Computer operating systems

[CitroJim]

That's far more complicated than it actually is Steve!!!

Still very happy with Debian Linux Mint... It's been as good as gold...

[demag]

Here is my irregular update for Windows 7. I play a couple of simulators on this. For anything serious I use Linux. Last night I was downloading a mod for one of these sims when a sign popped up on the screen, "Your computer has been locked, we need your bank details and payment to be made before your files will be released" or some such gibberish. "To continue to payment screen click ok". Here we go again thank you Mr Gates. I started task manager but I couldn't clear all the warnings so I rebooted and, all back to normal however I did run a scan with Malwarebytes which I consider to be an excellent program. It found nothing so I did a cleanup with CCleaner which just found the usual bits and pieces.

Just to bring everyone up to speed, this is a genuine OS downloaded from the Microsoft website. It does have a few foibles though, if I turn on automatic updates it will crash and burn. I think I have reinstalled it three or four times to date so automatic updates stays firmly off. Also it doesn't like third party antivirus, I have downloaded Antivir, Avast, Bitdefender and one or two others. None will run which I think is probably linked to the lack of updates, I think most av programs want full updates to work so I have the Windows 7 antivirus and firewall switched on and up till last night never had a problem. To be honest there is nothing of importance on this drive so if the worst came to the worst I would just do another install and start again. However for some unexplained reason I started looking for free av programs again. All the usual ones that I'd tried before were there and then I came across a recommendation for one I'd never heard of before, Baidu Security. Lightweight, quick install and setup etc, etc so I downloaded it and set it up, did a quick reboot and first scan which found nothing. Rebooted again to find 99% of my programs and apps wouldn't open, just a Windows error and code. Great! What's caused that? I googled the error and found some users had resolved it using SFC / scannow so I gave it a go, there was one registry error it couldn't resolve. It was now midnight and I'd been fiddling around since 7pm! Where had that gone? I lay in bed with my tablet looking for answers until eventually I came to the conclusion that Baidu itself was the problem, for some weird reason it had locked my computer down.

Today I decided to uninstall Baidu but you can't, it won't let you! There is no uninstall option and if you simply right click and select delete it tells you you do not have authority. It wants to stay there and stop you from doing anything at all. The antivirus has become the virus, incredible. I decided to try a restore only to find the restore option disabled and I know for a fact restore was turned on so had Baidu turned it off to protect itself? It's like it had covered all the options. Thank God for Linux! I booted into Peppermint, opened file manager, mounted the Win7 drive and deleted all the offending files and folders. Up yours Baidu! Never sully my computer again. I booted Windows to find everything working as normal, I did another Malwarebytes scan and another CCleaner scan and registry clean. I re-enabled Windows Defender and firewall and have now got to turn restore back on. So if you're looking for a free av think twice about Baidu.

[Hell Razor5543]

Thanks for the warning. However, something you might want to consider is "Microsoft Security Essentials". This is Microsoft's own free anti-virus program. My cousin Bob (who is a highly competent programmer) uses it, and has found that it does not get in the way, and seems to be effective. You have to search for it from the machine you plan to install it on, and then download the installer program (which will determine which version you will need, managing which version of Windows you have, and the bit width). Just make sure you get the Microsoft MSE, as a Google search will find several options with MSE in their names.

[demag]

Thanks James I'll have a look.

[myglaren]

I have a vague recollection of complaints about Bauidu from some other forum, possibly the SDMB.

[CitroJim]

I too have a belief the inbuilt Windows anti-virus protection is quite adequate... Indeed, it seems to be very unobtrusive, which is more than can be said for a lot of 3rd party affairs - they behave more like a virus than a protection mechanism.

McAfee in particular is so greedy of machine resources...

I remain very happy and content with Debian Linux Mint. It's not put a foot wrong for me so far...

[myglaren]

I too have a belief the inbuilt Windows anti-virus protection is quite adequate... Indeed, it seems to be very unobtrusive, which is more than can be said for a lot of 3rd party affairs - they behave more like a virus than a protection mechanism.

McAfee in particular is so greedy of machine resources...

I remain very happy and content with Debian Linux Mint. It's not put a foot wrong for me so far...

