Windows 7 RTM Reviewed & Benchmarked

An anonymous reader writes "The code is final, and CNet has reviewed the final version of Windows 7, with benchmarks to support the case that it's not only the fastest version of Windows to shut down, but also looks like 'the operating system that both Microsoft and its consumers have been waiting for.' The review continues: 'By fixing most of the perceived and real problems in Vista, Microsoft has laid the groundwork for the future of where Windows will go. Windows 7 presents a stable platform that can compete comfortably with OS X, while reassuring the world that Microsoft can still turn out a strong, useful operating system.'"

Comments

The competition is OSX

[achten]

So, all linux fanboys have nothing to fear of !!!

Re:The competition is OSX

[carlmenezes]

Linux never had anything from fear from Windows 7. It's well past Windows in terms of usability and elegance. All Linux needs now is more high quality applications.

Re:The competition is OSX

[TheDugong]

They can pry my Ubuntu from my warm sweaty palms!

Re:The competition is OSX

[mjwx]

So, all linux fanboys have nothing to fear of !!!

Excellent.

When Microsoft turn Windows into OSX then all the businesses will run the the next best alternative to avoid it, Linux.

Then they will all pay me licensing fees. (channelling Darl Mcbride)

Re:The competition is OSX

[moon3]

These two are dueling now, but some third OS might have the last laugh here still.

Re:The competition is OSX

[hairyfeet]

Uh huh...and pull this leg, it plays jingle bells! Seriously, how many times have you had to go CLI in the past month? The past week? Hell most Mac and Windows users don't even know there IS a CLI interface, and they sure as hell don't want to be using it!

Look, I'll be the first to admit that Linux rocks on servers. It is rock solid, secure, a real tank of an OS. But we are talking Windows 7 here, which is most definitely NOT targeted at servers. It is targeted at home users. Home users, I might add, who often can't even find their way around control panel without someone holding their hand. Windows is quite good at that BTW. But Linux? You better be bestest friends with Mr. CLI if you want to play in that sandbox. It seems like every time there is an update something breaks and requires CLI. Sound broke? Ooops..CLI. Monitor isn't showing the right resolution? CLI baby. Which you can understand as the big money being spent on Linux is by the likes of IBM, Red Hat, Novell, and it is all going to server support. And server admins live and die CLI and hate GUIs, as they just suck precious resources.

I know this will get me modded to hell, and I don't care. Being a fanboy is one thing, being delusional is another. I can make an example that will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Linux isn't ready for home users. Ready? Remove Bash. That's right, no Bash, no Korn, no Bourne, no shells of ANY kind. Do that with a fresh install and see if it will run six months, with allowing updates, without any access to CLI. But I bet not a single Linux user would dare to do that. Because they know without CLI they are boned. But Windows home users will NEVER use CLI. Let me repeat that: Windows home users will NEVER EVER use CLI. In fact most power users don't care for it either. They don't like it, don't want it, and if you make them use CLI you might as well say "please have someone go install Windows for you" because that is EXACTLY what will happen. I truly hope that a day comes when you can actually remove CLI from Linux and still have a usable machine, but I won't hold my breath.

Re:The competition is OSX

[w0mprat]

It's well past Windows in terms of usability and elegance

Get off my lawn. You were referring to OSX in that sentence... right? Or was this a joke/troll that was lost on me? Ok I'll bite:

What I have to point here is much to the disdain of a acute microsoftus haterii patient, we all know Linux is not elegant or stunningly usable by any reasonable and pertinent definition. Maybe you were more impressed with wobbly windows than most of us, but while there is an outstanding choice to customize and make it beautiful it just not pretty out of the box. I have yet to see a elegant Linux distribution that doesn't have amateurish desktop and default themes. Don't get me started on the ugly fonts. Multimedia is still broken on Linux. Usability is a very mixed bag, but I will concede that is getting very good.

I'm using Win7 RC to write this, which has been my main desktop OS when I'm not in a bash shell.

Linux is the far superior workhorse, OSX and Windows are better show ponies, don't get the them confused. Mod me down for saying it I don't care.

Re:The competition is OSX

[NoobixCube]

Idiot. I haven't had to go to the CLI at ALL in the past month. ONCE in the past year, and that was to do something just as simple in the GUI. It just so happens that sudo apt-get install is faster than opening Synaptic and searching when you want to install something. I'd tell you to stop talking out of your ass, but I'm not certain you even know where it is.

Re:The competition is OSX

[linuxrocks123]

"Remove Bash. That's right, no Bash, no Korn, no Bourne, no shells of ANY kind. Do that with a fresh install and see if it will run six months, with allowing updates, without any access to CLI."

That's an absurd thing to say and betrays your ignorance here. The shell is an integral part of a Unix system. If you remove /bin/sh, the system will not even boot. Any Unix system will be this way, including OS X, because this specific interpreted language is part of what makes Unix Unix.

As far as not using the shell for day-to-day tasks, you can do that with Linux now. Ubuntu has all those point-and-click controls you love, and you're free to use them instead of the shell if you like. You'll get things done more slowly, because GUI configs suck, but that's your choice.

What may make you believe it's impossible to go without using a shell in Linux is the fact that Linux people tend to suggest typing shell commands when people ask how to fix problems on a forum. This is because the shell is the best, fastest way to fix problems in Linux, even when other options are available, and we won't suggest an inferior solution unless pressed for it.

Re:The competition is OSX

[killthepoor187]

It's no longer 2002. Install Ubuntu and you will NEVER have to use the CLI. That's right. NEVER. I like it because you can do some neat things with it, but then I use CLI in windows too. But is it required for normal operation? No. It's not.

Do I think Linux is retard-friendly on the level of windows? No. But It's come a long way. And the old CLI complaint has officially died. Buried next to driver support qq and native-app woes.

Don't like? Fine. But leave your FUD at the door please.

Re:The competition is OSX

[NoobixCube]

I find it's less about superiority of the shell when I suggest a solution. Saying "Open the terminal and type..." is a lot easier than "See that thing there? Click on that, and then in the menu find..."

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

So, all linux fanboys have nothing to fear of !!!

In Soviet Russia, meme repeats YOU!

Re:The competition is OSX

[linuxrocks123]

That's a good point, but I consider the ability to easily communicate shell-based directions to be a legitimate shell advantage. After all, what you're basically doing when you say that is giving the user a script -- even if it's a script written with the human as a preprocessor since you didn't have enough info to actually write it out yourself :)

Re:The competition is OSX

[smash]

Linux has no stable, standard GUI application development platform for a start. Yes, KDE and gnome both exist, but no they're not "standard" and the API is still changing and breaking backwards compatibility regularly.

Go play with Cocoa / Xcode / Interface builder, and you'll get a bit of an idea as to why Linux is even now, still trying to catch up to NextSTEP 1991.

This is why there is a lack of high quality applications.

Don't get me wrong, Linux is great and I'm trying to get into OpenStep development myself (so i can do OS/X -> Free unix cross platform application development), but the state and lack of standardization on toolkits on Linux is quite apparent.

Re:The competition is OSX

[ohmiccurmudgeon]

User that know what they are doing can perform more tasks per unit time via a command line than poor old GUI users wandering through menus and dialogs. Objective studies have repeatably shown this. Just compare the time it takes you to copy a file via the old Windows COPY command versus selecting the file in Windows Explorer, right clicking to copy, then paste, then rename the copy. You don't have to be an expert to appreciate the command line.

Re:The competition is OSX

[achten]

But we are talking Windows 7 here, which is most definitely NOT targeted at servers.
From TFTA
"Microsoft is offering six versions of Windows 7: Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate, OEM and Enterprise. The three versions that Redmond will be promoting most heavily are Home Premium, Professional and Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor, although Starter will also be available to consumers."
Are all these non-server versions in your view?

Re:The competition is OSX

[BikeHelmet]

Idiot? Alright, lets let the flaming begin, you ignorant turd!

I had to use the terminal yesterday, to check SMART info, because one of my HDDs is making a high pitched screeching noise. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to work. I think an update broke it. I had the insight to write all the commands down rather than relying on my own memory, so that seems most likely.

Re:The competition is OSX

[RLiegh]

You'll get things done more slowly, because GUI configs suck, but that's your choice.

Or I can, ya know, get things done faster by using GUI configuration tools that don't suck.
THAT would require a Windows Server, however.....

Re:The competition is OSX

[BikeHelmet]

As far as not using the shell for day-to-day tasks, you can do that with Linux now. Ubuntu has all those point-and-click controls you love, and you're free to use them instead of the shell if you like.

Bolded the problem word. That should be most.

You'll get things done more slowly, because GUI configs suck, but that's your choice.

A GUI should be usable nearly as fast, or else it's poorly designed and tacked on as an afterthought.

What may make you believe it's impossible to go without using a shell in Linux is the fact that Linux people tend to suggest typing shell commands when people ask how to fix problems on a forum. This is because the shell is the best, fastest way to fix problems in Linux, even when other options are available, and we won't suggest an inferior solution unless pressed for it.

And there lies the problem. It is inferior, but it doesn't have to be.

Re:The competition is OSX

[shutdown -p now]

Are all these non-server versions in your view?

Yes, of course. Enterprise is for "enterprise" desktops (it has BitLocker, not sure what else, above Professional). Ultimate is the one with everything. None of them are server versions. Server one is 2008 R2 (which also comes in Standard, Enterprise, etc editions).

Re:The competition is OSX

[Elshar]

That's not true. I've installed Ubuntu on three different computers (two laptops and a desktop) and with pretty much every major update (8.10->9.04 for example), I needed to use the CLI to fix crap. Hell, even recently I (in vain) attempted to get my ATI card to work properly with hardware acceleration in 9.04 and had to drop into CLI to fix my now-broken X.org.

Look in the forums of any distro (even Ubuntu) and I bet you'll find the vast majority of the fixes don't start with "goto System->Preferences/Administration ..." but "open a terminal, and paste this into the shell".

Re:The competition is OSX

[skudenfaugen]

I hate to do this (not really), but here is the obligatory xkcd reference (and from the newest comic too). http://xkcd.com/619/

Re:The competition is OSX

[Megatog615]

Since when is checking SMART info a standard task in Windows?

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, your anecdotal evidence is rock-solid, ergo he must be an idiot. If only there were a counter-point... Oh, here is an anecdote "proving" that you are an idiot!

I installed Ubuntu on my Vaio laptop. I've had to use the CLI to...

1. Get the WiFi to work properly
2. Get the Bluetooth to work properly (and it still doesn't)
3. Recover the system when the default video player crashed the GUI
4. Muck with the video settings because it doesn't handle my dual monitor configuration properly

Guess what? In Windows, all of those features *just worked*. No CLI. No sudo apt-get update/install/whatever. In Windows, when I hit the power button the machine suspends. Click here to see the instructions on how to get it to *maybe* work on Linux. Sure, you could edit all those conf files and write the scripts without using the CLI but we're still talking about a decent amount of scripting.

Of course part of this is due to the machine being intended to run on Windows, but there's no need to call someone an "idiot" just because you survived 4 weeks without CLI.

More importantly than how many times you've had to run CLI in the past month, can you tell us how many times you had to use the CLI when you first configured your machine? Did everything work right out of the box?

Re:The competition is OSX

[NoobixCube]

I've never had an update break anything before - see how much like "lalala I'm not listening" anecdotal evidence can sound?

Also, the troll in Three Billy Goats Gruff was greedy and stupid. Nobody need ever have known if he'd just eaten the first goat and left it at that. In the light of that moral, which isn't the one children seem to draw from it, I'm eating the first goat... troll... whatever... The point is, I called the troll out on his blatant disregard for facts, no need for flaming.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

None of those are server versions at all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions

The server software you are looking for is Windows Server 2008 R2, which will be available retail September 14th.

Re:The competition is OSX

[John Betonschaar]

You have an operating system with buttons or icons you can click to fix any sort of problem you might ever encounter? Must be an insanely cluttered GUI then...

Also I don't see how 'Open the control panel, click on the hardware icon, open the driver panel, click on the devices tab, find small icon with the plus sign before it that reads audio devices, expand it, find the audio card in the expanded list, which would probably be the one that doesn't have the word codec in it, see if it has an exclamation mark before it, right click it and pick properties, go to the resources tab, write down all the values in the list of ports/interrupts en post them here' would be easier than to say 'open the terminal application from the menu and first type 'dmesg' and copy paste the results here, then type 'lspci -v -v -v' and post this output here as well'

Point is, the CLI is much more efficient for many, many tasks. Maybe not the common everyday ones, but that's what we have GUI apps for. Linux is no exception. If you have system problems or have to do crazy stuff to fix something at least in Linux you are able to do that through the CLI and to post instructions for other people to help them, even though they have no idea what they're actually typing. In Windows you're generally stuck unless you know a friend or relative you can offer a beer to fix it (which would be the guy I used to be for half of my family and friends until I finally ditched Windows for OS X and Linux. Now officialy "I know nothing about Windows PC's" anymore ;-)

Re:The competition is OSX

[FishWithAHammer]

Who cares if it's standard? It still doesn't require a command line in Windows.

A good operating system is discoverable and user-centric. At the moment, the desktop environments available for Linux are somewhat discoverable (but the second you drop to the command line, you've thrown discoverability out the window) and process-centric* rather than user-centric. Windows is not perfect at either task (OS X is much better), but Linux is really, really bad at it.

*: Process-centric operations don't focus on what the user wants to do, they focus on what the computer needs to do to accomplish the task. Frame everything around the user or you'll lose them.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

but you cannot copy&paste the point and click instructions. nor save them somewhere. nor use them via ssh. still I agree that the latest Linux distributions could live their life without the user ever opening a terminal, but for forum posting terminal commands are the best way to communicate precise steps to help other users.

compare with windows, where you have to edit strange stuff in that regedit program. also Mac OS X users have their share of terminal commands to write, almost every time for restoring permission to application but also for fixing every other stuff not explicitly present in the system preference app. going a little further hackintosh users need to hit the terminal for all their upgrades.

Re:The competition is OSX

[FishWithAHammer]

"Driver support qq"? Damn, I guess the nonfunctional sound on my Dell Studio 15 and the nonfunctional wireless on my Thinkpad R52 are just my imagination!

Re:The competition is OSX

[FishWithAHammer]

The font issues are really, really noticeably bad in Linux these days. ClearType is patented, but I'd hope that GNOME or KDE could come up with something better than "durp, fuzz some gray in there!".

Re:The competition is OSX

[FishWithAHammer]

The closest thing to a standard GUI app platform (especially a cross-platform one) is Mono. It's not perfect--I like MonoDevelop (and NetBeans, for that matter) a hell of a lot more than Xcode, though not as much as VS--but their interface designers have gotten a lot better and it's gotten leaps and bounds easier to deal with.

Of course, half-human morons like Mark Fink (Slashdot's very own twitter) and Roy Schestowitz piss and moan about Mono despite it being the only tool of its kind (hint: Java isn't). It's kind of pathetic.

Re:The competition is OSX

[dbIII]

Yes OK, better for pointing at pictures but if you are really sticking to your definition then the Wii beats it again. I had to use the command line to get Vista onto a Microsoft network, it's just a tool you have to use sometimes, and if you used more than one computer you would be aware of that. Pointing at pictures is nice for some things but to get other things done sometimes you have to use the keyboard. I hate to break it to you but even a google search is a command line of a sort so I suggest giving up your bizzare opposition to using text entry to tell computers what to do.
As for video configuration being broken if you can do it in text - you really didn't think that one through did you? It's a pity that you have obviously had very little or no exposure to Win3.11 and Win95 to see the transistion between a text based display configuration that worked and a GUI based one where you pointed and hoped on a blurry screen. Text is "safe mode" for many systems.
Besides, take a look at a lot of embedded systems and your interface is a set of web pages, no CLI in sight, and compare the inconsistant MS Windows GUI to OSX and it fails in usablity there. I have to put shortcuts all over the desktop for my XP users because they find XP and it's ever shifting start menu contents too difficult to use.

Re:The competition is OSX

[luzr]

Uh huh...and pull this leg, it plays jingle bells! Seriously, how many times have you had to go CLI in the past month?

Less often than I had to use that fancy Registry editor in Windows to solve issues with broken installs or drivers.

See, if everything goes fine, GUI is all that you need in both Win32 and Linux. If things get broken (e.g. because some app installs get them broken, which happens on both platforms), you need to get yout hands dirty, in any OS.

Accidentally, if things get broken, there is much higher chance that they get fixed in Linux, with its CLI and text based configs (and even with those opened sources, ya know?).

Contrary, common practice to repair Windows is reinstall. Maybe that is why you live in impression that GUI is fine to manage Windows. When Linux user uses CLI to fix the problem, Windows user reinstalls....

Re:The competition is OSX

[voidphoenix]

In Windows, I have to go into cmd to solve problems on a regular basis. Just today, I tried disconnecting a network drive using the GUI. "The network connection could not be found." Solution: in cmd, type "net use /persistent:no", _then_ reboot. The same users who would use the CLI in Linux will use it in Windows, and the users who would use the GUI in Windows can use it in Linux. The latter users will still end up asking their techie friends to help solve problems, whether they use Windows or Linux.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Skrynesaver]

I think you missed the point somewhat, all GUI configs suck to a greater or lesser extent, anyone administering a server should know their job and as a result be able to issue the commands required to analyse and resolve problems without the ladybird book picture version of the interface.

A GUI interface is always slower, unless you have a hideous shell with no tab completion and limited editing of your command history and an inability to copy/paste, but that's due to neglect of the shell rather than an intrinsic failing of the paradigm. mind you I've heard nice things about powershell from MSFT using friends, apparently it competes with Unix/OSX shells.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Red Alastor]

The CLI is there to stay because we like it. You don't have to use it but it is much more convenient than GUIs for many tasks. For instance, what is more convenient?:

1: Open Gimp (or Photoshop), File -> Open -> foo.tiff -> File -> save as -> foo.png
2: Open a Terminal -> "convert foo.tiff foo.png"

Sure we *could* do without the CLI, but it makes your life so much easier when you use it.

Beside, Microsoft did work on its own CLI, they called it Powershell and you can download it for XP or Vista. Not as elegant as the ones we have but at least, they aliased all the unix commands that are equivalent to their own.

Re:The competition is OSX

[lukas84]

Windows Vista and up automatically checks the SMART data for you and will display a warning to the user in case SMART data reports critical status.

I've found SMART to be almost useless, though. But that's another story.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

I used the cli several times in the past week to:

Diagnose network issues,
Fix network issue,
Setup Django environment,
Various other things that the CLI is faster for.

Oh yeah, on Windows 7 =oP

Re:The competition is OSX

[Vectronic]

CLI is faster for people who can type well, but your "average" user, generally hates the keyboard, if it was possible, they would do everything with the mouse, even if it takes 10 times longer. Even in your example, a lot of users wouldn't even bother renaming it, they would just leave it as "Copy of file I copied.ext" because they'd have to touch the keyboard.

Notice teh spelkin of teh avrage usre? Image how long it would take for them to type out something like

copy "c:\documents and settings\%username%\documents\my pictures\caughtthisoncam.jpg" "c:\documents and settings\%username%\documents\my pictures\archive\caughtthisoncam.jpg"

while correcting spelling mistakes, making sure that's where they actually want it, didn't leave out something like "\documents\" nevermind trying to get them to remember something like "%homepath%/%userprofile% %appdata% %allusersprofile%, cacls, attrib, or to use " | more " so 30 pages of shit doesn't go wizzing by... they'd wear out they're / and ? keys pretty quick, if they even remember them or "help" without having to ask someone what the "help" command is.

Don't get me wrong, I love CLI in Windows and Linux, but you do have to be somewhat of an expert, otherwise it will only slow you down even more, it's too much mental "processing" for the average user to cope with, they want it to be light, and easy, like the remote to their TV... they use 5 buttons, completely ignore the other 25 on a "universal" remote that works for their TV, DVD, and Stereo, they'll find a "menu" button, hunt through 7 pages of menu options, using their beloved up/down buttons, because it's "easier" to them than holding one button down, remembering what the second one is, and then pressing that one at the same time.

Same reason why Mouse-Gestures are increasingly more popular in web browsers... CLI?... never.

Re:The competition is OSX

[B1oodAnge1]

This interests me greatly. I just had to install Ubuntu (9.04) on my gaming computer because my wireless card "just works" with it and I don't have a way to get it up near enough to the router to plug it into the intertubes.

Downloading wireless drivers for windows on Linux ftw. :-)

I have been running Ubuntu on my other (non gaming) computers for over a year, as well as setting up my parents with Ubuntu, and have so far used a CLI about 4 times.

Installing flash was interesting, and was the biggest pain. However it should be noticed that I was installing a workaround to allow flash to run in an 64 bit browser and that's not even possible in windows as far as I know.

meanwhile I am constantly having to kill the explorer process and restart it from the task manager in windows. I'd personally much rather have a CLI to fall back on.

Re:The competition is OSX

[lukas84]

Enterprise == Ultimate (that was different in Vista, Enterprise didn't have the media center)

Differences between Enteprise and Ultimate is the licensing channel and the default activation method.

Re:The competition is OSX

[John Betonschaar]

Try reinstalling that VAIO with a different Windows version, one that hasn't been customized by Sony, and then post your luck getting all the right hardware drivers and configuring the system. You're comparing a PREINSTALLED version that has all the kinks already worked out by some guy at Sony, to a MANUALLY installed operating system you have to configure yourself. It's like saying how much easier it is to just drive that new car you just bought from the dealer to buying the same car and then swapping the engine yourself.

As a counter-example: I once bought an HP pavilion laptop with XP home on it (which I couldn't remove or have upgraded to another XP version by the way because HP tied the license to the machine and didn't offer anything but XP home). Because I needed to logon to a Windows domain, I upgraded to XP pro. After that, I didn't have 3D acceleration, the TV-out stopped working, no wifi until I installed drivers from directly from the card manufacturer and it took 4 months before HP finally released downloadable drivers for the ATI chip that was in it, the stock ones didn't recognize the card because HP screwed with the PCI ids, and the only way to get the machine to work fully was to do a full system recovery. Using the XP home recovery discs...

Re:The competition is OSX

[story645]

You'll get things done more slowly, because GUI configs suck, but that's your choice.

That's his point, more or less. Most of the linux distro's (even Ubuntu to some extent) pour so little resources into their GUI config development, because of the lack of perceived need for it, that command line becomes the defacto solution in many situations where windows would have a GUI. Most of the solutions to newbie problems in Ubuntu are bash oriented 'cause even if the GUI's exist, so few people are familiar enough with them to give adequate directions. Microsoft trouble shooting sometimes also involves command line (I've done it) but it's usually deep in the troubleshooting chain, unlike in Ubuntu where it's often the 1st suggestion. This is something that scares off potential users, no way around that. (And bad GUI's are worse than no GUI's 'cause they leave the user confused, frustrated, and wanting to walk away from the program without ever using it again.)

This is because the shell is the best, fastest way to fix problems in Linux, even when other options are available, and we won't suggest an inferior solution unless pressed for it.

Even if the inferior solution is more user (newbie) friendly and therefore a good thing to have if trying to obtain a wider linux market share? It's awfully hard to kill MS/Apple dominance by making things more difficult for their core users.

Re:The competition is OSX

[peppepz]

- There is nothing "non-standard" in QT and GTK. Every single linux distribution since 1994 will provide them. If you manage to find one that doesn't, you're free to distribute the libraries with your application (or link statically), as everybody does on Windows.
- GTK has broken backwards compatibility just ONCE in 11 years, when switching from gtk 1.2 to gtk 2.0. Applications based on gtk 1 continue to run flawlessly in current distributions.
- QT has broken backwards compatibility 3 times since 1991. The last time it has done so, during the 3.3 -> 4.0 switch, it provided a compile-time source compatibility layer. I no longer have 2.x apps around, but I can assure that 3.x applications keep running with no problem.
- Both QT and GTK are used under Windows and other operating systems so at least some developers find them attractive (see Google Earth, Paint Shop Pro, PowerDVD, Virtualbox, Skype, Firefox, Gimp, Inkscape, Pidgin).
- QT offers out of the box a state-of-the-art UI designer (I don't know about GTK+, but I guess the situation won't be different).

If you really think Linux is great, then please don't spread FUD, it hurts the platform.

Re:The competition is OSX

[moronoxyd]

Well, I've been using Ubuntu for some 4 years now, I installied in on a bunch of machines (desktops and notebooks) ranging from AMD K6-2-based to current multicore systems, updating to new versions of Ubuntu almost ever with dist-upgrades, and just ONCE did it break the system.
And that was an old Pentium3 notebook with a video card that wasn't properly set up by the new X windows system.
Editing the xorg.conf with the correct values solved that problem in about 5 minutes.

In the same timespan I had Windows installed on most of these systems as well, and more than once I had to fix broken systems due to poor drivers (especially video drivers), aggressive applications or the like.

So what's the conclusion?
You can not assume that your experiences are typical, just like mine are not.

Re:The competition is OSX

[amRadioHed]

Look in the forums of any distro (even Ubuntu) and I bet you'll find the vast majority of the fixes don't start with "goto System->Preferences/Administration ..." but "open a terminal, and paste this into the shell".

Well obviously. A forum is a text based system. Text commands are the easiest way to provide help. If you were getting help from someone in person maybe they'd show you how to solve your problem using a GUI. Describing GUI actions in a forum is much more difficult and error prone for both parties, that would never be my first choice when helping someone on a forum.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

Some months ago I had one of these completely retarted breaks caused by just updating packages (and it was new install, was doing the first update). After apt-get update, every program that had reference to /dev/null said permission denied when trying to use it. Makes completely sense, right? It also completely broke every server process on the machine and I guess if I had rebooted it wouldn't had come back up anymore. I spent whole day trying to figure it out. The reason? selinux messed it up and after updating didn't let any process access /dev/null.

Now I admin servers in my job so I do have better than average linux knowledge and it took me hours to solve and I still dont see a reason for it. But how the hell is normal user going to fix that? When you update Windows, stuff like that just doesn't happen.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

Being on slashdot I am not surprised that you are holding your ubuntu in your hand whilst reading the monitor. But, are you sure that it is sweat on your hand?

Re:The competition is OSX

[bemymonkey]

"Also I don't see how 'Open the control panel, click on the hardware icon, open the driver panel, click on the devices tab, find small icon with the plus sign before it that reads audio devices, expand it, find the audio card in the expanded list, which would probably be the one that doesn't have the word codec in it, see if it has an exclamation mark before it, right click it and pick properties, go to the resources tab, write down all the values in the list of ports/interrupts en post them here' would be easier than to say 'open the terminal application from the menu and first type 'dmesg' and copy paste the results here, then type 'lspci -v -v -v' and post this output here as well'"

As a Windows user, I definitely prefer the former. Precisely things like 'lspci -v -v -v' are what's keeping me from using Linux - I don't _want_ to remember 500 different console commands.

Never having seen a Windows PC before, using common sense and your ability to read, you can figure out how to get (almost) anywhere. On Linux, if you don't know the console command you're looking for and don't have anywhere to look it up, you're SOL, because the GUIs don't fucking work half the time (yes, using Linux _has_ frustrated me)...

Re:The competition is OSX

[AmishElvis]

Objective studies have repeatably shown this.

suspiciously vague. care to offer a link to one?

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

Try to show a black CLI to your mom (non geek I hope) and watch how she reacts. It is not about efficiency but about how a dumb user feels about CLI.

Re:The competition is OSX

[bemymonkey]

"It's no longer 2002. Install Ubuntu and you will NEVER have to use the CLI. That's right. NEVER. I like it because you can do some neat things with it, but then I use CLI in windows too. But is it required for normal operation? No. It's not."

Bullshit. Even setting up display resolutions and refresh rates (don't get me started on xorg and nVidia's proprietary driver) or sound on my setup required CLI in 7.10 and 8.04...

Sure, it's great when everything works out of the box for some people, but everyone else is fucked.

Re:The competition is OSX

[amRadioHed]

Right, I choose to do most of my file management from the command line just because it's usually the quickest way to go about it.

