@scottalanmiller said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:

@Tim_G said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:

@scottalanmiller said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:

Remember, this thread is ONLY about end users receiving working systems regardless of what hardware is used or what it is initially designed for. This is about users only. NOT about installations or IT use.

But, lets say a user has both and is introduced to a Korora and Win10 system at the same time. It's equally easy to click on a task bar icon to launch the web browser. I don't see how either can be easier than the other.

One is clean and clear. The other is cluttered, full of moving images and such. Windows 10 is way more intimidating. It's hard to figure out even what is installed vs. what is an ad.

The same can be said when using KDE, it can also be intimidating to use.

@bigbear said in Best Practices - Securing your Windows Server 2016 VM on Vultr:

Have had some issues with it banning the servers external WAN address when behind NAT instead of the remote IP Address. Have been sifting through code but its not an active project, just a one time port.

Using the VULTR firewall to restrict all inbound traffic and to allow RDP sessions based on our office WAN IP has stopped the issues. However, I am still trying to decide how that helps my roaming users.

Outside of VPN or DirectAccess I am not sure what other secure access methods there could be. Looking for ideas.

Maybe a jump server could be an option?

@scottalanmiller
If @markl decides to use a server like R510, would you recommend installing a hypervisor and then setup a VM has a NAS server?

I haven't found a live version of a KVM hypervisor but there is a live Xen hypervisor version from Alpine Linux.
https://alpinelinux.org/downloads/

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Watching Now:

Caught up on The Ranch just in time for season three to release this coming weekend.

I enjoy watching The Ranch. Can't wait for season three.

@scottalanmiller
Besides Cinnamon, what other desktop environments do you recommend Windows users to try when they want to start using Linux?

Mine are Cinnamon (Because of Linux Mint and Korora), Pantheon (Because of Elementary OS), Gnome and KDE.

@DustinB3403 said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:

@scottalanmiller why would you be lugging around an old ass Microsoft webcam?

Webcams barely changes enough to get rid of just because microsoft quit on it.

@scottalanmiller said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:

Just for the record I went and found a box and found an old Windows web cam in it (made by Microsoft) and plugged it in to my Korora machine and it worked immediately. No configuration, no drivers, no software, nothing. Just plugged in and it was good to go.

Yep, I've experience that same thing when I had a camera that was designed for 7 but won't work with 10. But works instantly on Ubuntu.

@scottalanmiller said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:

@Tim_G said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:

@Tim_G said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:

I'd love to run Fedora, and only Fedora, on my personal computer. But the hardware support is just crap for all Linux distros.

Sure, I may get my video card working after a month of troubleshooting... but there are weird issues with other things I just can't have.

Lack of real fan control... they go crazy sometimes, when the system is cool.
Other built-in hardware that should just work.
Unable to shutdown or reboot usually. Forced to hold down the power button.

This isn't just with my personal laptop... these and other less-severe issues happen to like almost every non-enterprise system I've put Linux on.

It's the little things. They make all the difference.

These things just don't happen in Windows. And if they do, it's probably a 30 year old system... or some other anomaly. You can't say "Windows has problems to"... sure, everything in the universe does... but you get the point.

My experience is the opposite. Both have their issues but I've seen more Windows 10 issues with drivers than I have Linux ones. Korora on my desktop, Ubuntu on my laptop I see no issues. My wife's machine was non-stop issues till we went from Windows 10 to Korora. Korora fixed the constant network and GPU driver issues.

Same thing with printers. We moved from Windows to Linux and years of my wife complaining that printers are annoying and take so much work just vanished. Suddenly you just "plug them in" and they work.

It's definitely both directions. I think that people get used to them with Windows so much that they forget how much they are actually there and the ones on Linux are new and surprising and they sense them more acutely.

But there's always an uphill battle with Linux in generally.

@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Bah. Vultr is out of the $2.50 instances for Atlanta

$5 or $10 instances not bad.

NBA 2K* and 7 Days to Die. On my iPhone I play a lot of Unblock Me.

https://github.com/glasnt/wail2ban

@Grey said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@black3dynamite said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Dealing with another water leak again at work. This will be the second time in one year.

Is it in your server room?

Its in some of the classrooms and conference room.

