In Episode 839 I believe, Steve was discussing the problems with migrating to Windoz 11. He suggested to stay on version 10, or use Apple OS, and that Linux was too problematic for a newbie. I haven't heard someone say that in at least 5 years! I've listned to the podcast for years, great show!, but you have to give Linux some due credit here.
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SpinRite v6.1 Release #3 Guest:
The 3rd release of SpinRite v6.1 is published and may be obtained by all SpinRite v6.0 owners at the SpinRite v6.1 Pre-Release page. (SpinRite will shortly be officially updated to v6.1 so this page will be renamed.) The primary new feature, and the reason for this release, was the discovery of memory problems in some systems that were affecting SpinRite's operation. So SpinRite now incorporates a built-in test of the system's memory. For the full story, please see this page in the "Pre-Release Announcements & Feedback" forum.
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BootAble – FreeDOS boot testing freeware
To obtain direct, low-level access to a system's mass storage drives, SpinRite runs under a GRC-customized version of FreeDOS which has been modified to add compatibility with all file systems. In order to run SpinRite it must first be possible to boot FreeDOS.
GRC's “BootAble” freeware allows anyone to easily create BIOS-bootable media in order to workout and confirm the details of getting a machine to boot FreeDOS through a BIOS. Once the means of doing that has been determined, the media created by SpinRite can be booted and run in the same way.
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Just like there are different cars for different drivers, there are different OSes for different users. Some people like to tinker and dig into the guts, and some just want something that works reliably for their needs while still others want to get on a bus or in a cab and be driven to their destination. It's probably better to live and let live than it is to try and judge others or to convert them.
Yes certainly distro's like Mint, Ubuntu, etc have become really easy to install and run, and are now very stable. I've long moved onto Manjaro KDE rolling release but always recommend newbies to start out with Mint, Ubuntu or similar as it basically works on anything (old or new) and I know unless they go poking below the surface and mess with PPA's etc it won't break.
Listening to the constant Windows woes on SN, I am using Ubuntu booting off a USB drive. I still use Windows 10 but for some time have been thinking of keeping Windows on an old machine and using some version of Linux going forward. Ubuntu is pretty easy to navigate and I don't mind command line, although I do have to research some things for lack of knowledge- which I don't mind. Ubuntu seems to be regarded as fairly secure which is one of the reasons for my selecting it.
I've looked into a few Linux versions but haven't actually installed any aside from Ubuntu and Tails. Qubes sounded pretty interesting but my laptop wasn't on their tested/ approved list of computers. Has anyone used Qubes? I've used Tails for quite a while, but mostly as an 'air gapped' OS.As expected, reading about the various Linux distros they all have their plus and minuses. Any suggestions for a secure Linux OS? Any thoughts on Oracle Linux?
I've looked into a few Linux versions but haven't actually installed any aside from Ubuntu and Tails. Qubes sounded pretty interesting but my laptop wasn't on their tested/ approved list of computers. Has anyone used Qubes? I've used Tails for quite a while, but mostly as an 'air gapped' OS.As expected, reading about the various Linux distros they all have their plus and minuses. Any suggestions for a secure Linux OS? Any thoughts on Oracle Linux?
Be careful you don't suffer from a version of confirmation bias. Steve doesn't use Linux nor MacOS so he has no basis to report on their inner details, and probably less interest in even being aware of the downsides of those OSes. I believe this is why you will find Steve talking so much about the issues of Windows because this is the territory he knows best. I can assure you that other OSes have just as many downsides and problems, they just go mostly unreported because they have much smaller user bases so there is a lot less frustrated people and thus a lot less motivation to report on them.
I use both linux and windows, but for some reason linux has started to become what I use most often. I just feel like windows might be becoming an OS that I don’t like that much. I really like the old version like 2000 and XP, but ever since Windows 8, I feel like Microsoft is not really on track. That combined with the fact that Linux is free and Windows is not, You can get the to Linux source code fairly easily, something I would like to do some day. It just makes sense for me to learn as much as possible about Linux. The truth is I would use Windows more, but it cost to much. I have a dual socket Xeon with 32 cores and 128GB of RAM and many virtual machines running Linux and Windows. I have to renew MSDN to keep Windows and renew nothing for Linux. Kubuntu seems like it is my favorite out of what I am currently running, that with Latte installed (Mac OS Dock type widget). I however do have a brother network laser printer and I did have some problems getting that to work in Linux to be fair, besides that everything seems to be working with vmware vms on top of a Windows 10 host. For the security I've been running Windows longer that Linux, I don't wonder that far out in the Internet and to be honest in the old day I was very lax about updating, but I have never had a problem with Security, I don't alway run antivirus on Windows, because most of them don't go out on the intenet. With Linux I just run sudo apt upgrade ever now and them and every thing seems fine. I would worry about security more if I was responsible for a large network of computer with uses going to different sites, getting emails that are essentially junk. But I don't, I am behind two NATs and the inner is a pfsense, with all of the junk IoT type stuff connecting to the outer. If I did have a security problem I could use snapshots of the VMs to nip the problem preatty quick. I were you, even if you don't want to bother with VMs, I would use a drive imaging problem for Windows like terabyte unlimited for Windows back up and seem what Linux has for snap shots of a fs directly installed on hardware, I think that can be done with LVM volumes in Linux but I am not sure as I am virtualized. If you know enfough to think about linux for Security, it is likely you could secure Windows for a single user. Good luck.