There's only one situation I can think of where the GUI is better, when I need to select a number of arbitrary files from a directory. Since globbing or find can't be used to quickly match the files you want I find control-clicking a bunch of icons is quicker than typing out a bunch of file names. That's the exception though, the rest of the time the CLI is better.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Skizmo]

Stop bashing the GUI... it makes you look like an idiot.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

Remove all terminal emulators & text editors then.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Corporate Troll]

to get them to remember something like "%homepath%/%userprofile% %appdata% %allusersprofile%, cacls, attrib, or to use " | more " so 30 pages of shit doesn't go wizzing by.

I highlighted one in your list.... The one command line too I can't live without when using Windows XP Home. The fuckers left out the GUI interface to set File Permissions and Ownership. If you don't have those you cannot run Windows XP in Limited User configuration.... Well, yes, unless you use cacls.... on the command line... for a "Home" product.

Just saying....

Re:The competition is OSX

[bemymonkey]

That's just it though - any PC manufacturer worth a damn releases all the drivers required for a fresh install of XP 32-bit and Vista32/64. Sure the drivers aren't always great, and quite often have horrible bugs, but they're still nowhere near as horrible as what I've had to go through in Ubuntu - and I only used that junk for about half an hour at a time (tried 3 times or so) before giving up and going back to XP Pro...

For instance, I've never installed a display driver in Windows that refused to switch resolutions... or rather, refused to switch to the resolution specified. Selecting 1680x1050@60hz and getting 1342x923.345 with 1280x800 shown on the screen (scrollable) at a refresh rate of 67.5453hz is VERY frustrating!

Re:The competition is OSX

[micheas]

You have obviously never done tech support over the phone.

Wait until you are trying to figure out what the person on the other end of the phone is looking at and where they clicked wrong and you will understand why tech support people love the shell.

When I am helping people fix osx over the phone I am more likely than not to wind up telling the person to type commands into the terminal.

Re:The competition is OSX

[smash]

- There is nothing "non-standard" in QT and GTK. Every single linux distribution since 1994 will provide them.

Which version? Do GTK and QT provide APIs for database access, network connectivity, HTML rendering, etc? No... you need Gnome or KDE for that, and they're still in flux.

GTK has broken backwards compatibility just ONCE in 11 years, when switching from gtk 1.2 to gtk 2.0. Applications based on gtk 1 continue to run flawlessly in current distributions. - QT has broken backwards compatibility 3 times since 1991. The last time it has done so, during the 3.3 -> 4.0 switch, it provided a compile-time source compatibility layer. I no longer have 2.x apps around, but I can assure that 3.x applications keep running with no problem.

See above. I'm talking KDE and Gnome not QT and GTK. GTK and QT do not provide all the frameworks required for application development using standard libraries for stuff other than UI widgets. Gnome and KDE are nearer the mark, and they are continually breaking shit and changing (for better or worse).

There is no equivalent to appkit (for example) that you can RELY ON to be installed on a linux box as yet. There is no single platform to target. GTK and QT simply do not compare as an "application development framework", they're little more than widget libraries for GUI development. There is a lot more to applicate development than GUI widgets...

Re:The competition is OSX

[smash]

There is a lot more to applicate development than GUI widgets.

"application" development, obviously... *sigh*

Re:The competition is OSX

[MortenMW]

Can anyone figure out the Vista/7 control panel without anyone holding their hand?

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit.

Gnome 2.0 apps do till work on latest Gnome. More api's may be added - but GTK 2.x is compatible from beginning the end.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Corporate Troll]

To give your example even a bit more weight. My wife is a kindergarten teacher and at the end of the year she burns a CD (actually, I do that because her computer literacy is very low) for all the kids with the pictures of the year. With the cameras of today, typically set on 10 megapixel or more, a CD is quickly filled. Of course, I make sure her camera is set to 3 megapixel.... (Definitely enough for on-screen viewing. Enough for normal printouts) Her coworkers also seem to burn CDs with pictures, but they don't have someone taking care of the technicalities for them.

He coworkers know what I am, and so one of them approached her and said... "I tried to burn my pictures on a CD and it says it can't because it needs two megabytes". Yes, she said "two megabytes", meaning of course "two gigabytes". I pretty much immediately knew what the cause was when: 10 megapixel camera. Yay... The inevitable question was: "How can I fix it"? So I should have explained how to resize all those photos without her screwing up, without knowing what software she has, without going over there and spends some of my precious time...

What I did was very simple: I let the woman copy all the pictures she wanted on that CD on a 4Gig USB stick and told her she's get them back in a usable format. What I then did, was simply run a command on my Linux system, waited some time. Copied the resulting files to a CD as a "master", plus the new files on a USB stick and I was done with it.

The command line for this task was the only viable option.

Also do note that the reaction of the woman was exactly what we want users to do: ask help when they don't know what to do instead of wasting hours and hours and hours of time. If she had run Linux, I could have told her the exact command to type, or sent her a script or even remotely take over the machine. It would have been even more easy that way.

Re:The competition is OSX

[John Betonschaar]

Well let's put it this way: I simply disagree with everything you say, but I guess that's personal.

When I have to do stuff in Windows it takes me 10 minutes of mucking around all the stupid settings windows, tabs and icons, every Windows version shuffles all that around, and eventually I find out I have to edit some obscure registry key just to stop some stupid program I didn't install consciously from loading on startup. The fact that you remembered what icons you have to click to get somewhere doesn't mean it's easier to remember or anything, most likely you've had so many stuff to fix on your windows machine that you now know what is where from the top of your head. Most non-geek people I know who use Windows don't even know they have a control panel.

I also don't really get why you think you have to remember any commands for everyday linux use, like many people alread posted a fully working linux system doesn't need the CLI, and it just keeps working unless you deliberately screw it up. It's sometimes a hard way to get there, especially on new hardware, and that's what the CLI is really useful for, much more useful than the Windows GUI (you know how to see the system log for example? Or the boot log? Or the PCI ids of that 'unknown device' on your system).

Last but not least let me add that people often view Windows as 'much easier' because they are used to it, and they bought the machine pre-installed and ready to go. Most people wo think Windows is easy would be completely lost if you gave them a generic installation CD and told them to get the machine up and running with all the hardware working properly.

Re:The competition is OSX

[bemymonkey]

No, I haven't. But I choose my OS based on how easy it is for me to USE it - not how easy it is for me to describe how to use it to someone else.

If someone wants Windows tech support from me, it's gonna be via Remote Desktop or a VNC viewer.

Re:The competition is OSX

[ookaze]

Hell most Mac and Windows users don't even know there IS a CLI interface, and they sure as hell don't want to be using it!

You're so mad that you're bordering on saying nonsense.
How come you know that the users don't want to use something they don't even know about?
Are you the god thinking for all these people?
What did strike such a nerve into you? Seriously. It's hatred at this level.

Look, I'll be the first to admit that Linux rocks on servers. It is rock solid, secure, a real tank of an OS. But we are talking Windows 7 here, which is most definitely NOT targeted at servers. It is targeted at home users. Home users, I might add, who often can't even find their way around control panel without someone holding their hand. Windows is quite good at that BTW.

I agree with everything you say, even the part where you say that Windows is quite good at making people unable to find their way around control panel.
Me too, I always have problem finding the correct option in control panel, usually I have to parse all of them. Just because they're inconsistent. It's sad really, after all these years.

But Linux? You better be bestest friends with Mr. CLI if you want to play in that sandbox. It seems like every time there is an update something breaks and requires CLI. Sound broke? Ooops..CLI. Monitor isn't showing the right resolution? CLI baby.

Now you're really looking like an ignorant fool. You didn't use Linux in the latest 10 years, right ? You shouldn't talk about what you obviously don't know about, seriously.

And server admins live and die CLI and hate GUIs, as they just suck precious resources.

This shows clearly that you have no idea what the CLI is in Linux and Unix OS.
You seem to believe CLI in these OS is just some kind of, well, ... interface.
Which shows just how ignorant you are about it.
These are shells, and are much more powerful than DOS.

Being a fanboy is one thing, being delusional is another.

Yet you are both.

I can make an example that will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Linux isn't ready for home users. Ready? Remove Bash.

Now you're retarded. You just said "remove the OS".
I hope you didn't believe you were smart. Seriously...
Go learn what Linux is before talking about it, you're not qualified, at all.

But Windows home users will NEVER use CLI. Let me repeat that: Windows home users will NEVER EVER use CLI. In fact most power users don't care for it either. They don't like it, don't want it, and if you make them use CLI you might as well say "please have someone go install Windows for you" because that is EXACTLY what will happen. I truly hope that a day comes when you can actually remove CLI from Linux and still have a usable machine, but I won't hold my breath.

LOL. Repeating wrong things won't make them true. But I agree this part is done like a good fanboy coupled with a delusional guy. You know also perfectly well what people want and what they hate. But do you have any evidence of what you're saying?

Re:The competition is OSX

[John Betonschaar]

So you've been working on Windows for all your life and tried Ubuntu for 3x half an hour, and concluded it's 'a piece of junk'? No wonder you don't like linux, you'd probably hate OS X too, or any other OS you'll ever try that isn't Windows.

That said, you have a valid point when it comes to hardware drivers for some pieces of hardware, especially wifi cards. Linux still isn't at the same level of hardware and vendor support that Windows is. Funny thing is that if your hardware DOES have drivers (which is true for more and more devices every day, because vendors are finally starting to get the point that Linux users can also be customers) you don't even have to download or install anything, just pop in the Ubuntu install CD and all the drivers are on there already, instead of a small subset of insanely out-of-date drivers as shipped on the Windows CD.

That said, OS X isn't much better than Linux when it comes to hardware support and drivers, webcams are a nightmare, WiFi drivers are simply absent and don't dare to try upgrading that video card in your Mac Pro because it won't work if you don't pick the exact model that Apple endorses. Does that mean OS X is 'bad' or 'worse than Windows'? Why do people who use OS X think it's so easy to use then? Because the machine is built for the OS, and you don't *need* to install or upgrade any drivers for normal use. The exact same thing holds for a vendor-supported Linux machine that you buy preinstalled, but that's not what people like you are trying. You're trying to do a clean install on random hardware, there's nothing different from Windows or OS X in that regard when it comes to the hassle it takes to get everything working. And no, a GUI doesn't help you to get a non- or semi- supported WiFi card with buggy drivers working.

Re:The competition is OSX

[John Betonschaar]

I should cut down on the use of the phrase 'That said...' ;-)

Re:The competition is OSX

[randomsearch]

Whilst removing the shell is obviously going to break the OS, and therefore nonsensical, I think the spirit of this post is worthwhile. Can a user survive without the CLI in Ubuntu, for example?

My experience is: not really. It's not that far off, but it's not perfect. People who argue that Linux users spend all their time configuring things on the commandline are exaggerating, but equally it's unrealistic to say that a GUI can be used for all configuration.

In my current Ubuntu install, I've had a wireless problem that I've fixed with a small amount of messing around in the shell. Besides that, I've not been forced to use it. Having said that, previously I've had X Server issues that have required lots of CLI use to resolve.

I'm not interested in "my OS is more user-friendly than your OS" arguments, but I'd prefer it if people didn't big up / write off Linux on the basis of exaggeration.

RS

Re:The competition is OSX

[ledow]

Gave my wife a Linux machine last year. (Wife is computer novice, first learned about PC's at 20-something, now 30-something and got her job because she pointed out the errors and inconsistencies on the Excel exam in the interview to get her current job - damn I can teach IT...)

It boots to desktop, has one of those horrible pre-made Linux distros on it (Yeurk... give me Slackware any day - I need to customise). She hasn't needed to use the CLI (or me) for *anything*. Anything at all. It all just works. Hasn't been updated since the day she got it except for the web browser (Opera, which wasn't installed by default). She does her work on OO, she browses all the time, scans images/photos and uploads stuff to eBay, we talk on Pidgin, Skype etc. with webcam, voice, etc. Bought a 3G stick for my laptop, lent it to her for a week while she was away - she plugged it in, it detected it, created a connection, she just clicks and selects and it dials and sets her up for Internet without having to TOUCH the CLI.

Granted she doesn't do a lot of "technical" stuff but I believe that was your point. The only thing that pisses her off is that Flash is a bit old but I can't be bothered to upgrade it for her and have warned her about just updating things willy-nilly, rather I'll wipe it with a better distro at some point. But even that upgrade is in all the GUI update software if she wanted to take the risk herself.

It's likely that she would break the hardware before she ever needed to see the CLI.

So, sorry, but you're wrong. I can show you countless people I've put on Linux desktops who don't even know what a CLI is, let alone how to work it, and they manage just fine.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it is actually not that easy to judge. Linux usually comes with a lot more drivers. But if it lacks one you are out of luck. Windows has less drivers out of the box. But they are a lot easier to obtain and install.

I mean even if you find a Linux driver on the manufacturers site it is quite tough to get it installed reliably. The instructions are written for generic Linux/Unix and don't have any integration in your distributions system management. It probably will work that way, but a simple security upgrade of your system could easily break it, forcing you to reinstall the driver.

Re:The competition is OSX

[allcoolnameswheretak]

>"Look, I'll be the first to admit that Linux rocks on servers. It is rock solid, secure, a real tank of an OS."

I lost some of that optimism while working with Java Applets and OpenGL on Ubuntu and managed to lock up my entire system numerous times, even to the point where switching to another terminal wouldn't work.
IMHO Linux is a very hyped OS. Hyped by nerds. It's far from perfect, it has it's share of bugs and is still not on par with Windows concerning usability, accessibility and ease of install.
I tried to install Ubuntu on my home system a month ago. First by inserting the CD during bootup. It failed to recognize my Windows partition and there was a message like "installing as only OS". I didn't trust that message and didn't want to break my Windows install, so I aborted the installation, booted Windows and attempted to install it from within Windows. I got an error message during install and the install was aborted. I researched on the Internet and found that this was due to me selecting "english" for the install language but having a German Windows... I also heard that installing from within Windows is not recommended.
Anyway, I still haven't installed Ubuntu.

Re:The competition is OSX

[loki_tiwaz]

well, my mother has been using ubuntu now for almost two years and apart from having to tinker with the console to configure a pinnacle remote i mistakenly thought was ootb supported and the odd weird hardware problem even *i* haven't had to use the console on that box. it also has vista installed on a second drive but apart from some weird intermittent problems with the ubuntu boot drive (can't tell if it is controller, cabling or the drive - drive not ready errors), she prefers to use the ubuntu system. even the media centre - is nowhere near as good as mythtv.

windows 7 is a catch-up 'me too' release that vista would have been except they took an eternity to decide that winfs wasn't going to happen and neglected the actual usability side of the interface upgrade. under the hood things have not changed that much, vista drivers work perfectly (and many xp as with vista).

the new taskbar is something that i personally have been wishing for for the most part since windows 95 came out (why can't launchers and window tabs be unified?) and imho the thing works more efficiently than the Dock, just not quite so stupidly pretty. still no options for personalising the look of the windows and taskbar, apart from the novelty of the taskbar most users aren't going to notice much difference and those who upgraded to vista will be reluctant to get 7, and i suspect that the xp hold-outs won't be that interested in upgrading either because it's just not a big enough improvement.

one has to suspect that microsoft's software development architecture is laden down with all sorts of nasty bureaucracy, it's the only possible explanation for how the biggest selling and most profitable operating system is not leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else.

Re:The competition is OSX

[suburbanmediocrity]

I'm probably showing my Linux (Unix) ignorance here, but why "If you remove /bin/sh, the system will not even boot."?

Doesn't, towards the end of boot, the OS create an initial task? This currently being a shell which then goes off and spawns additional tasks? Why couldn't all of those be linked and spawned with the kernel instead?

I'm just asking the technicalities, not the merets.

Re:The competition is OSX

[gbjbaanb]

yeah, 'cos just what we want for Linux GUI standardisation is *another* GUI app, and one that can't be used from existing applications too.

Suggesting Mono as a standard GUI for everything is a stupid and pointless idea. All it will do is fragment GUI development on Linux ever further, making ... oh wait, I see what you're trying to do here....

Now, if you'd said lets all use QT, I'd understand you were trying to consolidate development. It does, after all, have bindings for practically every language in existence (probably not Mono, but that closed monoculture would be the only one). Then development would be easier and more productive all round, and you could play nicely with other developers instead of living in a Mono-only sandpit.

Re:The competition is OSX

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh...dude? Its Windows we are talking about here. I know it makes Linux guys shit puppies but NOBODY uses limited user in Windows,okay? Hell I have been building, fixing, and networking Windows boxes since Win3.11 for workgroups. Do I run limited user? Nope, admin all the way. Why? Because too damned much Windows software breaks horribly and takes three fricking forevers to fix if ran as a limited user.

So there is actually a GOOD reason why they didn't put that in Windows XP Home, it is because home users never fuck with permissions. hell most wouldn't even know what that was, and if you gave them control of it they would just fuck shit up so bad they could even access their own stuff. MSFT knew this, which is why the left permissions to XP Pro, where there is more likely an admin that is controlling permissions. That is why power users run XP Pro, because XP Home is for home users.

I think though by accident you have pointed out why it is so damned hard to get Linux guys to "get it". It is because they expect folks to think like them, and they don't. The average IT guys thinking is as alien to them as any martian. Believe me, of this I know. I have had guys throw me $20 to make a problem go away that would have taken maybe five minutes, if that, of me gently walking them through a couple of simple tweaks. The second I mention "control" panel this or "device manager" that they just get a glazed look on their eyes and break out their wallet. And THAT is why Linux don't work for home users, it is because you have to think like THEM and build it so it is easy for THEM, even if you think their way is nuts. I have been in the trenches for 15 years and therefor know how to pull it off.

Linux guys think "open up bash and type" is easy because it is easy FOR THEM, but for the home users CLI=total failure. I can promise you if the choice is ten minutes of CLI or $89 for XP Home? They would have their wallets out so damned fast your head would swim. Accept that, and maybe one day Linux will have a shot. But I won't hold my breath.

Re:The competition is OSX

[bemymonkey]

"Well let's put it this way: I simply disagree with everything you say, but I guess that's personal."

No problems there ;)

"When I have to do stuff in Windows it takes me 10 minutes of mucking around all the stupid settings windows, tabs and icons, every Windows version shuffles all that around, and eventually I find out I have to edit some obscure registry key just to stop some stupid program I didn't install consciously from loading on startup. The fact that you remembered what icons you have to click to get somewhere doesn't mean it's easier to remember or anything, most likely you've had so many stuff to fix on your windows machine that you now know what is where from the top of your head. Most non-geek people I know who use Windows don't even know they have a control panel."

Perfectly true. I've been using Windows all my life (since 3.11), so I'm pretty used to it.

However, when there's a new Windows version and everything gets shuffled around, I can still easily find stuff because I'm capable of reading. Most people who have trouble navigating GUIs (I'm talking about the average Joe here, not CLI gurus who just don't WANT to use GUIs) just seem to be incapable of reading what's on the screen before deciding to hit the OK button...

"I also don't really get why you think you have to remember any commands for everyday linux use, like many people alread posted a fully working linux system doesn't need the CLI, and it just keeps working unless you deliberately screw it up."

Possibly - IF you have hardware that is 100% compatible, and are satisfied with a web browser, mail client and a half functional media player. If you want to setup anything more, however trivial it sounds - WiFi, sound cards, multi-monitor setups... well, it gets pretty difficult.

Sure, once it's running it's (usually) rock solid, but getting there on non-standard hardware is a pain in the ass, and pretty much not possible without CLI.

"It's sometimes a hard way to get there, especially on new hardware, and that's what the CLI is really useful for, much more useful than the Windows GUI (you know how to see the system log for example? Or the boot log? Or the PCI ids of that 'unknown device' on your system)."

So why would you not know that that "unknown device" is? Just install all the drivers that came with the machine, and if it's still showing up as unknown, call the manufacturer (if it's a pre-built machine - You won't get a lot of "unknown device"s in machines you build yourself... unless you forgot what you put in there).

If I have a problem like that on Ubuntu, I can either post on the forum and get jack shit for an answer, or wallow in my own misery.

"Last but not least let me add that people often view Windows as 'much easier' because they are used to it, and they bought the machine pre-installed and ready to go. Most people wo think Windows is easy would be completely lost if you gave them a generic installation CD and told them to get the machine up and running with all the hardware working properly."

I'm guessing that if you give a reasonably smart person a Windows CD and a CD with all the correct drivers (either as executables, or just a big folder with inf files that they can point the Device Manager to), they can figure it out. It's just a matter of navigating through very familiar GUIs - Next, next, install. If you can install software on Windows, you can install drivers.

Of course, if you don't give them the drivers, they might have a few problems, especially with older versions of Windows where stuff like Ethernet or WiFi doesn't work without third party drivers, but most manufacturers provide a driver CD. If not, you can always hop on the net somewhere else and put the files on a thumb drive...

On Windows 7 it's even easier - the drivers for most system components are installed right away or downloaded automatically...

Re:The competition is OSX

[eharvill]

Try reinstalling that VAIO with a different Windows version, one that hasn't been customized by Sony, and then post your luck getting all the right hardware drivers and configuring the system. You're comparing a PREINSTALLED version that has all the kinks already worked out by some guy at Sony, to a MANUALLY installed operating system you have to configure yourself. It's like saying how much easier it is to just drive that new car you just bought from the dealer to buying the same car and then swapping the engine yourself.

More anecdotal evidence...

I've installed 3 windows OSes on my Asus Laptop, Windows 7 by far was the most complete in terms of everything "just working." If I didn't want to play modern games on it, I would not have even had to download the latest nvidia drivers. With XP I had issues with my HD audio driver (HDMI out to TV, but no sound) and wireless. It also wouldn't sleep/hibernate properly half the time. Vista was just a hog in general.

I did mess with one of the Ubuntu's for a little bit on my 2nd HD and honestly don't recall too anything too drastically wrong, but I didn't feel like taking the time to put VMware Workstation on with XP so I could run all my work related activities.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

Ye hit em where it hurts :-). Tho I would never have gone for Vista myself - but it came pre-installed & I'm in no mood to indulge any other OS as a native install - it does make things considerably easier than even Ubuntu can.

Now watch the excuses roll on, starting with the very next one ;-)

"That's an absurd thing to say and betrays your ignorance here. The shell is an integral part of a Unix system. If you remove /bin/sh, the system will not even boot. Any Unix system will be this way, including OS X, because this specific interpreted language is part of what makes Unix Unix."

What bloody user, other than a programmer (disclaimer - I'm one), would care whether the OS is based on Unix or not! Does a MacOS user? Of course Linux rocks ;-)

Aside, I work in a co whose mobile OS is facing a similar onslaught from both Apple & Google. While there are a few apologists who trot out such BS excuses, the majority realize what needs to be done to beat the newcomers...

Re:The competition is OSX

[UnoriginalBoringNick]

'Open the control panel, click on the hardware icon, open the driver panel, click on the devices tab, find small icon with the plus sign before it that reads audio devices, expand it, find the audio card in the expanded list, which would probably be the one that doesn't have the word codec in it, see if it has an exclamation mark before it, right click it and pick properties, go to the resources tab, write down all the values in the list of ports/interrupts en post them here'

... And when you've done that try doing it by telephone with someone in another country, hired for her accounting skills and for whom English is her third language. Ten years ago I wasted an hour trying and failing to find ways to put 'Drag the file from this window to that window' in English that she could understand. I had assumed that as she had a Hebrew keyboard the GUI would be easier than the command line. I was wrong.

Re:The competition is OSX

[BikeHelmet]

Who cares if it's standard? It still doesn't require a command line in Windows.

Hey, why is the other guy modded insightful, instead of you? You nailed the issue on the head.

Re:The competition is OSX

[bemymonkey]

"So you've been working on Windows for all your life and tried Ubuntu for 3x half an hour, and concluded it's 'a piece of junk'? No wonder you don't like linux, you'd probably hate OS X too, or any other OS you'll ever try that isn't Windows."

Actually, I quite like OS X :)

As for only trying Ubuntu for about 2 hours or so in my whole life, yeah, that's true. But there's quite a few more Linux distributions ;). For instance, I really appreciate Knoppix and use it regularly when helping out friends and family with Windows crashes...

"That said, you have a valid point when it comes to hardware drivers for some pieces of hardware, especially wifi cards. Linux still isn't at the same level of hardware and vendor support that Windows is. Funny thing is that if your hardware DOES have drivers (which is true for more and more devices every day, because vendors are finally starting to get the point that Linux users can also be customers) you don't even have to download or install anything, just pop in the Ubuntu install CD and all the drivers are on there already, instead of a small subset of insanely out-of-date drivers as shipped on the Windows CD."

That's not quite true any more - Windows 7 RC1 recognized every component in my old Athlon64X2 based system right away, and will look for drivers it doesn't have online. The driver database has gotten huge...

"That said, OS X isn't much better than Linux when it comes to hardware support and drivers, webcams are a nightmare, WiFi drivers are simply absent and don't dare to try upgrading that video card in your Mac Pro because it won't work if you don't pick the exact model that Apple endorses. Does that mean OS X is 'bad' or 'worse than Windows'? Why do people who use OS X think it's so easy to use then? Because the machine is built for the OS, and you don't *need* to install or upgrade any drivers for normal use. The exact same thing holds for a vendor-supported Linux machine that you buy preinstalled, but that's not what people like you are trying. You're trying to do a clean install on random hardware, there's nothing different from Windows or OS X in that regard when it comes to the hassle it takes to get everything working. And no, a GUI doesn't help you to get a non- or semi- supported WiFi card with buggy drivers working."

True, but the Apple situation is a bit different - they don't sell software, they sell hardware. The software just adds value to the hardware, so if you put unsupported third party hardware in there (i.e. your video card upgrade), why is it in Apple's interest to help you make it work? They want you to buy the same video card in their Apple store with a rebadge and a 100% markup... in exchange, it'll work perfectly ;)

As for a GUI helping with buggy drivers - correct, no amount of GUI or command line wizardry will help you there. That said, the buggiest driver I've ever seen was the nVidia proprietary driver in Ubuntu (think that was 8.04 or 8.10) - horrible piece of junk.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

here is what i dont get, people who use linux will swear up and down that everyone should be using linux cause its so much better.

so lets go to imagination land that was nuked but butters saved it, lets all pretend that linux is the primary OS and everything is compatible.

phone tech support: so i want you to type in

hard hearing grandma: (imagination land cant even cover the insanity in this, it would tear a whole in the fabric of the universe i believe)

so i did phone tech support, and i had to get users to type in little commands like chkdsk /r and thats bad enough, and this is why linux is not practical for your every day users, and this is why when a linux user stands up and claims that linux is the best OS in the world like they where Jesus coming back to save Christianity , its why i chuckle, cause to grandma, it wouldnt be, its all relative.

so i say, STFU and stay in your own little corner, live your own little life, and stop claiming that what you perceive is the end all be of.....whatever.

Re:The competition is OSX

[BikeHelmet]

I've found it handy on rare occasion for gathering info on serious IO errors.

Although for most of my drives that have failed over the years, I mostly use it as an incrementing counter. When the number of errors is increasing daily, you better replace that drive quickly! :P

I had one drive which would lock up when trying to access certain parts of a drive. Then it'd spit out IO errors for about a minute, and resume functioning. I think the SMART error counter hit 4000 after a day or so of that...

But another drive failed before it even hit 10 lifetime errors, so who knows?

Re:The competition is OSX

[UnoriginalBoringNick]

... I should add that she could hold a normal conversation in perfect English. She just didn't have a good vocabulary of computer terms.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

To paraphrase the parent: "Clearly this person is completely unable to operate a linux system at all, and doesn't understand the first thing about it. So obviously its simple enough for mass-market appeal."

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

If she had run Linux, I could...even remotely take over the machine.

You don't even need to take over her machine - the beauty of an OS designed to be multi-user, multi-tasking from the outset.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod me down for saying it I don't care.

To you and all others who feel the need to say this (several in this thread already): Not caring about mods is ok, writing about not caring is lying to yourself or others...

