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Author Topic: I Don't Do Windows  (Read 50770 times)

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Brentai

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Re: I Don't Do Windows
« Reply #340 on: October 28, 2012, 09:30:46 AM »

Has anybody talked about W8's adoption among businesses yet?  Office productivity is pretty much the last area where Microsoft still has a lock, but all the differences between 7 and 8 are pretty hostile to that space (the touchscreen controls, the forced full-screen apps, the worry that Microsoft may become privy to corporate secrets).  Shoehorning a tablet OS into their PC OS was pretty bad, but shoehorning their consumer OS into their business OS might be what actually sinks them.  At least, if they're stupid enough to actually try to force businesses along that upgrade path.
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Mongrel

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Re: I Don't Do Windows
« Reply #341 on: October 28, 2012, 09:49:37 AM »

As much as PC OS manufacturers hate catering to backwards compatibility, it's a huge driver as far as adoption goes.

Most OSes do what you want for at least another 5-10 years before all support for them ceases (or longer if you push it... I bet there's non-zero number of dorks still plugging away on Win98 for now - I'm still on XP here at work) so most people have the luxury to not upgrade if the end result is no real improvement and a bunch of old shit breaking or becoming way more inconvenient.

Generally the late adopters are only forced to change by the need to buy dramatically new hardware or because they want a shiny (i.e. new software that does not support the old OS). If an OS is well-loved, devs and hardware manufacturers will even push for extended support.

Not telling you guys anything you don't know, I'm sure, but the point is that that if Win8 turns out to be a big clunker, people will naturally cling to Win7 the way they did Win98 and Win XP and support will be extended for Win7 just because the demand will be there.
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Thad

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Re: I Don't Do Windows
« Reply #342 on: October 28, 2012, 10:03:18 AM »

It offers fuck-all to the PC space, is the big problem.

On a tablet it probably does have a nice preview-based UI (wasn't really functional when I tried it) but there's no goddam reason that couldn't have been added to Windows 7 without the toxic autologin/app-store/hardware-DRM bullshit.

Well sure, but "minor tweaks plus shit you don't want" has been MS's MO for some time now.  Win7's a glorified service pack -- so are XP and Win98, when you come down to it.

Doesn't mean we have to like it, obviously.

The thing that un-sells me about Windows 8, ultimately, is the future it proposes.  Yes, Desktop mode is pretty livable, but it's also a legacy system.  More and more things are going to be Metro-only.

Yep.  And this isn't going to be like Vista where poor sales lead to tweaks and fixes -- it's going to be like Office 2007 where everybody's stuck with it even though nobody likes it, because this is what MS is doing now.

And with Metro, you are very limited in how many Metro apps you can have on-screen.  I like to aggressively multitask, and Windows 8 seemed from my use of it to be hostile to that desire.

Which ironically is the OPPOSITE of what tiling WM's are for.

I've said before that the App Store is basically Apple seeing apt-get and deciding to release a version without its single defining feature (dependency resolution).  MS seems, similarly, to have seen tiling as a good design except for all the parts where it's useful and flexible.

Has anybody talked about W8's adoption among businesses yet?  Office productivity is pretty much the last area where Microsoft still has a lock, but all the differences between 7 and 8 are pretty hostile to that space (the touchscreen controls, the forced full-screen apps, the worry that Microsoft may become privy to corporate secrets).  Shoehorning a tablet OS into their PC OS was pretty bad, but shoehorning their consumer OS into their business OS might be what actually sinks them.  At least, if they're stupid enough to actually try to force businesses along that upgrade path.

I'm curious to see some numbers, but anecdotally, the businesses I've worked for just switched to Win7 and have no damn interest in 8 whatsoever.

I think it has a shot at making some inroads in the tablet space and mmmmmmaybe even the phone space, but Apple's got a pretty massive head start.

Still, the size of the Surface plus its (sort of) actual keyboard plus Office compatibility might be a big driver, provided MS can fix the problems with RT that review mentioned.  Again anecdotally, my experience is that road warriors are damn particular about having the smallest, most lightweight computers they can (we had multiple users at my last job who had a full-sized laptop for work and home AND a second, smaller laptop for travel).

