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News Microsoft's cancelled February Patch Tuesday releases rolled into March

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Gareth Halfacree, 15 Mar 2017.

  1. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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  2. Cthippo

    Cthippo Can't mod my way out of a paper bag

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    I also got this:

    Makes me very very nervous :worried:
     
  3. Mister_Tad

    Mister_Tad Will work for nuts Super Moderator

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    Whyso? I read it as "we're checking what percentage of the install base is using old and crusty HW/SW to decide when to stop for development for certain things"
     
  4. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    KB2952664 (Windows 7) and KB2976978 (Windows 8) have a long history, they started out as compatibility update for upgrading Windows 7… [that] helps Microsoft make improvements to the current operating system in order to ease the upgrade experience to the latest version of Windows.

    That was almost 2 years ago and they've been reissued multiple times, the general consensus seem to be they add the sort of telemetry gathering capabilities found in Windows 10 to older versions of Windows.

    Microsoft isn't exactly instilling confidence in their updating process, between mystery patches appearing and disappearing, release notes being absent, and forced updates I'm not sure if it's better to take my chances with Microsoft or the ne'er do wells.
     
  5. SMIFFYDUDE

    SMIFFYDUDE Supermodders on my D

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    I hope the update isn't going to put me into another infinite repair loop like it did last time it updated, 4 or 5 times in a row I had to restore Windows because of that and wasted 2 days.
     
  6. Wwhat

    Wwhat Minimodder

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    I really don't get why the EU STILL doesn't make a new case against MS, they have been breaking so many rules for such a long time now and they add more and more to it.

    When I say I don't get it I do of course mean I do very well get it, it's called 'money and bribes'.
    And you have to say, they have made huge leaps in their bribing prowess, so many are on-board now and none reject them, if you look at all the evidence of all companies playing along with all their dubious trickery like all the efforts done to strongarm people into adopting windows10.

    Anyway I guess we really have no option and will have to resign we eventually have to go linux. Or Apple but I really am not compatible with Apple's control of things policy either. Plus you don't get wide game support there either, plus their hardware in really weak in terms of processing power and GPU.

    I wish there were more options, but I have no hope for the future in that regard.
    But at least you can make a steambox with linux now.
     
  7. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    Breaking what rules? If MS said tommorow screw you all we not making windows anymore, the worlds major governments would likely have to bribe them to continue.

    Apple is worse both In security lock down and lack of supported hardware.

    Steam box game support is limited, I would be shocked if it's 1% of steams total library.

    Microsoft are a private company and Apple another private company has enough market share to stop any monopoly intervention.

    EU took them to court on web browsers, can't really take them to court for not supplying updates to a 7 year old operating system, Apple cuts you off at 2 years for OSX. 10.5 for example was launched In 2007 by the end of 2009 it had received its last security update.
     
  8. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Easy to find out. Linux-compatible Steam games: 6,772. MacOS compatible games: 10,538. Windows compatible games: 28,002. (Obviously, a lot of those games are the same game: it'd be rare to see a Linux-compatible game that isn't also compatible with Windows, for example.)

    Searching for all operating systems gives the same total as searching for Windows, so we can safely assume that the 'Windows' result is actually 'all games on Steam.' That's good, 'cos it makes the next bit a lot easier:

    Linux: 24.18% of all Steam games are compatible.
    MacOS: 37.63% of all Steam games are compatible.

    So, pretty much a quarter of all Steam games will work on SteamOS or A. N. Other Linux - just a little bit higher than your one percent estimate, so I guess you can go ahead and be shocked now.

    To add a little more to those figures, though: it's only been possible to list Linux-compatible games on Steam since 2013, while it's been possible to list macOS-compatible games since 2010 - nearly twice as long. Naturally, it's also been possible to list Windows games since Steam first came out - well, let's say since 2005, when Valve signed its first publisher partnership. A better figure, then, would be to look at the breakdown of the games released in the last year. SteamSpy has a list of games released in 2016 (warning, link loads a big-ass page): 4,693. Unfortunately, if there's a way to make SteamSpy tell me how many of those are compatible with each operating system, I can't see it.

    Still, I think we can safely say that developer uptake of SteamOS specifically and Linux in general is considerably higher than you estimated.
     
  9. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    Even if the EU decided to do anything it would take so long 7&8 would be distant memories, the web browser thing took over 10 years and even then Microsoft got fined years later for not complying.
     
  10. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    I am shocked its that high gareth. Only way would be to break it down into specific segments,

    Microsoft has little reason to change though, Web Browser thing was Argued that it removed choice. As it was default, Technically you have a choice if you install Windows or not.

    If Intel cannot get them to support chips under windows 7 ( assuming they even asked) Then what hope do AMD have. Which is the main reason this topic has reared its head again after all
     
  11. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    I was surprised, too. I knew it was more than 1%, but wouldn't have put it at a quarter. You read it here first: 2017 is The Year of The Linux Desktop ™(!)
     
  12. rollo

    rollo Modder

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    I would of thought at most 5-10% I must say, be fun if Linux takes off.
     
  13. Vault-Tec

    Vault-Tec Green Plastic Watering Can

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    Just put Linux on one of my boxes. Very nice (Ubuntu). Had some issues with Steam running but found out I needed to switch the GPU driver via the software menu to the actual Nvidia one. No probs since. Installed Bioshock Infinite and gave it a test, worked great.