Re:The competition is OSX

[cbhacking]

The primary difference between Enterprise and other SKUs is that is uses volume licensing (no license keys, instead it connects to Windows Server box on its domain, and activates through that). However, one other thing that Enterprise has and no version below it does (Ultimate also has this, but sadly not Business/Professional) is the POSIX subsystem. Subsystem for UUNIX Applicaitons (SUA) is a POSIX-complaint user-mode subsystem on top of the NT kernel. Microsoft provides a minimal but functional operating environment called Interix that runs in SUA, and you can install a package manager and considerable amount of software for it. I use this constantly - I do more in bash on Windows than I do in cmd and powershell put together (and I actually like powershell, but bash is just quicker to do many things with despite beling less powerful). It's seriously underappreciated, and most people don't need it anyhow, but it works better than Cygwin in many cases and makes it possible to use many UNIX/Linux tools and programs without rebooting or virtualizing (I have a Linux install, but I need to do something on Windows that doesn't work in Wine more often than I need to do something in Linux that doesn't work on Interix).

Re:The competition is OSX

[iapetus]

Had to go into the CLI or chosen to go into the CLI because it's the best way to carry out a lot of tasks? The second, many times, both on Linux boxes and using Cygwin on Windows. The first, once, to check some settings when I had to run a live CD of Ubuntu to try and recover data from a Windows machine that had got stuck in a permanent loop of trying to install updates.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

I gotta say that each version gets easier and better without manual configuration. 8.10 gives fewer reasons to worry about xorg.conf, and 9.04 fewer still. I, for one, haven't edited my xorg.conf file since 8.04. Not a guarantee that no one will have to, but the Linux folks are certainly working in the right direction.

Re:The competition is OSX

[bemymonkey]

Good to know... maybe I should give it another try.

Probably will, the next time I'm drunk off my ass... :)

Re:The competition is OSX

[johnw]

Never having seen a Windows PC before, using common sense and your ability to read, you can figure out how to get (almost) anywhere.

In as much as this is true of Windows (not very) it's equally true of Linux. I've plonked naive users down in front of a PC running Linux with a Gnome desktop and they find it just as easy to use as beginners on Windows. People who have previously learnt to use Windows (and believe it or not - learning to use Windows also takes time) tend to find it slightly harder because they think they know where things should be and then are surprised to find them somewhere else.

When it comes to *administration* (which is what I think was under discussion) neither system is the slightest bit intuitive. Fixing a Windows PC if you don't already have a lot of experience of doing it is a positive nightmare. Nothing is where you would expect it to be, and the system will persistently think it knows better than you and refuse to do what you tell it. Yes, both Linux and Windows require quite a bit of study before you can administer them successfully, but once you've got the experience I find Linux by far the easier, precisely because you can see what's going on and the system doesn't keep trying to second guess you.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Vu1turEMaN]

Sounds like you've never needed to get wireless working on 75% of laptops because, as a linux novice, I usually end up spending a couple hours trying to get wireless working persistently. Almost all of the work is done via command line, and it is the one true thing holding many people back from linux. I've found that LinuxMint takes a few steps out of that problem by including alot of the drivers, but its still no walk in the park.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Trahloc]

That pretty much jives with a study by google. They found SMART to be pretty damn dumb.

Re:The competition is OSX

[TheSunborn]

I would say that windows don't have a standard GUI application development platform either.

But how do you define standard anyway, and in what way is QT less standard then the "roll your own gui, because Win32 sucks" that so much software(Including anything from Adobe and microsoft office*)

And what is non-standard about QT? I have not seen QT break anything since between the switch between QT3 and QT4. (Unlike MacOS X where an upgrade suddenly required some gui callback methods to be reentrent, breaking lots of software.

*Just take the ribbon interface as an example. They developed an entire new gui system, just for office.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Corporate Troll]

I know it makes Linux guys shit puppies but NOBODY uses limited user in Windows,okay?

I do.

Because too damned much Windows software breaks horribly and takes three fricking forevers to fix if ran as a limited user.

Nope, it's easy. The most likely culprit is that the application writes in its installation folder. Give full access to "users" and it works. In very rare cases, it's when the app tries to write to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and the subtree required for the application can be set to full access to "users" too.

This technique could even be automated... The only thing this automation must know is the installation directory (which is known by the uninstaller) and the used registry subtree (which, I admit would be a bit more difficult to find out, but as I said these applications are so rare, I haven't encountered one in years).

Programs written in the last 4 years usually do work for Limited User out of the box.

if you gave them control of it they would just fuck shit up so bad they could even access their own stuff.

Simple solution: make it an option to activate it. Just like "Simple File Sharing". I'd settle for that.

Linux guys think "open up bash and type" is easy because it is easy FOR THEM, but for the home users CLI=total failure.

No, it's an easy way to communicate how to fix something. The end-user doesn't need to understand it. They should come to us when they need help, just as they should go to their mechanic when their car does weird stuff. That's the part people like you do not understand: leave it to the people in the know or learn it yourself.

Just for the record: Windows users who think they can fix their own computers are the worst. Their machines are usually those beyond repair. Especially, because they "know better".

Re:The competition is OSX

[Corporate Troll]

That's what I meant. I was thinking ssh ;-)

Re:The competition is OSX

[obarthelemy]

I'm a "sophisticated" user, installing client PCs for just about everyone around me, including some small companies. I'm having a very hard time getting into Linux on the desktop.

I just managed to install Linux for the first time 4 days ago. All other times (about 10), installation failed, due to MB drivers I suppose. That was very disappointing, the PCs were very vanilla, with no expansion cards, and XP installed without a glitch on them.

I don't mind using a bit of CLI since I'm a nerd, but, believe it or not, I can't find how to mount a windows networked share via fstab. I can do it in the graphical thingy, but it mounts it only after I've clicked on it. I need it mounted sooner, and.. I need to know where it gets mounted... I did find how to install VNC, but could not make head nor tails of how to install an RDP server on the linux PC.

My question about it in the forums has been answered by the usual 'you're an idiot', or "you don't need it with our wonderful graphical interface". I'm not an idiot, and I need it outside of Gnome. And remember, the hardest part of any problem is asking the right question, so yes, I didn't ask clearly the first time around.

So, again, I think Linux needs
- more and better drivers. It's progressing, but still. Having to turn off the compositing thingy to be able to use VLC sucks, too. Then again, Aero in Vista causes problems with many games, too.
- better documentation. there's lot of good stuff and how-tos, but out of date.
- nicer community attitude. Yes, I'm an incompetent idiot that not only does not know how to do things, but doesn't even know where to look for the answer nor how to ask the question. I'm trying to change !

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anyone figure out the Vista/7 control panel without anyone holding their hand?

well, I have several computer-novice friends already running Win7 RC (that part down to me recommending it over Vista), and since I always get questions and they expect me to set up their machine for them I have "tested" how the search based control panel (that I really like) works for them by answering questions with just telling them "you just open control panel and start to type what you want to do" (cursor defaults to search bar).

You open control panel and type battery, or power, and relevant, easy understandable options appear (like "change what closing the lid does") etc And yes, they can figure out this control panel on their own, and figure out how to accomplish what they want, including configuration changes earlier considered quite advanced.. The only barrier (especially for experienced Windows users actually!), is to get that you can do it this way, instead of hunting through icons and menues.

(btw. "Power users" can do this directly in Start meny search, but my experience is that this is more confusing to less advanced users, because they also get other results from files etc)

Re:The competition is OSX

[hattig]

You are entirely correct.

However Linux is a lot better than it used to be in this regard.

Sadly I've had to go to CLI around 100x this year on my netbook to get the slightly different hardware properly supported, and I now refuse to do the OS upgrade (to Ubuntu 9.4) because it will break it all again.

And on my more normal desktop machine (which I did upgrade to 9.4), I've had to go to CLI to do a few things, like install standard Sun Java over the broken Java that Ubuntu ships by default. Mostly I use the CLI to run OpenVPN to work, the desktop Ubuntu doesn't offer that as a GUI feature, although the netbook does (?). Then again my netbook mplayer offers more features than the desktop version (where I most want the NVIDIA acceleration support).

Most power users who dislike Windows and don't want to spend their evenings fixing their computers moved to Macs years ago, and aren't coming back.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Merls the Sneaky]

I built my own machine and have used the same xpsp2 OEM disk on several different hardware configurations. I have three machines running here all installed from the same disk ( different keys). and I never had to go to CLI on any of my setups. I just download the drivers from manufacturers websites.

I don't know what Sony does with their shit but it's typical of Sony to require proprietary drivers and not supply them or generally make asses of themselves. Usually all prebuilt PC have proprietary drivers, thats why I prefer to build my own box.

Re:The competition is OSX

[cheftw]

Your primary assumption, that CLI is inferior to GUI is fallacious.

That's what is wrong with your argument.

You are more than welcome.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Karellen]

KDE and gnome both exist, but [...] the API is still changing and breaking backwards compatibility regularly.

That is complete bollocks.

The point of the major version number in nearly every piece of Free Software ever is as a marker of backwards compatibility. Version x.y+n will be backwards-compatible with version x.y, for arbitrary n.

If backwards compatibility is broken, that is invariably a bug, and you will usually find version x.y+n+1 released within a day or two fixing back-compatibility. The broken version will rarely make it to any distro's repositories, with the rare exception of something like Debian experimental, which is truly for those who are technically capable, brave of heart, and wish to put themselves in a position to spot bugs like this and kill them before they get close to anything like a normal user.

KDE 3.0.0 was released in April 2002, over 7 years ago. All versions of KDE3 have remained backwards-compatible to that version. Any program written for KDE 3.0.0 will run fine on KDE 3.5.10 (released August 2008). KDE have released KDE 3 updates throughout the KDE 4 development process, and KDE 3 is co-installable with KDE 4. Your KDE 3 apps are guaranteed continue to work correctly under KDE 4, and the libraries they depend upon are not going to break backwards-compatibility *ever*. You can continue to write new KDE 3 apps if you like; they will work fine on old and new KDE desktops.

KDE 4 has similar guarantees about the stability and backwards-compatibility of new releases with respect to KDE 4.0.0.

Gnome 2.0 was released in June 2002, and all versions since then have maintained strict backwards compatibility with it. Any program written for Gnome 2.0 will work fine on Gnome 2.26, released in March 2009. I don't have that much data on Gnome 3 (I don't follow it's development) but there is no way that it could possibly cause Gnome 2 apps to break - absolutely *no-one* would use it if it did. You are free to write new Gnome 2 apps, and they will work for the indefinite future.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

Troll. Windows has a perfectly good gui app dev environment, it's called win32 and you can program it in C/C++ and apps from 10 years ago (or more) will function more or less perfectly (unless they tried to do naughty things in the first place).

What is standard about Qt? nothing, does it come by default on the win32 platform? no, what about linux, nope, not there either, mac? nope, again, because it's not standard, because you have to obtain it and install it, that is why however good it maybe, it'll never be called a standard.

Now, if you try to say, it standardises app dev on multiple platforms, you'd be right, but if you tried to say, it's available on all platforms by default, or as a standard, you'd be wrong.

simple really.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

"Never having seen a Windows PC before, using common sense and your ability to read, you can figure out how to get (almost) anywhere."

That's funny, the same techniques can be applied to GNU/Linux and you will get the same results. Oh yeah, you forgot that treating GNU/Linux as Windows will cause instant frustration, hmm, I thought that would be common sense.

"if you don't know the console command you're looking for and don't have anywhere to look it up, you're SOL, because the GUIs don't fucking work half the time (yes, using Linux _has_ frustrated me)"

That's funny, vim has never failed me yet. I guess you're DOING IT WRONG.

If you honestly can't get anything done without a gui, I hope the devs never dumb down my distro enough that you will be able to use it as you want to.

Re:The competition is OSX

[porter235]

"man man" It is where you can start your lesson on how to use the CLI, and not remember any commands. From there you can learn about "man -k" which lets you search for stuff based on keywords.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anne Thwacks]

I just bought a Fujitsu-Siemens P4, and replaced the 40GHD with a 400G HD. Obviously an OS install was required. (Yes, I have an OEM FS recovery fdisk from my former FS desktop, now dead, and yes it was a slightly different model). The only way to install the correct Windows NIC drivers is to run a desktop application, which fetches them over the Internet (of course, it cant cos with no NIC drivers, yer cant download nout!).

Ubuntu installed in under 40 mins, including applying all security fixes, and was able to access pron^h^h^h^h Youtube with no grief. After installing about 40 apps, it asked for a reboot for some reason. I went to bed and started it the next day.

Eventually I got the NIC drivers by fowl means (Yeah, someone e-mailed me a chicken with the drivers on an SD card clipped to its leg), and was able to get Windows running. Approx two days and 33 1/3 boots later, the urgent updates were complete, and it was ready for use, apart from the limited range of apps (Windows Paint is not all that useful). I asked not to install IE8, but it sneakily tricked me into installing it as a "necessary update" anyway.

Default boot is going to be Ubuntu for now! If i get any of that "Windows Genuine Disadvantage" crap, then I will reclaim the disk space and use it as a dedicated partition for something. Windows is just annoying the hell out of users for no benefit.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Fred_A]

For instance, I've never installed a display driver in Windows that refused to switch resolutions... or rather, refused to switch to the resolution specified. Selecting 1680x1050@60hz and getting 1342x923.345 with 1280x800 shown on the screen (scrollable) at a refresh rate of 67.5453hz is VERY frustrating!

Well either you don't maintain a lot of Windows machines or this is completely made up.
A *lot* of Windows drivers refuse to use the screen's resolution for no obvious reason (there's largely enough video memory and the chipset specs can easily drive the screen). This has happened to me with *3* of the 4 recent machines I had to set up (past couple months), including one laptop on an external screen. (and I did try alternate drivers, alternate setup utilities, etc.)

Granted it will not happen with the latest and greatest from nVidia or ATI but use an entry level chipset and a random screen and you can have lots of fun. At least with Linux you can (admittedly not very easily) *always* set up the damn thing the way you want it. Just put the modeline in the conf file and you're good to go.
No such easy fix in Windows. When Windows says no, it's no. However stupid it may be.

And when I still used my iBook, a number of bugs in Tiger had to be fixed through the command line as well simply because there was no GUI to poke at the config files.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anne Thwacks]

Try to show a black CLI to your mom (non geek I hope)

My Mum was Fortran programmer, you insensitive clod!

Never forget some people have been using computers since the 1950's, when computing was women's work, because it was boring.

My Mum uses Mac and PC, and definitely prefers the Mac. Not sure she (or anyone else) would want EBCDIC and IBJOB on her Personal computer, but CLI can be useful.

Anyone know where i can get a USB 80-column card reader which supports IBM 026 punch code? (029 code is for wusses)

Re:The competition is OSX

[Fred_A]

In my experience, the only really reliable way to update Ubuntu (or pretty much anything for that matter) is by doing a clean reinstall. Assuming you have /home on a separate partition, like you should have anyway (I think this *still* isn't a default choice, which is a shame).

As a side effect it makes it much easier to switch distributions if you feel like it.

Re:The competition is OSX

[bemymonkey]

Vim? This vim?

How the hell is a text editor supposed to help with CLI commands?

As for not treating Linux as Windows... where would you get that idea? It's an OS. Works fine everywhere else...

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anne Thwacks]

Does a Hebrew keyboard have an "any" key? (My UK one doesn't!)

User error - strike user to continue!

Re:The competition is OSX

[Fred_A]

Bullshit. Even setting up display resolutions and refresh rates (don't get me started on xorg and nVidia's proprietary driver) or sound on my setup required CLI in 7.10 and 8.04...

Sure, it's great when everything works out of the box for some people, but everyone else is fucked.

Even then (at least for 8.04), Ubuntu supported the "your setup could use proprietary drivers, would you like to enable them" GUI which installs stuff like the nVidia drivers with no fuss. Are you sure you didn't do things the hard way ?

Sound has been notoriously complicated to set up on a number of chipsets. Alsa has flakey drivers for a number of them and the mess off "universal" interfaces at the upper level doesn't really help either.

Re:The competition is OSX

[s4ltyd0g]

If by discoverable you mean click everywhere until it works, then yes. That's how I find most folks "discover" stuff on Windows.

Re:The competition is OSX

[GeckoAddict]

The difference is in windows, you can look around if you don't know where it is. Hand over a fresh install of windows and tell the user to adjust their resolution. It might take a while the first time, but they'll dig through the right folder/menu/tab eventually. Now fire up a command window and tell them to do the same, and they'll have no idea where to even start looking.

Re:The competition is OSX

[bemymonkey]

I have NEVER had a problem setting up a resolution or refresh rate on a Windows machine. If the option was available in the Display Settings GUI and the graphics adapter and monitor both supported it, the switch was always perfectly fine.

Okay, fine, custom resolutions were a bit quirky with older nVidia drivers (my old 7800GTX, for instance, wouldn't output 1400x1050@85hz properly - but 1400x1050@90hz worked fine), but standard resolutions never caused problems.

I've set up quite a lot of Windows machines, but they have always been (excluding the Trident PCI adapter with 2MB of VRAM I had back in the late 90s) ones with brand name video adapters - always nVidia, ATi or Intel based. And back in the pre-XP days, I never really tried anything funky - it was mostly always 1024x768@85hz on a 17" CRT back then... Maybe that's why I've never had any problems.

Re:The competition is OSX

[bemymonkey]

Actually, I did get the proprietary drivers popup, and I did enable/install them :)

The problem was mainly that setting the resolution in nVidia's control panel (which seemed to have come with that proprietary driver) simply didn't work. The regular Ubuntu GUI for changing resolutions (Screens and something) didn't work either, and most importantly, didn't sync with the settings in nVidia's control panel...

Sound, on the other hand, worked right away - albeit just output. I didn't even try to set up a mic or get low latency recording working...

Re:The competition is OSX

[Locklin]

... Remove Bash. That's right, no Bash, no Korn, no Bourne, no shells of ANY kind. Do that with a fresh install and see if it will run six months, with allowing updates, without any access to CLI.

No problem. But you will have to fix any problems the "windows way" -reboot or format/reinstall.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Fred_A]

Can anyone figure out the Vista/7 control panel without anyone holding their hand?

I really wish (in "complete" mode, or whatever it's called) they'd sort along the columns, starting down, instead of across them. It always makes me feel like each item is placed at random until I remember their weird way of displaying stuff.

That little change would make the whole thing much more usable for me.

Re:The competition is OSX

[value_added]

There's only one situation I can think of where the GUI is better, when I need to select a number of arbitrary files from a directory. Since globbing or find can't be used to quickly match the files you want I find control-clicking a bunch of icons is quicker than typing out a bunch of file names. That's the exception though, the rest of the time the CLI is better.

For a few files, ordinary tab completion is faster and works better. For a lot of files, you have two options:

1. If you're using bash and have mastered the finer points of readline(3), you'd be doing

command [META-*] # dump the current directory contents into the line
foo="[META-*]" # assign the current directory contents to a variable
command X[META-*] # just give me the X files
command Y[META-*] # just give me the Y files
command [XY]*[META-*] # give me both the X and Y files
command [0-9]*[META-*] # dump the numbered files into the line

Note that [META-*] typically means holding down the ALT key while pressing the asterisk key.

Once everything is dumped on your line, you can edit it as you please or just hit ENTER.

2. Use a tempfile

        ls [basic glob pattern] | vim -

You should be able to delete lines faster than using a mouse to select them in a GUI. Granted, if the file list is too long to pass to a command or the command takes its arguments differently, you'll need to iterate over the contents of that tempfile using a construct like

while read line; do something "$line"; done << tempfile

Extra step? Perhaps, but with the tempfile and your history file, you have a record of what you actually did. GUI selection, by contrast, disappers without a trace.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Locklin]

Organising the start menu by software manufacturer name is user centric? Sometimes windows seems easy to use *because you have been using it for decades.* I hope they haven't, yet again, shuffled around the *user centric* control panel. Every time I get asked to help someone fix their windows computer it gets harder to find anything now.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Fred_A]

I have NEVER had a problem setting up a resolution or refresh rate on a Windows machine. If the option was available in the Display Settings GUI and the graphics adapter and monitor both supported it, the switch was always perfectly fine.

Oh yes, that works. But regularly, resolutions *should* be there (like the native resolution of the display) and aren't. And that's where the pain starts.

Re:The competition is OSX

[bemymonkey]

True. However, is this still a problem with DVI?

I've only ever experienced it with D-Sub... and even then, adding the resolution on nVidia and ATi graphics cards was very simple (Intel GMA950 was quite a bit more painful).

Re:The competition is OSX

[edmicman]

I completely agree. I switched full-time to Ubuntu just over a year ago, and for the most part, it rocks. But whenever something *doesn't* work, my google searches and subsequent troubleshooting always end up at the CLI. Just off the top of my head, in recent memory I've had to use the CLI to:

*install and update Firefox 3.5 while 3.0 is still the "default" installed browser
*link my adobe flash player plugin so Opera and Firefox 3.5 would all use the same flash version. Why can't I just install flash, and have everything automatically use that version?
*troubleshoot why my sound suddenly stopped working
*try and get svnserve running so I could connect from another computer in the house
*install the PPA keys from some projects; I think I could do this via the GUI but the instructions I found used the command line, and it isn't really clear on what I'd need to do otherwise

Re:The competition is OSX

[LordKronos]

Just compare the time it takes you to copy a file via the old Windows COPY command versus selecting the file in Windows Explorer, right clicking to copy, then paste, then rename the copy

Opening explorer is as fast as opening the command line. Navigating the folder tree is about as fast as typing your way there, but faster if you don't recall the exact location and need to browse a bit. Copying the file is just as quick too: click, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, click new file (or just hit the End key since the new file will be at the bottom of the list), F2, type new filename, enter.

Re:The competition is OSX

[packman]

Tbh, I prefer to have both. A GUI for quick & easy configuration, and if needed some manual config-file tweaking for more flexibility, but both can be usefull, and both can be terribly designed.

Re:The competition is OSX

[ruiner13]

You'll get things done more slowly, because GUI configs suck, but that's your choice.

No, just the Linux GUI configs suck, forcing the use of console commands. It is that prevailing attitude amongs Linux users and developers that has made adoption by Joe Sixpack painfully slow. My parents have a hard enough time figuring out which window they're typing in let alone hunt through and translate man output for some obscure command line argument switch. I am not suggesting the GUI should completely replace the CLI, but the same functionality should be exposed in both to suit varying users. The common attitude amongst the Linux elite that it should be up to people to learn how to use it mostly on their own or don't use it at all is silly.

Re:The competition is OSX

[edmicman]

IMHO that's usually better than staring at a blank screen prompt not even knowing what command you're even looking for, let alone what options you need to actually use it.

Re:The competition is OSX

[liquidsin]

seconded. when i was working tech support for hp, it was standard practice to have customers start/stop the print spooler from a command prompt rather than the control panel, simply because it was easier to communicate and ensure it was done properly. i never found a customer who needed more than two tries at this.

as to the gp's aversion to learning console commands, that's fine - nobody's forcing you to with *any* modern os, just realize that if you need support with it, the people helping you may think the quickest fix is achieved from the command line. this is true for windows and osx as well as linux.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Cyner]

You don't prefer "Windows", you prefer the system you know. And there's nothing wrong with that! But for people who know neither one system or the other, *nix systems are easier to have someone else tell you how to fix it.

I know many times I have to talk other people through a problem over the phone, if there's a CLI way to get the info, I go for it. Even on Windows, it's a million times easier to say "Start -> Run -> cmd [Enter]" Then type this exactly "... ..."; and here comes the info I need.

The thing is, alomost every problem can be fixed in the CLI in *nix; Windows usually requires the GUI for even the simplest things. Not to mention in Vista/7 the GUI has 5+ more clicks than the same task in 2000/XP.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

"Remove Bash. That's right, no Bash, no Korn, no Bourne, no shells of ANY kind.

No Korn? Dems fightin' words!

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

so you'd rather remember 5000 different menus and where
they're hidden?

Re:The competition is OSX

[bemymonkey]

Yep. I dunno why, but I find them easier to remember ;)

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

Look in the forums of any distro (even Ubuntu) and I bet you'll find the vast majority of the fixes don't start with "goto System->Preferences/Administration ..." but "open a terminal, and paste this into the shell".

Your last point there has been invalidated by posts above this one. The whole reason you are likely to find command line instructions instead of GUI instructions is because CLI instructions are standard no matter what desktop environment the user has or how the user has custominzed the interface. Probably all of that could be done in the GUI, but it's much easier to say "copy and paste this into a terminal" than to say "Do you have KDE, Gnome, or XFCE? Ok, now find your control panel. Now click on this. Now click on that. What? You can't find that icon because you changed your interface? ..."

If the user is asking for help, they don't need to have the command memorized or know exactly what it does. If they can't reliably copy and paste, maybe they aren't quite ready to be using any computer.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Jeff Carr]

The difference is in windows, you can look around if you don't know where it is. Hand over a fresh install of windows and tell the user to adjust their resolution. It might take a while the first time, but they'll dig through the right folder/menu/tab eventually. Now fire up a command window and tell them to do the same, and they'll have no idea where to even start looking.

The same user can do the exact same thing in OSX or linux. It's right there in the menu. System Menu > Preferences > Display for me here, and I have a gui to change my resolution and adjust both my monitors.

In Windows 7, a very similar menu is available under Start Menu > Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Display > Adjust Resolution

My gui seems if anything slightly easier for someone to find, and I'm running linux here. If you can find it under Windows, you can find it under linux.

Re:The competition is OSX

[c0p0n]

But Windows home users will NEVER use CLI. Let me repeat that: Windows home users will NEVER EVER use CLI. In fact most power users don't care for it either.

I am a power user and use the CLI all the time regardless of the OS.

That's because windows's CLI is shite. I have Bash on all machines I have access to for exactly this same reason.

In all honesty I could get away without using the CLI at all, but it's been far too many years using it... many tasks are far quicker to get done on the CLI in any operating system I've used. The windowed interface allows almost the same level of control over the OS, and it's just easier to grasp for non power users. But not more efficient.

A good environment will cater for both power and non power users. Linux-based machines do exactly that for me, that's why they suit me. Windows + bash through cygwin is almost as good and it's what I use at work.

Re:The competition is OSX

[multisync]

how many times have you had to go CLI in the past month?

I use one constantly. An operating system would be pretty useless without one of the easiest and most efficient interfaces ever created, wouldn't it?

Hell most Mac and Windows users don't even know there IS a CLI interface, and they sure as hell don't want to be using it!

When I started using computers, all users knew what a CLI was and how to use it. Now users can't understand why they can't find pdf documents when they use the open file dialog in Word (Microsoft thoughtfully hides file extensions by default). The ability of users to be in control of their machines has drastically decreased since the introduction of Windows 95, precisely because of Microsoft's efforts to hide the basic concepts of how a computer works from the user.

If you can learn to drive a car, surely you can learn to do basic tasks on a command line.

And as far as fixing something that breaks, I would surely prefer editing a couple of well-commented text files to trying to navigate the Windows registry.

I know this will get me modded to hell

Always good for at least of couple of Insightful mods ;)

Re:The competition is OSX

[hansamurai]

Hey, some more anecdotes! Two weeks ago I installed Ubuntu 9.04 64-bit and Vista SP2 64-bit (yes, in that order, beat the Windows grub wipe).

Things that worked out of the box in Ubuntu and not Vista SP2:
1. Networking - had to install my motherboard drivers for the NIC to work in Vista.
2. Sound - again, had to install the motherboard drivers for sound to work in Vista.
3. Video card drivers - in Ubuntu, I clicked one button and they installed the Nvidia proprietary drivers, in SP2, I had to put the Nvidia disc in and tell it to install the drivers.

Dual monitor was just as easy in Ubuntu as it was in Vista, especially with Nvidia. I will admit I used to have a lot of trouble with Ati and dual monitors (got it to work eventually).

Also, WTF is wrong with the command line? File management is much faster, heck, I can edit images from the CLI for my website using Image Magick.

I switched to Linux in March and haven't looked back. Only installed Vista so my wife could play Sims 3... turns out it works perfectly in Wine.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a condescending controlling cunt to your wife, and women in general. Or at least that is what comes across in your writing style.

Re:The competition is OSX

[mario_grgic]

Why would one refuse to use the most powerful interface with the computer. This is THE reason to use any UNIX OS, because it fully exposes all the power in a most convenient way. If you have not yet realized (or perhaps grown up to that level), then you are really missing out. What is it with clicking on pictures that's so appealing to people. It's like being stuck with those picture story books, with pull out characters made for 2 year olds, for the rest of your life. Instead of reading novels and writing.

