Hell freezes over...

[Halcyon]

Last windows I will personally use is W7.  Then I switch likely for something else.  The UI of W10 is painful to use, extreme crap with cheap bugs all over it.

Something I hear on a weekly basis. I suspect those learning/switching to Linux will continue to increase more than it already has. My personal pet peeves of using WIndows 10 at work:

• 3 different places I can find printer settings, all different depending what I'm looking for
• Windows and icons randomly resizing, just because
• The taskbar/start menu just randomly crashes and reloads, multiple times a day
• Sluggish feeling UI generally
• Updates randomly delete/remove programs without warning
• The dumbing down of the UI language... everything is now "Apps" and when loading folders "Working on it..." appears
• The Start menu... enough said
• Why do I need Settings, Personalisation, Control Panel, Computer Management AND Administrative Tools??!
• Someone actually paid money for this garbage

[SiliconWizard]

Didn't Apple Mac OS derive out of BSD unix because it was one of the few that was not originally open sourced and therefore derivatives did not have to keep open? Apple chose BSD and that way could keep things proprietary.

MacOS X is a derivative of NeXTSTEP, which is a derivative of Mach/BSD. BSD wasn't chosen so Apple could keep things proprietary.

Agree. Of course the license was a criterion: some open-source licenses would make things unworkable. The GPL is often avoided like the plague in commercial companies (not talking about the tools they use of course, but about parts of their products.) Too many implications.

But yes, there were many technical reasons first.
And the assertion about keeping things proprietary? It's even inexact. Darwin, the core operating system of MacOS X, was released as open source by Apple. They kept proprietary only higher-level stuff.

[magic]

I wonder how many people who say that Windows 8 made them quit have used Windows 98 before, the actual best version of Windows ever?

I knew I'm out of the Windows world as soon as XP told me that there are some "system files" I'm not allowed to open and some "protected media content" which means that all kernel drivers need to be signed by M$, for its protection

[blacksheeplogic]

This thread for the most part is nothing but personal ranting and smart ass comments 'I don't like Microsoft' whine. There's nothing, no discussion in this thread about how Linux is going to benefit the general user base, it's all about being personal bias against windows.

I use both Windows and Linux on a daily basis, Linux is not rock solid and Windows is not crashing every few minutes. In fact I have to perform maintenance on Linux far more often than Windows and in the last 3 months have had to reinstall Linux due to unrecoverable errors that took hours of screwing around. I haven't been forced to reinstall Windows in the last couple of years.

I agree with several of the comments on the UI in windows 10 being worse than prior version, but that's personal preference and the UI is not unusable, in fact I don't spend my entire day clicking on icons and admiring the UI, I've got work to do.

I think there could be a good discussion on desktop technology and maybe some good discussions on bringing the desktop computing choices closer together. We also have what I think is a lack of support for currently non-mainstream platforms, but how do you have these conversations when the forums full of hobbiests with their personal bias who think there dicks will grow one size bigger by jumping on the Linux bandwagon. So as typical with these threads on Linux we get yet another I hate windows, I hate Microsoft, Linux is cool thread.

I use the operating system I'm most comfortable with for the given task at hand. I'm not going to switch all my systems over to Linux just to be cool or just 'case you think Microsoft is a bad company, I need benefits to any investment I make and it needs to be expressed in $/time. I would like to see a convergence of the desktop environment but I'm not going to give Linux my vote just because a bunch of people bash Windows and think Linux is the best. - give me non-emotive reasons.


 

[techman-001]

I wonder how many people who say that Windows 8 made them quit have used Windows 98 before, the actual best version of Windows ever?

I knew I'm out of the Windows world as soon as XP told me that there are some "system files" I'm not allowed to open and some "protected media content" which means that all kernel drivers need to be signed by M$, for its protection

Really ?
Do you mean the Windows 98 that bricked Windows 95 Pc's everywhere when they tried to upgrade to W98 ?

I stopped using Windows 95 in August of 1997 when after dual booting Windows and Linux since 1995 I had a motherboard failure and replaced the motherboard.

Linux booted as usual and two weeks later when I booted into Windows 95 for the first time since the motherboard swap there were errors and warnings galore and no Windows!