Guess we'll see.  I don't see what the draw is (it's got its moments but I wouldn't pay for it) but I wasn't expecting a huge demand for the Surface, either.  I've been pretty consistently wrong about what kind of gadgets consumers want since, oh, the original iPod (in fairness, who the fuck wanted the original iPod?), so I'm not exactly qualified to make forecasts.
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Thad

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Re: I Don't Do Windows
« Reply #343 on: October 28, 2012, 01:18:24 PM »

Welp, got it working -- 64-bit Lion, Win8, and SUSE, all handily managed from a visible GRUB menu that I do not need an Apple-supported video card to see.  Pretty happy about it.

Still some kinks to work out of course.  SUSE has a surprisingly hideous set of default fonts -- not sure if that's because I used a LiveCD to install instead of the full DVD (which would not boot for me).

I don't like KDE's OpenGL nonsense any more than the last time I tried it, so I've turned that shit off.  Which leaves the whole thing feeling a little too heavy on the dark grays -- will have to tweak that stuff too I guess.

The basic interface (panel and such) DOES seem to be working better than it did in Kubuntu -- taskbar integration in Kubuntu 12.04 was fucked up, for example.  (When I set up the panel on the left-hand side of the screen and had it run MacOS/Win7 style, with large icons that work as either quicklaunch OR an indicator of a running program -- that worked fine with any QT-based program, but for any other kind of program it fucked up and showed two icons when the program was running.  Worked okay in 11.10, broke in 12.04.  Works fine in OpenSUSE 12.2, so far.)
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Thad

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Re: I Don't Do Windows
« Reply #344 on: October 28, 2012, 07:29:22 PM »

ME2 playing with no crashes so far.  On the one hand, it worked fine for quite awhile before it started crashing like crazy, but I AM cautiously optimistic that the new installation has fixed it.

Maybe tomorrow I'll try it in WINE.  If I can get it to run without even having to reboot to Windows, so much the better.
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Thad

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Re: I Don't Do Windows
« Reply #345 on: October 28, 2012, 10:00:54 PM »

...can't get my old Kubuntu drive to mount with a USB adapter.  Oh, ReiserFS, you have failed me once again.

Still have an empty bay; guess I'll have to open the damn thing back up again tomorrow to get the shit I need off my old drive.  Needless to say I am not using Reiser on the new installation.
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dtsund

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Re: I Don't Do Windows
« Reply #346 on: October 28, 2012, 11:38:17 PM »

ME2 playing with no crashes so far.  On the one hand, it worked fine for quite awhile before it started crashing like crazy, but I AM cautiously optimistic that the new installation has fixed it.

Maybe tomorrow I'll try it in WINE.  If I can get it to run without even having to reboot to Windows, so much the better.

Speaking of gaming on Linux...
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fullmooninu

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Re: I Don't Do Windows
« Reply #347 on: November 06, 2012, 07:53:02 AM »

None of you guys answered my question about mageia and lxde, so i went with my first choice. My main box is now a nice and fast Mint xfce. The lazy man's choice!

I'm just now following this guide.
http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2020528&page=1

Before that i successfully made League of Legends run on Playonlinux which is a pretty decent community supported wine frontend (think of it as firefox's greasemonkey for wine). It had some minor problems. Game map was flickery and the Rune/Character shop doesn't work. I hope this guide will make it work better or teach me something. But it's running almost perfectly. And check this list out:
http://www.playonlinux.com/en/supported_apps-1-0.html

A friend won and gave me a free copy of CrossOver, and it's pretty darn good. Took me a while to figure out how installing game expansions is done: you have to run the installation file inside the directory of the bottle (that's what CrossOver calls a virtual Windows with stuff in it), as opposed to installing it as a normal application. It took me hours to figure that one out... but now everything is peachy. Windows' gaming and application support support seems close to 100%. =)

Although I never even tried Windows 8, the whole.. "Smartphone friendly look of it", didn't appeal me one bit. Hence my change. Hope this helps anyone.
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Thad

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Re: I Don't Do Windows
« Reply #348 on: November 06, 2012, 10:33:44 AM »

None of you guys answered my question about mageia and lxde, so i went with my first choice.

