Microsoft Scared into Changes, 5 Reasons to Ditch
Following a small claims court judgment against them, Microsoft announced they would be making declining their Windows 10 upgrade easier. Why not just switch to Linux as Daniel Robinson highlighted five reasons you should. My Linux Rig spoke to Christine Hall of FOSS Force about her "Linux rig" today and Bryan Lunduke had some thoughts on Canonical's collaboration myth. Dedoimedo reviewed GeckoLinux 421 and Gary Newell tested Peppermint 7 on his new Lenovo Ideapad.
Yesterday we reported that Microsoft had lost a small claims court case in which the plaintiff was awarded $10,000 for her pain and suffering following an attempted upgrade to Windows 10. She had stated that she didn't authorized the update that left her unable to work. ZDNet reported yesterday that a class-action suit was rumored. Well, today, apparently Microsoft is a bit worried about more law suits (especially the class-action kind) and announced a change to their high-pressure update reminder. It had recently been revamped to remove any option of canceling the upgrade. In their announcement today, Microsoft said they would be making it easier for users to decline or schedule their update for a later time. They said they would even be returning the normal closing functionality to the big red X in the corner which had been changed recently to mean "okay, upgrade now." Free tech support will be provided to those experiencing upgrade issues as well. Mary Jo Foley reporting for ZDNet said that Microsoft claimed the changes are "in response to customer feedback." Nothing speaks as loudly as a judge's gavel.
Daniel Robinson gave Windows users five reasons to switch to Linux today and it was picked up by several outlets. He begins with "the cloud." Not sure why that matters but he said, "As adoption of cloud services become more prevalent, the importance of Linux will only grow, and most firms are going to start using Linux if they are not already." He then listed security, free as in beer, and lots of applications. Robinson closed with Windows 10. He said Microsoft has shown total disregard for their users including businesses.
Christine Hall of FOSS Force was interviewed by My Linux Rig to find out what her Linux rig runs. Hall runs Mint 17.1 with Xfce. Of Xfce she said, "It has a simple straight forward design that has more features that I need and doesn't get in the way of me performing my work—which is my whole purpose for sitting at a keyboard all day in the first place." Her favorite applications include Chrome, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, and GIMP.
In other news:
* An Everyday Linux User Review Of Peppermint OS 7
* GeckoLinux 421 Plasma review
* Canonical, Snappy and the marketing value of collaboration