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Essentially for those trying to avoid Windows 10 and all the backported spyware/nagware/etc that Microsoft keeps trying to inflict on Win7/8 owners, your Update checking will become much easier very soon!
Starting in October, Updates for those two systems will be the same as Windows 10 - essentially nothing more than a cumulative update. All or nothing.
And that's going to mean if you want any security update at all, you're going to have to accept all the phone home spyware, the forced advertising, and likely nagware for upgrades to Windows 10. And if Windows 10 really ends up as a paid upgrade, it'll probably take the form of forced advertising with a link to where you can purchase the update. I'll place a bet that the popup will show when you start the computer, whenever the screensaver is on, and stay in the task bar down in the corner at all times. Maybe even popping up to helpfully jog your memory at least once a day.
But the more immediate point however is that starting October, you'll have to choose. No security updates, or Microsoft breathing down your neck.
Might want to take this time to start looking into the various Linux distributions. As a helpful reminder I'll point out that many Linux distributions can be run directly from the installer - and the installer can be trivially placed on a usb thumb drive. Just plug the drive into a usb port, restart the computer and make sure it'll try to boot from a usb drive from the bios settings.
Booting from a usb drive like that takes a couple of minutes - it has to detect all your hardware after all, and a usb drive tends to be slower than an internal harddrive. Case in point, when I was fiddling around with Ubuntu on the usb drive, it'd take a minute or two to boot. After it was on the harddrive proper, it'd boot in 10 seconds or less.
If you find an installation that's suitable for you, you can generally just install to the harddrive directly from that. Often times they'll have an icon on the desktop to start it. While Ubuntu is one of the easier distributions to get going (complete with their built in "web shop" (which has both free and paid software.) it'd be important to remember that they're probably the most Windows 10-like distribution as well. Pretty sure they do the same send-searches-back-to-base mentality. At the very least they don't really have a start menu.
I think most people tend to recommend Debian and Fedora.
Starting in October, Updates for those two systems will be the same as Windows 10 - essentially nothing more than a cumulative update. All or nothing.
And that's going to mean if you want any security update at all, you're going to have to accept all the phone home spyware, the forced advertising, and likely nagware for upgrades to Windows 10. And if Windows 10 really ends up as a paid upgrade, it'll probably take the form of forced advertising with a link to where you can purchase the update. I'll place a bet that the popup will show when you start the computer, whenever the screensaver is on, and stay in the task bar down in the corner at all times. Maybe even popping up to helpfully jog your memory at least once a day.
But the more immediate point however is that starting October, you'll have to choose. No security updates, or Microsoft breathing down your neck.
Might want to take this time to start looking into the various Linux distributions. As a helpful reminder I'll point out that many Linux distributions can be run directly from the installer - and the installer can be trivially placed on a usb thumb drive. Just plug the drive into a usb port, restart the computer and make sure it'll try to boot from a usb drive from the bios settings.
Booting from a usb drive like that takes a couple of minutes - it has to detect all your hardware after all, and a usb drive tends to be slower than an internal harddrive. Case in point, when I was fiddling around with Ubuntu on the usb drive, it'd take a minute or two to boot. After it was on the harddrive proper, it'd boot in 10 seconds or less.
If you find an installation that's suitable for you, you can generally just install to the harddrive directly from that. Often times they'll have an icon on the desktop to start it. While Ubuntu is one of the easier distributions to get going (complete with their built in "web shop" (which has both free and paid software.) it'd be important to remember that they're probably the most Windows 10-like distribution as well. Pretty sure they do the same send-searches-back-to-base mentality. At the very least they don't really have a start menu.
I think most people tend to recommend Debian and Fedora.
