A Recipe for Linux
As many of you will recall, we have previously discussed installing the free Linux operating system which is an alternative to Windows or MacOS. In particular, it could be considered for use on a machine which was running Windows 10 but does not meet the requirements for upgrading to Windows 11.
You can look back on our previous discussion around installing and using Linux.
In May 2020, John took us through the process of installing Linux Mint:-
https://computerclub100.blogspot.com/2020/05/
In April 2023, Dave gave a demo of using Linux Mint and there is some information about installing it:-
https://computerclub100.blogspot.com/2023/04/
Dave has now produced a “recipe” for installing Linux Mint which guides you through the process:-
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11ve5ZOgUyOE4__l0TTrWHgEcUgO9lBU8/view?usp=sharing
You can also follow this AI-generated slide-show based on the above document:-
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oVtfdrYvhLRlEOaxZw9w4kdEPcazjM_1/edit?usp=drive_link&ouid=102945164438761712870&rtpof=true&sd=true
Zorin OS Core
Zorin OS is another Linux variant which seems very popular and has a Windows-like look and feel. The Core version is free to download and use and you will find it here:-
https://zorin.com/os/download/
There is a Pro version of Zorin for a one-off fee of £47.99 which adds additional features, including a choice of additional desktop layouts. However, I think you should start with the free Core version, and move to Pro if you like Zorin and want the extra features.
You could use Dave's recipe to install Zorin rather than Mint if you wish.
Although you can't install Microsoft Office apps (e.g. Word, Excel) on Linux, you can run the free online versions of these by going to office.com in any web browser and signing in with your Microsoft Account. These online apps are not as fully featured as the paid versions, but may be adequate for many people. You can give it a try on your current PC - it should be a similar experience on a Linux machine.
Most versions of Linux come with LibreOffice pre-installed which has word-processor, spreadsheet and slideshow features equivalent to Word, Excel and PowerPoint. LibreOffice can open and save files in Microsoft Office format, although there could be some minor inconsistencies.
Brian asked if Linux would be faster than Windows on a 10-year old laptop. Generally, Linux is thought to be faster and there are versions of Linux that are 'lighter weight' and particularly suited to older hardware, e.g. Puppy Linux or Lubuntu. This article, which I found after the meeting discusses this question:-
https://www.technology.org/how-and-why/is-linux-faster-than-windows/
Allan asked if Linux is updated to maintain security. Both Linux Mint and Zorin OS are regularly updated.
AWS Failure
AWS – Amazon Web Services – provides the infrastructure and services used by about 30% of the Internet. So, when AWS had a failure in one of their giant centres in Virginia on 20th October, lots of the Internet also failed and it made world-wide news. The problems lasted for over 15 hours, but were basically caused by a software bug. If you want a technical explanation of what went wrong (and I'm not sure why you would!), Ars Technica published this article by Dan Goodin of 24 Oct:-
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/10/a-single-point-of-failure-triggered-the-amazon-outage-affecting-millions/?utm_source=bsky&utm_medium=social
AWS is a very important part of Amazon’s business. It only represents about 17% of total revenue but generates over 50% of total profit.
Azure Failure
After the AWS outage on 20th October, Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform went down on Wednesday 29th October – see this article from Wired:-
https://www.wired.com/story/the-microsoft-azure-outage-shows-the-harsh-reality-of-cloud-failures/
In addition to their own services, Microsoft's Azure hosts cloud processes for other organisations, similar to AWS. Azure is the second largest cloud infrastructure provider with about 20% of the market behind AWS at 29%. The third major player in the cloud platform area is Google Cloud Platform (GCP) which has around 13% market share. This article from Statista shows the market share along with some of the smaller providers:-
https://www.statista.com/chart/18819/worldwide-market-share-of-leading-cloud-infrastructure-service-providers/
The Internet relies on a fairly small number of very large companies, and if they make even a small mistake, it can have major consequences. In July last year, an issue with software from a large security company, CrowdStrike, also caused serious problems around the world. We discussed this at the Club in August 2024:-
https://computerclub100.blogspot.com/2024/08/
Many of the new AI companies (e.g. OpenAI, Anthropic, etc) hire these cloud services from AWS, Azure and GCP rather than investing in their own data centres, so these platforms seem likely to grow.
If you want more detail, this article from Cloudwards compares the big 3 cloud providers:-
https://www.cloudwards.net/aws-vs-azure-vs-google/
AI Summary of 2024 Computer Clubs
I asked Claude AI (https://claude.ai/) to go through the 12 Computer Club blogs of last year and create a summary of what we covered. This is what it produced:-
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/c0nzlewq1gwpgl02cdqdo/2024-Claude-summary-of-the-year.pdf?rlkey=b9b7i9xbgbtiyp4grkpfwjrmf&st=hhv5777y&dl=0
It gives the month in which each topic was discussed, so if you want to go back and look at any item, you can just go to that particular month’s blog. To do that, go to the usual blog page where you see the most recent meeting details:-
https://computerclub100.blogspot.com/
Then use the “Computer Club Date” drop-down box near the top to select the required month.
As it takes very little time for me to ask the AI to do this, I aim to generate a similar summary of the 2025 discussions and publish this in the January blog next year.
Vibe Coding
Collins Dictionary has announced “vibe coding” as its word of the year (even though it’s 2 words!). Vibe coding describes the process of creating a computer program (i.e. code) by using Artificial Intelligence (AI). It is now possible to create a computer program by simply asking an AI (e.g. ChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, etc) to write it for you. Ideally, it still needs checking by a human for errors and security flaws. However, it can certainly speed up the process. I guess you could also create the code with one AI system and then ask another to check it. See this BBC article:-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpd2y053nleo
Of course, the bad news is that hackers can now use AI to help them write their malware!
Next Session
Wed 10th December at 2pm by Zoom
