving a lot of the improvement in the Linux desktop space. They don't want to write/package for multiple distros, so the distros are starting to improve, because they don't want to miss out on what Steam brings to the marketplace. It's a lot like Walmart and their purchasing power. Steam has the clout to more or less dictate standards to the distros and app developers.

 

[ksaves2]

Steam is driving a lot of the improvement in the Linux desktop space. They don't want to write/package for multiple distros, so the distros are starting to improve, because they don't want to miss out on what Steam brings to the marketplace. It's a lot like Walmart and their purchasing power. Steam has the clout to more or less dictate standards to the distros and app developers.

Ohhhhh shooooot!,

The linux installs are so much easier now. Especially with Linux Mint. I used to be a Slackware guy in '92 but tracking down all the drivers got to be a chore for some software installs. Did a bunch of other distro's like Redhat and later Kali but I wasn't into testing breaking into systems like Kali was designed to do. It was an o.k. distro as far as I was concerned at the time.

In those days, I'd upgrade a kernel and when I did, it was only for a single cpu. I then had to recompile the code to activate symmetrical multi processing that allowed me to use the other three or five CPUs that were in the two servers I had. I don't know how to code and still have a cheat sheet in my downstairs file cabinet I refer to if I have to build code these days.

Stuff/hardware obsoleted so fast in the early days (the 90's) and some really nasty servers could be had for dirt cheap. I had a 4 cpu ALR server, they called it the Quad 6 which made no sense as it only had 4 Pentium Pros and an ALR 6X6. that had 6 PPro cpus. I invested in the 333Mhz PPro upgrade CPU's and they worked really sweetly.

Took forever to compile but once the SMP kernel was built, I was running a server at 1.332 Ghz in the Quad 6 when a lot of CPUs hadn't broke 450Mhz yet. The 6 CPU server was even faster. Once recompiled, 1.998 (or 2Ghz) when single CPU's hadn't hit 1Ghz yet and still in the 450 Mhz range. Man that was the good old days. Unfortunately I eventually junked the machines as I lacked storage space. I regret it immensely. Plus they drew a huge amount of electricity. Two PSU's in the Quad 6 and four PSU's in the 6X6.

Wished I still had them. Would help me keep up on my compiling skills and in spite of drawing a lot of power, would likely run a modern Linux version fairly well. Plus they heated the basement up very nicely in the winter while running.

Yeah my parents had regrets of stuff they should've kept and I have mine. I just didn't have the space to store the servers but c'est la vie.

Kurt

 

[Stefan2k4]

they called it the Quad 6 which made no sense as it only had 4 Pentium Pros and an ALR 6X6. that had 6 PPro cpus.

The Pentium was a 586 of the fifth generation of intels x86 architecture. The Pentium Pro was actually a 686 or the sixth generation. The Pentium II and III were 6th generation as well. Anyway, that's likely the meaning behind the name "Quad 6" and likewise "6X6".

 

[heada]

If you want to learn Linux, get a Raspberry Pi. The Pi4 has enough power to be used as a casual desktop replacement and your investment is normally $100 or so. It also has GPIO so it can be used for hardware projects.

Modern Linux distros have come so far since the early days that they might as well be Windows for most people. I highly recommend everyone give Linux a try just to see what its like. There are live distros so there is no commitment and there are a plethora of YouTube videos giving step by step instructions. The more people that experience Linux, the more Microsoft will tend towards open source, open standards and good public policies.

 

[ksaves2]

The Pentium was a 586 of the fifth generation of intels x86 architecture. The Pentium Pro was actually a 686 or the sixth generation. The Pentium II and III were 6th generation as well. Anyway, that's likely the meaning behind the name "Quad 6" and likewise "6X6".

The only issue there is when ALR invented the Quad 6 and 6X6, the Pentium Pro 333Mhz Overdrive was still a conception.