Don't know Mageia.  Tried LXDE briefly a couple of years ago (it's buried in this thread somewhere...) and found it lacking in GUI customizability.  Pretty much the reason I've stuck with KDE is it's got the best balance between customizability and not having to fuck around in config files to DO that customizing.

My main box is now a nice and fast Mint xfce. The lazy man's choice!

Thinking I'll try Mint/Cinnamon my next round.  Doing okay with OpenSUSE/KDE right now; I like YAST.

I'm just now following this guide.
http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=2020528&page=1

Before that i successfully made League of Legends run on Playonlinux which is a pretty decent community supported wine frontend (think of it as firefox's greasemonkey for wine). It had some minor problems. Game map was flickery and the Rune/Character shop doesn't work. I hope this guide will make it work better or teach me something. But it's running almost perfectly. And check this list out:
http://www.playonlinux.com/en/supported_apps-1-0.html

A friend won and gave me a free copy of CrossOver, and it's pretty darn good. Took me a while to figure out how installing game expansions is done: you have to run the installation file inside the directory of the bottle (that's what CrossOver calls a virtual Windows with stuff in it), as opposed to installing it as a normal application. It took me hours to figure that one out... but now everything is peachy. Windows' gaming and application support support seems close to 100%. =)

Interesting.  I've heard of Playonlinux but haven't fucked around with it yet.  Clean install ME2's giving me the same problem it did under Kubuntu: it prompts me to connect to EA's servers and then, whether I click OK or Cancel, hangs forever on "Please wait..."  I think the next step is to try copying over my settings folder from Windows -- on Kubuntu that got me past the prompt but then mouse clicks/keyboard navigation wouldn't work past the Press Any Key screen.

I have an old copy of CrossOver (from when they were giving away free licenses) but never really tried it.  The bottle settings you're describing sound a lot like what I was doing with WineSkin when I tried to get ME2 to run under OSX; I had a similar problem to what you're talking about -- I could get it to run on a clean install but couldn't get any of the expansions to run.  I tried the equivalent of the "run in a bottle" setup but it just timed out.

Oh well -- at least now it's working under Windows without bluescreening.  So far.

Although I never even tried Windows 8, the whole.. "Smartphone friendly look of it", didn't appeal me one bit. Hence my change. Hope this helps anyone.

It's useful information.  Thanks for sharing!
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fullmooninu

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Re: I Don't Do Windows
« Reply #349 on: November 07, 2012, 10:45:37 AM »

I was just now trying to learn how to do a clean reboot (one where xfce forgets everything that was open on previous session), and I unknowingly told it not to restart useful things such as the task bar and other elements in the GUI.

At the same time I was trying out to see if I could install kde, Cinammon, lxde and Mate, to check them all out. Result: it's popping errors all over the place. ;_;

apt-get dist-upgrade fixed some stuff but it uninstalled most packages. Took me an hour to get online again.

So now I'm chilling trying to figure my way through Mate and all these duplicated elements in my Start menu.. ignoring all the error messages, resisting the urge to format and listening to yacht rock.

Mate seems a teensy bit slower than xfce. You know of any benchmarks?

edit: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux_desktop_vitals&num=1 <- found one.
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Thad

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Re: I Don't Do Windows
« Reply #350 on: November 08, 2012, 02:07:13 PM »

Decided to give Win8 Mail a shot.

First thing: you can't even open the damn thing without setting up a Live account.

Second: No POP support.

Third: No support for editing From/Reply-To headers.  So that if I redirect my Cox E-Mail address (which does not support IMAP) to a separate E-Mail address (which DOES support IMAP), I can't put the Cox address in my From or Reply-To field.

Now, I'm pretty okay with MS deliberately breaking POP support.  It's the best way to drag ISP's kicking and screaming into the terrifying future world of 2003.

But until such time as those ISP's HAVE stepped forward into 2003, I would very fucking much like for MS to let me continue using the same E-Mail address I have been since 2001.
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Brentai

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Re: I Don't Do Windows
« Reply #351 on: November 13, 2012, 12:50:34 PM »

http://mobile.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-12/microsoft-shows-its-windows-chief-the-door

Windows 8 is doing fine, guys.  Pay no attention to the man behind the Metro.
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Mongrel

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Re: I Don't Do Windows
« Reply #352 on: November 16, 2012, 11:15:40 PM »

Starr's sister works for MS as a tech writer. She broadly agreed with the off-the-cuff assessment that this is either going to be fixed with Service Pack 1, or is going to follow the Star Trek-like pattern of only-every-other-OS-being-good.