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Might I suggest you take a look at the LearnLinux.tv site. Jay is a good guide for beginners and has some fairly advanced video tutorials.
One person mentioned that the Brother printer driver doesn't work, nor does it work from me on Ubuntu, but that's about the only problem I've had with Linux (most likely Brother's inability to produce Linux drivers). For printing and scanning I use W7 on VirtualBox. As far as which Linux? I still wonder which package and I've been using Linux as primary for over 15 years. distrowatch.com is a good site to look at and you can try various 'live' distros or throw them into a VM. For my primary, I may try KDE or xfce rather than Gnome. But the fun thing is that the underlying OS innards are fundamentally the same. Very nice not to be vendor-locked and relying on one company to keep things together.
My comment to Steve is not his lack of Linux and MacOS used in his area of expertise; its my favorite podcast! The context of the discussion and my comment was if one isn't comfortable moving to W11, then keep W10 or try MacOS, as Linux is not ready for a newbie I'm just suggesting to, folks like yourself Ralph, give Linux a try and it may become your OS of preference going ahead.
Here is an interesting statistic from cwe.mitre.org (disclaimer,, i work at this company); of the 924 current "Common Weakness Enumeration" a search for windows yields 444 weaknesses, while a search for Linux yields 156. So, using this general but subjective measure, Linux is 2.85 times more secure than windows.
I have got a network Brother laser, and a network Brother Inkjet MFP, both working happily from Windows, Ubuntu, and iOS. Brother do provide Linux drivers, see
During the time Google Cloud Print was a thing, I had found that they only offer drivers for x86 (32 and 64 bit), so I couldn't install drivers on my Raspberry PI to setup a server I could use when I wanted to print from my Chromebook (or phone if that were to ever be a thing) without having to turn on my main PC.
As I rarely print anyway, printing is not that big of a deal. Right now, I'm too lazy to put my printer back since I had to move it for an ISP install.
As I rarely print anyway, printing is not that big of a deal. Right now, I'm too lazy to put my printer back since I had to move it for an ISP install.
Yes, I was years ago using my own Linux laptop at work, running RH4.0, and decided I wanted to be able to print from it. Just installed the HP Laserjet 4MV driver, and it printed fine on the network. New HP printer, set up to the same IP address ( made it a lot easier for the Windows PC's, as setting up printing in the one business application was an absolute PITA, but once set up and with the software shim from the program taking output, and converting it to PCL5, it was reasonable) and all the new features of the printer appeared by magic.
Any printer that speaks Postscript, or PCL5 or 6, will work off the bat with Linux, with no problems. This covers almost all HP, Canon and a lot of other printers with networking, so long as they respond to port 4200 they will be happy.
Just wish the kernel developers would fix the bug that makes Zebra printers not work any more, that is annoying, but I rarely enough print labels, that booting to a Win7 instance with the Zebra software works well enough for the need. Still, was getting quite used to Glabel, it was not too steep a learning curve.
Any printer that speaks Postscript, or PCL5 or 6, will work off the bat with Linux, with no problems. This covers almost all HP, Canon and a lot of other printers with networking, so long as they respond to port 4200 they will be happy.
Just wish the kernel developers would fix the bug that makes Zebra printers not work any more, that is annoying, but I rarely enough print labels, that booting to a Win7 instance with the Zebra software works well enough for the need. Still, was getting quite used to Glabel, it was not too steep a learning curve.
I just took a quick look at LearnLinux.tv and bookmarked it for later. We have Linux courses at work, but the way they are set up and the usually dumb questions they ask on tests don't get along with me. I learn much better when I run into an unknown and then search out the answer, and usually there are many answers (unlike work). I have played with Oracle Linux, but 'out of the box' it is missing applications that are really handy. I guess that's to be expected since it is an Enterprise OS, and in all fairness I've never tried adding any applications to it. I probably learn the most from playing with a Raspberry Pi and Python. I seem to do a lot more command line stuff on it than Ubuntu. I really like the portability of the Pi. It can run off a battery bank, and with a wireless keyboard and small LCD display it is the small computer I used to wish for back in the mainframe days.
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