Life without Chrome
I’ve not been doing much radio the last couple of weeks. I haven’t been able to raise much enthusiasm. No doubt for those of you with jobs, being able to play radio all day would be a blissful situation. But it’s not much fun being in this small, sweaty shack in this hot, sunny weather. I’d really like to be able to get out and about in the beautiful Lakeland countryside, further than I can reach on my own two feet. And my hopes of doing that took a bit of a blow yesterday.
I did continue trying to get Google Chrome to run on my shack computer. For a short time I thought I had succeeded. I spotted that Microsoft .Net 3.5 was installed twice. I uninstalled both copies and Chrome appeared to be stable after that. Then I spotted Windows Update installing Net 3.5 again, and before I could stop it Chrome immediately crashed. I tried removing Net 3.5 again after disabling automatic updates, but this time it didn’t help. I could crash Chrome every single time I opened this post from PD0AC’s blog. Usually Chrome would just vanish from the screen, but other times I got blue-screen or black-screen error messages and once Windows XP spontaneously rebooted. So I have given up.
An older machine running XP seriously benefits from simply leaving windows behind. Try loading a Linux OS on that old machine and breathe new life into it. There are dozens of free HAM and shortwave oriented pieces of free software that runs on Linux including HT programming, radio remote control, and logging and digital mode software. And chrome will run flaewlessly
I recommend Zorin OS 7 Linux . You can make it look and function like Windows XP or Windows 7 and it is very stable. It is available for free download at zorin-os.com.