There was a period a while back when WSE was pretty decent but then they didn't bother with updates and it became fairly irrelevant. Haven't touched it for a long time now.

Agreed on Debian Mint Jim, still using that, Mint Sonya and Ubuntu Zesty Zapus.

[Zelandeth]

Just downloaded the most recent Debian version with a view to sticking it on the server following the incident with the dying hard drive. Was interested to see that it's now available "out of the box" with the same MATE window manager as Mint (essentially a continuation of the older Gnome 2.x line for us stick in the kids who didn't want to switch to the changes in 3.0). Given that was the only real reason for me for jumping over there in the first place, it definitely puts that on the table as a real option for me going forward.

Despite having tried to test out a Windows based solution (in the vain hope it might improve connectivity reliability to the Windows machines on the network), I wasted a whole evening trying to get no less than three versions to install without success. So ended up throwing Linux at it again.

Just need to rebuild my httpd.conf file (which somehow escaped the backup process...it was a horrible mess anyway back from the dim and distant days when I had several sites on there, so probably for the best!) and stick it back in its cupboard and we should be back online. Hopefully get that done today.

[Eddie Nuff]

Having read a small part of this it just emphasises how far out of my league this subject is. To the point whereby, after five years of faithful service, my laptop has passed away, and looking at the options available to buy another laptop is mind blowing. I have no interest in gaming or any of the other fancy nonsense so a basic machine is for me - and yet I could be here weeks sifting through all the options. Sometimes there really can be too much choice!

[Hell Razor5543]

Eddie, when CitroJim was asking for advice on buying a Chrome Book for his daughter I gave him some advise that appears to have been useful. What I suggested he do was to get her to sit down and generate three realistic lists. The first list is the "Must have" list, and any laptop you are considering must tick 100% of the boxes on this list to be considered. The second list is the "Really Useful" list, and any laptop that has made it this far must tick 75% of the boxes to proceed. The final list is "Nice to Have", and this is a 50% list.

If you can do this, when you go and speak to a good salesman they should be able to help you make the most suitable choice for your needs (and they will appreciate a customer who knows WHAT they are looking for!).

[CitroJim]

Zel, for a dedicated web server I'd be tempted to look at CentOS 7 rather than Debian with a GUI front-end... Unless you want to use the web server as a general-purpose machine...

I've been delighted with CentOS in a server role and have used it for several years now with very pleasing results... I believe the forum is hosted on a CentOS 7 server too...

Yes, I can heartily recommend a ChromeBook if your needs are straightforward and you want something nice and simple and easy to use with least aggro....

[Zelandeth]

May well do that Jim at some point. It's running a very basic role though, hosting our pages for but a single small personal website as far as the outside world is concerned. Only other thing it does is tie several drives together into a single network connection for local access to our media collection.

As the machine is in a readily accessible location having a system I know my way around is handy if I need to change anything - though in fairness it has literally been years on a couple of occasions between the times I've had to actually log into it...

Just need to sort out a permissions error I'm running into when the backup process runs, then I'll be bringing it back downstairs and that will hopefully be us up and running again. Hopefully for the next 11 years!

[CitroJim]

Then for that Zel, CentOS would be perfect

If you need some help setting it up, just shout... My own website runs from a CentOS VPS using Apache... Very easy to set up, even to set up SSL on it..

Again. so is doing an NFS for a media server on it...

[Zelandeth]

Have set it downloading now, and will have a poke around in the interest of curiousity once it arrives.

Edit: Well NAS/media server duties have now been offloaded to a Raspberry Pi. The thought has occurred to me that there's absolutely no reason I can't just throw Apache at that and have it handle the website as well rather than running two machines - especially with the negligible power consumption of the Pi.

[xantia_v6]

For those with Android Phones or tablets, particularly if they have fallen outside of the window of manufacturer-supported software updates, take a look at LineageOS 14.1. I have been running the Nougat version on my Samsung Galaxy S5 for about 6 months, and have been impressed with its stability. It is more or less a pure Android user interface that closely tracks the upstream code released by Google. There are (at least for my device) weekly builds, with automatic device updating.

The list of supported devices is at: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
The best support discussion thread is: https://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy ... d-t3476433 (other devices will have their own support threads).