Most interesting things I learned:

1) MS EMPLOYEES are unhappy about being forced onto Win8 (they are not allowed to keep Win7 machines for work at all, unless they're doing specific Win7 updates).

2) At the last minute (i.e. AFTER the Beta), the developers changed the latest version of Windows Server to use the Win8 interface... where it is the most useless and infuriating interface anyone could have possible designed. MS's solution is to tell users to use the command line. HAR HAR.

In TOTALLY UNRELATED news, MS employee health benefits are being replaced by health savings accounts and employees are all being forced out of offices and into cubicles. Funnier still, instead of being honest about the space constraints driving the move, the cubicle thing is actually being sold using corporate copy taken from 1981 - including claims that cubicles are the office of the future.

 :whoops:
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Thad

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Re: I Don't Do Windows
« Reply #353 on: January 04, 2013, 09:51:24 AM »

Ubuntu phones within the year.

Good.

I have my problems with Unity as a desktop/laptop interface, but I find myself frequently using Android and thinking "Why can't this do what Unity does?"  (For example, something as simple as sorting my apps into categories so I don't get one giant pages-long alphabetical list of every single fucking thing I have ever installed.  Had to get a separate launcher to do that on Android -- and a number of the third-party launchers CHARGE for that feature.  Plus whenever a program crashes I get dumped back to the default Android launcher instead of ADW.)

It's going to be a tough damn market to get into, and I suspect Ubuntu will continue to be a money sink for Shuttleworth.  But I think more options are a good thing.

(I AM a little ambivalent on the attempt to focus on native code over Java.  It's a good idea in theory, but imagine having to have binaries compiled for every single architecture.  Course, it's not like Java won't run on the thing, either.)
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sei

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Re: I Don't Do Windows
« Reply #354 on: January 04, 2013, 03:19:05 PM »

Course, it's not like Java won't run on the thing, either.
I expect Ubuntu may lean on existing for-Android software, since it won't likely launch with a great app ecosystem*. (Take a moment to laugh at the implication that the Android ecosystem is great. Okay.) If Android devices are optimized for Java, while Ubuntu phones are not, performance will look poor and we may relive something like the WebOS collapse.

*Most X apps won't translate to touch screens without total UI overhaul.
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Thad

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Re: I Don't Do Windows
« Reply #355 on: January 04, 2013, 08:58:50 PM »

*Most X apps won't translate to touch screens without total UI overhaul.

That and the devices presumably won't be running X in the first place (though Canonical, like a lot of dev groups, has been talking for years about replacing X with something better but still compatible).
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Thad

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Re: I Don't Do Windows
« Reply #356 on: February 17, 2013, 09:19:50 PM »

Office 2013 to be locked to the computer you first install it on.

Seems like sort of a weird and unnecessary move.  The majority of Office's sales are either with new computers or as bulk licenses for business users; there doesn't seem to be much to gain here except an opportunity to say "fuck you" to the minority of end users who buy Office as a download or a box.
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Mongrel

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Re: I Don't Do Windows
« Reply #357 on: February 17, 2013, 09:23:41 PM »

That's hilarious. The only reason I even bothered with Office 2010 is because I got it for $10 through work. I still use Google Docs (and occasionally OpenOffice) for most things anyway.
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Brentai

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Re: I Don't Do Windows
« Reply #358 on: February 17, 2013, 09:44:31 PM »

Office 2013 as a whole has led a number of reviewers to wonder if the Office team isn't actively rebelling against the corporation's apparent new focus on touch-based/consumer devices.
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Thad

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Re: I Don't Do Windows
« Reply #359 on: February 18, 2013, 11:03:29 PM »

But hey, you can always get a Mac -- and then discover that they just jacked up the price of Office 2011 by twenty bucks.  Mac users like paying extra money for the same thing, right?
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