I use OS X at home (first of all if it weren't a UNIX with the standard command line I would have never switched to it to begin with), and I use the CLI all the time. I spend 90% of my time there. It's just faster to do things there, and not only that, you can do things there that simply can't be done in the GUI ever.

I see OS X users buying simple $30 apps that do things that every OS X user already has (there is usually a dedicated command in the CLI to do it, or and option on some command). It always saddens me to see that. For example, just yesterday I saw someone talking about an app that lists open connections to the outside world, when lsof -i from the Terminal will do exactly that, and it's already there on every Mac.

I guess all I'm saying is that CLI is something you graduate towards, and not something you should be opposed to outright as if it is something that no one should have to do. The most usable interface is not the simplest one, but the one that allows you to do your job at hand. And CLI scales nicely with the complexity of pretty much all tasks that can be done on a computer.

The problem perhaps is that shells are not only something where you can type commands and see the output, but they are also complex dynamic language interpreters, and using them to the fullest requires some sort of programming knowledge. And that may be a task some users may not be prepared to take.

However, I have seen programmers that are equal inept at using the shell and the CLI and who can't even touch type if their life depended on it, and who could be totally paralyzed if they didn't have an IDE to baby sit them. That's something I can't forgive, unlike the average user ineptitude.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Z8]

Do GTK and QT provide APIs for database access, network connectivity, HTML rendering, etc? No... you need Gnome or KDE for that, and they're still in flux.

I'm not sure about GTK, but Qt provides modules for network connectivity, HTML rendering, XML parsing, and database integration.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why everything, from the start menu to the control panel, now has a search bar. And its intelligent enough to know what you're looking for. For example, search for "device" lists device manager as the top result, but still includes things such as adding legacy hardware, adjusting game controllers and the sync centre.

Re:The competition is OSX

[LordSnooty]

Oh, I hate that... rejecting a point on the basis of "ah, who needs that?"

Re:The competition is OSX

[Corporate Troll]

Why? Because she doesn't know much about computers and asks me? Let me put this clear: this has nothing to do with gender. If you're a man and know few things about computers, it's better to ask for help too.

I don't know where the "controlling" comes from? Because I changed one setting on her digital camera? For her own good? You have a weeeeeird idea of controlling....

Funny is that all this shit really happened, and I don't see what is condescending about it. It happend, I didn't make shit up. I don't even make fun of them, I understand they cannot be bothered with technicalities.

So, me taking a bit of time to help these fine ladies out is "condescending" now? I'd call it "helping out" and "being nice".

Re:The competition is OSX

[aicrules]

Yeah you really could have taken his whole argument and swapped the windows and linux references and made that your counter argument. His whole argument is that he's used to one interface which somehow makes the competing interface substandard.

Re:The competition is OSX

[LordSnooty]

Ubuntu has all those point-and-click controls you love, and you're free to use them instead of the shell if you like. You'll get things done more slowly, because GUI configs suck, but that's your choice.

Here's the reason why Linux will never gain traction at the home desktop. The community has no interest in supporting them. If you like GUIs, tough shit, we don't. So Microsoft and Apple will always win. (yes OSX is based on Unix but it takes a lot of people to make it 'friendly')

Re:The competition is OSX

[suman28]

I don't have a Sony/Vaio. I built my computer from the ground up, and yet I had the same problem with Ubuntu as you did. So many people on /. seem to tell you and me that we are wrong, but I have to agree with you. This is one of the primary reasons why I can never get anyone in my house to use Linux, because with Windows, things just work and if they don't, there is some alternative that seems faster and easier at least. You don't have to apt-get this and apt-get that. and still some things just don't work. It is up to me to say, "I guess I have to live without that" or "I will find a workaround for that one day". It is little wonder why Linux is not ready for the mainstream.

Re:The competition is OSX

[coder111]

Try some 2 panel GUI/curses apps like Midnight Commander. Best of both worlds- you have a visible list of files, and you have 1 line of CLI, and you can drop file names and directory names into CLI. I found it to be vastly superior than pure CLI and drag&drop/multiple window/mouse based GUIs. OTOH I have been using norton commander derivatives for >15 years, so I might be biased...

--Coder

Re:The competition is OSX

[Bert64]

How do you check the SMART info on windows?

On Linux i could either use smartctl (from the cli and which is usually installed by default) or install GSmartControl which is a gui based frontend to the underlying cli program. Some distros might ship the gui version by default, tho i'm not sure...

There are probably other graphical tools for displaying this info which i'm not aware of.

Re:The competition is OSX

[AmberBlackCat]

How about "press the Windows key and type..."?

Because in Vista, typing the Windows key will bring up the start menu and if you type what you're looking for, Windows Search will find it as you type. Even if it's a control panel item. Try pressing the Windows key and typing "admin" and see what shows up. Or try pressing the Windows key and typing "firewall" or "solitaire".

Re:The competition is OSX

[Fred_A]

These two are dueling now, but some third OS might have the last laugh here still.

Are you saying some people still run OS/2 ?

Re:The competition is OSX

[Runaway1956]

"Hell most Mac and Windows users don't even know there IS a CLI interface"

You hold out the incompetent users to exemplify what is best about Windows? (obligatory automotive analogy) That's like saying that because some moron can't drive a stick shift, that all stick shifts are worthless. Because idiots forget to dim their highbeams, any car that doesn't dim it's own lights are worthless. Because idiots don't even notice when an idiot light comes on, gauges, warning lights, and warning buzzers are a waste. A competent driver needs only a power train - paint, trim, air conditioning, etc are just extras.

The competent Windows admins routinely use CLI, don't they? Windows is pushing their PowerShell, for administrative use. Even Microsoft is aware that the command line is an efficient, not to mention powerful, tool for administration. There are times when the pretty GUI fails, or lacks a feature, or wastes time. Like the competent driver, just about all that the competent user of an operating system needs is a file system, and some commands.

It's alright that an OS offers a GUI, and tools that enable the incompetent to accomplish a few tasks, and to amuse themselves. That doesn't make the OS "good", or "better", or whatever. That only makes it popular among incompetents and idiots.

Show me a sys admin who avoids the command line. I'll show you an incompetent fake.

Re:The competition is OSX

[AmberBlackCat]

You know, my daughters have been using the Laptop I have running Fedora 10 and they don't even know what a command line is. They mainly use it for email, Facebook, and a million other social networks that don't get the same attention. The only issue they have is apparently they have to restart regularly or Firefox gets really slow. So no you don't need the command line. You just need Firefox and need to have your entire online life exist in "the cloud".

For what it's worth, I have the Linux laptop and a Vista laptop and find the Vista one easier to maintain and use. Probably because I don't have to type in an admin password all the time and the System Restore can actually undo a driver install, instead of requiring me to reinstall Fedora because an Nvidia driver changed an xServer setting and made the system unusable. I'm sure there was a way to fix the system using the command line. But if I did that, it would kill the whole argument about not having to use the command line and it would require me to be able to see something on the screen. You know what, never mind.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Rennt]

A good operating system is discoverable and user-centric

No, a good operating system is flexible and operator-friendly. You are thinking of a MARKETABLE operating system - real men call them "toys".

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

i just had to reinstall a relatives machine after his boy deleted system files at random. of course there is just one account which has administrator access because the owner of the machine doesnt want to be locked out of his own device.

  im fairly sure he wouldnt have had been able to do that without sudo on ubuntu. in nautilus the delete option doesnt even appear when you dont have permission. tryed a restore but it didnt work, so seeing as the machine had become quite crufty we decided to reinstall.

using a sp2 windows cd he was unable to get the sound or video to work and he had a whole week, but hes just a typical user. i had to come round and boot off hiren to identify the hardware before i could finish the job for him.
i had to leave the first time because it took about 4 hours to update security problems after installing (adsl was throttled on peak, and off peak wasnt until 2am). of course once the driver installation binaries were downloaded its was not as simple as running them. that resulted in crashed installers (it was not corrupt). the add new hardware wizard and then the custom / advanced option was necessary. followed by browsing for the inf, etc, etc.

and by the way he had an sis mobo and an ati radeon video card. lucky the ethernet worked or he would have been completely screwed.

ubuntu worked perfectly out of the box, and also includes a nice centralised way of getting all his favourite apps and keep them updated, from google earth to skype. better is that every application he installs doesnt steal all file associations, install an agent that increases your startup time, not to mention the time until everything is actually loaded and working, and uses more memory (and gives you a huge number of things to sort through in the systray (yeah i know it shrinks, but i'd still rather not have 1/4 of the screen width filled with systray apps which is what app installers want to shove on us)).

yeah i installed windows to an 8gig partition and then dd'ed the partition to a file afterwards so it can be restored more quickly, because as we all know reinstalling and reconfiguring windows is a pain in the arse. and it only happed so the boy can play his windows games. windows is worse at everything for which the adults use the computer. not to mention the guy who has to keep it running. ;)

Re:The competition is OSX

[Runaway1956]

An update broke your hard drive? Huh? (sarcasm on) Oh wait, yes, I remember. MS put out a knowledge base item, warning of possible high pitched screeching noises after applying certain updates. The work around is to replace the loose nut on the keyboard. (sarcasm off)

Re:The competition is OSX

[noname444]

Both KDE and Gnome use the FreeType library for font rendering (through other libs, eg. pango).

FreeType has full support for subpixel rendering and renders fonts beautifully on my LCD monitor.

Subpixel smoothing is in most distributions, just like on windows, turned off by default since the technique requires an LCD screen to function properly.

To turn on subpixel smoothing of fonts in Ubuntu (9.04)
Go to System > Preferences > Appearance > Fonts
and select "Subpixel smoothing (LCDs)".

You can also tweak the subpixel hinting settings for your display and to your liking by clicking the "Details..." button.

Re:The competition is OSX

[jim_v2000]

"It's well past Windows in terms of usability and elegance." Oh ho ho, that's a good one. I just got done with a three year fling with Ubuntu and OpenSUSE, and Windows 7 brought me back. It was a combination of non-suck and being able to use the software that I wanted without having to mess around with WINE all the time. Oh, and the whole Mono debate enlightened me as to how ridiculous OSS ideologues can be. It's hard to hang out with people (and Linux is a community thing) that always think that they are being persecuted by Microsoft or Apple or whoever.

Re:The competition is OSX

[SBrach]

No it was Ubuntu,,/a> not Windows.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Runaway1956]

"I think though by accident you have pointed out why it is so damned hard to get Linux guys to "get it". It is because they expect folks to think."

No, I don't. All that I can ever do, is to present concepts and ideas to windows users, such as, "Linux doesn't GET viruses and malware like you get on Windows." But, I don't expect more than one user in 100 to actually think, or to "get it". I CERTAINLY don't expect a windows user to think "like I do". But, it would be nice if they actually had a thought now and then.

Odd, though. It seems that Linux is gaining popularity outside of the US and the old British Commonwealth countries. Could it be that we English speakers are handicapped thinkers?

Re:The competition is OSX

[jim_v2000]

Ugh...that is one thing that bothered me quite a bit when using Linux...every app is either Kxxxxx or Gxxxxx, and you have to install all the libraries for both desktop environments to run them. Then, you have to manage two different sets of themes so that everything doesn't look like crap.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Vectronic]

They didn't leave it out, it was specifically hard to get to, to prevent people accidentally fucking stuff up.

Yes, CLI > cacls would be what most people end up using, but XP Home, was designed so that only an "Administrator" would know how to change those, using either cacls, or preferably the "standard" or suggested way, of rebooting into Safe-Mode, and editing file permission/access/etc from there, which does have the GUI for cacls, on the "Security" tab, just like XP Professional.

This was before Microsoft thought maybe security prompts/dialogs was a better way in keeping newbies out of where they probably shouldn't go. Don't forget that XP is now 8 years old, and XP Home is kinda like using Windows 3.11 instead of Windows NT, instead of XP when it first came out, you can't expect it to have the latest and greatest, because it isn't.

Not to say that XP is as bad as Win3, XP is what I'm typing from at the moment, but the Professional version, because I need/want that control.

Re:The competition is OSX

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Organising the start menu by software manufacturer name is user centric?

That's up to the software developers. Or would you like me to bitch about every app beginning with K?

Re:The competition is OSX

[sgtrock]

I'm guessing that if you give a reasonably smart person a Windows CD and a CD with all the correct drivers (either as executables, or just a big folder with inf files that they can point the Device Manager to), they can figure it out. It's just a matter of navigating through very familiar GUIs - Next, next, install. If you can install software on Windows, you can install drivers.

Well, a fairer comparison from a user's perspective would be comparing someone purchasing, for example, a Dell laptop with Win 7 versus the same laptop with Ubuntu. I would contend in that case that you would find that the typical end user would never drop to the command line in either case. I think it likely that the end user would find the Ubuntu installation a much snappier experience, too.

Now, about the example you post above. Have you tried to install Linux in the past 2 or 3 years? It's been FAR easier to do so using a LiveCD than it has been to install WinXP this way. I just went through this exercise rebuilding a dual boot XP/Ubuntu box less than a month ago when my hard drive failed.

WinXP? Slide in my slipstreamed SP3 disk (which I had to build myself), next, next, next, reboot.

Oops, I need my driver disk for my motherboard because the drivers aren't available from Microsoft's site. No prob, it's right here. Slide that in, next, next, next, reboot.

Now, time to add in my personal firewall suite before I connect this beastie to the network. Slide in the CD, next, next, next, reboot. Set up the firewall with the basic configuration.

Connect to the network. First things first; visit Microsoft's website and pick up all of the OS updates. Meanwhile, my firewall/anti-spyware/anti-virus/anti-malware suite is automatically updating. Reboot (I'm not kidding here!) three more times while my system adds everything.

Oops, I need my driver disk for my video card. Nahh, I'd rather use the updated drivers off the website. Let's see, here's my download link. DL, doubleclick the install, next, next, next, reboot.

Time to add my favorite apps. Visit (in no particular order), mozilla.com, openoffice.org, and cygwin (for those nasty CLI apps that you hate. ;) ). Load them all up.

Now to add the games that are the only reason that I keep this OS around for. Hunt around for various CDs, websites, and what have you to find first the original programs, then the updates.

Bleah. FINALLY, after nine or ten hours of mucking around spread over two or three days I've got a working system with the app mix that I want. Seven reboots before I was done. SEVEN!

Ubuntu? Slide in the latest LiveCD, next, next, next, reboot. Log in for the first time and the system pops up an update notification. Click yes, enter my admin password, wait for the download to complete, reboot. (Unlike XP, this is only necessary for a kernel update. Even drivers can generally be loaded without rebooting.)

Now, how about software? Well, Firefox and OpenOffice are loaded by default, so those aren't an issue. I don't need cygwin because my beloved CLI shell tools are also loaded by default.

I suppose I should add a personal firewall, so let's fire up Synaptic (a GUI front end for package management) and choose one. Let Synaptic load it up. Fire up the GUI for the firewall and choose the basic settings (a task that was also required for my Windows one to get it to run properly, btw.) Hmmm, no reboot needed. That's nice, isn't it?

While I'm at it, let's add the additional repositories that Ubuntu maintains that aren't enabled by default. That's just a matter of selecting them in the GUI.

There are also apps and games that I want that weren't loaded by default, so fire up Synaptic again and browse through the incredibly long list of apps to find my favorites. The built-in Search function is very fast, btw.

Hmmm, this app that I really like isn't in the default repository. However, I've found instructions on the

Re:The competition is OSX

[Locklin]

KDE? the environment where the applications menu is organized by task category? Have you noticed by default, the menu includes both the name and description by default?

"Office" > "kword (Word Processor)"
Yeah, that's confusing.

Re:The competition is OSX

[PitaBred]

Unfortunately, that's because the ATI cards are going through some MAJOR development changes right now. 9.04/9.10, newer (2xxx and later) ATI cards won't work well for anything but 2D stuff. fglrx (the proprietary driver) is going away and is mostly unsupported on newer kernels, and they're making a new open-source driver. But that takes time. If you want something easy to use in the short term, get an Nvidia card or an ATI X1950 or so series card. If you don't mind waiting, about 6 months to a year from now the ATI drivers should "just work" like an Intel card currently does, no need to "try" to get them working.

Re:The competition is OSX

[FishWithAHammer]

Organising the start menu by software manufacturer name is user centric?

No; this is why I said that Windows doesn't do it all the time. However, as another poster noted, the start menu now has a search bar (not as flexible as Quicksilver or GNOME-Do, but good enough for exactly what it's for). Hit the Windows key, type "firefox", hit enter.

The control panel has been shuffled around, but mostly because they added new features. It, too, has a search bar. I don't bother hunting up icons; I just go to the search bar and type "programs" and hit enter, and Add/Remove Programs comes up, etc.

Re:The competition is OSX

[FishWithAHammer]

I know, and I generally turn it on if I ever have to deal with a Linux X session for any length of time, but it doesn't look as nice as ClearType or OS X's font rendering. You say I can tweak it, and I say "but it should just work out of the box."

Font rendering is a real shitshow on Linux (spacing issues, kerning, all sorts of crap everyone else solved years ago), but it is (very slowly) improving.

Re:The competition is OSX

[FishWithAHammer]

Yeah, Mono apps are so hard to write to be both command-line and GUI-accessible!

Oh, wait, they're not.

Yeah, Mono is such a monoculture! It doesn't have support for a dozen different languages, perhaps more!

Oh, wait, it does.

(And it can use Qt too; that's my GUI toolkit of choice in it.)

I understand that you're a Schestowitz-sucking little troll on the same level as Mark Fink, but let's actually have a little bit of honesty here, hmm, fucktard?

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

Since CLI is not necessary in LInux, would you show us where the control panel is that gets everything working on a mouse with more than 3 buttons? And god help you is your mouse has more than 5 buttons!

"Remove Bash. That's right, no Bash, no Korn, no Bourne, no shells of ANY kind. Do that with a fresh install and see if it will run six months, with allowing updates, without any access to CLI."

That's an absurd thing to say and betrays your ignorance here. The shell is an integral part of a Unix system. If you remove /bin/sh, the system will not even boot. Any Unix system will be this way, including OS X, because this specific interpreted language is part of what makes Unix Unix.

As far as not using the shell for day-to-day tasks, you can do that with Linux now. Ubuntu has all those point-and-click controls you love, and you're free to use them instead of the shell if you like. You'll get things done more slowly, because GUI configs suck, but that's your choice.

What may make you believe it's impossible to go without using a shell in Linux is the fact that Linux people tend to suggest typing shell commands when people ask how to fix problems on a forum. This is because the shell is the best, fastest way to fix problems in Linux, even when other options are available, and we won't suggest an inferior solution unless pressed for it.

Re:The competition is OSX

[plague3106]

It's well past Windows in terms of usability and elegance.

Wow, what the fuck are shooting up?

Re:The competition is OSX

[Corporate Troll]

Don't forget that XP is now 8 years old, and XP Home is kinda like using Windows 3.11 instead of Windows NT, instead of XP when it first came out,

XP Home and XP Pro are much closer related than that (XP Home = XP Pro minus a couple features), and you know you're spewing utter bullshit.

The fun part is: to get into "Safe mode" you need to reboot the figgin computer. What a waste of time. If at least the Administrator account could be unlocked as in XP Pro, I might not have a problem with it.

Anyway: the XP Home version is what most peoples computers came with. I can't just say to people I help out: "Go and buy Pro, because Home sucks". That's not a valid way of helping somone. I also don't want to pirate XP Pro just because it has a few more features (of which pretty much only this one is useful in a home setting)

This was before Microsoft thought maybe security prompts/dialogs was a better way in keeping newbies out of where they probably shouldn't go.

I frankly doubt that... They're now just trained to click "Allow". Hardly a better way. I vastly prefer that my users (including me, if I'm not paying attention...because I do run Limited User and only log into Admim when required) get a bland old dialog box saying "Access Denied". It's useful, it's straightforward and doesn't allow squat without logging in as Admin (or use RunAs) and actually think about your actions.

However "thinking" has become undesirable in our society. Back in the olden days, if you wanted to use a computer you knew what you did.

Re:The competition is OSX

[multisync]

I don't _want_ to remember 500 different console command

1. You don't have to remember 500 different console commands. You can simply copy/past the 'lspci -v -v -v' part. Also, people learn by osmosis; they may not understand what the command means - any more than they will understand all the values in the list of ports/interrupts from the GUI - but having minor successes like providing the person helping them with exactly the information they need goes a long way toward making the computer less scary.
2. Is it really easier to remember how to navigate your way through a myriad of menus and icons - or * help you - the Windows Registry? Especially when Microsoft moves things around/changes names with each new version, and hides system files and filename extensions by default?

As far as being frustrated by the GUIs available in Linux, at least you have plenty of choice in GUIs in the Linux world, and the ability to get lots of free support for your GUI of choice. Sure, you can replace explorer.exe with a different shell, but Googling for a solution to your problem will be far more difficult with your non-standard shell.

All of this is moot, anyway. Plenty of Ubuntu users never drop to a command line and are perfectly happy to use the GUI for everything. But by dipping their toe in the shallow end once in a while they can greatly increase their command over the powerful, multi-purpose machine they have sitting on their lap or desk.

Re:The competition is OSX

[linuxrocks123]

Please see [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=28374]. No CLI necessary.

How some people convince themselves they need 4+ buttons on a mouse or 2+ monitors is always amusing to me.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Runaway1956]

Ahhh. Interesting. Glad I didn't run at the mouth more than I did, lol

I turn power management off on my machines, the only thing that ever is turned off is the monitor. (a hold over from the days of CRT's that used more power than all the rest of the computer) If I used laptops, this would be pretty important, though.

Re:The competition is OSX

[FishWithAHammer]

Thank you for once again proving why the majority of Slashbots Don't Get It(tm).

Re:The competition is OSX

[hairyfeet]

Actually I can answer that one I think with this question: have you seen how shitty the average English speker typs? Our typinng sux. Which make CLLI a livingg hell as we hav duh errurz. Dude, which do YOU think is easier for say...little Velma from the Insurance agency. A nice little GUI where she don't ever have to let go of her mouses? Or a CLI where if she types just ONE single thing wrong she can bone shit so damned bad she might as well chunk the box in the trash? I can tell you what little Velma would say, or Larry down the street that just handed me $500 to make a new XP box appear. For them it is 1000 times easier to use a mouser than remember some huge fricking list of arcane commands that if they mistype they are fucked.

But your post shows the other problem with Linux IMHO: Attitude. You see, here I have explained what you need to get Linux beyond single digits. Your attitude? I don't expect "them" to get it. So please, from now on just admit that Linux is an OS for servers and geeks, that you don't WANT mass adoption, and that Windows is superior for home users, which are a good 95%+ of the current Windows market. Because they will NEVER adopt to your way of doing things, ever. Either you adapt to them, or rot in single digits forever. Its your choice, Linux guys.

But please, don't say Linux is ready for home users and then cop an attitude when they refuse to use your shitty CLI interface. And to them it is totally SHITTY. It is hard, it is complex, it is unintuitive, and it is easy to cause damage with. All in all CLI for them equals BAD. Which is why MSFT owns the market. Because you never need CLI in Windows, there is ALWAYS a GUI for every little job that the average user will ever need, and for them it "just works" even if it doesn't work YOUR way.

Re:The competition is OSX

[amliebsch]

How do you check the SMART info on windows?

Right-click the drive from "Computer" and select "Properties." Click the "Hardware" tab. Warnings are reported there, or an "everything's okay" message if there are no warnings.

Re:The competition is OSX

[david_thornley]

Much of what you're talking about is in setting up the system, which is not what most people do. My Ubuntu laptop has wireless connectivity that Just Works, probably because I ordered an Ubuntu laptop from Dell. If I were given some random hardware and asked to install an OS on it, I really don't know whether Windows 7 or Ubuntu would be easier. I've heard complaints from people doing Linux and Windows both.

It's a legitimate point that it's easier to get a system with Windows pre-installed than a Linux distro pre-installed, but that distinction is fading. All you have to know to get a Linux box from Dell is "www.dell.com/linux".

Re:The competition is OSX

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Whattya know, they finally fixed that.

So what keeps a developer from putting their app in a stupid place?

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

>>>> Having to turn off the compositing thingy to be able to use VLC

dude, my 2 cents, but that should be solved if you redirect vlc's video output to X11 instead of OpenGL... at least on my ATI card...

Re:The competition is OSX

[david_thornley]

Oddly enough, it'll work the same way if you tell a user to adjust their resolution on Ubuntu. it won't work the same if you tell the user to adjust their resolution with a command line, but then again it won't work any better if you tell the user to adjust their resolution by hitting the monitor with a stick or if you tell the Windows user to adjust their resolution from a command prompt.

Give the same task-oriented result on Ubuntu and Windows, and you'll get similar results. Probably a bit better on Ubuntu, because it's easier to download and install packages, so you can do a few more everyday tasks from readily accessible GUI elements in Ubuntu.

Re:The competition is OSX

[kamatsu]

0) There is a thing called a POSIX standard which Linux tries to implement, mandating a shell.

1) Putting userland applications spawning straight from a kernel is really bad UI design. Even windows doesn't actually do this, even though you might think so. NT has a sort of magic hypervisor behind it all which fullfills a similar role to the unix shell although it is never seen.

2) Many unix applications and system functions depend on a bourne-compliant shell running in the background

Re:The competition is OSX

[kamatsu]

Ergh, UI Design? I was tired. I meant OS design.

Re:The competition is OSX

[kamatsu]

Linux's GUI configs may suck, but Windows' are DEPLORABLE. OSX is closest to good, SUSE's YaST isn't bad either.

Re:The competition is OSX

[mhall119]

If someone wants Windows tech support from me, it's gonna be via Remote Desktop or a VNC viewer.

Good luck with that.

1. What if their problem is that they can't connect to the internet?

2. VNC isn't installed by default, and Remote Desktop isn't enabled by default.

3. Most people are behind NAT enabled routers these days, so even if the above was available you couldn't connect through to their computer.

Re:The competition is OSX

[demonbug]

Only problem I've had recently with Windows (Vista, in this case... IIRC; not my computer) and resolutions is with a laptop connected to a dock. When it is connected to the dock, it correctly displays on the external monitor at the resolution I tell it to. However, every time I plug it into the dock it changes the settings on the built-in display when I disconnect it, and when I open the screen settings to change it back to what I want there are zero alternative resolutions (I don't remember what resolution it goes to; something like 1024 x 768 on a 16:10 monitor). I seem to have to restart the laptop after disconnecting it from the dock in order to get the display to work correctly.

Like I said, it isn't my computer, so I haven't really dug into it to try and solve the problem. Other than that, I haven't had any problems with resolutions displaying properly in years (I used to have a monitor that wouldn't report its capabilities to Windows, so Windows would always tell me the only supported setting was 640 x 480 at 60 hz after any video driver changes. Easy enough to fix, since you could always just force whatever resolution/refresh rate you wanted and see if it worked).

Re:The competition is OSX

[suburbanmediocrity]

I think that it's a mostly bad idea from a general purpose perspective, but I've worked with a number of POSIX compliant COTS embedded OS's, all have which have bash like shells, but only as an option with the purposed tasks being called directly.

I'd think that it'd be a bad idea to rely on the existence of a shell for an application...but I really don't have any experience here. In my experience, sometimes you want a shell for maintenance purposes, butmore often than not, you leave it out to save space.

Re:The competition is OSX

[jgostling]

On Windows normal users will avoid the CLI because of its sheer uselessness. Compare what you can do on the Windows CLI with what you can do on the Linux CLI, and you see the appeal of making use of it in Linux. Now, OSX being BSD underneath, I would expect it to have a powerful CLI that the power user would make use of. As for me, all my Windows machines have Cygwin on them and I make heavy use of it.

Cheers!

Re:The competition is OSX

[kamatsu]

They can pour their huge profits into improving and making the best OS in the world, and make a truckload of money a year for a hundred years.

Or they can not, and make two truckloads of money a year for fifty years.

Which is better to the average executive who will be there a total of 5 years?

Re:The competition is OSX

[bemymonkey]

Even my parents were able to enable Remote Desktop and install Hamachi with a little bit of coaching via Skype. Et voila!

