Running Windows 7 and considering a hardware upgrade?

[Mr. Scram]

I see... you (and maybe some other people here as well) just want to complain about microsoft.
At the same time you know that your business can not survive without them.
I get it...

So that's affirmative? According to you the world is black and white? Die or be in heaven? Work with perfect employees and companies, or cast them from your world forever? If you use something, you suddenly agree with everything that's attached to it?

And again, there is no option where you're not depending on some party who won't notice it if you're gone. It doesn't exist.

[Mr. Scram]

It's not vendor lock-in. It's OS lock-in.

Many of us have thousands of <monetary unit> invested in software over the years. There may not be Linux versions of some, and you're asking us to throw all that away (or even re-invest thousands in acquiring versions for a different OS). For why? Because Microsoft are being sadistic bellends. And, of course, that never happens  in the Linux world (remind me, how friendly and amenable to discussion is the systemd dictator?).

Apparently Karel changes his entire workflow multiple times each year, and doesn't have a problem investing thousands of monetary units in licenses and training, projects that need to be postponed and compatibility problems clients might experience.

[Karel]

Apparently Karel changes his entire workflow multiple times each year, and doesn't have a problem investing thousands of monetary units in licenses and training, projects that need to be postponed and compatibility problems clients might experience.

On the contrary. We do electronics design and embedded software. We are using Linux as our main os since the beginning.
So far, we always found good (or at least reasonable) alternatives for windows applications.
Occasionally we use windows 7 in virtualbox but nothing that can disrupt our business.

Cadence, Zuken, (hell, even Eagle!), Xilinx, Altera, Microchip, all support Linux.
It's just Altium Designer that can't support Linux because they use ritarded tools to write their software.

[Mr. Scram]

On the contrary. We do electronics design and embedded software. We are using Linux as our main os since the beginning.
So far, we always found good (or at least reasonable) alternatives for windows applications.
Occasionally we use windows 7 in virtualbox but nothing that can disrupt our business.

Cadence, Zuken, (hell, even Eagle!), Xilinx, Altera, Microchip, all support Linux.
It's just Altium Designer that can't support Linux because they use ritarded tools to write their software.

It's great you found a niche where you can do this, but as soon as any sort of serious engineering outfit tries to use, say, Solidworks, there's not really an alternative. There are plenty of industry standard applications that just won't run on Linux.

Trust me, I've tried many times. We've had this discussion on the forums before, and came to the same conclusion.

[Karel]

On the contrary. We do electronics design and embedded software. We are using Linux as our main os since the beginning.
So far, we always found good (or at least reasonable) alternatives for windows applications.
Occasionally we use windows 7 in virtualbox but nothing that can disrupt our business.

Cadence, Zuken, (hell, even Eagle!), Xilinx, Altera, Microchip, all support Linux.
It's just Altium Designer that can't support Linux because they use ritarded tools to write their software.

It's great you found a niche where you can do this, but as soon as any sort of serious engineering outfit tries to use, say, Solidworks, there's not really an alternative. There are plenty of industry standard applications that just won't run on Linux.

Trust me, I've tried many times. We've had this discussion on the forums before, and came to the same conclusion.

You consider electronics & embedded software development a niche?

[Mr. Scram]

You consider electronics & embedded software development a niche?

If you do just that, yes. You can't really do any full product development without some sort of CAD solution. That means that others apparently provide what you need to survive.

Besides, your problem was with us complaining, right? That means that the solution should fit our situation, not yours.


niche

a habitat supplying the factors necessary for the existence of an organism or species
d :a specialized market

[Mr. Scram]

On the contrary. We do electronics design and embedded software. We are using Linux as our main os since the beginning.
So far, we always found good (or at least reasonable) alternatives for windows applications.
Occasionally we use windows 7 in virtualbox but nothing that can disrupt our business.

Cadence, Zuken, (hell, even Eagle!), Xilinx, Altera, Microchip, all support Linux.
It's just Altium Designer that can't support Linux because they use ritarded tools to write their software.

As a side note, why doesn't it surprise me that the previous posts led up to the reveal that you're a Linux boy

Oh, and just to be clear, I love the Linux thought and regularly tinker with it for personal purposes. I really wish it would be the answer to everything, but it just isn't.

