One small step and a giant leap for a snail
I did it again.
I don’t know why I do it. Maybe it’s some innate need for masochism? I always know in advance that my actions will cause grief, but nevertheless in I plunge like some reckless bungee jumper who hasn’t checked whether his tethers are properly tethered.
This time, I thought to myself, things will be different. This time there will be no snags or hitches. This time it will be different. I held my breath and clicked the button …
… to install Windows 11.
I clicked that button at around three yesterday. It actually went quite smoothly. There are three phases – Download, Verification and Installation. The download was all right, taking about half an hour [I’m on a 75Mb connection]. It then went into Installation Mode and soon after it switched itself off. This was weird? It had warned about reboots but made no mention of suicide. I fired up the installation program again.
This time it skipped the download. This surprised me as Microsoft rarely do things logically and this was one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments. Anyhows it pottered through the verification again and started the install. This time things went well and the percentage working its way up at around a minute per point.
Then it hit 75% and stopped.
I have a life so I pottered around the house, doing things, as one does. I would occasionally check my laptop for progress. It showed 78%. Half an hour later it said 83%. I got bored with it then and went in to watch television with Herself.
Around midnight I checked it again. It was asking for a reboot. I switched it off.
This morning I did my usual stuff and then fired up Windows. It warned me it was updating. Of course it was! Half an hour later it rebooted itself and started showing me cheery messages. I left it to it.
A while later I came back. It had finished!
I logged in with breathless anticipation. I couldn’t wait to see all those cheerful people from the advertisements looking so happy and waiting to greet me. I was dying with anticipation waiting to play those wonderful games.
Meh!
It has moved the buttons to the middle of the taskbar and changed my background image. That’s all. No cheery people. No impressive games.
I poked around for a while, and sure enough some of the layouts have changed which just means people will have to re-learn where everything is. After a short while I got bored. I did the only sensible thing –
I went back to Linux.
Linux has advanced quite a bit over the last few years. I’m currently using Kubuntu which is nice.
The only issue that I have with Linux is that there are about 6 ways to do anything and everyone has their fav and it is the end of the world if you want something else. Then they get all huffy and won’t help you with your DVD player issue because you chose a version of the calculator they don’t like. Bunch of prima donnas.
In saying that nowadays you don’t need them. The main issue for most is the lack of brand name software that people insist on. I can’t run, name brand here, therefore I need windoze or Apple. Once software will be able to run on Windoze or Linux without issue then we should see it taking off. Maybe the next 30 years or so.
One of the biggest advantages of Linux is that it’s free and open source. This is also its biggest drawback. They could easily produce Linux versions of popular products but there’s no profit in it. So it’s up to Linux enthusiasts to try to emulate the Windoze software, for example like Gimp, for Photoshop.
None of my kit is compatible with Windows 11. I’m gutted
Breathe a sigh of relief…
Update to Windows 11? Nope, not gonna do it. It might take away my GRUB menu. Not gonna do it. Not gonna…not…
Where’s that button?