Low Vision Computing

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Linux Migration



1. Rationale: by October 2025 Windows 10 will no longer be supported, and Windows 11 is not exactly stable, neither the code, nor the user interface.

2. Microsoft is determined to move users to "the cloud", meaning paid use of their "cloud-based offerings" - mail, office, and eventually even the operating system itself will be subscription-based. See Article on The Verge Website (link opens in new window/tab).

I for one don't like the idea that if, for whatever reason, I miss a payment my data goes *poof*. Or that if my internet is down or I change banks and don't update my banking info with them I can't even work.

With this in mind, I've been checking out linux distributions that support my graphics cards (most don't because the cards are too new), and I found one that looks promising - MX Linux 23 with the 6.4 linux kernel. (link opens in new window/tab).

Currently MX-Linux only supports 1 Arc A770LE at a time, so I'm limited to a maximum of 4 screens, which shouldn't be a problem for most users. Running it off a "live persistant image USB stick', I was able to scale the desktop to 3x, which on the 65" screen is certainly usable.

For people who don't need Arc 770/750 support, I would suggest the KDE/Plasma desktop.

As for software, both for people who aren't yet ready to switch to linux, and those who are, there are plenty of non-microsoft free replacements out there. The ones I've listed have to be able to run on both Windows and linux, so people can get used to the experience without having to switch operating systems right away.

All download links open in new tabs/windows.

Web Browsers

download Firefox

Office Suite

download LibreOffice

Text Editor and/or Development Environment

download Eclipse IDE for C/C++ developers

don't let the name fool you, it's perfect for all sorts of text files as well as PHP/CSS/Javascript web development, unlike the PHP standalone version of Eclipse, which has a lot of limitations)

And the structured tree view of your files is pretty handy when you're editing a web page or some notes / documentation.

Graphics Editor

download The GIMP

Multimedia

download VLC Media player - windows download for those who want to give it a test drive.

After getting fed up with Microsoft's various music players not being able to find all the music in my J:\Music directory, wanting me to add individual directories and albums over and over after every update. I now run VLC* from videolan.org - it plays pretty much all multimedia content, local and streaming. One click on a desktop shortcut "I:\VLC\vlc.exe J:\Music\Playlist.xspf" and all my music plays, no hassles. Also plays videos and streaming media.

Video conferencing

download Zoom, works on Windows, Linux, Android, IOS. Amazon Fire tablets have the Zoom app for free in the Fire app store. Tested zooming myself to one of my tablets.

If you have an iPhone or Apple computer, you can email a Facetime link that opens in the user's browser. Up to 32 users, no time limit.

Email

Avoid Thunderbird - it still has problems that haven't been fixed for a decade (plus some new ones).

Once you move to linux, there are plenty of email programs, many of them already pre-installed. For Windows, because, as the good ole Magic 8-Ball says used to say, "Outlook not good."

If you have an Amazon Fire tablet, the default email client also works great. It's actually what I use as my main email program.

Web Development

download Nginx web server Works great for plain, html files, images, etc.

download PHP web/command-line scripting language, for web pages that need to be interpreted on the server.

Future-Proofing

When the time comes (2024), I'll divvy up my current hardware to build 2 computers - an energy-sipping linux box that will run just linux, to support some of my other projects, and a desktop combo windows 10/linux box with upgraded cpu/motherboard.

The windows system drive doesn't hold much (all the usual stuff that normally gets installed on your C: drive I've diverted to other drives, so my current storage layout is as follows:

C: Windows system drive (118 gb total);
D: Caches (MSFS 128gb rolling cache and 1024 gb data cache);
E: Backups;
F: Projects;
G: Games;
H: Misc (downloads, misc);
I: (software drive);
J: Media (Music, Images, Screenshots, etc)
K: USB3 128 gb memory stick (i've got a bunch of them just for this);
L: USB3 128gb USB3 memory stick
M: 5 TB portable hard drive.

You can easily change the default directories where screenshots, download, etc. go by right-clicking the current download location in your Windowns C: drive and changing it's properties so it uses another drive/directory.

Also makes it easy to avoid filling your C: drive - much easier to just install another drive than to re-install everything on a larger C: drive.

This is been a lifesaver, as I've had to re-install Windows 5 times in a year, including removing 2 Windows 11 installs - as of June 2022 Windows 11 still doesn't cut it.

Because the C: drive has less than 120 gb on it, it will be easy to install Windows 10 on a 1TB or 2TB m.2 SSD, and just make an image of the install after it's set up. This way, even after Windows 10 goes out of support, if my system drive gets munged, I'll just restore from the image.

And it's no big deal making a new drive image after installing other software, to capture any changes to dynamic link libraries, etc., that end up on the C: drive.

The sad part? I really, really tried to give Windows 11 another shot, but I have a new scanner whose software won't even install under Windows ll, and 3 webcams that had the same situation until I dug out an old Win10 installer from my backups.

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Email: barbra@lowvisioncomputing.com

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