[Karel]

I really wish it would be the answer to everything, but it just isn't.

Microsoft is the answer to everything? Then again, why all the whining? Getting confused now...

[Mr. Scram]

Microsoft is the answer to everything? Then again, why all the whining? Getting confused now...

I was being generous, but since you insist: it's time we admit that Linux on the desktop often isn't going to cut the mustard. It's great if you want to do basic things, a few specific things, or apparently do what you do. In a lot of cases, industry standard software isn't available and it isn't really conveniently substituted. Sure you can swap out Photoshop with GIMP, but what about the rest of the Adobe suite? What about generating a CAD model in an industry standard format? Even if it is possible, it takes time and effort to work around the non-availability of programs and less optimal compatibility. In a lot of cases it's simply not going to happen. You'll also have to worry about hiring staff that's capable of working with lesser known programs. Other companies simply don't have the patience for dealing with people who can't supply what's normally supplied and if they do, they'll charge you for it. It all adds up to overhead that eats into your profit margin, which is exactly the opposite of what you need as a business.

Why complain? Because it works! Microsoft has backtracked on a number of things after listening to feedback from customers. The fact that companies haven't migrated in droves should tell you something about how good of an alternative they consider Linux. If it were to pay, they would do it, but they don't.

Again, I wish I could find a great CAD program that runs on Linux, or a proper alternative to Adobe CC. Instead, I had to tinker with TeamViewer for hours before I got it sorta kinda working on one of the larger Linux distros. That's fine if you're a tinkerer and having some fun, but not acceptable if you're running a business. If the day ever comes that switching actually is viable, I'll be ready. I'd love it.

[Karel]

Why complain? Because it works!

 

[Kilo Tango]

Hmm what's wrong with having 2 PC's in your office, and run the windows software on the windows machine and the linux software on the linux machine ?. That way you get the best of both worlds.

I agree windows update is a bit cumbersome, one PC hadn't been on for a while and windows update didn't work, so I had to re-name the update folder and all all the updates to download and install. It took over 5 hrs and 2 days still finding things to update, whereas to load a similar PC with Linux Mint took all of 10 mins.

Ken

[Shock]

There is various ways of running Windows/Linux Linux/Windows now so you don't need to run a dedicated box. As for the Linux vs Windows debate it was exactly the same as 20 years ago, reasons for and against.

I think one of the key factors to swing changes could be a fully open source Linux distro for mobiles. It's less of a transition to go from mobile to "mobile like desktop", throw in optional control over the OS, preventing abandonware, slowing down hardware obsolescence from vendors and the other problems that exist with Android and it could work out quite well.

[Ampera]

It gets worse on servers. On Server 2016 you have to accept that the server will update itself and may restart itself in the process. You can set times when this is not allowed to happen, but basically if you have any setup where something could be broken by an unscheduled restart, for example one where virtual machines or databases were not shut down first,  then you have a problem.

This seems to be in the interests of security, but then what point is there in securing something which got broken in the process of securing it?

This is not entirely accurate.

I run Server 2016 as a desktop operating system, as it's less bloated and broken than Windows 10, and it only forces a restart once you manually initiate an update, so you can just not do the update until a time when it's cool for you to restart. The updates aren't really forced in that way.

[TerraHertz]

For Windows 7 to run on any modern silicon, device drivers and firmware need to emulate Windows 7’s expectations for interrupt processing, bus support, and power states- which is challenging for WiFi, graphics, security, and more.

I am deeply suspicious that this is bullshit. I can't offhand think of any Intel CPU that hasn't successfully run code written for a previous version. I can't offhand recall any Microsoft OS needing to be updated for a new Intel CPU to run it.

Agreed.  I believe it's more a case of MS and Intel taking deliberate steps to sabotage retire old OSs, because they don't support the spyware, backdoors and payware enforcements being built into present and future architectures. This for example:

https://www.networkworld.com/article/3236064/servers/minix-the-most-popular-os-in-the-world-thanks-to-intel.html

MINIX — The most popular OS in the world, thanks to Intel
You might not know it, but inside your Intel system, you have an operating system running in addition to your main OS, MINIX. And it’s raising eyebrows and concerns.