That was the last time I used Windows. I sold my W95 CD for $50 to a company that was worried about local BSAA raids and wanted more official Windows CD's 'just to be sure we are compliant'.

My computing life has been smooth as silk ever since!

[techman-001]

This thread for the most part is nothing but personal ranting and smart ass comments 'I don't like Microsoft' whine. There's nothing, no discussion in this thread about how Linux is going to benefit the general user base, it's all about being personal bias against windows.

That's true, and you're a perfect example of a Windows fanboy ranting about your favorite white goods OS.

Personally I couldn't care less what you use, you can fight Windows for the rest of your life trying to do something useful with it, be my guest.

Just remember, knocking Unix won't make Windows any better.

[Mr. Scram]

I wonder how many people who say that Windows 8 made them quit have used Windows 98 before, the actual best version of Windows ever?

I knew I'm out of the Windows world as soon as XP told me that there are some "system files" I'm not allowed to open and some "protected media content" which means that all kernel drivers need to be signed by M$, for its protection

It's great to see people complain about that while also complaining about running Windows as root by default. It illustrates how any choice is always wrong.

[SiliconWizard]

I wonder how many people who say that Windows 8 made them quit have used Windows 98 before, the actual best version of Windows ever?

I knew I'm out of the Windows world as soon as XP told me that there are some "system files" I'm not allowed to open and some "protected media content" which means that all kernel drivers need to be signed by M$, for its protection

It's great to see people complain about that while also complaining about running Windows as root by default. It illustrates how any choice is always wrong.

Yeah, people always complain.

[Mr. Scram]

That's true, and you're a perfect example of a Windows fanboy ranting about your favorite white goods OS.

Personally I couldn't care less what you use, you can fight Windows for the rest of your life trying to do something useful with it, be my guest.

Just remember, knocking Unix won't make Windows any better.

He isn't "knocking Unix" but actually expressing a fairly nuanced view. You're just outing yourself as the unreasonable one but there really is no need to bully opinions not fully aligned with yours in every thread.

[maginnovision]

Just remember, knocking Unix won't make Windows any better.

Who do you think you are and what do you think you are doing?

He'll know that first part but judging from his conversations elsewhere on these forums... He's clueless as to the second.

[Halcyon]

Do you mean the Windows 98 that bricked Windows 95 Pc's everywhere when they tried to upgrade to W98 ?

That was mistake number one. Upgrades were usually crap. You're always better off backing up your data, formatting and reinstalling Windows from scratch which you could still do using the "Upgrade CD-ROM", it just asked you to insert a "qualifying product" so it could check it upon installation.

The most stable and responsive versions of Windows ever were:

• Windows for Workgroups 3.11
• Windows 95c
• Windows 98se
• Windows 2000
• Windows XP
• Windows 7

Sadly, this is where the list ends and I suspect for good. I would sooner run Vista than Windows 10. Windows 10 has become a joke operating system, but one people are forced to use (mainly at work) because switching to anything else would be just too hard for the IT department.

[bsfeechannel]

I haven't been forced to reinstall Windows in the last couple of years.

I haven't been forced to reinstall Linux in the last 20 years.

[NiHaoMike]

I haven't been forced to reinstall Linux in the last 20 years.

What distro are you using that always seamlessly migrates to new hardware, including the transition to 64 bit?

[bsfeechannel]

I haven't been forced to reinstall Linux in the last 20 years.

What distro are you using that always seamlessly migrates to new hardware, including the transition to 64 bit?

Did I say that?

[Simon]

I feel windows is mainly plagued by 'windows haters' these days. Windows is actually for most users quite stable and efficient to work with. Will a Linux version make everything better, or will in introduce a lot of issues into the desktop environment I don't know, however, my Linux systems are a lot less stable and require more maintenance than my windows systems and if the user base on Linux grows so will the malware base for Linux grow.

If I had my choice of a single OS it would be AIX (stable with very little maintenance needed) but AIX lacks the software support and it's Power only. OSX was OK until Apple decides to screw with it every release and there lock in's are far worse than windows but if Windows goes Linux, Apple is probably a good indicator of how open that will end up being.

My decision on OS basically comes down to what I need on the box. I really don't care what it's called.