Re:The competition is OSX

[mjhorn]

Your analogy doesn't fit. The post was not intended to say that because Linux systems can require/be taken best advantage of by using the command line, that they are worthless as you imply. Instead, it says that the use of the command line is something that the majority of the computer using public doesn't care to deal with. That's not to say that the command line doesn't have advantages in any operating system for some tasks. Rather, that the majority of the public has learned to use a computer in one way, and at this point is not ready to transition from that. So back to your car analogy, no, just because a car is stick does not make it worthless. It means that a large percentage of the population does not know how to drive a stick, and does not care to invest the time to learn, as their automatic car functions perfectly well for what they need it to do. Sure a stick might save them a bit fuel wise, or be more fun, but that doesn't mean its by default better for every situation. Also, I suggest you're careful calling someone an idiot or incompetent just because of a lack of computer knowledge. I'm sure there are plenty of things you are not an expert in, but I'm sure you also wouldn't consider yourself incompetent.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFM then :-p

Re:The competition is OSX

[shutdown -p now]

I've always wondered - can you run Wine in SUA?

Re:The competition is OSX

[kamatsu]

Sure, but in a larger-scale unix system, you'd be suprised how much of it is sh scripts, and other things that depend on it like perl.

Re:The competition is OSX

[ergean]

:))

I would like my CLI in windows to work like in linux... but noooo... we want only GUI.

I'm not your average user, but when I go to a client I usually go windows key + R => cmd oh joy...

save the network config: ipconfig /all >netconfig.txt

Oh and my little .bat's that start or stop services, most of the times is the god damn printers that windows XP SP3 broke...

So please stop attacking the CLI, CLI beats GUI anytime any day.

Just try to support someone with no computer experience through a GUI - the joy, THE HORROR!!!!

Or you can just tell them: "Press windows key + R" type cmd enter type ipconfig /all and read me the output.

So my point is if you don't use CLI in windows you are doing it wrong.

Strong points for CLI:
- don't have to memorize stupid GUI and Icon placements
- it's all there in all windows versions
- why go through 100 clicks when you can press a few keys

This is why I love bash... I can run the world with a single line of commands in a console. :P

Re:The competition is OSX

[mr_flea]

Removing Bash (and the rest of the shells) will break shell scripts. Removing the terminal emulators is a better idea.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

A "user centric" system shouldn't need a "search" box. I find it hilarious that WinTrolls go on and on about how awful a CLI is-- until they talk about searching in Windows. Then, it's the bee's knees.

Re:The competition is OSX

[SiChemist]

So, make up your mind. You don't like a text interface on Linux, but it's okay when you use it on Windows?

Re:The competition is OSX

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

I know you have a point in that Linux often doesn't work out of the box, but I'm just responding to say that sometimes it does! As in, I have an old laptop and I can install Ubuntu on it and the video/sound/WiFi all work without needing to do anything other than run the Ubuntu installer. Conversely, I can install using bundled WinXP and I have to jump through a few hoops to get everything working correctly (i.e. I need to locate the drivers and install them). Obviously in the case of the bundled WinXP, it would normally be preinstalled so users never have to suffer this. Oh, and I accept that I'm comparing an *old* version of Windows with a current version of Linux.

But I do feel that the implication that linux *never* installs correctly is unfair. Also (more directed at the GP post), I don't think it's correct that the command-line is absolutely required... it's only when you want to customise things that it is needed, so most users would be fine without. Oh, and I have not found my Ubuntu installation breaking at all after updates but maybe I'm careful with what I install.

Re:The competition is OSX

[FishWithAHammer]

If you don't see the blatantly obvious differences between GNOME-Do/Windows start search and the bash shell, you are beyond help.

Re:The competition is OSX

[davidshewitt]

the shell is the best, fastest way to fix problems in Linux

Agreed. When something doesn't work in Linux, I type the command into the shell and usually get a verbose error message which either tells me what the problem is or allows me to google it to find the solution. Compare that to the Windows gui troubleshooters which say things like "determining problem", "attempting to fix problem", and "Windows was unable to repair the problem. Please contact your system Administrator." Half the time I can't fix something in Windows is because it won't tell me specifically what the problem is!

Re:The competition is OSX

[Elshar]

I can assume they are typical if the majority of devices on which I install an OS have issues after an update. Let's take my three machines, for example:

1) Desktop - Update from 8.10->9.04 broke Hardware video acceleration with an ATI card. Status: Permanently unaccelerated until I revert back to 8.10 (which ain't happening because I don't have the time, really). Not a huge deal to me, but still a 'problem'.

2) Laptop #1 - Update from 8.10->9.04 seriously broke my wifi on the laptop. As in, it's so flakey it's totally unusable. Updating to the latest madwifi (or whatever they're calling themselves now) svn code? Doesn't help. Solution? Revert back to 8.10 (Lots of CLI usage here btw).

3) Laptop #2 - No way in hell am I updating this one past 8.10, with the last two having issues, I can only imagine what would break this time. Audio? Video accel? Wifi again?! 8.10 is fine for what I do with this unit.

I love linux, but really. You NEED the CLI in linux to fix anything which breaks. And if you upgrade, you will very likely be breaking or messing something or another up.

Anyways, my point wasn't updates break things, even though it may seem that way. It's that things in linux can't be unbroken without massive CLI usage and the understanding of the underpinnings of the OS.

That is of course if just a wipe and reinstall can't fix it, which will be the likely course of action from the less savy windows converts.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Elshar]

I could do that, and I'd thought about it. But I just wanted to use it as an example of what I went through (as an experienced Unix/Linux guy), and why you would NEED to use the CLI and have at least a basic understanding of it.

Sure, I can fix most of these issues that pop up, and I've even hacked little patches into my own kernel before to support hardware I own, but I think it's unreasonable to expect the same from your average windows user. Trust me, if it's not just as simple as pointy clicky it's almost too much for them.

Re:The competition is OSX

[shutdown -p now]

Which version? Do GTK and QT provide APIs for database access, network connectivity, HTML rendering, etc? No.

Actually Qt (not KDE) provides everything that you've listed. It's a general-purpose framework, not just an UI toolkit.

Re:The competition is OSX

[SiChemist]

You might want to try No Machine's NX instead of RDP. It works exceptionally well. There's a free version (FreeNX) which also has an Ubuntu PPA. There's Ubuntu documentation here.

There are Windows, Mac, and Linux clients and a Linux server. We use it to allow windows users to run Unix software.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Locklin]

Just like the CLI, you have to *know* to type "programs." If you type applications, software, binaries, or executables, it won't work. That's not user-centric or user-discoverable at all.

Even on my Openbox desktop, I can go to "Applications" and get a list of general categories to find the program I'm looking for. That's because the applications menu (and thus it's hierarchies) are set by Debian, not each individual software developer.

Re:The competition is OSX

[snadrus]

Different Scenarios:
1. Regular use
2. Repair

For regular use, there's no need for the command line / shell. Even advanced users changing resolutions, installing programs, adding hardware never need a command line in Desktop Linuxes.

Then there's the home user with something broken. In the Linux world, a web search often reveals a 1-liner to solve it all or get debug rolling.
Often Windows lacks this documentation, so off to technical support where the walk-thrus are ridiculous and ever-changing. Any admin/tech who has spent time with Windows & Linux can appreciate getting something done in an instant in the command line.

Side-Note: Admins like the command-line for servers not primarily for resources, but for script-ability. Computers were _intended_ to be about automation, right?

Re:The competition is OSX

[snadrus]

Ummm, you know about the Internet?

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

A CLI that requires specific case and specific keywords in specific order without any indication if you're typing the correct thing is in no way comparable to a fuzzy-search finder. It isn't perfect in Windows, but it beats the hell out of staring at a blank CLI terminal.

Re:The competition is OSX

[bflong]

Do GTK and QT provide APIs for database access, network connectivity, HTML rendering, etc? No...

YES. Qt does all those things and much more. It is NOT just a widget library.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Locklin]

Generally, they don't have a choice. The categories are set by freedesktop.org standards and are implemented by the distribution, not the application developer.

Re:The competition is OSX

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Well obviously. A forum is a text based system. Text commands are the easiest way to provide help. If you were getting help from someone in person maybe they'd show you how to solve your problem using a GUI. Describing GUI actions in a forum is much more difficult and error prone for both parties, that would never be my first choice when helping someone on a forum.

Can't say I agree. If you already know exactly what the syntax is the guy should run, then yeah ok, sure, you win. But if you're just trying to get a guy to see where his settings are so he can make his own choices about which buttons to push... then, no. The fundamental difference here is that with a GUI you see what all your options are. With a CLI, you're getting into nuances like non-descriptive flags and even case sensitivity. On a forum discussing GUIs, you end up giving somebody landmarks and having them work it out. With CLIs, you end up having to spoon-feed them. In this sort of situation, and given the non-real-time nature of Forums, you're actually better off describing GUIs than CLIs.

Of course, your mileage may vary, and all that jazz. I do find it amusing, though, that a simple typo can turn good CLI advice into something destructive.

Re:The competition is OSX

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Generally, they don't have a choice. The categories are set by freedesktop.org standards and are implemented by the distribution, not the application developer.

Hmm we're wandering into territory I'm not familiar with at all, so please forgive my windows-perspective questions.

So if I create a new app and make an installer for it, how does that end up on KDE's equivalent of a Start Menu then? Do I have to contact somebody and say "Gimme an OK to be in the Edutainment category", then they give me the thumbs up to get added to it somehow?

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to look back and think of England but since my /dev/bf went the extra mile and tried CLI-TTY I've had the problem licked.

Re:The competition is OSX

[TheSunborn]

Win32? The gui system which don't even have a split pane. (Yes I have developed for Win32, an interesting job but not one I care to repeat).

I can not mention a major application released within the last 4 year, with an interface based on pure win32 widgets. Not even microsofts own software. Win32 miss far to many things. (Even the toolbar in Microsoft internet explorer 6 is different from the Win32 toolbar).

Here is an other example: The menu that popup when you press the right mouse button: Does it come when you click or release the button? Answer: That depend on the application, because win32 don't even handle that stuff.

So if the only standard interface for windows is win32, then I can't mention any major application released within the last 5 years which have used the standard windows interface. Nothing released from Microsoft. Nothing released by Adobe. Not a single 3D editor, nothing released from Apple. Not a single browser. Well nothing (Except google earth, that is the only pure major win32 application I can mention).

Would you call MFC* part of the windows interface? If yes, then how does it differ from Qt? Developers who use MFC/QT both have to download MFC/QT, and both does a static link to (part of) the library, so the user don't have to download anything.

MFC is not part of windows. It comes with Visual studio and you are not allowed to static link to it, unless you have a license to Visual Studio which is in no way part of Windows.

Re:The competition is OSX

[PitaBred]

I get that. My point is that if you buy Linux compatible systems just like you buy Windows compatible systems, you don't have to worry about that. Get a system that is designed to have Linux on it, and you won't have to worry about the CLI and such. You install Windows raw on any machine like you did, and you run into issues with drivers and things like that, too.

Re:The competition is OSX

[amRadioHed]

The fundamental difference here is that with a GUI you see what all your options are

That all depends on documentation. Most of the time when I need to use a command it has a decent man page with a full list of all the options and a description of what they do. Not always of course, but it's pretty rare that I find myself having trouble figuring out how to use a command.

On the other hand, I've seen GUI apps with a bunch of check boxes with obscure labels and no help page. Sure you can see all the options without doing any digging (assuming the dialog isn't hidden behind a horrible interface) but that doesn't mean you have any idea what the options do.

So basically, I don't think it's necessarily any easier to find what you need to do in a GUI vs a CLI.

Re:The competition is OSX

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Considering that, in general, the context of the options are presented to you right away, I'd say GUI still has an edge. Documentation isn't automatically better with a CLI. It's less of a research project to see what's going to happen within a GUI. Heck, it became a de-facto standard to provide GUIs to products.

At the end of the day, we humans still navigate better by landmarks than co-ordinates.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my gosh, I feel really stupid reading you.... I would like to understand your answers as a salesman, something like 'to you, my good people, computers are magic, but to me, as it has been revealed by the great RS, god among gods, and the gods of computer engineering, they are clear as the water thou drink. So, I will install your printer anytime, charging you 150 bucks on Windows, and 15 bucks on Linux, because the latter one is not easier but purer, as the CLI has cleared the way'.

The problem is, no user would accept that... they will even pay you more for an install on Linux than on Windows... that's gotta mean something: that for all of the stupid home users out there, most of them think Windows is easier than Linux. Does that mean that they are even more stupid ? It depends...

Re:The competition is OSX

[ignavus]

I'll do without a CLI when you do without a registry.

Re:The competition is OSX

[LingNoi]

In previous versions of ubuntu i've had to use the command line a lot. However, with each new version I've found myself using the CLI less and less. The latest version of Ubuntu, everything works out the box (including wireless) and I have only used the CLI to fix the sound from breaking. Hopefully I won't need to do that in the next version and then i'll be CLI free.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Pootie Tang]

That's an absurd thing to say and betrays your ignorance here.
As far as not using the shell for day-to-day tasks, you can do that with Linux now.
Your second comment shows you clearly understood the point, so I think the first comment was ... revealing.

If you want to make the argument that the CLI is never "needed" in linux, why not just go directly into that argument? Personally I was not the least bit persuaded by what you said in that regard. The assertion was that a CLI keeps home users away from linux, not that a CLI has no advantages.

Would you like to try again on refuting that? Your initial response seems to fall into the "delusional" category rather than just "fanboy".

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux has no stable, standard GUI application development platform for a start. Yes, KDE and gnome both exist, but no they're not "standard" and the API is still changing and breaking backwards compatibility regularly.

As opposed to Win32s, MFC, WinForms?

Re:The competition is OSX

[DavoMan]

Who cares if it's standard? It still doesn't require a command line in Windows.

A good operating system is discoverable and user-centric. At the moment, the desktop environments available for Linux are somewhat discoverable (but the second you drop to the command line, you've thrown discoverability out the window) and process-centric* rather than user-centric. Windows is not perfect at either task (OS X is much better), but Linux is really, really bad at it.

*: Process-centric operations don't focus on what the user wants to do, they focus on what the computer needs to do to accomplish the task. Frame everything around the user or you'll lose them.

Who are you directing that to? People who make Unix desktop environments like KDE?
You do realize that linux is just a kernel, right? And Windows & OSX have kernels too? You know, there are systems out there which aren't intended to be used by users. So there are other types of things to 'frame' an operating system around. Linux is generic, and not an OS. Linux leaves the 'X-centric' up to the operating system.

Re:The competition is OSX

[hairyfeet]

I have been building, repairing, and networking Windows boxes since Win3.11 for workgroups, and I can count the number of times I have had that happen. It was twice. Once with a really funky ass Via IGP, and the other was IIRC an SiS IGP. Intel? Nope. Nvidia? Nope. ATI? Nope.

So unless you are working with some REALLY old or REALLY shitty hardware I just don't see that happening. Lord I can't even remember the last time I saw a Via or SiS IGP in a mobo. Nowadays you are gonna get Intel or ATI or Nvidia. In fact last list of IGP I saw had SiS at around 0.03% so the odds that you will electrocute yourself putting it together are higher than getting something by SiS.

That doesn't change the fact that the users have spoken and they do NOT want CLI. So either CLI dies in a fire or Linux stays a niche. Your choice, Linux guys. But you can't eat your cake and have it too, and you will NEVER EVER get the vast majority of users to EVER want to use CLI. Because it is shitty. There I said it. It is shitty, unintuitive, and dangerous as hell. One mistyped word in the wrong spot and they are boned hard. Really hard to fuck up an OS with a checkbox or a radio button. OSX costs $1000 entry fee. Windows? $89 minimum, and I'm betting that Windows 7 will be higher. Linux is free. When the two that cost money completely stomp the one that is free? Then you are doing something wrong.

It isn't a conspiracy, it isn't MSFT backing a big money truck up to every door of every user and OEM. Just the other week I saw Woot! offer a pair of refurbed EEE Netbooks. One with Linux, one with XP. The one with XP? Sold out in less than 2 hours. The one with Linux? Even after being nearly $50 cheaper, having bigger hardware, and sitting there for the full day, simply couldn't sell out. Because they didn't WANT it, and I propose that a very large reason for that is all the CLI. But I am willing to bet that will never ever change, and Linux will stay at 2% tops. Why? Well read this post from later in the thread when I pointed out users won't stand for CLI. It is a classic. Notice how he insults the users for not liking his precious CLI. Sadly that is the attitude of failure held by way too many in power at Linux development. And THIS is why Linux will fail.

Re:The competition is OSX

[celem]

I agree with hairyfeet. I use Linux and Windows and have done so long before Ubuntu was on the Linux scene, pre-X when CLI was all that there was. I found XP to be rock solid and my install never crashed, but then I don't play games, which I suspect is the main source of such crashes. I tested the W7 RC and found it to be solid and easy to use. I believe that the market share percentages for desktops will continue much as they are. Nonetheless, I may not buy W7 due to the price. Instead I'll probably just keep a VM copy of XP for the one program that is extremely important to me yet won't run natively on Linux or in Wine. I love Linux but not because Windows is a bad desktop product.

Re:The competition is OSX

[obarthelemy]

Thanks for the tip. But ...

I tried, scrupulously following the doc. I'm getting errors during the install. The first is
dpkg: error processing freenx-server (--configure): subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1

and then a bunch of other ones, and in the end, it don't work.

Re:The competition is OSX

[noname444]

I did a little comparison between Mac OS X and Ubuntu.

Both machines have the default settings for fonts. I have just enabled subpixel smoothing in Ubuntu, no tweaking whatsoever.

http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/7023/fontx.png

My thoughts about the results:

Spacing: The spacing on OS X is obviously tighter than on the Ubuntu machine. I think that the Ubuntu font is too wide, but I also think that the OS X font is too narrow.

Kerning: Both fonts seem evenly spaced and do a pretty good job in this area.

Subpixel smoothing: Here I think that the default ubuntu settings outperform the OS X settings. The OS X renders the font way to blurry for my taste. Ubuntu utilizes the subpixels heavily to create really crisp-looking text.

As a side note I must say that OS X has a lot more of the "durp, fuzz some gray in there!"-tendencies you mentioned in your previous post.

I can also mention that I think Ubuntu usually does a better job with serif fonts than sans serif. I haven't tried this on OS X.

All this is of course highly subjective.

Re:The competition is OSX

[noname444]

Sorry, wrong link.

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/7183/fontu.png

Re:The competition is OSX

[Fred_A]

That doesn't change the fact that the users have spoken and they do NOT want CLI. So either CLI dies in a fire or Linux stays a niche.[ ... ] And THIS is why Linux will fail.

Nonsense. The CLI will *always* be there simply because you can do a lot more with it than with a GUI. Even Mac OS finally acnowledged it. If you don't want to use it, then don't. Nobody forces you to.

The users are indeed frightened of the CLI for some reason, even though as it has been pointed out elsewhere here, in many cases it is much simpler than the GUI (easy to cut and paste a fix for example). Well, tough. All they have to do is not to click on that icon. Just like they won't ever click on the "Administrative Tools" in Windows, even though it has a GUI (that's still incomprehensible if you don't RTFM, figure that).

Sorry but Linux has has already succedeed. Granted it hasn't displaced Windows (but then I don't think it was ever meant to), the only think it was ever *meant* to be, was an affordable (free, really), decent, hackable system. Which it has been for ages.
And the GUI and the CLI already work hand in hand everywhere.

By your own bizarre logic, since Windows has a terminal, and since Microsoft puts quite a bit of work in their CLI, then Linux must have won big time indeed.

Re:The competition is OSX

[metaforest]

Maybe it should be. I can do this in OS X. Without accessing a CLI, BTW. :)

Re:The competition is OSX

[hairyfeet]

See? Even you, an otherwise quite logical and thoughtful person, fall into the trap. did you catch it? Here let me highlight "The users are indeed frightened of the CLI for some reason, even though as it has been pointed out elsewhere here, in many cases it is much simpler than the GUI"

You see, with this sentence you admit that your customer, the users, don't like or want CLI (you try to make it derogatory by saying frightened, but I think it is simply pure hatred for the unintuitive bunch of arcane gibberish that is Unix CLI) and what is your very next words? "Well, tough." And THAT my friend, is EXACTLY why Linux will never ever in a million years even get to 5%. Users tell MSFT with Vista "hey this sucks" and MSFT says "we'll fix it in the very next version" and low and behold, that is what they did. Apple? Have a whole damned dream factory whose whole job is to make the UI experience an intuitive, clean, and well oiled machine. With BOTH Operating Systems one never has to touch CLI, ever.

With Linux the users say "this sucks!" and what do the Linux developers and zealots say? "Well tough! GUI is teh suxorz! CLI is leet and roxorz! Sux it up or go back to Windblowz,LOL!" and you wonder why folks can't even give away your OS for free. if the "well tough" truly is your attitude, then you should join me. Join me in spreading the word far and wide that Linux is NOT for home users, but ONLY for those that are hackers or have IT experience. Because if CLI doesn't die that is EXACTLY what you are saying, because when you say "well tough" to the customer they say "How much is that copy of Home Premium again?". If you want to be like RMS and only care about whether something is "hackable" or not, wonderful. I am truly happy for you. But spreading lies like "Linux is ready for the desktop!" only makes Linux look like shit when the users see what a CLI ridden mess of arcane commands it truly is. If you want to get someone off of Windows, or advocate a non MSFT OS? Then Apple should be what you are evangelizing.

Because I repeat: no matter how wonderful you think it is, no matter how much faster, or better, or more "leet" you think CLI is or what advantages you think it gives you over a GUI, the vast majority, I'd say a good 97+%, will NEVER EVER IN A MILLION YEARS touch that crap with a 100 foot pole. And THAT is reality my friend. Accept it or not, but "Linux is ready for the desktop!" is as much bullshit as MSFT's "get the facts! campaign.

Re:The competition is OSX

[cbhacking]

I've contemplated trying. You wouldn't get all of it, of course - SUA has no audio subsystem by default, although I've heard of people installed ESD - but at least some of it would probably work.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Fred_A]

With Linux the users say "this sucks!" and what do the Linux developers and zealots say? "Well tough! GUI is teh suxorz! CLI is leet and roxorz! Sux it up or go back to Windblowz,LOL!" and you wonder why folks can't even give away your OS for free. if the "well tough" truly is your attitude, then you should join me. Join me in spreading the word far and wide that Linux is NOT for home users, but ONLY for those that are hackers or have IT experience.

But why should people be forced to use a shell in Linux ? Who is there to force them to do it ? I've been running Unix/Linux as my desktop for 15 years and those last 5 years I just never open a shell in day to day use. I install Linux desktops in offices and the people there certainly never use shells. They don't use any in Windows, why would they use one in Linux ? I'm certainly not forcing them to. They run OOo, a web client and a few graphical apps, just like pretty much any random user does. Nobody ever told them that a GUI was bad. What kind of fantasy world did you get that from ?

Because if CLI doesn't die that is EXACTLY what you are saying, because when you say "well tough" to the customer they say "How much is that copy of Home Premium again?". If you want to be like RMS and only care about whether something is "hackable" or not, wonderful. I am truly happy for you. But spreading lies like "Linux is ready for the desktop!" only makes Linux look like shit when the users see what a CLI ridden mess of arcane commands it truly is. If you want to get someone off of Windows, or advocate a non MSFT OS? Then Apple should be what you are evangelizing.

It won't die because a whole class of users depends on it, it's fast, convenient, easy and low bandwidth. The same way Perl-like languages won't die because a lot of people find them useful. Whether random users actually are or aren't afraid of them is irrelevant. Nobody forces them to use them.
Linux distributions that are meant for the desktop currently boot to a graphical desktop that is every bit as usable as any other platform. There's no "CLI mess whatsoever". Just a handful of scripts that are run at boot time. It's all very plain and the user doesn't get to ever see it unless he wants to.

*All* current platforms have a shell and the only one that had a completely broken one (Windows) is finally getting its act together. For some reason most users don't seem to care much and aren't leaving in droves (oh no, there's a terminal, run for your lives). On the other hand, the few who have a *need* for that tool *do* care very much and are probably very happy that MS finally fixed this glaring omission.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

"Linux doesn't GET viruses and malware like you get on Windows." But, I don't expect more than one user in 100 to actually think, or to "get it"

That's a great security concept. I can tell security is VERY high on your priority list, if you think like this. Let me know how the conversation goes with the Titanic sea captain.

Linux is probably gaining popularity outside of US because you non English speaking fucks are handicapped and can't figure out how to manage a windows environment.

Re:The competition is OSX

[hairyfeet]

The reason they HAVE to use a shell is this: it is because Linux developers don't spend hardly any time on GUI tools, and therefor they are piss poor at best. Monitor resolution problem? GUI will maybe fix it 40% of the time. The rest it is CLI. Sound get totally boned in an update (you'll see this one a LOT) then it is CLI all the way. Do you suggest that they NEVER update their OS?

As for you idea that "the only one that had a completely broken one (Windows) is finally getting its act together. For some reason most users don't seem to care much and aren't leaving in droves"? That is because short of guys with Linux IT experience (like you) I have NEVER seen Powershell in the wild. Ever. Even the hardcore gamers and power users, that can twist and tweak Windows within an inch of its life, don't use it. pretty much the ONLY installs of Powershell I have ever seen belong to those that Windows is a second OS at best, and that Linux is their home. That is....what? Maybe 2% of the users if that? Folks aren't running because you can still do 100% of what you need to do, whether it is fix, tweak, alter, customize, whatever, in nothing but GUI without ever needing the shell.

Tell you what, I can come up with a little experiment that will PROVE beyond a shadow of a doubt that Linux is not ready for home users and a good 97% of the general public. Ready? Remove your access to the shell. I'm sure there is some "chmod" voodoo gibberish that will make it so you can't use it, yes? Don't allow yourself any shell access at ALL for 90 days. Make sure that the 90 days includes at least one update cycle to be fair, considering how fast Ubuntu cranks out new versions (instead of actually fixing anything, but that is another story) and see how long Linux is able to remain functional with ZERO CLI access. I'm betting it will go to shit pretty quick, unless all you use the box for is a dumb Internet Kiosk where all you do is surf and use OO.o.

It will fail because what I have said is true: The GUI on Linux sucks and barely covers what you need to do and half asses what little it does. It is because too many developers and users such as yourself think CLI is Leet and good and fast and all that and a bag of chips. But I will say it 1000 times if that is what it takes for Linux users to get it. Home users will NEVER EVER use CLI, and if you give them so much as one of those God awful piles of arcane Unix commands Linux users call a fix? The next words out of their mouth will be "How much is Windows Home again?". It really is simplicity itself, either give the customers what they want or someone else will. You treat Linux and CLI as a religion instead of a product? And watch it rot at 1% forever. Windows is $89 minimum, Apple OSX is $1000 to get in the game, Linux is $0.00, and yet folks will trip over themselves to pay more money to NOT use Linux. Why?

Because they don't WANT CLI, they don't WANT arcane Unix commands, they don't WANT to do things your way, not now, not ever. Either give them what they want, or please stop this "Linux is ready for the desktop!" nonsense. Because they will NEVER EVER use crappy CLI, I don't give a crap if Linux guys think it is the second coming of Christ. They will gladly break out their wallets and trip over themselves to get away from your CLI nirvana. That is reality. Accept or rot, your choice. If you ain't busy growing you're busy dying. And while Linux is growing in places like cell phones (where there is NO access to CLI by the user) on desktop it can't even compete with nearly decade old WinXP. That is just sad when a nearly decade old XP Home slaughters a brand new Linux distro on things like Netbooks. But as I said folks will gladly pay more for less hardware NOT to use Linux.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Fred_A]

Sorry but calling Linux arcane next to Windows is just too bizarre.
I quit using Windows in 3.11 because that's pretty much when it stopped working and used something that actually was logical and made sense instead. Even back then Linux worked way better.
Besides Linux actually comes with documentation, Windows doesn't.

MS user help forums are full of command lines (even though it takes twice as much work to copy and paste). Maybe home users don't like using a shell but they still when directed to do so despite your small sample. And professionals, whatever the system they run use it regularly.

I'm afraid I don't understand your strange arguments.

Re:The competition is OSX

[hairyfeet]

Thank you! I have been wondering why Linux guys don't "get it" and you managed to point out the problem, thanks! You see, even using Windows you are trying to think like a Linux guy, and it don't work. Forums? Tweakers and Linux geeks use forums, NOT average Windows users. If they can't fix the problem with the GUI then it is "broke" and they pay some guy like me to fix it... with the GUI.

