Lightening Windows 10 for Low Power Navigation Computers

[Franziska]

Originally Posted by Alita49DS

All this stuff about Linux. Unless you are a complete geek with the patience of Job don't even think about it. Been there, done that, lost the will to live.

For goodness sake, an annual subscription to Office 365 hardly registers on the Richter scale of boat money and Windows 10 is effectively free.

Further, unlike most money spent on boats, it is actually good value. As an example, compare it to the price of an MFD and charts.

Why would one need an MS Office subscription if there is Libre Office for windows around? It's free and for 95% it does easily everything they could ever want it to do.

Just sayin', no offense meant.

[Pete17C]

Originally Posted by Franziska

Why would one need an MS Office subscription if there is Libre Office for windows around? It's free and for 95% it does easily everything they could ever want it to do.

Just sayin', no offense meant.

Why would one need Windows OS if there is Linux around? It's free and for 95% it does easily everything they could ever want it to do.

Just sayin', no offense meant.

Fixed that for me.

[Franziska]

Yes, BUT :-) the installation of the Windows version of Libre Office, is, as 95% of the software and hardware installation under Windows a dead simple standart routine.
I tried Linux a couple of times and always ended up with fiddling around on command prompts with commands I had no real clue of.
And, I am more tech savvy than the average user. Still, I am not a administrator or programmer and have no real intention to become one, my talents are in other fields.
Similarly, a lot of hardware has not the right drivers available right away under Linux and a lot of standart software packages are not available for Linux neither.

If the Linux people would make 95% of these issues go away, a lot of people would easily switch.

Command prompts are a no-no for most normal USERS. Plug and play is what they need.

Unfortunately Linux does not fulfill this need, despite being a real nice operating system when it's running.

[Alita49DS]

No offence to anybody who has endless time, is happy with inferior products and still believes that somewhere out there are free lunches to be found.

Personally, I neither believe in free lunches nor do I resent making a modest payment to benefit massively from the hard work of others. Including having all my data and applications available device agnostic. The 1TB of included storage with Office365 is alone worth the cost to me.

Each can make an elective choice and respect others who make a different one.

[odonnellryan]

Originally Posted by Franziska

Why would one need an MS Office subscription if there is Libre Office for windows around? It's free and for 95% it does easily everything they could ever want it to do.

Just sayin', no offense meant.

I work in finance. I need to ensure I format things exactly as expected and so on. I wish Libre would get me there so I could do full Windows (I'm also a developer).

[odonnellryan]

Originally Posted by Alita49DS

No offence to anybody who has endless time, is happy with inferior products and still believes that somewhere out there are free lunches to be found.

Personally, I neither believe in free lunches nor do I resent making a modest payment to benefit massively from the hard work of others. Including having all my data and applications available device agnostic. The 1TB of included storage with Office365 is alone worth the cost to me.

Each can make an elective choice and respect others who make a different one.

Open Source and is composed of both "free as in beer" and "free as in speech" software. Neither are free lunches. People put a lot of hard work into the software. And if you use it you can (and should IMO if you can afford it) donate to the project.

[Brian.D]

So, OP, did you figure out how to "lighten" up Windows 10?

[sailorxyz]

Originally Posted by Brian.D

If the OP does not know how to boot from a USB drive by modifying the BIOS, then this is a bad suggestion. Linux, while a fine OS, is too complicated for the average person. Not saying the OP is average, but Linux is not as simple as it is led out to be. Plus, one will have to get all the drivers for the machine the OP has now. My counsel is to stay away from Linux.

Linux is no more complicated than Windows.....

[jim321]

well i started with Windows DOS.went to 3.1, 98, xp, 7,and 10 .all of them sucked one way or another
linux is not that difficult people today just want to talk to there machine and have it do crap for them.
learn to use linux it's no harder than DOS was.your smarter than an 1980's teen right?
Oh,. and i just did a security scan for a chain of restaurants there kiosks are all running XP..
DANGER WILL ROBINSON..

have control over your stuff or let the corporate cowboys use you for their profit your choice.
convenience is not free.

[Reefmagnet]

Interesting anecdote re Windows 10. Been having problems with being pestered by office updates every time I opened an office application for the past week because I have my internet wifi connection set to "metered", despite clicking some "ok" buttons to allow the update to proceed. So, the other day I turned off the metered setting, which let the update finally succeed. As an experiment of sorts, I left the metered setting turned off. Last night, I noticed my computer kept waking up from sleep. About 3 times during the evening I put it back to sleep, yet it would wake up not long afterwards. In fact, it stayed awake all night. This morning, there was no automatic restart during the night, but no choices other than to update and restart/shut-down now available. I'm writing this now waiting for the restart updating to finish.

Imo, this is not the behaviour one wants from an OS running navigation systems on a small boat in terms of power consumption or interruption of processes at critical times.