 

So why does this peice of junk remove my programs when it updates? I liked windows 10 when I came out. Now it's a pile of crap. For one thing I feel like I don't own my own hardware any more as I am told what to do and what programs I may have. If only there was a serious linux distro that software makers would support. The free and open nature of linux has made it it's own worse enemy. The answer most software houses have to "which of the thousands of distro's shall we support" is NONE, it's too much of a headache keeping people happy that can't even agree which distro is good.

Linus Torvades made the biggest mistake ever when he decided to let anyone use it for free and do what they like with it. And then he says he can't understand why it has not had any uptake on desktops. The answer is staring him in the face but he is too narrow minded to see what is staring him in the face.

[magic]

Moving to a different CPU ISA is one legitimate case when you may want to reinstall Linux.

Though if you stay with the same distribution, you can easily export the list of installed packages and reinstall them on the new system, getting more or less the same thing you started with. Copy over some files from /etc and $HOME and you are set.

Within the same architecture, I have moved Linux systems between computer by cp -ax / /mnt/new, adjusting a few files in /etc and installing bootloader on the new disk. I assure you that's not a problem. And if you don't remember what configuration needs adjustment, just try to boot and see where it craps out

edit

Code: [Select]

$ ls -lt /etc | tail -n3
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    2146 2010-10-10  kismet_drone.conf
-rw-r--r--  1 root root       0 2010-04-23  odbc.ini
-rw-r--r--  1 root root       0 2010-04-23  odbcinst.ini
$ uptime
 08:29:51 up 319 days, 16:42,  0 users,  load average: 0,79, 0,75, 0,57

[TerraHertz]

Oh you newb, embrace, extend, and extinguish is still a thing.

This. If you think Microsoft has changed its stripes and is now trying to be helpful, you are ignorant of the history of that corporation.
Microsoft wants one thing: To OWN the entire computing ecology. For multiple, deeply rooted ideological reasons.
* To 'close the box', taking away any user ability to access inner workings of the system - hardware and software both. MS needs to do this, in order to be able to ramp up their profits via pay-per-view and rental software DRM models.
* To control and monitor users. Sky is the limit for spyware when users cannot observe or even influence what is running deep in your machine.
* To obfuscate even user-exposed system workings more and more. All the better to charge a lot for 'MS certified engineer' certificates. Which expire! Supposedly MS makes most of their income from these courses. (But they'd rather it was from DRM payments, since _everyone_ will have to pay those.)
* To be able to permanently brick your computing platform any time MS decide they don't like what they are seeing/hearing via the spyware & backdoors.
* To gradually degrade the computing facilities available to the public. Incrementally increasing system complexity and obfuscation, removing capabilities, worsening the UI as much as they can - they try extreme shit then step back a little to pretend they are listening to complaints, then make it still worse next time.  Win8 being an example of severe deliberate crippling, Win10 being the pretended softening - but at the same time it's even more of a Trojan Horse now.

MS has been trying hard to lock Linux out of the desktop. What do you think 'secure boot', UEFI etc were about?
That plan wasn't going so well, since too much hardware could still run Linux.
Now MS is playing embrace, extend and extinguish. Any appearance of friendly intent towards Linux is deception.
Where was that thread about most Linux distros becoming chaotic and incompatible with older software? With BSD one exception, because it's controlled by old traditionalists. What do you think is another word for 'embrace'? How about 'infiltrate'? This is the huge weak point of open source crowd-managed code. It only takes a small percentage of deliberate saboteurs to turn it all to crap, pretty rapidly. Fronting such an effort is trivial for MS.

Oh, and MS bought Github. Yeah right, for the greater good. Ha ha ha. Suckers.

[magic]

no discussion in this thread about how Linux is going to benefit the general user base

It won't benefit anyone. When the general user base gets their hands on a Linux system, it's locked down even worse than Windows. That's the beauty of Open Sores, anyone can use it for any purpose, including evil corporation living off of milking the general user base.
Linux and BSD have been a disaster for the general user base, allowing unprecedented exploitation and lockdown thanks to their technological superiority

I think there could be a good discussion on desktop technology and maybe some good discussions on bringing the desktop computing choices closer together.