I can see your nomenclature that the PPro was the 686 as ALR Quad 6 was designed for the Pentium Pro 200Mhz chip. I think I just dinked with some jumpers and the PPro 333Mhz overdrive cpu's worked fine. Had to buy 4 of those mf's and were pricey at the time. Getting the 6 PPro 333's for the 6X6 was a little easier as the prices had dropped by that time. Running 1.332Ghz at a time when most desktops only ran 450Mhz was an absolute blast.
Yeah it was symmetrical multi-processing mode but it still rocked!
The only suckee thing was I never got to run the machines on fiber like I have now. That would have really been neat to see and I'm sure they could have been able to hack it. Modems only back them. After downloading code for 24 hours they would rip through it, compiling it in a relatively short period of time. (Until the "latter" days.)

It was efffffing crazy in those days as I read a positive review in a computer magazine that a Quad 6 was like close to $20,000.00!

Less than a year later after the internet bust and that report, I picked one up for $700.00. Yeah seven hundred bucks. I added more memory and the 333Mhz cpu's and that thing far surpassed any desktop that was out there at the time. Those were freaking crazy days. The thing about dinking with computers. No epoxy. No CA, not bickering about the "best" glue. Just messing with boards and such.

I was relieved after dealing with some bus jumpers the cpu's worked fine for the years I ran the machines. I ran the Quad 6 for several years downloading seti@home blocks automatically for processing. In the early days seti@home had software for Linux and I ran it on the Quad 6, 24/7. The 6X6 drew too much power and generated too much heat as far as I was concerned to do seti crunching.

I was amaze as what "old iron" could do running a Linux OS.

Like I've said before, load a Linux distro on an old tower, desktop or laptop and dink with it. One might be surprised. It might do enough for the stuff that one wants to do and they can then ditch WinBlows.

Kurt

 

[ksaves2]

If you want to learn Linux, get a Raspberry Pi. The Pi4 has enough power to be used as a casual desktop replacement and your investment is normally $100 or so. It also has GPIO so it can be used for hardware projects.

Modern Linux distros have come so far since the early days that they might as well be Windows for most people. I highly recommend everyone give Linux a try just to see what its like. There are live distros so there is no commitment and there are a plethora of YouTube videos giving step by step instructions. The more people that experience Linux, the more Microsoft will tend towards open source, open standards and good public policies.

Yup,

Or any old computer lying 'bout the house will do. Make sure it's appropriate to wipe the drive and load a Linux distro on it and have at it. Me? I use Linux Mint but go out there, search out Linux and try a distro on a disposable computer. Don't like it? Wipe the drive clean and try another distro for cripes sake!
Creeeeeiipes, I had Rocksim and Burnsim working under the WINE emulator several years ago in the early 2000's or 2005's. I emailed Tim Van Milligan (the guy who is the president of Apogee Rocketry) that I got the Rocksim version of the time working under WINE/linux and he emailed back in a puzzled fashion, "What do you want me to do with that?" I replied, "If anyone inquires just refer them to the link I sent you." He didn't have a clue what was going on. Those were the good 'ol days.

Kurt Savegnago

 

[John Kemker]

The RPi is a GREAT platform to learn Linux, though you might find some applications don't have an ARM64 port. I've seen Raspberry Pi SBCs built into the keyboard and all you needed to do was plug in a USB mouse and an HDMI-compatible monitor and you're good to go.

 

[DaHabes]

I just upgraded my laptop (3 years old). It's significantly faster. The only issue encountered so far is with permissions accessing files on a Windows 10 unit on my network. However, that one is a bit whacked (much older, won't take updates anymore and I either need to re-image or replace it), so I'm not letting that influence my perception. Quite candidly, It was a simple update, akin to a major release on Windows 10, which is really all it is. There are some minor interface changes (which I wish I could reverse), but other than that it's been painless.

 

[samb]

Took the upgrade cheese, cause it's free. No ill effects after 24 hours. No great "new and improved" experience either. 2 year old Micro Center PowerSpec box, I5-8400 @2.80 GHz, 16GB RAM.

