Solved Switch to Linux

BS. As anyone can read in the relevant threads any old 64-bit computer can take Windows 11 23H2 and any computer from 2012 with SSE4.2 can be upgraded to Windows 11 24H2. I know the novices cannot do that themselves, so we experts can do it for them at a reasonable price. Novices cannot install Linux themselves as well. Any other "wise" comment to beat?

spapakons said:

I think British should consider the consequences before voting for Brexit. British Pound is very strong but Euro is not weak either.

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Regrettably it is against forum rules to discuss politics.

That level of novice who can't install Linux, can't install Windows either. It is very simple. If you manage to get Linux put on an USB-stick and boot it, you can also install Linux (and Windows, using same procedures), with the exception of Windows 11 on unsupported hardware, which is a bit more tricky ofc.

SlicEnDicE said:

To be honest, that Macbook did a very good job at keeping up. Also comparing Adobe tools on an ARM device vs native x86_64 is unfair since there's a lot of overhead when emulating x86_64.

MacOS and Windows manages also memory very differently, so looking at pure numbers is a bit of a moot point. He forgot to mention how much RAM actually was committed. What is in use is something entirely different.

But fair enough...8GB isn't 16 no matter how much you twist and turn it.

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Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve and Google Chrome aren't exactly Adobe tools. He admits that unified memory is a clear advantage, which it is, but he also is correct when he implies that having only 8GB in a $1600 "Pro" product is a bit silly still nevertheless, and, the bottom line IMO is that everyone can see with his/her own eyes that this 8GB MacBook Pro starts to really crawl the moment when you try to do some serious multitasking on it. Add to this the fact that the memory isn't upgradable after you purchase the MacBook Pro, and what you have got left is just another one of those familiar-old fake marketing tactics from Apple. This is still regardless of how much RAM actually was committed.

That being said, more than 12 years ago during the age of Windows 7, I watched a similar video where someone installed Windows 7 x64 on a MacBook Air and tested how fast Photoshop for Windows ran on it compared to how fast Photoshop for Mac ran on this same MacBook Air with Mac OS X. Guess what? The Windows version of Photoshop running on Windows 7 on the MacBook won out by a considerable margin. LOL!

12 years old MacBook air wasn't that performant...what was the specs of this Windows PC? And what was the power envelope. For the Macbook Air battery life and low heat/noise comes way before performance...

SlicEnDicE said:

That level of novice who can't install Linux, can't install Windows either. It is very simple. If you manage to get Linux put on an USB-stick and boot it, you can also install Linux (and Windows, using same procedures), with the exception of Windows 11 on unsupported hardware, which is a bit more tricky ofc.

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This completely ignores one major fact.

Most novices buy pcs with preinstalled Windows which just go through oobe.

I bet over 90% of novices do this, particularly as most buy laptops.

Actually, apart from hard core gamers, hardly anybody domestic consumers in UK buy desktops any more.

SlicEnDicE said:

That level of novice who can't install Linux, can't install Windows either. It is very simple. If you manage to get Linux put on an USB-stick and boot it, you can also install Linux (and Windows, using same procedures), with the exception of Windows 11 on unsupported hardware, which is a bit more tricky ofc.

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I can install it, but I am lazy. Luckily, Asus had already installed Windows 11 on the new computer for me.

SlicEnDicE said:

12 years old MacBook air wasn't that performant...what was the specs of this Windows PC? And what was the power envelope. For the Macbook Air battery life and low heat/noise comes way before performance...

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There was no Windows PC involved in the comparison test. Only the MacBook Air was. I.e., MacBook Air running Photoshop for Mac on Mac OS X El Capitan vs this same MacBook Air running Photoshop for Windows on Windows 7 x64. Back then, the MacBook Air had an Intel CPU inside. The performance gap was so blatant, it was one of the absolute funniest test results I ever saw about Apple.

SlicEnDicE said:

To be honest, that Macbook did a very good job at keeping up. Also comparing Adobe tools on an ARM device vs native x86_64 is unfair since there's a lot of overhead when emulating x86_64.

MacOS and Windows manages also memory very differently, so looking at pure numbers is a bit of a moot point. He forgot to mention how much RAM actually was committed. What is in use is something entirely different.