    I also seem to have lost all of the streaming issues I had with three versions of Windows (7, 8.1 and 10). I heard there was a pretty serious "downdate" a few months back that screwed up the internet but I thought that was only with 10.

    Only problem is two of my PCs use proprietary daughter boards that only work with Windows, and if you install anything else on them the fans all set themselves to 100%.

    Still, I don't need much more power than what this rig has, so it's a nice change :)
     
  14. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    One of the fun things about looking into the world of open source and free software is you get to see what a difference compiling things for your specific CPU can make. Case in point: Google's new Guetzli JPEG compression algorithm.

    Running the binary from Google: 100% baseline performance.
    Compiling it from source with -O3 flag: 115% performance.
    Compiling it with -Ofast flag: 121% performance.

    That's a 21% performance gain over the generic binary, just by letting the compiler optimise it for my particular CPU (and use a few not-quite-standards-compliant maths routines). No hardware change, no overclocking, nothing. Now imagine if the next game you play had the same 21% performance boost, completely free of charge.

    I'm thinking about writing a piece on the topic, but I'm snowed under with book work at the moment so it'll have to wait.
     
  15. Vault-Tec

    Vault-Tec Green Plastic Watering Can

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    Still getting my head around it but a lot of the commands are familiar. Getting Steam on was a pain, I wish there were more .deb installers around. Still, nothing insurmountable and got there eventually. The rig is definitely far snappier than it was on Windows 7. Browers for example fly (well, apart from Firefox which is a bit chuggy like its Windows sibling).

    I don't really need to do that much more now. Just get Trillian on. Just fired the deb but it doesn't seem to have worked so Terminal here I come again.
     
  16. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    What problems did you have? Steam is distributed as .deb package, so it should just have installed and automatically pulled in the i386 libraries it needs ('cos for some reason Valve has decided to compile it as a 32-bit ELF instead of 64-bit.)
     
  17. Vault-Tec

    Vault-Tec Green Plastic Watering Can

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    Well it just wouldn't boot. Firstly it did not give me a desktop short cut which obviously is a problem if you don't know your way around Linux (fixed by typing Steam in terminal or finding the shortcut in /usr/bin). I think most of the problems were due to my GPU driver, which of course it doesn't tell you it just refuses to run. Windows usually gives you a reason, which you can then Google.

    Then of course the Nvidia driver is not a deb either, so you need to pull it all manually via the terminal. That was easier though, because obviously there are plenty of guides online. In the end after pulling seemingly everything from the internet I was able to choose my driver through the software section of the settings thingermebub.

    Just installed Trillian. Again, no shortcut ETC but I knew the drill by then. Still learning really, but love it so far. Oh and I have installed Chrome now too (So Chromium, Chrome and Firefox all running) and it does the job of the other two it seems (IE plays all 6 main streams for my footy). Still not quite got my head around why it's made such a difference but hey, I'll take it.

    It's nearly there tbh. Now I just need something akin to Photoshop and it can be my daily rig. It's the quietest of the three too. And the furthest away :D

    BTW, any reccs for an external sound card/dongle? it's not picking up my Azalia audio (very old AM2+ board) and tbh? I don't want to fight with it. The last thing I want to do now is kill it with so many hours invested. The Nvidia HDMI audio is working brilliantly with the monitor, but obviously I have nowhere to poke a set of headphones. Just something P&P would be lovely.

    Oh yeah, last thing.. I also switched from wireless (which is crap on this old thing, the speed fluctuates like mad) to wired (my home made Killer NIC card..) Which has really made it so much better.
     
  18. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    It certainly should have created a shortcut in the menu - not on the desktop, though. You definitely don't have to run it from the terminal. Did you click on the Ubuntu icon and type 'Steam' to find it?

    [​IMG]

    If you are running Steam at the terminal, it should give you a reason for exiting. It's pretty verbose.

    [​IMG]

    I'd recommend against installing the driver that way. You're better off following the official guide to pulling it from the Ubuntu repositories, that way it'll be automatically kept up to date via apt and you won't have to do anything at the terminal.

    If you installed it via your package manager, it should have created a menu entry just like Steam.

    I use The Gimp for all my image editing needs. Just switch it into single-window mode and it's not massively different to Photoshop, though lacking in some higher-end features.

    Pass - the last sound card I owned was an ISA SoundBlaster AWE64 Gold. Still got it around here somewhere...

    Strange that the audio isn't working, though. I'm on an FM3 motherboard here with Azalea audio and it's working absolutely fine out-the-box - in fact I'm listening to MP3s via analogue speakers right now.
     
  19. Vault-Tec

    Vault-Tec Green Plastic Watering Can

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    Doh I keep forgetting about the search thing. Could have saved me a lot of time.

    Currently doing some research, but I think with the sound card it's going to be suck it and see and return if it doesn't work. No idea why the onboard sound isn't being detected tbh. It's enabled in the bios and it definitely worked under Win 7.
     
  20. Vault-Tec

    Vault-Tec Green Plastic Watering Can

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    Oh yeah one last question, G. Is there a good system monitor tool/app that shows temps etc?

    Also - sound feex. Basically it doesn't show the device until you connect something to it. Then it works fine and I can switch. Noice !
     
    Last edited: 20 Mar 2017

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