[Circlotron]

I am deeply suspicious that this is bullshit. I can't offhand think of any Intel CPU that hasn't successfully run code written for a previous version. I can't offhand recall any Microsoft OS needing to be updated for a new Intel CPU to run it.

Here’s an example.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/312108/windows-protection-error-in-ndis-with-a-cpu-that-is-faster-than-2-1-gh

[PlainName]

Here’s an example.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/312108/windows-protection-error-in-ndis-with-a-cpu-that-is-faster-than-2-1-gh

Good call.

[tooki]

Microsoft is the answer to everything? Then again, why all the whining? Getting confused now...

I was being generous, but since you insist: it's time we admit that Linux on the desktop often isn't going to cut the mustard. It's great if you want to do basic things, a few specific things, or apparently do what you do. In a lot of cases, industry standard software isn't available and it isn't really conveniently substituted. Sure you can swap out Photoshop with GIMP, but what about the rest of the Adobe suite?

This. The applications in the OSS world simply aren't up to snuff in most cases.

I actually am quite tired of hearing the OSS fans trot out GIMP as a Photoshop replacement (it's not; it doesn't come distantly close to what today's Photoshop does), LibreOffice for MS Office (again, not even distantly subsitutable, LO is just missing too many advanced features), etc.

I haven't really used either, but to use an example that might be closer to home here, I'm gonna guess that KiCad doesn't come close to Altium's feature set, either. It might be fine for hobbyists and more basic professional use, but really big commercial projects need something beefier.

So the OSS stuff is often adequate for the casual user, but simply falls short for the professional.

Also, professionals need support, so that if something goes wrong, it can get fixed. OSS can't really provide that.



The other aspect of OSS applications that is a real issue for average-joe users is usability. Here, OSS software tends to be far, far inferior, since it generally follows one of two patterns: being a crappy copy of a commercial product's interface (usually on Windows, but occasionally Mac); or following no convention whatsoever, having been designed at the developer's whim. The result of all this is a near-total lack of UI consistency, which really makes things harder for most users. (This is an engineering forum; we are, by definition, not average users.)

(Indeed, the Mac platform's biggest advantage for normal users is the high degree of UI consistency among applications by different developers, thanks to Apple's early and continued evangelism of adherence to the UI guidelines. Microsoft, despite having comparable UI guidelines, wasn't nearly as effective in convincing developers to adhere to them, so consistency isn't as high.)

[Karel]

Microsoft is the answer to everything? Then again, why all the whining? Getting confused now...

I was being generous, but since you insist: it's time we admit that Linux on the desktop often isn't going to cut the mustard. It's great if you want to do basic things, a few specific things, or apparently do what you do. In a lot of cases, industry standard software isn't available and it isn't really conveniently substituted. Sure you can swap out Photoshop with GIMP, but what about the rest of the Adobe suite?

This. The applications in the OSS world simply aren't up to snuff in most cases.

Who said that everything needs to be OSS? Sometimes OSS is better, sometimes closed-source, it depends.
In the case of operating systems, Linux is clearly king, given that your applications are available on that platform.
Fortunately, for most electronic engineers, this is the case. For example, Cadence, Zuken, Eagle, Xilinx, Altera, Microchip,
all support Linux. It's just Altium Designer that can't support Linux because they use ritarded tools to write their software.

[Mr. Scram]

Who said that everything needs to be OSS? Sometimes OSS is better, sometimes closed-source, it depends.
In the case of operating systems, Linux is clearly king, given that your applications are available on that platform.
Fortunately, for most electronic engineers, this is the case. For example, Cadence, Zuken, Eagle, Xilinx, Altera, Microchip,
all support Linux. It's just Altium Designer that can't support Linux because they use ritarded tools to write their software.

Let's be clear here: you think Linux is clearly king. There's no universal truth there.

[tszaboo]

Microsoft is the answer to everything? Then again, why all the whining? Getting confused now...

I was being generous, but since you insist: it's time we admit that Linux on the desktop often isn't going to cut the mustard. It's great if you want to do basic things, a few specific things, or apparently do what you do. In a lot of cases, industry standard software isn't available and it isn't really conveniently substituted. Sure you can swap out Photoshop with GIMP, but what about the rest of the Adobe suite?

This. The applications in the OSS world simply aren't up to snuff in most cases.

