We’ve discussed the Windows 10 upgrade in the past, and suggested a wait and see approach. Well, now it’s been out for a year, and we’re approaching the deadline to get a free update. Unfortunately, Microsoft has been forcing rather than enticing users to upgrade. We discuss the controversy below, and then give our current recommendations.
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Windows 10: Controversy and Should I update?
June 3, 2016 By
Scientific Linux Desktop at Home
September 28, 2015 By
Why are we talking about using Scientific Linux at home and work? Well, see our previous posts about Windows 10 which lays out why some of us are taking these steps. One thing we have seen mentioned is run Windows 10 and use a Virtual Machine (VM) running Linux for all your “important” or private activities. This gets things exactly backward. If you cannot trust the OS, you cannot trust it to not access network traffic or memory of a VM it’s running. Instead, you are much better served running the VM Host OS as one you trust, in this case SL7, and as a Guest OS VM the OS you don’t trust, in this case Windows 8+. While VMs do not provide perfect security, it’s a lot harder to break out of a VM than for an OS task to peek inside a process or hypervisor or VM system running under it.
Previously I talked about using Scientific Linux 7 at work. Now I’m going to talk about home use. First, I’ll break down what you would expect to use this OS and configuration for, and what you wouldn’t. Then I’ll talk about what I use to accomplish various tasks, and a little helper we’ve created for new installs.
Scientific Linux 7 desktop at Work
September 2, 2015 By
I’ve been using Scientific Linux 7.1 at work for a couple of weeks now. If you’ve been using SL7 as a desktop, or are interested in moving this way, the CLASSE IT Group can help you with some of its configuration. This post will also give some ideas of tasks that are useful at work and at home. I’ll post about using it at home a little later on.
In general, one of the great things for me personally while working in the lab, is getting experience with this recent operating system on my desktop. There are many tasks that are just as easily performed on Linux as they are on Windows. Therefore, I am going to document my process, overall issues and solutions in this blog post. Although I won’t be providing step-by-step instructions, you can contact the CLASSE computer group if you would like help configuring your Linux desktop at the lab.
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Transition to Scientific Linux 7 from Windows 7
August 10, 2015 By
Part 1: Why change?
Windows 7 is coming to the end of its full support and is entering security only support. What does that mean for you? It is a good time to consider how to move forward with updated software.
Recently, we posted about Windows 10, the deal Microsoft is offering and why you might want to wait before upgrading to it. Since that post, we have found some disturbing privacy and control issues with the Windows 10 released version. For more information, you may want to Google to find out about the difficulty of obtaining local accounts rather than having your entire login reside with Microsoft and its account.