@dbeato said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@black3dynamite WID is a SQL Database too, that is why the PowerSHell scripts to cleanup usually use SQLCMD command as well.

But isn't it a limited embedded version of SQL?

@Grey said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@black3dynamite said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@Grey said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@dbeato said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@Grey said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Fixing this:

In case anyone is wondering how, here are the steps I use:

• Do:
  Net stop wsusservice
  IISReset /Stop
  IISReset /Start
  Net start wsusservice
• Then (if that fails):
  C:\Program Files\Update Services\Tools>WsusUtil.exe postinstall

Also, you can check the application pool for wsus and increase memory if you have a lot of clients. Details: https://www.404techsupport.com/2016/03/21/iis-wsus-private-memory/

Also, while writing this, I fixed the reset server node error and my wsus is running fine now.

Not fun It happens a lot for Server 2012 R2 and Server 2016 WSUS....

It has to do with the database, as far as I can tell. There are several scripts out there for handling database cleanups, including one by Microsoft that's included with the application, and I've yet to find one that truly works perfectly.

Happens all the time with WID Database or SQL Server Express/Standard?
Because I wonder if using SQL Server would work better?

If you're willing to license a full SQL server for WSUS, then you'd probably be best off spending the money on a 3rd party solution, like ManageEngine, to handle patching.

Using SQL Server Express will not work has an replacement of WID?

Dealing with another water leak again at work. This will be the second time in one year.

@Grey said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@dbeato said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@Grey said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Fixing this:

In case anyone is wondering how, here are the steps I use:

• Do:
  Net stop wsusservice
  IISReset /Stop
  IISReset /Start
  Net start wsusservice
• Then (if that fails):
  C:\Program Files\Update Services\Tools>WsusUtil.exe postinstall

Also, you can check the application pool for wsus and increase memory if you have a lot of clients. Details: https://www.404techsupport.com/2016/03/21/iis-wsus-private-memory/

Also, while writing this, I fixed the reset server node error and my wsus is running fine now.

Not fun It happens a lot for Server 2012 R2 and Server 2016 WSUS....

It has to do with the database, as far as I can tell. There are several scripts out there for handling database cleanups, including one by Microsoft that's included with the application, and I've yet to find one that truly works perfectly.

Happens all the time with WID Database or SQL Server Express/Standard?
Because I wonder if using SQL Server would work better?

@scottalanmiller said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:

It's a good read and I've seen this a lot first hand. As early as 1998 we tested this, @Eric was one of the people who tried this and found KDE 1 to be significantly easier and more intuitive than Windows 98. He had no previous Windows experience, but had used things like the Apple ][ for a long time.

When I worked with K12 schools doing Linux desktops, there were very few existing computer users and they found using Linux simple and intuitive.

When I've moved family to Linux, same thing. They were casual users and found it instantly simple to use, no problem.

But find people that work on Windows full time, and almost always they are struggling with things that they shouldn't need to struggle with. Really big ones include wanting to do lots of unnecessary drive and partition management, wanting to get technical where it isn't needed (wanting to specify a drive letter for every task?!?! why do you need to know what drive its on?) or not leveraging things like package repos to make installing apps easy.

You brought about drive letter, would Linux be easier for Mac users or would they be in same boat has Windows users are?

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@RestoronixSean said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

HP ProBook 4730s

Looks like people have had success with both Fedora and Mint on there.

I've had success with ProBook 450 G3 running Fedora/Korora and Ubuntu/Linux Mint.
I have not confirmed it with other Desktop Environment or Ubuntu/Linux Mint. But when I'm using Korora Gnome and Fedora Gnome, the screen will auto rotate. Not a big deal since the auto rotation can be locked.

@JaredBusch said in How to Install Fedora 25 Minimal:

@black3dynamite said in How to Install Fedora 25 Minimal:

Unlike installing Linux Integration Services, Hot-Add support is not enabled by default after installing hyperv-daemons.

Create a file /etc/udev/rules.d/100-balloon.rules. You may use any other desired name for the file.

Add the following content to the file: SUBSYSTEM=="memory", ACTION=="add", ATTR{state}="online"

Reboot the system to enable Hot-Add support.

See Note 8 on Supported CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux virtual machines on Hyper-V

You mean for dynamic memory to work?

Yes, dynamic memory for ballooning and hot-add.