What? Hell no. I didn't quit Windows for any "convergence of desktop environments"

It's great to see people complain about that while also complaining about running Windows as root by default. It illustrates how any choice is always wrong.

A subtle difference exists between running everything as root and being able to edit anything when logged in as root
That being said, I ran WinDOS 98 SE as root all the time and was a happy user. I don't do it on Linux because that's how it's configured by default and I don't care enough to go against the current.

Oh, and MS bought Github. Yeah right, for the greater good.

You have a bigger problem than Microsoft buying them out if you trust free candy from the Silicon Valley van. Their whole ethos is "entrepreneurship", understood as combining the fine practices of dumping and rent seeking.
It's a bunch of old rich guys with more money than ideas to invest it who found useful figureheads in young idealists thinking that they can improve the world by creating new ways of sharing funny cat videos on the Internet.
It's always been about selling out one way or another.

[Monkeh]

Linus Torvades made the biggest mistake ever when he decided to let anyone use it for free and do what they like with it.

It would not exist in its current, extraordinarily useful form if he hadn't.

[Simon]

Linus Torvades made the biggest mistake ever when he decided to let anyone use it for free and do what they like with it.

It would not exist in its current, extraordinarily useful form if he hadn't.

But it's useless to the average user. The only people using Linux are linux fanatics or people that just need to brows the web. Linus has no interest in anything but the kernel. So actually it is not a unified system.

The usual answer to any issue is to go fix it myself as though the average linux user can code. Obviously you have to be a coder to use linux.......

[Monkeh]

Linus Torvades made the biggest mistake ever when he decided to let anyone use it for free and do what they like with it.

It would not exist in its current, extraordinarily useful form if he hadn't.

But it's useless to the average user. The only people using Linux are linux fanatics or people that just need to brows the web. Linus has no interest in anything but the kernel. So actually it is not a unified system.

You talk about Linus being narrow minded, and the only thing on your mind is the 'average user'. Pot, kettle. And who claimed anything about a unified system, anyway?

The usual answer to any issue is to go fix it myself as though the average linux user can code. Obviously you have to be a coder to use linux.......

Well if you're not willing to pay other people to do the work, clearly you'll have to do it yourself. Or do you really expect absolutely everything to be done the way you want it for free?

[bd139]

Simon's not wrong though. Even as a Linux admin I use windows...

[Simon]

@Monkeh

No you are putting words in my mouth. Linus torvades stated that he was surprised that while he created Linux for the desktop environment is has not made it into the desktop market. He also stated that he is not interested in distros. This means that every man and his dog is making up distro's, there are I beleive thousands but 10 different distro's is more than enought to discourage software makers from supporting linux. People write commercial software for MAC's so why not linux? it is because it would be a nightmare to support. Without a unified system no one will support it other than enthusiasts. I do not choose an OS because I am a fanatic about it and want to change it. i chose an OS so that i can run programs and do what i want to do. A computer is not an end to itself for most users, it is a tool to get a job done.

i don't have a problem paying for software. I am now using the free KiCAD having spend £2000 on all the other software and decided that I WANT to use KiCAD over other programs. i don't have a problem paying for Linux, but once i have it what can I run on it? I pay for cPanel on my own server, I could do it for free but I did not want to code my own solutions and do not know where to start so i chose to PAY so that i got something that I can USE rather than have to spend all of my time creating something to do the thing i want to do.

[nctnico]

different distro's is more than enought to discourage software makers from supporting linux. People write commercial software for MAC's so why not linux? it is because it would be a nightmare to support.

Sorry but that isn't true. There are lots of big companies who offer Linux versions (I'm actually taking a short break from routing a board using Orcad PCB Editor/Allegro running on Linux).  The reason Microsoft is moving towards Linux is because Linux has already gained major traction in the engineering sector. Windows is quickly becoming an OS for typewriters.

Usually a limited number of distributions are supported. Mostly Debian/Ubuntu and Redhat. But in reality the underlying libraries and software are the same so you can get most software to run on any Linux distribution.

[Simon]

But in reality the underlying libraries and software are the same so you can get most software to run on any Linux distribution.

So to be clear that means that even though a distro is not officially supported it will work regardless?