I can count the number of times I have HAD to go CLI on one hand, with fingers left over. Can you do the same? Can you HONESTLY say that your Linux will continue to function if you swear not to EVER use CLI for the next year?

But you CAN NOT say that, can you? You can't because Linux is at its heart a server OS and NOT a desktop OS. Just because some geeks cook up a DE does NOT make it a desktop environment! Just look at how Con quit (sorry I can't remember his last name) over the fact that when given the choice of an addition that would HELP the desktop users, in this case by making AV nice and smooth, over keeping I/O high on servers the desktop fixes got trashed. Why? Because the ones paying the bills and calling the shots, Your Red Hat, Canonical, IBM, Novel, etc do NOT give a shit about desktops! Even the CEO of Red Hat came out with a nice interview saying so!

So please, stop the madness. If you think running a bunch of arcane Unix gibberish in a CLI on a server OS is great, good for you. The vast majority of the users have made it clear with their wallets that they DO NOT WANT CLI. Accept it, kill Bash in a fire and work to make a GUI that will put OSX and Windows to shame, or sit in obscurity and accept that Linux will NEVER top 3%! It really is that simple: Kill CLI, or stay a niche. Your choice Linux guys.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

When I started using computers, all users knew what a CLI was and how to use it. Now users can't understand why they can't find pdf documents when they use the open file dialog in Word (Microsoft thoughtfully hides file extensions by default). The ability of users to be in control of their machines has drastically decreased since the introduction of Windows 95, precisely because of Microsoft's efforts to hide the basic concepts of how a computer works from the user.

I'm not following how having the file extensions on by default would help in the given situation if the problem is that they're not showing up since they still won't be showing up.

But besides that, I love how having a new option which can be turned off represents a loss of control of users.

But mostly, I love this whole 'their machine' thing. Especially since it's used in conjunction with Windows 95, since the Win9X line still took this as true. WinNT is a multiuser operating system regardless of how effective at that you think it is; there is no longer such a thing as 'their machine' outside of the possibility of them owning the computer in itself. If they want to own the entirity of the digital space inside the computer as well, they are free to wipe Windows and put a single-user operating system on 'their machine'; as long as they're running Windows, or Linux, or MacOS, or so many others, they have agreed to giving up control of the digital space to the system.

Re:The competition is OSX

[Fred_A]

Ok, You hate shells, you made your point already.

Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

Pull the plug!

Seriously.... they claimed all this same stuff for vista. and we all found out they were full of crap.

7 might be better than vista. but i still dont believe it's the fastest ever or any of their other bs.

This isn't news. it's an ad.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

Pull the plug!

Seriously.... they claimed all this same stuff for vista. and we all found out they were full of crap.

7 might be better than vista. but i still dont believe it's the fastest ever or any of their other bs.

This isn't news. it's an ad.

Have you actually tried it or are you just writing this too look cool (in reality totally stupid?)

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[sopssa]

Pull the plug!

Seriously.... they claimed all this same stuff for vista. and we all found out they were full of crap.

7 might be better than vista. but i still dont believe it's the fastest ever or any of their other bs.

This isn't news. it's an ad.

You might like to actually test it, people have been telling good things about Windows 7, and the interface and updates do look quite nice. Personally I'm using Vista as I never bothered to replace it with XP, so I should notice it even more.

Judging from the article and what I've read before, they've spend time on making sure interface and the system responsiveness improves a lot. That is what people usually consider as "fast", even if its fake-fast it looks faster. Its pretty much the only thing OS can do to appear faster anyways - You cant magically get more CPU power.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, it's the /. 2 in the morning crowd. You think anyone here is gonna look at this even mildly objectively?

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Mr. Roadkill]

Pull the plug!

Seriously.... they claimed all this same stuff for vista. and we all found out they were full of crap.

I guess it depends on what else, apart from the OS, the machine's running in the background and how nicely that stuff plays with others. Microsoft's marketing department isn't alone in being full of crap - sometimes their customers machines are too.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Antony-Kyre]

Yeah. Perhaps 7 is greater than Vista. But, I doubt 7 will be necessarily greater than XP. I wish Microsoft would spend more time perfecting XP, but thankfully you can still get XP via OEM.

Personally, I think speed and performance will be the key to any new OS, not necessarily features.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude I know the FAQs say that this is an "American" site and thus can show an "Armerican Bias" but it is not. "2 in the morning" is only true for a subset of its readership.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anubis IV]

Having not read the article, I do have to say I find it rather humorous that the shutdown benchmark is the one that was cited. To me, that seems like a sort of implicit admission that shutting down is something that will need to be done frequently, though I'm sure that wasn't the intention. Looking at my current uptime, I'm at just under a month up and running right now (on my non-Windows OS), and I haven't been making any special attempt to stay up more than I regularly would...I just haven't had a reason to shut down in that period. Is shutting down quickly something that really matters that much to "normal" people?

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[smash]

Benchmarks might not indicate it to be fastest, but it sure FEELS fast in general use.

This is one thing benchmarks unfortunately do not show, but is where Windows 7 (and FreeBSD as well) excel - responsiveness.

On a modern multitasking machine, I (for one) don't care so much if a task takes a little longer to complete in the background so long as I can carry on working in the foreground.

7 Multitasks better than any previous Windows OS bar none, and I think this is why it "feels" faster. It responds to user input a lot better.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[mjwx]

Seriously.... they claimed all this same stuff for vista. and we all found out they were full of crap.

But Microsoft are doing things differently. They used engineers to sell vista on its supposed merits, now they are using Marketers to sell Seven on its supposed merits. Little wonder they consider Apple a competitor, they're following the same over hype and under deliver business model.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[maxwell demon]

7 might be better than vista. but i still dont believe it's the fastest ever or any of their other bs.

Indeed, they'll probably not get back the great boot time of DOS. Not to mention the instant shutdown! :-)

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[fregare]

It's 3 in the morning you insensitive clod. I live in the NYC area and this is surely the nexus of the Universe. Who cares where anyone else lives?

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[maxwell demon]

Personally, I think speed and performance will be the key to any new OS, not necessarily features.

What's the difference between speed and performance?
BTW you forgot security.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

no but you can reduce the 800MB worth of bloat it loads on startup. that would do a lot to get from bios screen to desktop logged in a lot shorter.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

You're talking out of your arse mate.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[rolfc]

Usually, I leave the computer on, but sometimes I need to reboot, because the machine get slow, memory is used up and it start to swap. I avoid doing it because it take the machine 5 minutes to go down and 2 minutes to start. Compare that to 20 seconds to go down and 20 seconds to boot for my portable with Ubuntu.

There is the explanation for the shutdown benchmark.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[karstux]

I like to conserve energy, so I don't leave my PC running when I'm not using it. I also don't use "standby", it's a useless power draw. When the PC is off, I physically separate it (and all the periphery) from the grid - so I do have to wait until shutdown is complete.

Hence, like booting up, shutting down is something I do once or twice a day, and it's comfortable to have it out of the way as quickly as possible so I don't have to sit around twiddling my thumbs.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Antony-Kyre]

For speed, I'm thinking about fast it takes to perform certain tasks. For performance, how well it handles under certain loads.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[p.emil]

Judging from the article and what I've read before, they've spend time on making sure interface and the system responsiveness improves a lot. That is what people usually consider as "fast", even if its fake-fast it looks faster. Its pretty much the only thing OS can do to appear faster anyways - You cant magically get more CPU power.

I agree. You can't get more CPU power just by installing a new OS. However, an OS can improve the utilization of said CPU - which is the case with Win7, Vista's CPU utilization was a joke IMO. I myself will try Win7 when I get the chance, but I don't think that I will change my main OS. GNU/Linux & Mac Os X

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[smash]

I've been running 7 for the past 4 months, mate. Have you?

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

sometimes I need to reboot, because the machine get slow, memory is used up and it start to swap

How about using an OS that doesn't degrade while sitting there doing nothing? A well-behaved OS doesn't need to be rebooted "just because", so shutdown time isn't an issue.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[petermgreen]

Yeah. Perhaps 7 is greater than Vista. But, I doubt 7 will be necessarily greater than XP. I wish Microsoft would spend more time perfecting XP, but thankfully you can still get XP via OEM.
For the moment yes but how long will it be before MS pulls the plug on that and forces everyone who wants XP on new machines to buy volume licenses?

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Corporate Troll]

BTW you forgot security.

A fully patched XP SP3 running as Limited User is not secure? I have some workstations who beg to differ. Not even a slowdown over the years is noticable on those. They're locked down, but that's technically what Vista and 7 do too...

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

You cant magically get more CPU power.

These days I hardly ever get up to 25% CPU usage. And yet my machine crawls. Either hard drives have got a lot slower, or software spends half its time phoning home over the internet (Visual Studio I'm looking at you!) and getting confused whenever there is a problem with the network somewhere on the planet.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Antony-Kyre]

To fear or not to fear Linux: that is the question.

Whether Microsoft will see Linux as a threat and continue providing OEM versions of XP, or if they hope Windows 7 will be superior to our penguin alternative.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

you are obviously a m$ hater and haven't run windows 7.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[edcheevy]

Yeah, I was too lazy to remove Vista from a new machine I ended up with (it works well enough) so I jumped on the Win7 RC. It works great, just be wary regarding Homegroups. When they work they are easy as pie and useful, but if they get screwed up they can take down everything they touch.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[edcheevy]

For the anecdotal record, I installed the RC on my ye olde underpowered XP laptop (512 MB RAM) and with the bare bones, stripped down setup it runs about the same as it did using XP. If nothing else, the fact that I've left it on for 3 months underscores my lack of desire to return to XP.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[kamikaez]

You might like to actually test it, people have been telling good things about Windows 7, and the interface and updates do look quite nice.

You missed the point! CNet and PC World seems to be very much just reproducing Microsoft's marketing material, just like they did when Vista came out.
And the benchmarks doesn't prove anything, if you ignore shutdown time, it looks to be slower overall then xp AND Vista..

And since Vista came out, both Linux and OS X have improved tremendously when it comes to performance and boot times.
Is Snow Leopard mentioned anywhere or compared to earlier OS X versions + all the Windows versions? NO..

Sincerely yours,
Vista 64bit user

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand how anyone who has tested Windows 7 can think it is fast, unless they're only comparing it to Vista. Windows XP runs circles around Windows 7, especially on systems which don't have plenty of RAM and multiple cores. There are some nice things about Windows 7, like better native support for modern hardware, obviously, but there's very little reason to upgrade if your Windows XP system runs fine. Speed is certainly not a reason to upgrade, because it would actually be a downgrade.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Twinbee]

Hardly 'fake' imo. 'Invisible' latencies (say 0 - 0.5s) are anything but if you look out for them. Even if you don't, they play on the subconscious like a dripping tap.

One day, button mouse down will activate buttons and other GUI widgets. That in itself feels much nicer than waiting for the LMB to be released. Chrome uses this for its tabs, and it's so much nicer.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[sopssa]

Yeah that was my point aswell :) Just the nerdy way of thinking speed increase as cpu actually doing something faster, instead of seeming to make it faster by increasing responsiveness (which actually is really important)

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Twinbee]

:) Glad to hear you think these small latencies are important too.

Because they're typically hard to measure and sporadic (with the smaller ones not even consciously noticed by many), I tend to think it's a very under-rated and unspoken about metric (similar to the way input lag was 'unknown' and argued against on some LCD monitors for a while).

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[billsnow]

I didn't think it could be all that much better than XP either.

Two weeks ago I set up a new machine and installed XP. After installing all the necessary extraneous software I needed and updates and stuff the machine was a dog (like 5-10 mins to desktop) 5 days in. I never noticed this ever happening in XP before, but then again, the software was newer, so was the hardware (should make it faster, no?).

I've never used Vista, but when I decided to try Win7 RC x64 on this system, same software and hardware as the XP system before it, I thought it was a gamble I would pay dearly for. Not true. Win7 is much faster than XP. Only thing: why doesn't my 3com 905tx work in Win7? I never thought I'd find an OS that didn't support it out the box.

And before you tell me I did something wrong on my XP system: you're wrong. Ask around, Windows 7 is better than XP.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[rxan]

If he had said this about Linux he'd be modded a troll here on /., but instead he's modded insightful.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[dasmoo]

Did they change the explorer back to something that can be used without awkwardly looking at the buttons for a half hour? That's the slowest part of vista in my opinion.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[mdwh2]

This isn't news. it's an ad.

Wait - a review of the finished latest release of the most dominant OS on the planet, from the biggest software company in the world, isn't news? Yet the daily stories we get of every possible random rumour about the Iphone and the "[do mundane activity] On Your Iphone!" stories we get aren't advertising?

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[rolfc]

I do use that as well. In order to be a good deliverer of IT, I use what our clients use so that I have the same problems as they do. I would like to put them all on Linux, but there is a lot of resistance.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

how about you try it before criticizing?

and it's just an anecdote, i know, but I've gotten 7RC running on a machine vista would laugh at, and running better than either xp or vista ever ran on my main computer.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[mutu310]

Fastest Windows to shut down was Windows ME, closely followed by Windows 98. This basically involved a blue screen appearing before you even click on the start button, after which you press either the power button (to shutdown) or the reset button to reboot.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

You cant magically get more CPU power.

You can, and no magic is required. Just waste fewer CPU cycles, and viola (and cello, too) - more CPU power for your task.

But then, we are talking about Windows here (DRM and more DRM), some magic will be needed, indeed.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it kind of is. Remember one of the biggest issues with Vista was its notebook performance. My development machine for better or worse is a laptop, and we take them home everyday, so I personally shut down once a day when i disconnect for the day. As far as desktops are concerned, yeah, shut down is pretty much unimportant these days. Notebooks are a different story. I still agree, thats a funny benchmark to cite, but I will be happy to be able to not wait 5 minutes to shut down my machine, and XP is getting a bit old in the tooth here. So, if "normal people" are running a notebook, then it might matter more I guess.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[RedK]

You missed the point! CNet and PC World seems to be very much just reproducing Microsoft's marketing material, just like they did when Vista came out.

Are you even surprised by that ? CNet and PC World are the biggest Microsoft shills of them all. They've been doing this since the beginning of times.

I'll say it again, pre-release Hype of a new Windows release is always like this. Windows 95 Betas, RCs, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP... always the same story : "Best ever release of Windows yet! Stable! Fast!". Then reality hits and everyone finds out the new release is more bloated than the last. A few useful features were added, some useful features were changed into unusefulness and generally people start to say they miss the old version. Some go back. A few years later, when hardware specs have changed enough, the new release is ailed as the best Windows ever, the next one won't be as good, then the pre-release hype begins, and there we go again.

I know the Microsofties on here don't like to hear it but that's how it is. Every. Time. Windows XP was ridiculed on release, it was called bloated, heavy and fisher pricey. People stuck with Windows 2000 for productivity and with Windows 98 for gaming. Now you'd be hard pressed to find anyone would doesn't just love Windows XP, "it's the bestest evAr!".

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[rgviza]

"You cant magically get more CPU power."

Sure you can, get rid of the bloat caused by features that users never use, asked for, or wanted. Then, out of the box, turn off all services not necessary for the user to boot up, and train the OS to turn them on as the user uses stuff that needs them, instead of defaulting every whiz bang service to on.

It's not magic, it's common sense.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

When you're required to take your laptop home from work everyday, the shut-down time is important. My current XP laptop takes 2+ minutes to shut down completely. Most of that is because applications fail to close correctly and I have to click through a ton of "End Now" prompts to get the machine to power off, if that is fixed in Win7 it would prevent a lot of cursing at my laptop.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[slack_justyb]

You cant magically get more CPU power.

Very good! Instead of fake fast, magic fast, ninja fast or whatever you want to call it; how about "We reduced the number of system calls need to power down the system from a number represented by a Mersenne prime number, where the exponent approached infinity, to 3. Thus really reducing shutdown time by a factor close to infinity."

Seriously, you can not make the CPU of a computer faster, but you can make the code more effective. Windows has set the pace of code bloat at an exponential rate.

and the interface and updates do look quite nice.

making sure interface and the system responsiveness improves a lot.

I have had the wonderful chance to toy with Win7 at work. The thing can not crunch numbers, period. So let me buy a new computer while I am getting a new OS! Wow, that is a real selling point for me as a buyer. Pass. The machines we have must last longer. Buying new shiny machines is not the answer, not while the mantra is save money like you would save your job. The machines we have run Win7 like poo. So Win XP will continue to dominate our buildings. The company I work for runs on more than just nifty Interfaces and pseudo-looking-quickness. Seriously, try running Windows7 with an old 16MB VGA adapter, just so you can get a good feel of how Microsoft makes things look fast but really everything is just dog slow. Seriously, how much can you offload to the GPU? Why is Microsoft adding code that is only meant to be offloaded in the first place? Why in the name of Jebus are they making that code so core to the operation of the OS? Yeah, I know Mac OS X has got Aqua, Linux has Compiz, so MS had to just go out and get Aero! Blah, blah, blah, it is all fluff and just rises the cost of hardware I need to get simple tasks done. Besides, the other two do not force the slowness down your throat, they tend to make it a separable part of the OS. Do not just turn off Aero, actually keep everything the same in your system except put a old PCI VGA 16MB video adapter in place. Watch and have fun.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously youve never used a real multitasking system.....Windows all version and 7 included are dogs compared to REAL multitasking OSes.....(read Linux and OS-X)

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

Judging from the article and what I've read before.

Viral marketer! Nobody reads the article on slashdot.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Saint Fnordius]

I tried pulling the plug on my work laptop, but it just switched to battery power.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[iamhassi]

"7 might be better than vista. but i still dont believe it's the fastest ever or any of their other bs."

1. Create and sell crap OS
2. Tell everyone OS fail
3. Upgrade OS, tell everyone new OS and sell again
4. Profit!

Seriously though, can I get the last 3 yrs of my life back wasted with Vista? Laptop didn't offer XP drivers, only vista, so I couldn't even downgrade, and now I have to buy a new OS because Vista is absolute crap. I'm really wondering if Windows 7 isn't just more crap so they can come out with a "new" OS in another 3 years and force us all to buy that because "It's faster, no really we promise! The blogger we paid off says so!"

Google, please hurry with the Chrome OS, I'm so ready to give up on Windows and I know there's a Linux community but it's somewhat fragmented and 99% of the time I start Windows, open the Google Chrome browser and go straight to Google, might as well have the OS.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[GameboyRMH]

Not really, they've made some improvements but it's still going to take a good bit of re-learning. The interface is mostly an improvement once you get used to it, I just wish they'd just fix the find algorithm, it seems to be running in "idiot mode" with wildcards, metadata search and other advanced features deeply hidden or totally absent. I'd love to get Win98's find tool in Win7.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

You cant magically get more CPU power.

But you CAN reduce bloat. Making it slower than XP and then saying "well it's the CPU's fault!" is a logical fallacy.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Real1tyCzech]

Not to trounce your anonymous anecdote with mine, but I have to back this up.

My HP laptop (1GB of RAM, 1.6GHZ Single-core, Ati Mobility 200M) ran XP like a dog and wouldn't Run Vista at all in any way, shape, or form.

Windows 7? Works. At least...better than XP. Aero enabled, even.

That said, it's a piece of junk, so it doesn't run *anything* super-fast, but considering it's got worse specs than most "netbooks" out there and I can run multiple apps? Not too shabby.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Brian Feldman]

There's no reason to purposefully use a mid-1990s graphics card. Thanks for wasting everyone's time with your post.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

if you ignore shutdown time

In fact, the horrible shutdown time for XP might very well be fixed by this addon from Microsoft. It's strange that so few people seem to know about it. It tends to fix problems with Windows 2000 or XP appearing to "hang" for about 30 sec. when trying to log off.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Runaway1956]

"it looks to be slower overall then xp AND Vista.. "

Well - that isn't my personal experience. Win7 has disappointed me in a few respects, but overall, I think that it is as fast as XP. I don't rely on benchmarks - user's subjective experience takes priority with me.

Some programs and utilities seem to break Win7. Avanquest products, for instance, produce some odd results on 7. But, I'm confident that things like that will be fixed.

The thing that I like best about Win7, is that it will run on almost any hardware with a 1Ghz+ CPU, unlike that abomination they called Vista.

Like yourself, I don't rely on reviews found on the web. Far to many reviewers are getting kickbacks in one form or another. (free equipment for testing purposes, early access to new software, maybe even invitations to events with free booze and wild women - who knows what the "big guys" get in exchange for their advertising?) I have to test drive stuff myself. I've installed and broken Win7 at least 8 times now. (No, I don't really count the instalations.) If/when I decide to install Win7 onto a machine for other than test purposes, I'm confident that users will consider it to be equal to XP. Those who fall in love with eye candy will think it superior, but that's just a matter of taste, rather than usefulness.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Most "normal" people actually turn their computers off when they're not using them, like during work hours or when they're sleeping. They don't need the computer up during that time (unless they're downloading something), so it gets shut off.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Totenglocke]

Use it on a high end system. I've run XP since it came out on various systems and it's been great -- however, you wouldn't believe how much more responsive Windows 7 is on the same system. The reason? My current desktop (which was XP until the Win 7 RC came out) is a quadcore and XP just doesn't do a very good job of load balancing across the cores. XP could say 25% of my total CPU power is being used while two cores are idle, one is at 10% and the other is at 70% (picking out numbers, I forget the exact numbers, but it was similar). On the same system running the same programs (and as close as I can make it with background processes) if Win 7 says 25% of total CPU power is being used, ever core is at 25% (or maybe one is 24% and another is 26%). It's much more responsive than XP and once the superfetch (or whatever it's called) learns what programs you use most and when you use them, programs launch noticeably faster.

I've promoted Linux to friends and family for a long time but always had Windows on my desktop because it's my gaming rig. However, I actually intend on buying Windows 7 when it comes out because it really is worth the money. In all the time I've been running Windows 7 on my laptop and desktop (sole OS on both systems) I've had a whole two crashes and that was when Win 7 was still the 7000 build beta - not the RC. Since the RC has come out I've had no problems at all -- even programs that wouldn't run under Vista run just fine under Win 7.

Try it before you bash it. For the first time in a long time (if ever) MS has finally done things right.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you totally missed the entire point. I take that back. I know you missed the entire point. Thanks for wasting my air.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[CodingHero]

And the benchmarks doesn't prove anything, if you ignore shutdown time, it looks to be slower overall then xp AND Vista..

It's a given that as newer operating systems come out, the requirements tend to get steeper and performance worse (assuming you hold processor power constant). Given the above argument, perhaps we should all go back to DOS 6.22 since it has the best performance of any Microsoft (and probably Apple or *nix) OS since 1995!

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[eXonyte]

While it may work well for things like tab switching, mouse down activation will never be the case for buttons. The current method of LMB up activation allows a sort of "cancel" behavior a user accidentally clicks the wrong button. You simply continue to hold the button, drag the mouse off of said button and then release.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[david_thornley]

Right, and responsiveness is what gave me my biggest negative feelings about Vista. All too often, it would just stop for one or two seconds. This isn't a problem for virtually anything that doesn't directly interact with the user, but it really sucks in user-facing apps. For whatever reason, it's doing it less now, but so far today it's wigged out on me a couple of times. This isn't an issue I've had in Windows 2K, Windows 95, Windows XP, or Windows for Workgroups 3.11. Or, for that matter, Fedora, Ubuntu, or any version of Mac OS or Mac OSX. (Note: all evidence here is anecdotal. The plural of anecdotal evidence here is "Vista's a dog", not "data".)

If Windows 7 rewrote the scheduler to say something like "It's David's computer, let's pay attention to David as much as possible", that constitutes a major advance in usability.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, for a laptop owner shutdown and startup time are very important (or hibernate and resume time as the case may be). However what is important is the time to shut down with apps running, and the time to startup, login, open apps, and have all startup processes finish. There is no way they had a shutdown less than 6 seconds when office, a media player, and an internet browser are all open. What's more, the improved shutdown time probably comes at the expense of the full startup time (including the login and such that I just mentioned) which is probably more aggravating in my mind.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Twinbee]

Yes, I've heard that before, but it doesn't make much sense. And the reason is because the time that's used for that realization (which is a small fraction of a second), can be used in the new way to simply think further before pressing. In other words, it's effectively exactly the same, with no amount of time lost in the new approach.

Anyway, that would be for the uncertain cases. For the certain cases, one can happily press that button without even that 0.1s thought. And if you've seen Chrome, or something like the 3D Blender interface, you'll know that it feels much more responsive and nicer to use.

People would just need to get out the habit of the old way.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

I read "Final version of Windows" and though "ABOUT TIME!" but then there was that 7. So... only a final version of 7. Not 7 SP1-SP8, 7.2009, 7/2009.1, 7/2010SP2.384, or whatever naming convention they come up with for all the versions after this beta software is released to the public for its for-pay joy of testing and monopoly-enhancement.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny that you mention shutting down, since those "non-Windows OS" usually can't do standby properly

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[kamatsu]

OSX has good multitasking? Really? Ever actually used Mach?

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

Those are exactly the same things. Nice try at backpeddling though.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with parent. Windows 7 is a lot better at catering more to the user and less to the background processes. It's like they've finally realized that desktop machines are sat in front of and used, not left in datacenters...

P.S., nice UID.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Patch86]

Most of my myriad computers (laptops, for example) don't need to be left running. My laptop only needs to be on when I'm using it, any other up-time is wasted power. Standby/hibernate are fine, but a poor second in most respects to just having the thing turned off. Fast shutdown and startup are important for that.

Unless my computer is actually doing something over night, it goes off. I for one am hugely enjoying Ubuntu's recent improvements in startup and shutdown, and I'm sure I'd welcome it in Windows too.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

im sorry, but when you shut down your computer, you sit there and wait until its completely off before you leave?

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[tunapez]

You might like to actually test it, people have been telling good things about Windows 7...

I've been doing just that for about 10 weeks now.

3 unanticipated super-duper fast power-offs. Despite the fact I unchecked "Auto restart" in Startup & Recovery... no log files to be found, my ATI chip has a known & ongoing issue with all Mojave drivers. And Linux, too! Didn't do my homework before buying, my fault(?). The drama continues...

Despite disabling the encryption services, a couple html files became encrypted when transferring to a flash drive. Strange and scary b/c I had no cert or key. I enabled the services, started encryption on the folder, then de-encrypted and I got the files transferred. Don't know if it was drive wide, but my slave/data drive was accessible un-encrypted on the LAN. Disabled services again.

The new taskbar seems counter-intuitive; you have to chase around a target icon if another app bar is resizing on open/close. Then Show Desktop is waaaayyyy over by the clock, where you rarely scroll anyway. Easy Fix: Disable and reinstate Quick Launch.

The UAC(User Allow Conditioner)is more tune-able. I prefer it to join the other Windows "Security" Features: disabled and/or replaced.

Worst of the worst is the gawd awful indexing/calculating anytime you move/copy/paste/delete any file bigger than ~100 MB to another drive. Whether it be to a different internal drive, a USB drive or a network share it wastes alot of time(then gives a max of 100Kb/s transfer speed across LAN???). It's faster to use a USB Flash drive on Vista... remember? This is NOT Vista. Wink, wink.

All in all, it's a decent OS. It does shave a few seconds off shutdown and even more noticeably on the start up compared w. XP SP3. Less skill required to manage than a Linux install, alot of the Vista re-organizing of files and features was/is a bit counter-intuitive, IMO. For the Tech deficient it will be a challenge. Alot of unnecessary features, but MS has to justify new licensing and keep themselves relevant in the market place. Their market share will probably suffer less than Vista debacle, I hope they know a 3rd "candy-coated" non-upgrade will not save them from the next iceberg.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, cnet sucks donkey balls. And as they say, can't polish a turd, I bet vista v2 isn't too much better.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[bigngamer92]

He never said they weren't advertising. You could make a case that articles about the latest linux kernel are advertising.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

You might like to actually test it, people have been telling good things about Windows 7, and the interface and updates do look quite nice.

You missed the point! CNet and PC World seems to be very much just reproducing Microsoft's marketing material, just like they did when Vista came out.

