End of XP Support

greenrvgreen wrote:
Right about now's when I would expect someone to suggest dumping XP completely and going to 100% solar power.

. . . Okay, you're right: Suggesting Linux in a PC thread is the equivilent of suggesting solar on a gennie thread.

A PC is a Personal Computer

Personal computers come with Windows, Apple IOS and Linux among other operating systems.

I fail to understand the point you were trying to make.

bkbonner wrote:
You can do a quick search on Linux Mint Live DVD youtube and you'll see some videos of how the Live DVD works. I believe LibreOffice (an Open source alternative to MS Office) and Firefox are installed by default.

Good luck.

Yes both Firefox and LibreOffice come loaded on all the distros I have seen. As for loading Linux, I suggest using a USB flash drive as the latest versions have gone just a little over the maximum amount that a cd will hold and loading it onto a flash drive I find to be much easier. You will need to make it bootable when you copy to the flash drive but then so does a dvd need to be bootable.

BTW whether using a dvd or a flash drive, it will be necessary to move the boot device to the top of the list in your BIOS.

You can do a quick search on Linux Mint Live DVD youtube and you'll see some videos of how the Live DVD works. I believe LibreOffice (an Open source alternative to MS Office) and Firefox are installed by default.

Good luck.

Wrace wrote:

powderman426 wrote:

bkbonner wrote:
Depending upon what you do, take a look at Linux Mint. I run it with the Cinnamon GUI which is similar to Windows. I use it for software development, running Google's Chrome Browser and other things. It works really well, has good support and will run on just about any laptop that runs XP. You can burn it to a DVD and run it live from the DVD w/o even installing it to try it out.

Or Ubuntu. Someone stated that seven will run OK on an older machine. It may run, but it most likely won't be fast as many older machines only had one gig of memory and the minimum for seven is two. Linux on the other hand requires less memory and will run relatively well on half a gig. Try it. It's free and easy to setup and use.

I'm considering Linux for my old xp laptop that I use for surfing the web in the evenings but I know very little about it. I take it Ubuntu and Mint are just versions of Linux? And there are different GUI's for each of these versions of Linux?

Will firefox work in these operating systems? Does it look the same as the firefox used in the MS OS? Does Linux require virus/malware software and all the related management of that kind of software?

I guess I should just put it on a disc and give it a try. If it boots to the disc and runs from the disc is there virus/malware concerns given that the underlying XP OS and installed virus/malware software will not be running at the time?

Yes, there are many different distributions of Linux. Ubuntu, Fedora, Mint, Suse, Debian etc. Mint and Ubuntu are both derivatives of a distribution called Debian. I offered up Mint because Ubuntu recently started offering up a Window Manager called Unity as a default and the look and feel is a bit foreign to Windows users. I do recall seeing something that they changed something up with it, but I prefer Mint right now. Most of the Debian distributions offer a simple command "apt-get" to do updates. Firefox should look/behave the same as should Chrome. I run both.

You can get get AV software for it, but I haven't seen many viruses in the Linux space (knock on wood). If you run it from a disk, you should be able to access your data on your machine...XP would not be running at the same time.

Right about now's when I would expect someone to suggest dumping XP completely and going to 100% solar power.

. . . Okay, you're right: Suggesting Linux in a PC thread is the equivilent of suggesting solar on a gennie thread.

KountryGuy:

You should be fine if your needs really are minimal. I would suggest updating EVERYTHING now, especially the A/V. Yes, dump MSE, keep AVG updated, and use Comodo as a firewall.

I kept using my XP laptop until 2 years ago when I bought a Win7 laptop. Biggest difference was hardware speed--big enough for me to toss the old laptop.

Eventually, software packages will stop supporting XP (if it hasn't started already). This will include A/V, and at that point I would get out, or keep the computer off the internet.

At a minimum, keep your personal info off the comuter.

powderman426 wrote:

bkbonner wrote:
Depending upon what you do, take a look at Linux Mint. I run it with the Cinnamon GUI which is similar to Windows. I use it for software development, running Google's Chrome Browser and other things. It works really well, has good support and will run on just about any laptop that runs XP. You can burn it to a DVD and run it live from the DVD w/o even installing it to try it out.

Or Ubuntu. Someone stated that seven will run OK on an older machine. It may run, but it most likely won't be fast as many older machines only had one gig of memory and the minimum for seven is two. Linux on the other hand requires less memory and will run relatively well on half a gig. Try it. It's free and easy to setup and use.

I'm considering Linux for my old xp laptop that I use for surfing the web in the evenings but I know very little about it. I take it Ubuntu and Mint are just versions of Linux? And there are different GUI's for each of these versions of Linux?

Will firefox work in these operating systems? Does it look the same as the firefox used in the MS OS? Does Linux require virus/malware software and all the related management of that kind of software?

I guess I should just put it on a disc and give it a try. If it boots to the disc and runs from the disc is there virus/malware concerns given that the underlying XP OS and installed virus/malware software will not be running at the time?

Kountryguy wrote:
How important is this to me as a casual user?

Work until they break then buy a Chromebook.

KA4EBU wrote:
... The shocker is going to be when people buy a new os and find they have to buy all new ms apps. ...

I personally haven't found this to be the case. I'm sure there is some software out there that runs in XP that won't run in 7 or 8 but I really haven't encountered any.

That kind of shock will be much larger for those that switch from XP to a Linux distro instead of going to Win 7 or Win 8.

I really doubt hardware quit supporting XP. There will be a lot of businesses that never got on the internet running the XP os. They will need hardware.
The shocker is going to be when people buy a new os and find they have to buy all new ms apps.
XP may go away per ms, but it will be in use a long time.
I still say get UBUNTU and be down with gates and his junk.

1492 wrote:
Get rid of MSE. It's only basic protection, and can possibly allow malware that is blocked by other free AV software. Either use AVG, or Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition, which is light on computer resources and top rated. MSE is not even close in comparison.

The reality is that so can the others miss malware. We've come to the point where Anti-malware software is no longer enough. That's why corporate networks have layered security that includes Data Loss Protection appliances and Next Generation Firewalls. Every weeks thousands of new malware variants are released. Many are actually tested against all the current anti-malware software so that the "bad guys" know they will infect your machine.

That said, there are things you can do to any machine that will reduce the attack foot print.

• Get rid of Java. Period. Even on Apple machines. Its the single biggest target of malware writers.
• Get rid of Flash Player. Its the second biggest target.
• Get rid of the Adobe Reader and replace it with something PDF Xchange viewer.
• Use Open DNS for your DNS queries. They filter out know bad web sites. Their basic service is free.
• Use a browser add-on like WOT (Web of Trust) that rates sites for known issues

Fizz wrote:
My brother in law has never, ever updated his XP.
He's always on the internet and has never had a problem any worse than somebody who constantly updates.

And I know a few people who drive crotch rockets at high speed through heavy traffic. Its really only a matter of time...

BTW, how does he KNOW he hasn't been compromised?