[Phil_Fr]

Bonjour,
There will always be this little war between Windows users and 'others OS' like Linux and derivatives or Macs.
Linux (Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu ...) is free, gratis and has comparable tools and compatible with what is found on Windows or Mac.
LibreOffice is completely free, I do not understand to pay a software then to pay again and always by the simple fact that one uses my information, what I like, wood, buys, reads, visit ... It is this what Microsoft is doing, and with Windows 10, it's at power 10 (or factor 10,I don't know exactly the name) that it does it without hope of simplifying it or lightening it because its updates erase all your efforts to lighten it from unnecessary programs or programs spies.


If you really need Windows because of a specific program, use a virtual machine like Wine and test before.
I am under XUBUNTU whereas I started with Windows 3.1, it is slightly different at the beginning, but for a so-called 'standard' use, it is identical and with some addons, one even has a 'Windows under Xubuntu' visually.
No problems with drivers on any computer even I use a very old Dell (12 years) or a Clevo.


Good Sunday.
Best regards from France,
Sorry for my poor english...

[odonnellryan]

Originally Posted by Phil_Fr

Bonjour,
There will always be this little war between Windows users and 'others OS' like Linux and derivatives or Macs.
Linux (Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu ...) is free, gratis and has comparable tools and compatible with what is found on Windows or Mac.
LibreOffice is completely free, I do not understand to pay a software then to pay again and always by the simple fact that one uses my information, what I like, wood, buys, reads, visit ... It is this what Microsoft is doing, and with Windows 10, it's at power 10 (or factor 10,I don't know exactly the name) that it does it without hope of simplifying it or lightening it because its updates erase all your efforts to lighten it from unnecessary programs or programs spies.


If you really need Windows because of a specific program, use a virtual machine like Wine and test before.
I am under XUBUNTU whereas I started with Windows 3.1, it is slightly different at the beginning, but for a so-called 'standard' use, it is identical and with some addons, one even has a 'Windows under Xubuntu' visually.
No problems with drivers on any computer even I use a very old Dell (12 years) or a Clevo.


Good Sunday.
Best regards from France,
Sorry for my poor english...

I understand what you're getting at and I believe it is well-intentioned, but if Microsoft was stealing the information you uses on their OS OR the Office suite it would be a big deal (and not so hard to figure out through people seeing odd network logs).

Sure Windows 10 does send some information back but not actual data. More like interactions etc.. that is too much for me too but it isn't sending data.

Think about all the finance people who use Excel and work on stuff that is extremely secret (you're not allowed to bring your phone to work even). If Microsoft was just mining this vast amount of data ...

I like the free office alternatives, they will work for most people. Unfortunately they are not 100% compatible with Excel so unusable for my work.

Likewise it is remarkable what a team of dedicated individuals can accomplish with the various Linux distributions. Even more remarkable that there are so many wonderful distributions.

However, giving up all the productivity I can have personally using software available only on Windows (and which does not work very well under Wine and is a pain to run through a VM - and slow) is a non-starter.

Though I do run Linux on several Raspberry Pis and other embedded hardware. Oh yeah, on most of my servers as well (at least ones that do not need some Microsoft stack like for older versions of C#).

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Brian.D

So, OP, did you figure out how to "lighten" up Windows 10?

My problem is more complicated than the OS -- the system clock of my boat computer has failed, which has paralyzed some OpenCPN functions which are critical for me.


So I'm choosing a new computer, and how to deal with the OS is being considered in parallel. I'm leaning towards Linux IF Linux works with the multi-core/multi-thread processor of whatever box I end up choosing. From my research, Linux is not yet suitable for all of the new processors. Linux is not too complicated for me -- I grew up with Unix for goodness sake, then DOS 1.0. I grew up with command line interfaces and still use the command prompt extensively even with Windows. The only thing which makes me hesitate about Linux is not wanting to spend a great deal of time configuring the computer -- I have better things to do on the boat and have to budget my time.



I'm leaning towards this one:


Beelink Content of the article


which is similar to the existing box, with an ultra low voltage CPU (from the Atom family), but more powerful, three times the RAM, and with a real SSD (no eMMC) drive with reasonable capacity. It would be an incremental upgrade, but I am hesitant to use a Core i3 or i5 box with a processor which can pull 50 watts (!). I don't think that much power is needed for OpenCPN and the other nav stuff I do, and I care a lot about power consumption because the boat computer runs 24/7/365.


This is a dedicated navigation computer which is not used for general computing, and is almost never connected to the Internet.

[Brian.D]

OK, lots of issues to look at. Does your old computer use a 2032 battery for the system clock. Probably not that old of a machine so there might not be a battery.

I know what you mean by growing up. I too took the same path but really started with Commodore BASIC. Then on to CP/M. From there to DOS, Windows (all versions) and RedHat. I played with LINUX but it was still in its infancy and I didn't want to waste time. So I know where you are going and how you got there.

Good luck.