But fair enough...8GB isn't 16 no matter how much you twist and turn it.

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I tried to convey that 8GB sounds like it would be absolutely horrible in the Mac on paper, but in actuality it's not as bad as it sounds. Sure, if you are going to do a ton of multitasking and you are rendering video and such, you obviously would want to spec it out a bit more. But like you said, with 1/2 the amount of memory, the Macbook wasn't awful at anything it just wasn't as fast as it was on the first tests.

I would have liked to have seen the side by side comparison of the Mac on 8GB and Windows on 8GB to see if there would have been noticeable difference.

I too would LOVE to see more RAM on these devices. One of my huge complaints is the $200 upgrade price for 8GB. It's insane and it's always been insane. But obviously the market bears it, or Apple would charge less.

hdmi said:

There was no Windows PC involved in the comparison test. Only the MacBook Air was. I.e., MacBook Air running Photoshop for Mac on Mac OS X El Capitan vs this same MacBook Air running Photoshop for Windows on Windows 7 x64. Back then, the MacBook Air had an Intel CPU inside. The performance gap was so blatant, it was one of the absolute funniest test results I ever saw about Apple.

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Aah, I see...well Photoshop is known for NOT optimizing anything...and it seems Photoshop for Mac was no exception in this regard. Both versions were most likely slow, but the Mac version was even slower for sure.

I don't really understand why Adobe makes these badly performing resource hogs, when you can make similar functionality much more efficient. They've had a very long time to optimize at least something on Windows...I guess Adobe does not care.

hdmi said:

but he also is correct when he implies that having only 8GB in a $1600 "Pro" product is a bit silly still nevertheless, and, the bottom line IMO is that everyone can see with his/her own eyes that this 8GB MacBook Pro starts to really crawl the moment when you try to do some serious multitasking on it. Add to this the fact that the memory isn't upgradable after you purchase the MacBook Pro, and what you have got left is just another one of those familiar-old fake marketing tactics from Apple. This is still regardless of how much RAM actually was committed.

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I agree, I don't understand why Apple hasn't bumped up the base on the Pro models. My 2013 MacBook Pro had 8GB of RAM, and for what I used the machine for, it was fine. I don't use that for running my virtual machines, or rendering videos, etc. For that I use my desktop computer which has 64GB of RAM. Nearly a decade after I bought my Mac back in 2013, they still come with 8GB of RAM standard. I also think that a decade later, that $200 upgrade price should not still be $200.

Yeah, the soldering on RAM stinks. But it's the same way across so many of the super thin designs now too. Minimalistic size brings some trade-offs that you just have to accept.

spapakons said:

View attachment 110158

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So how come then when I install Windows 11 on my Dell Inspiron 5340, I have to manually load the Wi-Fi driver from a USB stick as the Intel AX210 network adaptor is not recognised by Windows. Yet when installing Ubuntu 24.04.1 I have no such issues, and all hardware is recognised and ready for use. Even the Goodix fingerprint sensor works first time on Ubuntu which I was surprised with.

spapakons said:

BS. As anyone can read in the relevant threads any old 64-bit computer can take Windows 11 23H2 and any computer from 2012 with SSE4.2 can be upgraded to Windows 11 24H2. I know the novices cannot do that themselves, so we experts can do it for them at a reasonable price. Novices cannot install Linux themselves as well. Any other "wise" comment to beat?

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Yes they can, you download the iso, burn it to a USB stick and then boot from it.

cereberus said:

Regrettably it is against forum rules to discuss politics.

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Also out of date as Brexit was voted for in 2015 and happened a few years ago.

markw51 said:

AX210 network adaptor is not recognised by Windows.

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Thanks for this info, I didn't know this because I've never used that particular model. Have been considering an upgrade though. The older cards has Windows built in drivers though, which is nice. And to be honest, I'm fine with that one for now, both on Windows and Linux.

spapakons said:

More resolution? I don't think the majority of users can tell the difference between 1080p and a MacBook screen at 15.6", let alone the smaller 13" MacBook screen. Some even buy 4K laptops and never be able to tell the difference

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There is a noticeable difference in screen real estate between these resolutions. That's why i like higher resolution displays because on things like web forums like this one, I can see quite a bit more of the posts and replies without having to scroll as much. Here is just a picture I snagged off the web comparing how much content you see at once on a 1080 display versus 1440.