And the benchmarks doesn't prove anything, if you ignore shutdown time, it looks to be slower overall then xp AND Vista..

And since Vista came out, both Linux and OS X have improved tremendously when it comes to performance and boot times.

Is Snow Leopard mentioned anywhere or compared to earlier OS X versions + all the Windows versions? NO..

Sincerely yours,

Vista 64bit user

They need to put a benchmark on startup time as well - especially with the added security features and AV stuff that Windows simply cannot live without.

Compare that with the latest OS X or Ubuntu (esp Mint version - thats pretty slick). Till then, all this is just BS

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[harlows_monkeys]

Seriously.... they claimed all this same stuff for vista. and we all found out they were full of crap.

Who claimed this for Vista? The early reviews were not very positive. It wasn't until after a service pack or to that the major tech reviewers and bloggers started saying Vista was worthwhile.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[colinrichardday]

He doesn't want to unplug it before it shuts down completely, that whole separate from the grid thing.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[smash]

See sig. Clown.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[smash]

Windows 7 did include a scheduler re-write. They got rid of the dispatcher lock (whatever that is). All i know is its a lot smoother.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Antony-Kyre]

That assumes my computer has the minimum hardware requirements for Windows 7, which it doesn't.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Your.Master]

Speed is a strict subset of performance. I'd pretty much take speed to mean throughput, possibly latency, and perhaps perceived performance not covered by the aforementioned. But performance also takes into account memory utilization, HDD footprint, peak electricity consumption, battery drain, potentially wear & tear (eg. excessive SSD writes), and many other factors.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Totenglocke]

I assumed that, being a nerd, you'd at least upgrade every 6-7 years......the majority of people who think IE is "the internet" get a new system more often than that.

And yes, a 6-7 year old system should be able to run Windows 7.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

OK- I just stopped reading the second you said "replace it with XP". Ok- Ok- i did get keep reading but seriously. You do realize that while you can't magically get a faster CPU you can certainly better utilize the CPU that is available. Microsoft isn't optimizing it they are just hiding behind slow and buggy code like always. You can't actually use your computer when it is "fully loaded" despite the initial appearance of it .

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Antony-Kyre]

I may regret mentioning this...
512MB of RAM,
4MB of shared video I believe,
900MHz processor.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Marticus]

This could cause issues with any controls that perform different functions when dragged or clicked.

There are a number of controls that do respond on a simple mousedown event (such as menus), so it's would be just a matter of redefining which controls are necessary to wait for a mouseup, which would then necessitate users remembering which is which.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[AlgorithMan]

This isn't news. it's an ad.

that's why it's on CNet...

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[AlgorithMan]

he didn't say "win7 is done" was no news... he just said that this particular CNet article isn't a news-article, but an advertisement...

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Finite9]

and since when was Cnet impartial? As far as I can tell, they have always written pro-microsoft articles and cannot be trusted.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

That actually happened to me regularly with Windows 98. It was not the best of times; it was the worst of times.

Never had a problem with WinME, though.

Re:Fast way to shut down!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have 7 running on an old Compaq laptop. 1.4 Ghz Pentium 4m, 384 MB of RAM. It works better than XP did on that box. Startup takes longer, but once it's running it runs well. I also have it running on an even older Dell laptop, 2 Ghz Pentium 4 Mobile (what a misleading product name btw), 1 GB of RAM. I used that as my primary desktop from the time of the official Win7 Beta build, through RC and then to RTM. Running the full Office 2007 suite, it works really well. The one and only problem with it has been that the laptop video card is so old that it has no drivers, but I spend most of the time using it via remote console anyway.

So yeah, don't bash it until you've tried it. The interface is different and took a few weeks to get used to, but after 8 months of using it on low end machines, I'm *very* impressed with the job they did. It's not perfect, but it's the best Windows desktop experience I've had yet.

Great goals

[icebike]

> fastest version of Windows to shut down,

Was that ever a problem? start shut down, and turn out the lights, It will be down when you come back in the morning.

How about boot up time?

Re:Great goals

[Verminator]

As the most useful thing any user can do with Windows is to shut it down, this is a critical benchmark of performance.

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

For their next world record, they'll point out that Windows 7 is now 50% faster to uninstall and go back to XP.

Re:Great goals

[carlzum]

According to the article, boot time is a little longer than XP and Vista (41.25 seconds vs XP's 40.03 and Vista's 40.16), but it's better than the previous build's boot time of 44.81 seconds.

Re:Great goals

[electrosoccertux]

Shutting down is part of the restart process, which I personally do several times a day just to make sure everything is running A-OK!!!

Re:Great goals

[Darinbob]

I've shut down windows, and come back in an hour only to find it's waiting for me to close an application first.

Re:Great goals

[0123456]

> fastest version of Windows to shut down,

Was that ever a problem? start shut down, and turn out the lights, It will be down when you come back in the morning.

If only...

Far more likely it will be sitting there saying 'StupidTaskbarApp.exe did not shut down. Press 'OK' to close this application' or some similar shit.

One of the reasons I hate Windows so much is that I can't even rely on the piece of crap OS to shut down if I tell it to shut down and then walk away. It literally expects me to sit there for up to five minutes while it 'saves my settings' and stops all the processes to ensure the bloody thing turns itself off.

Re:Great goals

[Spy Handler]

Was that ever a problem? start shut down, and turn out the lights, It will be down when you come back in the morning.

It is for me sometimes. If I do what you stated above, sometimes I come back the next morning and the computer is still on, stuck at the "Windows is shutting down" screen. So I always make sure the damn thing is shut down and powered off before I leave for the day.

Re:Great goals

[geekprime]

Ya Darinbob, there's a registry setting for that.

  Last time I set it for a customer (at his request) a week later he made me change it back 'cause he lost a 4 page word document by shutting down without saving it first. (who the heck types 4 pages without hitting save!?!) I turned on autosave in all his office apps too.

Feature or bug? who's to say.

Re:Great goals

[moderators_are_w*nke]

At least it's quicker to shutdown and reboot into Kubuntu.

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

Shutting down is part of the restart process, which I personally do several times a day just to make sure everything is running A-OK!!!

So what you're saying is Windows needs to be restarted every couple hours to run OK? Time to rethink your OS of choice.

Re:Great goals

[techno-vampire]

Let me get this straight: you not only reboot several times a day, you think it's normal. Right now, my Fedora 10 box hasn't been rebooted in just over five days, and that was because a circuit breaker popped. Before that, I had just over thirty days of uptime since the last kernel update, and I've had it running longer than that a few times. (Just for the record, it's running BOINC 24/7, so it's not like I'm wasting power keeping it running all the time.)

I can remember back when I ran Windows, I didn't see anything wrong with all those reboots, either. Now that I've gone over to Linux, I'm finding it harder and harder to remember why I put up with it. However, it's your computer, not mine, and you're the one who has to use it. If you're happy with Windows and don't mind all of those (to me, at least) inconveniences, there's no reason to change.

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you're saying you want the computer to shut down and kick any running applications out of memory, potentially corrupting any files you may be working on? Ok, you can do that.

Option A:
Hold power button for >3 seconds

Option B:
start
run
shutdown /s /t 1 /f

One of the reasons I hate Windows so much is that I can't even rely on the piece of crap OS to shut down if I tell it to shut down and then walk away. It literally expects me to sit there for up to five minutes while it 'saves my settings' and stops all the processes to ensure the bloody thing turns itself off.

Sounds like you hate computers in general and have likely chosen the wrong profession.

Re:Great goals

[Twinbee]

Honestly, if there wasn't the risk of it saving by cooincidence, I'd do a hard cold shut down EVERY time.

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a registry key you can flip to tell Windows force programs to shut down (after a delay) rather than waiting for a clean exit from every program.

However, that has its disadvantages as well. What if the program isn't hung but it just innocently asking you to save a file that you've made changes to?

So they chose the default which preserves your potential data rather than saves you a few seconds or mW. I can't fault them, especially as Apple does the same thing.

And before you say "that's not the point"...yeah, I know, the point is hating Windows, but there are better reasons for that. Hating defaults is silly when they're sensible, and your presence at /. implies that you should know how to change them to suit your needs.

Re:Great goals

[bertok]

One of the reasons I hate Windows so much is that I can't even rely on the piece of crap OS to shut down if I tell it to shut down and then walk away. It literally expects me to sit there for up to five minutes while it 'saves my settings' and stops all the processes to ensure the bloody thing turns itself off.

Sounds like you hate computers in general and have likely chosen the wrong profession.

Why is his requirement unrealistic? I'm a computer professional, I love computers, and I fully agree with the original poster. Why should I wait and watch what should be an automatic, guaranteed to succeed operation? No user-mode application should ever be able to interrupt a critical kernel-mode operation like 'shutdown'. Not ever. There are several use cases where a timely, user-intervention-free shutdown is critical to the correct functioning of an operating system. It's an operation that must always succeed, or the OS is broken.

Have you ever done a remote reboot and had the machine not come back up, because the OS hung during shutdown, for whatever reason? I have, many times, and it's not fun. If you're not working on a server with an integrated management board, but a PC or a beige-box server in a remote lights-out environment, you're basically out of options if that happens.

What if it's a shutdown triggered by a UPS? The server now has just a couple of minutes to shut down cleanly. If it just sits there waiting for the user, it won't be a clean shutdown when it finally loses power, not to mention that it's wasting precious battery power when it doesn't have to.

Laptops and batteries come to mind also. I've once put a laptop into its bag, only to realize 10 minutes later from the hideous burning smell that the OS hadn't really shut off, it had just turned the screen black.

Your reasoning sounds like the excuse of a lazy developer. Why can't applications be written in such a way that they can be shut down quickly and reliably without user intervention? This has been standard for database systems for decades, but GUI application developers are only now catching up. Firefox can now recover almost all of its 'state' after even a crash, which is a good start, but why do trivial applications like text editors ask stupid questions like "Would you like to save this file?" and HANG the machine during shutdown? Is it so hard to respond to a "machine shutdown" event by serializing the application state to a temporary file, and then restoring it when the user runs the app again next boot?

Re:Great goals

[pavon]

Was that ever a problem?

Yes. Rebooting after installing an update will be faster now. Corporate always seems to push out those mandatory patches at the most inopportune times.

Re:Great goals

[maxwell demon]

Let me get this straight: you not only reboot several times a day, you think it's normal.

Looking at the poster's user name, I guess you just have been whooshed.

Re:Great goals

[BikeHelmet]

> fastest version of Windows to shut down,

This is a total lie. I copied WinLogon (MinLogon) from WinCE into my XP, and it's definitely the fastest to shut down. Often, if nothing is being written to the drive, and nothing is open, it shuts down in about a half second. One time I had Steam open by accident, and it delayed shutdown by a whole dozen or so seconds, while it closed.

So Windows CE is definitely the fastest version of Windows to shut down.

Re:Great goals

[supaneko]

Why do we have to be forced to endure an OS that you have to restart multiple times a day?

Apparently unlike you, I don't have time nor the patience to sit and wait on a system that has to be restarted multiple times a day to make certain that everything is running A-OK.....

Re:Great goals

[BikeHelmet]

You should look into nLite. It might help you out - there's a setting there that can terminate anything that refuses to shut down within 5-10 seconds.

nLite lets you customize your WinXP ISO.

Re:Great goals

[DigiShaman]

I'm running Vista 64bit with 8GB of memory and VMs running in the background. It's rare, but sometimes I'll leave it running for more than a month. The only time it gets rebooted is when there is pending security updates that require it. Otherwise, it just lock my workstations (Windows Key + L) and turn off the monitor.

So long as you've got good hardware and mature device drivers, Windows XP and Vista will runs just a rock solid as Linux. Just don't install a bunch of 3rd party crap that tags along with shareware and you should be fine.

Re:Great goals

[maxwell demon]

Option A: Bad move. It will not only forcibly end your applications, but also disable the operating system itself to cleanly shutdown. Also, it will not even give your applications a chance to shut down cleanly.

Option B: A command? To type in the command line? I thought Windows would not need a command line! :-)
But then, it's probably the right solution to the problem. I say "probably" because I don't knnow how the f option is implemented. If reasonable, it gives the application first a chance to terminate cleanly, and only forcibly terminates it if it didn't cleanly terminate in some reasonable time frame (say, 10 seconds).

Re:Great goals

[xalorous]

Running Windows Vista on my media 'server' computer. Tripped circuit breaker and critical security updates are the only reason I have rebooted it since I turned it on. Since almost 10 months ago, I estimate 12-15 restarts.

Re:Great goals

[xalorous]

start/shutdown/shutdown is not kernel level request, it's a user level request.

from commandline: shutdown -f -t 0

THAT is a kernel level request and WILL work, put it in a shortcut and you have a guaranteed shutdown button.

Re:Great goals

[FishWithAHammer]

Hint: you just replied to a fellow freetard.

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

There are several use cases where a timely, user-intervention-free shutdown is critical to the correct functioning of an operating system. It's an operation that must always succeed, or the OS is broken.

Then you should be using the command outlined above: "shutdown /s /t 1 /f"

This will shutdown the computer and close any force-close any open applications.

Hell, go through the PID list and KILL any applications you want, then issue a shutdown request.

Is it so hard to respond to a "machine shutdown" event by serializing the application state to a temporary file, and then restoring it when the user runs the app again next boot?

It is very easy, it's called "Hibernate". All modern computer/OS combos can do it.
Just don't expect any connection-dependent applications to work correctly after.

Re:Great goals

[wfWebber]

So basically you're blaming windows for being able to run applications that have a crappy design? I suppose that's correct. There are of course registry tweaks you can do to make shutting down faster. Like forcing apps closed that take too long and shortening the timeout. No idea what that would do for data integrity though. (Actually, I do have an idea).

Re:Great goals

[compro01]

2 keys actually. One controls the kill (AutoEndTasks), the other sets the timeout (WaitToKillAppTimeout). Both are in HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop.

Re:Great goals

[orange47]

unfortunately not always. so you have to wait to be sure it actually did shut down.

Re:Great goals

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The problem is most likely an application that is misusing a flag that tells the operating system the app is not ready to shut down. It's a legitimate flag, but has been abused. A legitimate use would be file you're editing but hasn't been saved yet. You probably don't want it to kill a modified, but unsaved file.

Microsoft has very little control over that, unless you want them to authorize every program that's installed.

Re:Great goals

[chefren]

I dare you to benchmark it against all pre-Windows 95 versions :)

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

wow... I know everything is running A-OK and I don't have to reboot unless I'm updating my kernel... oh yeah, we're talking about windows, sorry. -rolls eyes-

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

Just run "cmd" and type "shutdown /s /f /t 1" and Windows will be forced to shutdown.

Re:Great goals

[daredd]

I have been programming for some 32 years now and seen all kinds of OS.
Microsoft had their take on the GUI OS nailed at service pack 6 of Windows NT 4 - minimal memory leaks and it would stay up for weeks.

Their business model of new product to keep the windows druggies hooked is what has produced newer iterations of this same tired and creeky OS.
Can you believe it can not do threading properly - where is the quad core support for my twin-CPU system ?
Linux GUI still feels like design by committee and Mac OS X is not mainstream as it is tied to a tightly controlled hardware configuration.

At present there are no OS with the correct technical approach.
What is needed is fresh eyes - new university grads. that have not been indoctrinated with the outdated 50's OS crap people involved in the creation of modern OS have been fed.

OS design needs to be revisited so we can all benefit from the improvements in multi-core and multiple CPU and their ability to process data, RAM availability and hard drive access and capacity.

Microsoft, all I want you for is to run games - ( bootable DirectX 11 DVD version anyone ? ) in the same way my child uses wax crayons on paper.
After that I will go back to my OS X Macintoshes until someone produces an OS that is up to the job.

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here. Since I'm security conscious, I have windows set to automagically download and install updates at 3AM (when I'm asleep). I always save my work before logging out so incase an update is available I will not loose anything. I am running the Win 7 beta, and before that Vista. I've only ever initiated a rebooted for driver installations, shutdowns for extended away time, or when the power goes I will shut down my PC gracefully. (Then, the UPS will only have to power my cable modem and my router, so I'm free to surf the net on my macbook pro until the power comes back on).

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

While I admit it's not much of a problem, and certainly nothing to brag about, my HP laptop takes forever to shut down, and as it's running vista (I'm gonna downgrade to XP soon, I don't use it much), I have to restart a lot. Most of the time I'm to impatient and just hold the power button until it shuts down.

Re:Great goals

[Ma8thew]

More likely, when I come back in the morning it will be on with "____ is not responding" or "There are other users logged on" message. To shut down my Windows machine, I have to sit in front of it until it turns off.

Re:Great goals

[value_added]

from commandline: shutdown -f -t 0

For completeness' sake :

shutdown -f -t 0 # shutdown
shutdown -f -t 0 # reboot
shutdown -h -t 0 # hibernate
shutdown -l -t 0 # logoff

At least that applies to /c/WINDOWS/system32/shutdown.exe.

PowerShell users should be happy to know they can type:

(Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_OperatingSystem -ComputerName ).shutdown()

Between the dozens of third-party utilities people generally download and install (Sysinternals, among others), and Microsoft adding/subtracting what's in the various Resource Kits or generally making things up as they go along, I've always relied on Cygwin's own version of shutdown.

Here's a randomly selected page that details some of the ugliness.

Re:Great goals

[terjeber]

Why should I wait and watch what should be an automatic, guaranteed to succeed operation? No user-mode application should ever be able to interrupt a critical kernel-mode operation like 'shutdown'.

Of course not. Thankfully they do not on Windows. Now, if you are a lame, ignorant user who doesn't know the difference between "shutdown, and ask about closing apps" and "shutdown NOW and just DO IT", then that is a chair-keyboard interface problem, not an operating system problem.

Ah, but you didn't know that Windows has "shutdown -f -r" you say. Well, stop blaming the OS for your own ignorance then!

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

ever tried 'shutdown.exe -s -f'?

Re:Great goals

[gbjbaanb]

IIRC Vista had a new, super, improved shutdown ruotine that would do just that: on shutdown, apps were given a certain amount of time to sort out their affairs, if they didn't - Vista shut them down regardless. (maybe I'm thinking of the power save / sleep mode).

My worst thing about it is updates - you must restart to install updates appears, so I think I'll wait and shut it down later just before bedtime. So bedtime comes, I shut down, and it reboots because it wants to install the updates there and then and can't wait with the power off until the morning. So I have to shutdown... wait while it reboots.. then shutdown before I can go to bed. Useless.

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, IÂm sorry for you.

Re:Great goals

[ShakaUVM]

>>Ah, but you didn't know that Windows has "shutdown -f -r" you say. Well, stop blaming the OS for your own ignorance then!

I seriously hope you're making a joke there. No normal user should ever need to know command line flags to TURN OFF HIS COMPUTER. This functionality has always been broken in windows, forcing a user to babysit his machine to make sure it successfully turns off, something you don't always have the time to do (at an airport, or you're running late for something).

Besides, the bigger problem is the immense amount of astroturfing going on for Win7. If you hated Vista (and nearly everyone does - I do tech workshops for a living) you'll hate Win7. They didn't fix the broken Vista file browser or windows explorer, and so *nothing else they did* matters.

But when you read things like this (from TFA):
"Although the look of Windows 7 may seem to be nothing more than some polish applied liberally to the Vista Aero theme, make no mistake: this is a full replacement operating system, and more than just 'Vista done right'. From driver support to multitouch groundwork for the future, from better battery management to the most easy-to-use interface Microsoft has ever had, Windows 7 is hardly half-baked."

Then you know that there's something seriously screwy going on. It sounds like all the press outlets are creaming themselves for Win7, and I can't figure out why. Usability is the most important feature they should be concerned about, and both Vista and Win7 are steps backwards in usability.

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

For a laptop shutdown time can be quite important, but i agree that boot time is still the priority.

Re:Great goals

[randomsearch]

Taking a long time to shutdown does matter, as it is often necessary to reboot in order to install new hardware drivers or sometimes even simple user-space programs. It's very frustrating to want to reboot the PC (after, for example, Windows updates insists you must) and then watch it hang.

So, it is a big improvement, although I'd prefer not to have to reboot.

RS

Re:Great goals

[Locutus]

QUIET! And pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

LoB

Re:Great goals

[terjeber]

I seriously hope you're making a joke there

I seriously hope you are considering going back to school and learn how to read. I would, for example, spend a lot of time trying to figure out concepts like "in context".

No, I seriously don't expect regular users to learn command line stuff for anything at all. I do however expect that power users do, and I do expect that a power user who wants to re-boot a Windows server from a remote location knows exactly how to do this by heart. You see, that is the "context" in which I posted. Someone had complained that "power users" could not do this.

At the same time I would in fact expect the OS to remind a "regular" user that he has an open Word document that has been changed and that he might want to save before the PC re-boots. In the case of the user to whom I replied, I would expect it was his Resume. Being aware of this particular "quirk" in Windows, I am careful about checking my laptop when I close it running at full speed at an airport. Done it many times, and it is always a good idea to check just to make sure. Particularly if the laptop is an HP, which are notorious for not going to sleep when they should. Never had that problem with my Lenovos.

They didn't fix the broken Vista file browser or windows explorer, and so *nothing else they did* matters.

I have no idea what they fixed in Win7, but I hope they looked at some of the UAC stuff, some memory bloat and other things. If you seriously feel that the worst part of Vista was the file browser, and that is the only thing you would want fixed, well, then you don't figure among the user type I would normally expect to find on /., people who knows a bit about computers. The file browser "quirks" are mostly irrelevant compared to the other stuff that plagued Vista. Mind you, with UAC turned off, Vista 64 works great for me on my 4G laptop and 8G (memory obv) desktop.

Usability is the most important feature they should be concerned about, and both Vista and Win7 are steps backwards in usability.

I work on XP every day in the office, and on Vista 64 every day at home. I don't see any major usability differences when UAC is off. If the file browser is that much of an issue for you maybe you have some sort of learning disability. Honestly, the differences are insignificant. IMHO.

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

Best thing about my hacked XP, it shuts down in a matter of seconds, almost like my computer is an actually electronic device of some sort. Thereby making restarts virtually painless. It's all about the restarts. Frantic restarts cure most my ill's.

Re:Great goals

[Cannelloni]

I *never* shut down my Macbook Pro, and only restart after a software update that requires it. Why shut down when the machine has efficient power management? I don't see the point. Windows is such an old load of bollocks, I will never touch it again.

Re:Great goals

[Bert64]

OSX seems to do this too, it will say shutdown was cancelled due to some stupid app...
You can override it using the cli based shutdown command tho, then it will just kill -9 any misbehaving app like any other unix would.

Re:Great goals

[MikeS2k]

haha, so every time you close the lid on your laptop you have to carefully check it to make sure nothing's running that might disrupt the process? and you're happy with doing that?
you can't deny that the behaviour there is broken.

Re:Great goals

[Necroloth]

Several times at work I've done what you've just said only to come in the next morning and find it hasn't shut down as there is an error warning on the screen and once I click 'OK', it carries on turning off at a snails pace... then i have to go through the startup!

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

Supposedly the whole problem with Linux is how much you have to do in the CLI. So why should it be acceptable to expect the user to need to use the CLI to guarantee his Windows computer shuts down?

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

Option A:
Hold power button for >3 seconds

Option B:
start
run
shutdown /s /t 1 /f

Sounds like one of those unprofessional, unfriendly command line hacks that you find on Linux. I thought Windows was supposed to be above that?

Re:Great goals

[EvilIdler]

I get this problem with the Vista2 RC. Only the OS, Impulse and Steam, plus four older games are installed. One in ten shutdowns something hangs. I can't tell what it is, either.

That and compatibility with old copy protection is all the trouble I have with the new OS from the bastards in Redmond. But since my main use for Windows is games, and I play a ton of old games, that's a fucking huge drawback ;)

(DRM kills kittens. Do not support DRM.)

Re:Great goals

[black88]

quote:"Usability is the most important feature they should be concerned about, and both Vista and Win7 are steps backwards in usability"

Which is why, when the RC came out, I installed it alongside Ubuntu, I quickly realized that usability in my case meant that I have been able to be far more productive running the RELEASE CANDIDATE of Windows 7 than I ever was running Ubuntu, since when I want to create and record music, I would rather not have to recompile or install another kernel just in the hopes that I might get lower latency.

So if you don't like Windows 7, that's certainly your right, but I have running running the RC just fine since release .

Re:Great goals

[bertok]

There are several use cases where a timely, user-intervention-free shutdown is critical to the correct functioning of an operating system. It's an operation that must always succeed, or the OS is broken.

Then you should be using the command outlined above: "shutdown /s /t 1 /f"

This will shutdown the computer and close any force-close any open applications.

Hell, go through the PID list and KILL any applications you want, then issue a shutdown request.

That's a complex, factual, obscure, smug, and incorrect answer. Typical developer attitude.

I do know about that command, and have been forced to use it, but I avoid it if at all possible, because, as you said yourself, it force-closes applications. On a server, that can lead to data loss.

That's like saying that if I have trouble going to sleep, then I should keep a revolver next to my bed, because that's the only way to make sure that I'll go down, and stay down.

Is it so hard to respond to a "machine shutdown" event by serializing the application state to a temporary file, and then restoring it when the user runs the app again next boot?

It is very easy, it's called "Hibernate". All modern computer/OS combos can do it.
Just don't expect any connection-dependent applications to work correctly after.

Shutdown is not the same as hibernate. You can't apply an OS patch, and then hibernate to apply it, for example. My original example of Firefox is a great example of how most apps should work. After the "apply patch and restart now?" prompt, Firefox returns to where it was before.

Re:Great goals

[Bert64]

The issue comes from desktop vs server design...
Unix is designed for servers which are frequently run headless as you describe, and therefore will obey the shutdown command automatically...

Windows (and the OSX gui) are designed from a desktop perspective, where there is always a local user present who can answer questions...

OSX is an interesting one, because the cli based shutdown tools work like unix normally does, but requesting a shutdown via the gui will wait for input.

Re:Great goals

[Bert64]

You lie...

Windows is an easy to use GUI based OS, therefore there is no possible operation that requires, or is easier done with, the CLI...

You must be thinking of Linux, where simple tasks like shutting down the system must be done from the command line.

Re:Great goals

[terjeber]

so every time you close the lid on your laptop you have to carefully check it to make sure nothing's running that might disrupt the process?

Sigh. Reading is apparently quite difficult these days. I said it was a good idea. It is if you run Linux too. My HP laptop, for example, running Linux, will occasionally not go to sleep when I close the lid. Ask HP why. The Lenovos are a lot better, but I have gotten off planes at least twice even with those, and it was warm from being left on.

Generally it works, but not 100%. Linux or Windows.

Re:Great goals

[Bert64]

Sounds like poorly written apps...
Upon receiving a signal that the system is shutting down, applications should save their data/state, either into the main file if an autosave option is turned on, or into a temporary state file otherwise.. Once this is done, they can display a requester giving the user the option to cancel the shutdown ... If the user ignores the requester, the shutdown proceeds after a few seconds anyway.
On the next launch of this program, it gives you the option to reload previous state (like firefox does).

The OS should also give the option of saving state, ie which apps you have running and how they are laid out... some unix window managers already do this (windowmaker for example).

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

For what it is worth - I have been using W7 since January and if they have fixed one thing it is shutdown, I previously always did my shutdowns from the command line, no more, 7 actually pops up a notice that a process is still running and will kill it in x seconds - this is the hard part to believe - it actually kills it. This has worked reliably (shuddering at the jinx I just created) every time in the last 8 months.

Re:Great goals

[ozbird]

Then you know that there's something seriously screwy going on. It sounds like all the press outlets are creaming themselves for Win7, and I can't figure out why.

Payola.

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a XP laptop that never shuts down properly. I can tell it to shut down and go away for a long weekend and when I come back it is still trying to shut down. The only way to shut it down is forcibly with the power button, which risks corrupting the encrypted disk drive.