Who said that everything needs to be OSS? Sometimes OSS is better, sometimes closed-source, it depends.
In the case of operating systems, Linux is clearly king, given that your applications are available on that platform.
Fortunately, for most electronic engineers, this is the case. For example, Cadence, Zuken, Eagle, Xilinx, Altera, Microchip,
all support Linux. It's just Altium Designer that can't support Linux because they use ritarded tools to write their software.

No it is not. I can probably list a dozen application that I'm using on a daily-weekly basis, which don't support linux:

Tina-TI
Saturn PCB toolkit
Autodesk Design Review
Windows Powershell
Microsoft Office
Notepad++
Autohotkey
paint.net
TDK SEAT
Kvaser's CanKing
Test-OK testtrack
Microsoft Solitare

If you found a way to not use Linux: Good for you. Nobody cares about it. No I'm not going to look for a software which kinda-sorta works the same way on linux, because I dont care. I've got shit to do, not fiddle with software and to figure out how it works, and spend half my life googling error messages, the other half in the terminal.

And no, Linux is clearly not the king. It is barely usable as it is.

[Mr. Scram]

Linux will never have a consistent offering. It will keep evolving in many directions. Because that is why it exists.

It's a double edged sword. It has made it what it is today and what made it succesful, but also why it probably won't achieve widespread adoption. It's all too fragmented and as soon as someone doesn't agree with the direction something is taken, yet another fork arises. Rather than focussing the available developing power, it's spread thin across the range. Worse still, many of these islands have significant weaknesses, because you can't be master of everything. You can be a coding wizard, but deliver a horrible UI.

[tooki]

(Indeed, the Mac platform's biggest advantage for normal users is the high degree of UI consistency among applications by different developers, thanks to Apple's early and continued evangelism of adherence to the UI guidelines. Microsoft, despite having comparable UI guidelines, wasn't nearly as effective in convincing developers to adhere to them, so consistency isn't as high.)

Linux will never have a consistent offering. It will keep evolving in many directions. Because that is why it exists.

Oh, that's certainly true. Don't get me wrong, I think OSS as such is a great thing. It's just bad at producing user interface consistency, which is why I don't think a fully OSS OS will ever take over the desktop (or phone/tablet). But its success in the server room is well deserved, and OSS has been great at providing the software cores that others use to make great GUI apps.

One of the things I love about the Mac today is how, thanks to being UNIX under the hood, we now have both a full complement of commercial software AND a full complement of OSS software, really giving us the best of both worlds.

Who said that everything needs to be OSS? Sometimes OSS is better, sometimes closed-source, it depends.
In the case of operating systems, Linux is clearly king, given that your applications are available on that platform.
Fortunately, for most electronic engineers, this is the case. For example, Cadence, Zuken, Eagle, Xilinx, Altera, Microchip,
all support Linux. It's just Altium Designer that can't support Linux because they use ritarded tools to write their software.

Well, Linux is king in the server room only. Everywhere else, it's Windows and to a smaller extent Mac. Despite almost 2 decades of "YYYY is the year of the Linux desktop" announcements, Linux remains a niche player on the desktop. It's too fragmented, and too finicky, for the average user to bother with, especially given that for an average user, switching has no advantages, but many disadvantages.

If anything is gonna dethrone Win and Mac for the average joe, it's gonna be Chrome OS or something like it (that hasn't been invented yet). Lots of people these days can do 100% of what they need in a browser, and a Chromebook is an easy and secure way to do that. (I don't agree with the people who say that even pros will eventually give up Win/Mac/Linux for a lightweight OS like iOS, Android, or Chrome OS. That's nonsense, there's still an obvious place for full-size desktop OSes.)

As for commercial apps on Linux: That's a very good point. And no doubt, Linux makes a good platform for running commercial apps, at least in the jobs where you spend 99% of your time within one or two apps. It's interesting how commercial app developers some fields (like engineering and video) have embraced Linux on the desktop, while others (like graphic design/DTP) have totally ignored it.