I haven't moved myself to 4k displays because I prefer to run at native resolutions and my old eyes cannot handle the teeny tiny print at 3840x2160. I've stuck with 2560x1440 on 27" displays...that still seems to be the sweet spot for me, although I'm finding a desire to want to bump to about 32" as my eye sight isn't getting any better as I age.

spapakons said:

. Brighter? Not sure, but most laptops have enough brightness to work with, unless you have the sun at your back.

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It's not that they are too dark too see, but if you put a crappy monitor with less brightness and less sharpness next to a far superior monitor and view a web page, one does look significantly better. Might not be worth it to some, others may feel differently.

spapakons said:

Battery life? I cannot judge that, surely the more the better, but if it is removable, I would just buy a spare and keep it charged, so I can swap it and continue working/gaming. At the night I can charge one and then charge the other to have it for the next day.

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I cannot remember the last time I actually owned or used a laptop with a user removable battery. It's been at least 15 years.

spapakons said:

USB 4.0? Most of us can do our job reasonably fast with USB 3.0 or 3.1 ports and we wouldn't tell the difference, unless using an extremely expensive USB 4.0 external disk.

It's not worth the extra cost just for these mostly useless features.

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The disk doesn't have to be expensive at all. I'm talking about an approx $100 40Gbps external enclosure to any ole NVMe drive. People who do lots of video editing, music production, or photo editing needs loads of disk space and handle large files. With limited capacity on the laptop itself, many turn to external solutions. Copying massive files can make a difference. I have an external NVMe and on my box that only supports USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 I get about 1100MB/sec which is still great. But if I had USB4, that would go to over 3,000. My file copies would be 2x and 3x faster. I'm not wiling to buy a new machine for it, but it would be a nice to have addition when I do upgrade.

My old laptop (2009) would not be supported with Windows 11. Windows 11 was designed with many security features that older computers do not support. So even if you use a hack to install Windows 11 you are still putting your old computer at risk. I think many people would be surprised how well Linux Mint Cinnamon works on older computers,

PaulGo said:

I think many people would be surprised how well Linux Mint Cinnamon works on older computers,

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I fully agree. It runs surprisingly well.

PaulGo said:

My old laptop (2009) would not be supported with Windows 11. Windows 11 was designed with many security features that older computers do not support. So even if you use a hack to install Windows 11 you are still putting your old computer at risk. I think many people would be surprised how well Linux Mint Cinnamon works on older computers,

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As I have said on the relevant threads, you have the same level of security as running Windows 10 64-bit with the same configuration. A computer doesn't become safer just by upgrading to Windows 11. Just some security features are enabled by default in Windows 11 which are disabled in Windows 10. If you upgrade from Windows 10 these settings are not enabled automatically so your computer is still vulnerable. That said even Windows 7 is safe enough with an updated Microsoft Security Essentials or other third-party antivirus and a careful user that looks where he clicks.

PaulGo said:

My old laptop (2009) would not be supported with Windows 11. Windows 11 was designed with many security features that older computers do not support. So even if you use a hack to install Windows 11 you are still putting your old computer at risk. I think many people would be surprised how well Linux Mint Cinnamon works on older computers,

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Agreed. It's an old machine. Rather than junking it, try something else out and learn along the way. Not to mention, if you have a bunch of computers lying around, what's the fun in all of them running the same OS or a slight variant of it?

That's how I got my first Mac. It was 2013/2014 and I wanted to buy a laptop for myself. I had always been carrying a work provided windows laptop. My desktop was windows, my wife's laptop was windows, all the laptops that I configured at work for employees were all running windows. It was windows 8.0 and 8.1 back in those days. Frankly I was just kinda bored and tired of setting up Windows laptops, so I thought...."what the heck, i know absolutely nothing about MacOS, now would be a good time to just buy one and see what all the hype is about. It's about the same price as I would have spent on an equivalent windows laptop, and if I end up hating it, i can always just sell it and chalk it up as a learning experience". 11 years later, I found quite a bit that the laptop did great, and I found quite a bit that i just don't like at all, and I still don't find mac's super intuitive....but I don't use them nearly as much as Windows or Linux.