 

[Ronz Rocketz]

The only issue there is when ALR invented the Quad 6 and 6X6, the Pentium Pro 333Mhz Overdrive was still a conception.

I can see your nomenclature that the PPro was the 686 as ALR Quad 6 was designed for the Pentium Pro 200Mhz chip. I think I just dinked with some jumpers and the PPro 333Mhz overdrive cpu's worked fine. Had to buy 4 of those mf's and were pricey at the time. Getting the 6 PPro 333's for the 6X6 was a little easier as the prices had dropped by that time. Running 1.332Ghz at a time when most desktops only ran 450Mhz was an absolute blast.
Yeah it was symmetrical multi-processing mode but it still rocked!
The only suckee thing was I never got to run the machines on fiber like I have now. That would have really been neat to see and I'm sure they could have been able to hack it. Modems only back them. After downloading code for 24 hours they would rip through it, compiling it in a relatively short period of time. (Until the "latter" days.)

It was efffffing crazy in those days as I read a positive review in a computer magazine that a Quad 6 was like close to $20,000.00!

Less than a year later after the internet bust and that report, I picked one up for $700.00. Yeah seven hundred bucks. I added more memory and the 333Mhz cpu's and that thing far surpassed any desktop that was out there at the time. Those were freaking crazy days. The thing about dinking with computers. No epoxy. No CA, not bickering about the "best" glue. Just messing with boards and such.

I was relieved after dealing with some bus jumpers the cpu's worked fine for the years I ran the machines. I ran the Quad 6 for several years downloading seti@home blocks automatically for processing. In the early days seti@home had software for Linux and I ran it on the Quad 6, 24/7. The 6X6 drew too much power and generated too much heat as far as I was concerned to do seti crunching.

I was amaze as what "old iron" could do running a Linux OS.

Like I've said before, load a Linux distro on an old tower, desktop or laptop and dink with it. One might be surprised. It might do enough for the stuff that one wants to do and they can then ditch WinBlows.

Kurt

What’s the best TIM for the processor? (kidding)

 

[cautery]

I custom built two VERY high end computers just 18 months ago.
And the more expensive of the two, and actually only a year old, is announcing that it does NOT meet Win 11 requirements.

I am ASSUMING that this is because of the TPM requirements.....

I will NOT be moving ANYONE to Win11 until that BS is fixed for sure. Frankly, I OWN like 50 Win10 Pro 64bit licenses (half unused). I may expire before I upgrade Windows again.

I will likely move back to Linux again before I let MS push me into Win11. Frankly I spend tons of time in CentOS on my server anyway....

 

[John Kemker]

I built my own computer. I don't care if it runs Windows 11, 'cause I don't run Windows or Mac on it.

 

[Marc_G]

I custom built two VERY high end computers just 18 months ago.
And the more expensive of the two, and actually only a year old, is announcing that it does NOT meet Win 11 requirements.

I am ASSUMING that this is because of the TPM requirements.....

I will NOT be moving ANYONE to Win11 until that BS is fixed for sure. Frankly, I OWN like 50 Win10 Pro 64bit licenses (half unused). I may expire before I upgrade Windows again.

I will likely move back to Linux again before I let MS push me into Win11. Frankly I spend tons of time in CentOS on my server anyway....

In your case it is probably a bios setting that needs to be enabled to allow Windows to decide your PC meets requirements.

 

[cautery]

In your case it is probably a bios setting that needs to be enabled to allow Windows to decide your PC meets requirements.

I guess it could be.... they are both in manual mode for overclocking.... processor, ram, and bus....

Any idea what setting it might be?

 

[Marc_G]

I guess it could be.... they are both in manual mode for overclocking.... processor, ram, and bus....

Any idea what setting it might be?

TPM should be enabled and also secure boot. I've seen cases where these are not "enabled to windows 11 standards" before and a simple change to these bios settings clears it up. See if you have a Security menu in BIOS. Probably they are there.