After many years in intensive care, your venerable XP operating system was taken off life support this month by your friends at Microsoft.
Without XP support, many of you are left to ponder, what will become of my poor old computer? As further XP bugs are uncovered, as no further debugging or support will be provided by Mr Microsoft, and as those bugs are eventually exploited by nefarious malware or virus programmers, XP will simply die a slow death and/or eventually just become completely unusable.
What to do? For now, your system may keep plugging on, for a while. Microsoft is banking on you plunking down more money on a new Microsoft Windows product. I propose you consider moving to a free, open source option - Ubuntu Linux works for me!
Why? Well, for one, the Ubuntu installation process is much simpler (and less costly .. can you beat free?) than the one for Windows version xyz. You enter a username and password and timezone and the easy installation automatically takes over and recognizes existing operating systems and gives you the option to install Linux without wiping any of the precious data sitting on your hard drive. Your computer hardware is also automatically detected and updated for you. The available software is open source - free to install and use on any number of computers so no pack of M$ Lawyers will chase you down and make you track licences and installations. It allows you to do all the regular things that you would use in a Windows environment and more via familiar easy to use equivalent programs - Chrome or Firefox vs Internet Explorer, Libre Office vs Microsoft Office, GNU Cash vs Quickbooks, etc. In addition, all programs update with the operating system. Wow! I find that everything I plug in just works. and Ubuntu is much more secure than your poor old Windows systems. Being Linux-based I have yet to see a virus or malware show up on my systems. You don't need expensive and system numbing add-on antivirus solutions, but you can run one is you wish. Any problems that arise are patched right away for free by the Ubuntu developers. My biggest problem has been too much choice .. a myriad of possible favorite software programs to try and use.
You can even just run the LiveCD option to try out Linux on your computer without even installing a thing on your hard drive. Very useful in getting started with Ubuntu or for even for fixing a 'broken XP' system. You can update your system every 6 months to keep on the bleeding edge, or stick with the LTS (Long Term Support) versions that are supported for 5 years! A new LTS version is released every 2 years. There is no extra fee for the LTS version and upgrades to new versions of Ubuntu are and always will be free of charge.
Being ever so customizable, the system can be configured to look and act like your old Windows system, if you cannot live without a start button. You can even install Windows emulation (called Wine). Wine allows you to run many Windows programs on Linux - including Netflix, RootsMagic, Picasa, and Family Search Indexing .. some of my favorites.
Without XP support, many of you are left to ponder, what will become of my poor old computer? As further XP bugs are uncovered, as no further debugging or support will be provided by Mr Microsoft, and as those bugs are eventually exploited by nefarious malware or virus programmers, XP will simply die a slow death and/or eventually just become completely unusable.
What to do? For now, your system may keep plugging on, for a while. Microsoft is banking on you plunking down more money on a new Microsoft Windows product. I propose you consider moving to a free, open source option - Ubuntu Linux works for me!
Why? Well, for one, the Ubuntu installation process is much simpler (and less costly .. can you beat free?) than the one for Windows version xyz. You enter a username and password and timezone and the easy installation automatically takes over and recognizes existing operating systems and gives you the option to install Linux without wiping any of the precious data sitting on your hard drive. Your computer hardware is also automatically detected and updated for you. The available software is open source - free to install and use on any number of computers so no pack of M$ Lawyers will chase you down and make you track licences and installations. It allows you to do all the regular things that you would use in a Windows environment and more via familiar easy to use equivalent programs - Chrome or Firefox vs Internet Explorer, Libre Office vs Microsoft Office, GNU Cash vs Quickbooks, etc. In addition, all programs update with the operating system. Wow! I find that everything I plug in just works. and Ubuntu is much more secure than your poor old Windows systems. Being Linux-based I have yet to see a virus or malware show up on my systems. You don't need expensive and system numbing add-on antivirus solutions, but you can run one is you wish. Any problems that arise are patched right away for free by the Ubuntu developers. My biggest problem has been too much choice .. a myriad of possible favorite software programs to try and use.
You can even just run the LiveCD option to try out Linux on your computer without even installing a thing on your hard drive. Very useful in getting started with Ubuntu or for even for fixing a 'broken XP' system. You can update your system every 6 months to keep on the bleeding edge, or stick with the LTS (Long Term Support) versions that are supported for 5 years! A new LTS version is released every 2 years. There is no extra fee for the LTS version and upgrades to new versions of Ubuntu are and always will be free of charge.
Being ever so customizable, the system can be configured to look and act like your old Windows system, if you cannot live without a start button. You can even install Windows emulation (called Wine). Wine allows you to run many Windows programs on Linux - including Netflix, RootsMagic, Picasa, and Family Search Indexing .. some of my favorites.
http://www.ubuntu.com/tour/en/
Need help? Although it is pretty easy install and get started with Ubuntu, you can also find tons of help online. For example, Mr Robbie Ferguson of Category5.tv has a weekly free tech support show - 1 hour long every Tue evening. You can view past viewer questions and answers or submit your own questions for consideration by phone or video or email. Many enthusiasts, like myself, post tips and helps online to keep you informed and edu-ma-cated.
Need more help? Of course, you can always hire me (or someone very much like me - if you don't live close by) to set you up, get you started and keep you going. Call me ..
Need more help? Of course, you can always hire me (or someone very much like me - if you don't live close by) to set you up, get you started and keep you going. Call me ..
RSS Feed