As for why Altium (and others) isn't available: it's not just development tools, dude. Cross-platform development is hard, and that's even if you're willing to tolerate a user interface that's identical across platforms (meaning that it's not consistent with platform usability guidelines on at least all but one, but often on all). If you want an app to be a truly fully native citizen of its platform, you cannot use cross-platform development tools. Microsoft, for example, spends a fortune on Office to make it look and feel like a proper Mac application on the Mac. It shares a code base with Office for Windows, but they re-do a lot to make sure it works properly as a Mac application. Apps written in cross-platform development tools are often really wonky.

No it is not. I can probably list a dozen application that I'm using on a daily-weekly basis, which don't support linux:

Tina-TI
Saturn PCB toolkit
Autodesk Design Review
Windows Powershell
Microsoft Office
Notepad++
Autohotkey
paint.net
TDK SEAT
Kvaser's CanKing
Test-OK testtrack
Microsoft Solitare

If you found a way to not use Linux: Good for you. Nobody cares about it. No I'm not going to look for a software which kinda-sorta works the same way on linux, because I dont care. I've got shit to do, not fiddle with software and to figure out how it works, and spend half my life googling error messages, the other half in the terminal.

And no, Linux is clearly not the king. It is barely usable as it is.

Yep, it works for some people, no question. But it certainly does not, and cannot, work for everyone.

I'm like you, I don't like dicking around making my computer work, I just want it to work. That's why I like the Mac. Not perfect, but the least-intrusive of any desktop OS.

Linux will never have a consistent offering. It will keep evolving in many directions. Because that is why it exists.

It's a double edged sword. It has made it what it is today and what made it succesful, but also why it probably won't achieve widespread adoption. It's all too fragmented and as soon as someone doesn't agree with the direction something is taken, yet another fork arises. Rather than focussing the available developing power, it's spread thin across the range. Worse still, many of these islands have significant weaknesses, because you can't be master of everything. You can be a coding wizard, but deliver a horrible UI.

It's spectacularly rare for a programmer to be a good UI designer. (Not unheard of, but rare as can be.)

Indeed, usability requires consistency, and consistency requires developers to agree upon and adhere to user interface conventions. That goes against the entire ethos of OSS. Not saying that OSS is bad, it's just never gonna produce quality user interfaces taken as a platform as a whole. And yes, you're absolutely right about the spreading out of work. That said, it being open source, at least developers can then just copy the other person's code for something else if they want.



Can you tell I come from a professional usability background?

[Mr. Scram]

It's spectacularly rare for a programmer to be a good UI designer. (Not unheard of, but rare as can be.)

Indeed, usability requires consistency, and consistency requires developers to agree upon and adhere to user interface conventions. That goes against the entire ethos of OSS. Not saying that OSS is bad, it's just never gonna produce quality user interfaces taken as a platform as a whole. And yes, you're absolutely right about the spreading out of work. That said, it being open source, at least developers can then just copy the other person's code for something else if they want.



Can you tell I come from a professional usability background?

People can take other's work if they want, but often don't. Pride is a huge "issue" in the OSS world, in the sense that many people have pet projects and want it to be their code, their idea and their baby. That's fair game, but also tends to lead to a lot of reinventing of the wheel, forking and concurrent development of the exact same thing minus one detail. People not accepting reasonable commits from others is a known issue too.

In regards to programmers and UI, I've worked with two guys on a project where both were perfectly competent programmers. One tended to come up with solutions that were technically sound, but exposed a lot of variables or were in other ways cumbersome to use. His colleague on the other hand, tended to come up with technically equally sound solutions, but with just the right variables exposed. Often you knew how to use the code or library without looking too much at the documentation. He really had a knack for coming up with solutions reduced to their bare essence, and increasing functionality, rather than impinging on it.

That really drove the difference home for me. I don't think you could ever train the first guy to do what the second did.

[Karel]

Well, Linux is king in the server room only.

Nope. Linux is king everywhere except for the desktop. I agree that that isn't going to change soon (if ever).
The reason is, Linux is designed by engineers, for engineers.
Windows on the other hand, is designed for the masses with completely different goals in mind.

[tooki]

Well, Linux is king in the server room only.

Nope. Linux is king everywhere except for the desktop. I agree that that isn't going to change soon (if ever).
The reason is, Linux is designed by engineers, for engineers.
Windows on the other hand, is designed for the masses with completely different goals in mind.

LOL you're funny. So other than the desktop and the server, where exactly do you think Linux is king? I mean, it doesn't leave a whole lot!