Re:Great goals

[Dare nMc]

XP shutdown actually destroyed my laptop. I hit shutdown, waited a minute to start shutdown, closed the lid and put it into my bag. The next morning I opened the bag and heat was pouring out of the bag, some warning message about serial port still in use or driver failed, but XP had disabled power savings, and it wouldn't shutdown until the only choice "OK" was clicked. How valuable was that dialog? The hard drive didn't work a lick, and the screen was discolored after that.
With netbooks shutdown time is important. Battery gets down to 1% on my eee with linux, and a 5s boot 3s power down (had to change power button default) I can do a email check cycle in about 30 seconds. so 5 minutes of battery remaining gives me 10 email checks.
With XP it may be 2 minutes, so I should be able to get 2 email checks, but its longer than my attention span. So I hit boot, close the lid to keep the screen off, get distracted, and the last of my battery is gone before I even saw my email. Now if I find a plug in to check email right before the flight, I gotta watch to interrupt the disk checking or it will be 5 minutes to get to that email and my flight will be gone.

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree - usability is king - but a close second is actual functionality.

I'm a developer... I want my machine to do what I want it to, when I want it to... which is why it is so maddening to develop under Windows or Mac OS. It's why a good number of developers will jump at the chance to work in a stripped down linux environment... simply because the computer will do what we tell it to in that environment.

I'm a strong believer that all the new fancy "guesswork" that Microsoft and Apple are doing now with cutesy little "did you mean..." dialogs are basically a pile of steaming do-do.

Sure - usage should be intuitive and it's okay to have a few different ways to accomplish the same thing (e.x. save button, ctrl-s, and File->Save)... but I shouldn't be prompted every time I change a system setting if I'm really sure I wanted to do that.

Re:Great goals

[Elbowgeek]

Here we go again opening that old OS/2 vs. Windows bunfight. I remember back in the early-mid 90s the vicious flamewars that raged over, not performance while calculating complex spreadsheets or running demanding scientific applications, but bootup times. This had to be the most absurd argument I've ever witnessed, on a Pythonic scale.

As far as I'm concerned boot time is coffee making time in the morning, so I don't really lose any productivity because of it.

Re:Great goals

[LordKronos]

OK, perhaps you have a valid point in all of this, but now you've totally changed the topic. This whole thread was about the OS, it's improvements, and whether faster shutdown was a noteworthy feature. Now you are talking about what applications should do, not the OS. If you can demonstrate the linux apps and OSX apps all serialize their state when the OS shutsdown, then maybe you've got a valid and relevant point. But the point is, most apps for any OS do not do that at present, and nothing the OS itself can do will change that. Well, nothing other than serializing the entire app, but when you consider how many dependencies it could have on other things in the OS, you've essentially got to serialize the entire OS, and every OS (including windows) already has that feature.

So now the point is, you've got a computer where the user has requested an actual shutdown (rather than hibernate), and an app is refusing to close. What do you do? Do you just kill it and not care about the data loss? In some cases that may be desirable, but for most users, I think the right thing to do is leave it up to them to decide. So a faster shutdown is a noteworthy feature since it means less time they have to wait to see if they forgot to close something.

Re:Great goals

[Elbowgeek]

One of Windows' great failings was indeed it's poor handling of task annihilation, both when shutting down and when forcibly closing due to a hang. Whereas *nix OSs are firmly in control of the life and death of apps, it seems older versions of Windows would be at the mercy of the apps.

Win7 seems to have much better WMD to bring to bear on process killing from what I've seen so far - no waiting for Godot.

Overall Win7 has impressed me, although I do find the interface fiddly and cluttered in some ways, as well as being an attempt at marrying bits of both OSX and Gnome into a confusing mess. Personally I'd love to see a completely undecorated desktop with as little floating, fading, and farting around as possible.

Re:Great goals

[b4dc0d3r]

I agree mostly, but a user-initiated shutdown gives apps a chance to say "You have unsaved work - would you like to save this?" I have accidentally started shutdown enough using ALT+4 when a window appears to be in focus but actually isn't. A single spacebar push is all it takes to confirm at that point. Wasn't happy. But my habit of using Notepad as temporary storage saved me, since Notepad asked if I wanted to save, and cancelled the shutdown. Sure a trivial app like notepad should be capable of saving and restoring, but there are lots of things I don't want serialized. If every app saves everything it's working on, shutdown will take that much longer since storage is usually the bottleneck. And you have to wait for a flush, so no burst speeds. Or what happens if you are low on drive capacity - should it discard data, silently overwrite, or ask the user?

You mentioned UPS and other automated or possibly remote shutdown operations. Those I would expect to succeed. Or maybe a "Safe shutdown" that will ask you things and a "silent shutdown" that is guaranteed to succeed.

My point is that there is a need for both silent and interactive shutdown, and you should get to choose. Maybe a default where you can easily select the non-default as a temporary measure. And of course an automated interface which always does the non-interactive shutdown (assuming the user is authenticated in some way). And if this happened to be a command-line switch instead of a GUI option, no worries. Command-line makes it easy to make a powershell or batch script as an "oh shit" button you can activate when needed, remotely if possible. And Windows does offer that - my favorite is just use Rundll and call directly into the Windows API with a batch file. Problem solved.

Re:Great goals

[mdwh2]

I do know about that command, and have been forced to use it, but I avoid it if at all possible, because, as you said yourself, it force-closes applications. On a server, that can lead to data loss.

You want to force all applications to shut down (and not allow them to interrupt the process for any reason, including say data not yet saved), but you don't want to "force-close" applications? What's the difference?

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

On my mid-grade laptop without a lot of crap running, Windows 7 boots in 43 seconds. I had a friend time it.

Re:Great goals

[Jeff Carr]

It sounds like all the press outlets are creaming themselves for Win7, and I can't figure out why.

Depends on the press outlets. I'm happy with Windows 7 because my expectations were so ridiculously low. I was just hoping for a 64 bit Windows OS that would install without a ridiculous amount of errors and would have a little bit of driver and software support. I got that and as a bonus it's installation environment has finally surpassed that of Suse 7.1. Finally, I can, if I want to boot out of Linux to play games, take advantage of more than 3 gigs of memory and get full use out of my CPU.

Some outlets will be happy because it isn't quite as much of a steaming pile as Vista was. Others, well, I'm assuming they're happy because of the pay-checks they're receiving.

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never had a problem shutting down Windows. I suspect the people that complain about it are like the people that only change their oil every 30,000 miles and then wonder why their car has problems. Point is: if you keep a clean system it will work fine, if you don't you'll have problems. No matter the OS. I'm working on a friend's Mac right now because it won't shut down but rather hangs indefinitely on his wallpaper when he tries. Would everyone say this means Macs are generally flawed? Of course not, they'd say he loaded some junk on it that messed it up. But when it happens to a PC everyone blames Windows. Funny how that works...

Re:Great goals

[Zalbik]

The GP said what the difference is. Many times.

The OS should:
1) Silently serialize application state for each application
2) Force-close each application
3) Shutdown
4) On restart of each application, restore the previous application state

The CLI shutdown command does the following:
1) Force-close each application
2) Shutdown
Application state and/or data is potentially lost

The GUI shutdown command does the following:
1) Ask each application to shutdown, waiting for response if necessary
2) Shutdown
The OS is not guaranteed to shut down

See the difference? I agree with the GP. Windows shutdown has been a buggy mess for a long time. Hopefully windows 7 resolves some of the issues with it.

Re:Great goals

[Fred_A]

According to the article, boot time is a little longer than XP and Vista (41.25 seconds vs XP's 40.03 and Vista's 40.16), but it's better than the previous build's boot time of 44.81 seconds.

This has to be the weirdest benchmarks ever.
I'm really disappointed that the Top500 supercomputer list doesn't even list their boot up and shut down times. What kind of list is that ?

"Our system boots up really fast ! And shuts down too ! Yay ! Oh and it runs some stuff too."

(disclaimer : I only run games in Windows, and even when rebooting to play something I don't give a damn about boot up time... although I actually run Win 7, out of curiosity mostly)

Re:Great goals

[bpgslashdotaccount]

Something I learned early:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"AutoEndTasks"="1"

Apply to each user account and to the Default User profile to prevent apps from getting stuck on shutdown.

This gets applied to every machine I support.

Re:Great goals

[Fred_A]

For completeness' sake :

shutdown -f -t 0 # shutdown
shutdown -f -t 0 # reboot

Windows command line is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.

Re:Great goals

[LinuxAndLube]

Google: Results 1 - 10 of about 902,000 for "cannot shutdown linux". Maybe you should try using Linux once instead of fantasizing about it. For example, I'm sure that you will be enchanted by some of the more curious properties of X Server, especially if you have only one machine at your disposal.

Re:Great goals

[H310iSe]

I'm not sure this was a troll as modded - in case it wasn't, I'd like to say:
BeOS

I don't know how it would look today, but what I remember from the mid 90s is it was a freaking jet fighter compared to the sopwith camels of the day.

The only problem is it's really, really hard to get a new OS going. Even when you have a jet fighter and everyone else has biplanes, it's almost impossible (RIP Be, and Amiga) So, maybe what we need is a better iteration of what we have? Unless virtualization allows new in-roads for OSs that didn't exist before...

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

The slogan of Win7 for a while was "Vista done right", or some shit like that, and if you start with that kind of slogan, there's nowhere you can go. There is no way to do Vista right.

Re:Great goals

[Yunzil]

Mind you, with UAC turned off, Vista 64 works great for me

Mind you, with UAC turned ON, Vista 64 works great for me. I seriously want to know what people are doing to see so many UAC prompts that they get annoyed enough to turn it off. The only time I see any is when I'm installing something, and I probably wouldn't see most of those if people would stop writing software that installs to places it shouldn't.

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

Have to disagree
I have been using Windows 7 (64bit) since beta version came out, it really is much faster, not in sense that some game or 3D studio max or something else have bigger frame-rate, or render something faster, but in usability sense, in real performance that matters most:
  - When I hover over control panel in start menu it appears instantly, in every previous version of windows i had to wait few seconds, for simple STATIC list of icons to appear, i mean it even does not need to be read from HDD, they finally made it usable, before i had to in middle of something important i was doing (where i could loose some important idea i had in my head at the moment) forget what i wanted to try if i decided to change resolution or mouse speed just for a second
  - before I never used tile windows function because its usability was 0 (ZERO), it was more time to do it using tile function than to manually set window size and position, now just drag windows left, or right, or up if you want it maximized (no more hunting miniature maximize button, or double-clicking title-bar)
  - start menu itself, and all programs menu open instantly, in windows XP it was like few seconds waiting if you had any average number of programs in it, even as little as 60-70 programs (every game counts as one program, and slows down menu additionally in XP)
  - address bar in windows explorer (windows folder) i can go to (2-3 levels upstream) parent folder by singleclick on it, on windows XP i had to select text part of patx i want and delete it and click "go" to open folder
  - Windows+Tab is finally usable, old Alt+Tab on windows XP i needed like 3-4 tries to find windows i wanted to tab to because alt+tab dialog has barley visible caption and icon only, with Win+Tab on windows 7 i see (3D but that part is actually not so important only visual candy) FULL WINDOW SCREEN-SHOT (not yelling, just that there is no underline here on Slashdot it seems) and when i let go Windows key i am sure i am at correct window because i already saw its big picture (only bug with this function is it should be at-least 10%, maybe even 20% bigger so i can read text on screen-shots easier when there are multiple similar windows i have opened like SSH consoles)
  - starting applications, it is MUCH faster, on Windows XP even with 8G/12G of ram i had windows XP was stupid, it used maybe 1G or 2G, rest was empty, and when i start for example PhotoShop, or WoW, or some other little bigger program it loads it for ages from hard disk, even if i have already started it like 2-3 days ago already once, Windows 7 (like Linux for a long time) uses extra (dirt-cheap) RAM to pre-load everything that you MIGHT use right after you boot computer , with windows XP starting programs was slower and slower, with Windows 7 its faster, and faster as it learns what files/applications you use most, files like word files, or PSD files takes less than it takes for maximizing animation, it seems instantaneous

there are a lot of little things (in addition to this) that make Windows 7 feel faster, and be easier to use, it may not have new extra imba ultra features like "journalling support for intergalactic spacecraft software engine", but it really feels faster, and makes you work faster, I know Linux and some monopolistic os-es like leopard had many of that features a long time ago, and i do use Linux, but some things i have to use Windows for, OSX i would not touch with a stinky stick, neither would i touch I-tunes, or that junk IPhone store thingy "you cant install it on other people hardware", "you cant install software we don't approve on it", "you cant listen your music on anything except on IShit", yea RiiiIIGht watch me, if stupid American politicians were more like European ones (not that much smarter but still a little-bit) and punish apple a few trillion dollars a day they would not be allowed to steal from people that honestly paid something

BTW im not coward, i just don't like giving my email address to any website, and i don't have time to make another junk email just for this post, and clear cookies after ...

Re:Great goals

[Santzes]

This actually is fixed in windows 7. Press force shutdown and it will shut down every time without asking anything.

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

How is Vista's Explorer file browser broken?

That implies that it (or some of its major components) is unusable. What part of Explorer is defective?

Also, usability is highly speculative. How are Vista and Win7 steps backwards in usability (compared to XP)?

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

No, sounds like there are shitty apps running that weren't coded properly and the Windows ecosystem fosters this kind of crap.

Re:Great goals

[LuvlyOvipositor]

I'm not sure how exactly they benchmark this, is it from BIOS post to visible desktop/start menu; or from BIOS post to when you can actually DO something.

On my Win XP systems, it takes almost as long to go from log on screen to functional desktop as it does from BIOS post to log on screen (at least a minute on a machine that I try to keep free of boot up processes/services). On W7 RC it takes probably 30s from BIOS post to log on screen, and 5 seconds later I can do anything I want on the desktop. That is the speed advantage that 7 has over XP.

Re:Great goals

[kamatsu]

Really, wha you want is L4 in terms of OS kernels.

It is perfect, just perfect.

Then you just need to build a similarly amazing userland stack on top.

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

A normal user will appreciate that Word asks them whether they want to save their changes when they exit. Programs could be written to save their exact state on shutdown, but it's not the OS's fault that few do. Thus, the OS must let all programs ask the user to save their work. Not doing so is more disastrous.

For the admin that knows what they're doing, there's a command to force the shutdown. It shouldn't be used normally because of the missing saved work issue, but that applies to every OS.

Re:Great goals

[shutdown -p now]

Silently serialize application state for each application

How, exactly, would it do that? If you just perform a raw memory dump of the process, you'll get invalid handles (for things like files and pipes) when you restore it. And you cannot always serialize those, because e.g. a pipe could have two ends opened in different processes... The only way to really make it work is to serialize the state of system as a whole, and we have that - it's called suspend-to-disk, or "hibernate" in Windows parlance.

For per-application state serialization, you really need to know more about this state - which means that application itself needs to serialize it. Which is precisely what Windows does, by sending a message to all applications when shutdown is requested.

Re:Great goals

[BikeHelmet]

Those wouldn't run on newer hardware.

But I bet WinXP modified a bit running on new hardware shuts down faster than Win3.1 on old hardware. ;)

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

Usability how? What is your beef with explorer and the file browser, exactly? They work perfectly for all the uses I put them to.

If you want a usability nightmare, try ubuntu. Do something simple, like connect to a SMB fileshare and copy files to it. Or change the computer name and workgroup. Then come talk about usability.

Re:Great goals

[jmorris42]

> Your reasoning sounds like the excuse of a lazy developer. Why can't applications be written in such
> a way that they can be shut down quickly and reliably without user intervention?

Nope. If a user space app can override a shutdown the app isn't broken. The Operating System is broken. Period, full stop.

Exception for special purpose software that is given system level permission. No, you can't shutdown. Screw the UPS battery, screw everything! I'm not done sending critical commands to the space probe yet so if it is physically possible this machine is staying UP. That sort of thing. Otherwise when the OS asks you to stop you either politely stop or the OS doesn't ask next time.

Re:Great goals

[david_thornley]

Except at that job where we were issued dockable laptops, which had to be off and in a locked drawer before we went home.

Re:Great goals

[T Murphy]

Once my laptop was running low on battery so I told it to shut down. I come back five minutes later and it didn't shut down because I had to hit 'OK' on the dialogue helpfully suggesting I should shut down because of low battery.

Re:Great goals

[icebike]

>I had a friend time it.

Because you don't know how to use a watch?

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

You (or the averge /. user) expect me to configure my Multimonitor system with the commandline (since kde and gnome interfaces are broken / not usable for +2 monitors) but you make a stand about needing the commandline to shut my system down ?

If i needed to choose i'd take multimonitor support and wait the 10 secounds to shut down.

But i see your point and in generall i'd say that everything that isn't fully doable (not faster, just toable) from the gui isn't aimed to the average user and i consider it broken if it says so.

Re:Great goals

[adolf]

I've been wondering lately why it is that folks are so insistent on having their laptops sleep when the lid shuts, anyway.

My own laptops, upon closing the lid, only do one thing: Turn off the display. This way, whatever I'm doing (downloading, watching a streaming movie, working with ssh, whatever) isn't interrupted just because I've decided to move from one room to another.

If I do want the machine to sleep, I just push the power button. I have this configured to engage sleep mode. It works fine.

*shrug*

Re:Great goals

[adolf]

Bad laptop, I guess.

My trusty old Dell Inspiron 6000d will shut itself off rather forcibly when things turn too hot, after a short series of very loud beeps (as if to say: Hey, I'm on fire over here!).

I did lose a hard drive in that machine once, but not due to heat. It was from routinely running the thing outside in -15F weather, without so much as even pre-heating it. That particular failure was totally unsurprising to me when it happened.

Re:Great goals

[ignavus]

> fastest version of Windows to shut down,

Was that ever a problem? start shut down, and turn out the lights, It will be down when you come back in the morning.

How about boot up time?

Switch it on last thing at night, and turn out the lights. It will be up by the time you come back in the morning.

Re:Great goals

[terjeber]

Which is why I prefer the Lenovo options over, for example, the HP options. On my Lenovo I can say: If I am plugged in and close the lid, turn of the LCD, but if I am not plugged in, go to sleep. On the HP I can only chose go to sleep or turn of LCD, irrespective of my power situation.

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

oh this is great.

we have anti windows (leaving.. nix and osx?) heads complaining about having to know command-line switches to turn off their computer.

classic!

Just for the record, windows 7 is not a server operating system. It is a client operating system. When you tell a server operating system to reboot, you better bet your ass it reboots no matter what. Cause you and the rest of those on this complaining about windows behavior are absolutely spot on - it better reboot or you are SOL for a remote machine.

But guess what, that is absolutely the WRONG behaviour for a client machine. Humans, office workers especially, are - get this - stupid, they make mistakes. They forget to save that document they were working on. They accidentally hit the "Shutdown" button on their retarded keyboard instead of page-up and the computer begins the shutdown process.

I hope to god when a client machine starts to shutdown it doesn't immediately wipe any and all running programs ignoring the programs own "safe shutdown" procedure (Do you want to save this document you have been working on??? popup).

Servers - should reboot when asked - Servers require operating knowledge or you'll break them after doing something stupid.
Client Desktops - should reboot when asked if safe to do so.

PS. Safe to do so means you wont lose any work, and the OS cant tell the difference between StupidTaskBarApp.exe and DocumentYouJustSpent30HoursWorkingOn.exe. The safe way to handle that? ask the user if he really does want to kill StupidTaskBarApp (and give StupidTaskBarApp a chance to kill itself).

Re:Great goals

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess the above is Insightfuul if you're have never used Vista, or 7. Sure XP used to do this when badly behaved apps refused to close (generally due to incompentant development).

On Vista or 7, an app has a few seconds to complete it's shutdown or its terminated. No second chances, gone.

But don't let the truth get in the way of a good rant.

Re:Great goals

[ShakaUVM]

>>we have anti windows (leaving.. nix and osx?) heads complaining about having to know command-line switches to turn off their computer.

I wouldn't complain about knowing the shutdown command to shutdown my linux box, since linux is fundamentally a command line environment. KDE and Gnome aside.

>>Humans, office workers especially, are - get this - stupid, they make mistakes. They forget to save that document they were working on. They accidentally hit the "Shutdown" button on their retarded keyboard instead of page-up and the computer begins the shutdown process.

So what? A userland application should not be able to interrupt something at the system level. When they get a SIGKILL or whatever the windows equivalent is, the program should save and terminate. I wouldn't mind if windows even gave applications a little bit of time to exit before force killing them (in fact, I altered my registry so my computer works exactly that way), but the default settings are just stupid.

Besides, the only thing office workers use is MS Office, and office autosaves its work anyway, so there's really no excuse for it to halt a system shutdown in order to get confirmation from the user that yes he does indeed wish to save his file.

Re:Great goals

[badkarmadayaccount]

Just fixing a typo:

shutdown -r -t 0 #reboot

Vista was the fastest Windows

[symbolset]

From installation to wipe in an average of ten days. A pioneering achievement.

As for the rest of this prerelease hype, I'll believe it when I see it.

Re:Vista was the fastest Windows

[Useful Wheat]

What prerelease hype? Go to the Microsoft website and download it for yourself.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/default.aspx

Its one thing to say you'll only believe it when you see it for products that exist only in the hands of the coders and beta testers (Duke Nukem Forever), but for something that's had an open beta for nearly a year now, its sorta just saying "I need ninjas to break into my house and install it on my hard drive". Which is unfair, because ninjas are expensive as hell. The only significant difference between the free beta and the final version is language support. I think you're unwilling to even try it, and have already decided that Windows 7 has failed.

Re:Vista was the fastest Windows

[siloko]

On the one hand I agree with you, obviously downloading and installing a RC version of an OS does have overhead, but before passing judgment better to see the beans first. But also I think a healthy dose of skepticism when confronted by pre-release hype is not only understandable but a prerequisite for maintaining sanity in this marketing saturated world of ours!

Re:Vista was the fastest Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

From installation to wipe in an average of ten days. A pioneering achievement.

As for the rest of this prerelease hype, I'll believe it when I see it.

Actually I did that with Windows Millenium in about 3 days...

Re:Vista was the fastest Windows

[intheshelter]

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. No thanks, not going back to Winblows after all the false hype of Vista. They blew their credibility budget there. Win 7 is nothing but warmed over Vista released quickly to get rid of the negatively charged Vista product reputation.

Re:Vista was the fastest Windows

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

i agree fully with you. altought Seven still have some rough edges, it's on the right track to became my favorite windows ever, one notch above win2k professional.

the relese candidate is installed on my girlfriends notebook and i have to say, any "hype" around it is well deserved.

the only reason i don't have it on my own computer ? because i wouldn't be caught dead using anything different than windowmaker. easy as that.

Re:Vista was the fastest Windows

[LinuxAndLube]

They did not 'review' a prerelease, but the RTM. Are you by any chance a moron?

Year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

So I take it 2009 won't be the year of the Linux desktop then?

That means you don't need to throw anymore chairs S.B., everything's going to be alrightâ¦

This is why the tagging system sucks...

[da_matta]

Hmph.. No comments that even remotely imply having RTFA'd, but sure enough there's an "astroturfing"-tag. Classy..

Re:This is why the tagging system sucks...

[achten]

Here we are discussing about the new features of a shiny new OS and people complain about others not having read TFA. Talk of priorities. Incidenatally, MS seems to have paid considerable attention to ensuring that it shuts down faster as compared to earlier offerings. Also "Files added to the hard drive were indexed so fast that they were searchable less than 5 seconds later."

Re:This is why the tagging system sucks...

[Afforess]

The irony is that you didn't RTFA either.

~Post from Windows 7 RC Build 7137!

Re:This is why the tagging system sucks...

[dumbo11]

A review points out the positives and negatives of a product. If a review is entirely positive, then people will immediately assume it's not real. In this case, accompanied with a lead-in that is clearly the product of a marketing department, it is entirely correct to call this astroturf.

Re:This is why the tagging system sucks...

[ShakaUVM]

>>Hmph.. No comments that even remotely imply having RTFA'd, but sure enough there's an "astroturfing"-tag. Classy..

Did you bother reading the article?

Quote:
"Although the look of Windows 7 may seem to be nothing more than some polish applied liberally to the Vista Aero theme, make no mistake: this is a full replacement operating system, and more than just 'Vista done right'. From driver support to multitouch groundwork for the future, from better battery management to the most easy-to-use interface Microsoft has ever had, Windows 7 is hardly half-baked."

It's pure shilling for Microsoft.

Re:This is why the tagging system sucks...

[Anonymous Coward]

and nothing in your statement to 'even remotely imply having RTFA'd' before you posted :)

Re:This is why the tagging system sucks...

[PJ1216]

Nothing about that quote even remotely backs up your conclusion.

Re:This is why the tagging system sucks...

[dasmoo]

The whole article feels like those one liners microsoft gives you during the install of Windows. Fastest and easiest Windows yet! Multi-touch support built right in! Most easy to use interface ever! There's no pause on any of the issues, it's like they're intentionally ignored. I think he mentions preinstalled bluetooth support has been removed, although he mentions it in passing.

Also: "From driver support" That's a feature now? sheeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

Re:This is why the tagging system sucks...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow... all this time I thought I was reading reviews for the iPhone... but I guess they were just astroturfing as very rarely have I ever seen them say anything bad about it. The few times they have, usually someone came by and said that the author was OBVIOUSLY paid Microsoft to say such things. Its interesting how no one can have positive reviews for a Microsoft product without being accused of being a shill, while at the same time, if there's a negative review about an Apple product, they're again accused of being a MS shill.

Also, the review did point out areas where Win7 fell short of being WinXP. Therefore, it did have negative points as well. Just because someone's impressed with a product doesn't mean its astroturf. You're clearly just biased against a positive review of an MS product as I found it to read like many other reviews I've read before. When the author is impressed, they tend to focus on the good points, not the bad ones. Its just the way things go. Unless you've posted this exact same comment on reviews for the iPhone, you're clearly hypocritical.

Re:This is why the tagging system sucks...

[da_matta]

The point of the comment was that AT THE TIME there were no arguments for or against the article, but the article was still tagged as astroturf. If people had actually read the article and thought it to be a non-review, they'd surely point that out. Instead they just tag it with their preconception, i.e. positive Win7 review is astroturfing, Macs have Apple tax, DRM is defective by design, etc.

And TFA is not void of negative points:
- "Do note that some users have claimed to have limited success running the Windows 7 beta with less than 1GB of RAM, but that's not recommended."
- "One annoying change is that Bluetooth driver support no longer comes baked into the operating system. If you need a Bluetooth driver, you'll either need the installation disc on hand or you'll have to go and download it."
- "The search field, however, is available by default only in the Start menu and in Windows Explorer and cannot be easily added to the taskbar."
- "The hardware sometimes misread some of the multitouch gestures, occasionally confusing rotating an image, for example, with zooming in or out of the image."
- "[XP mode] is not easy to set up once you've downloaded the XP Mode installer. You'll need to double-check that you have the right hardware, and can get the right software. Hardware Virtualization Technology, also known as AMD-V, Vanderpool or VT-d, must be supported for it to work. Motherboards older than two years probably won't work, and even if you do have a newer one you might have to go into your BIOS and activate Hardware Virtualization."
- "Microsoft has tweaked the [UAC] so that it's less intrusive, but it's not clear whether that means you're actually more or less secure than you were in Vista."
- "Windows 7 feels faster than Windows XP and Vista, but it turns out that's not always the case -- sometimes, it's the slowest of the three operating systems."
- "It was slower than XP and Vista, however, for both booting up cold by a little more than 1 second, and slower than either of its predecessors in its Microsoft Office performance."

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

FTFA "it's the slowest of the three operating systems"

Re:Anonymous Coward

[dingen]

Here's the full quote:

As you can see in the chart, we found that Windows 7 RTM was the fastest to shutdown, and was tied with XP for iTunes encoding. It was slower than XP and Vista, however, for both booting up cold by a little more than 1 second, and slower than either of its predecessors in its Microsoft Office performance. After having used Windows 7 beta, RC and now the RTM for more than six months combined, it still feels faster for us when launching programs, opening the control panel and dragging icons, files and folders around than XP. That's not to denigrate the value of the benchmarks, but keep in mind that the perception and reality might differ based on hardware and usage.

I especially love the remark that "dragging icons" is faster now.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[wickedskaman]

Actual context FTFA... Windows 7 feels faster than Windows XP and Vista, but it turns out that's not always the case -- sometimes, it's the slowest of the three operating systems. We tested four 32-bit Windows operating systems: Windows 7 RTM build 7600, Windows 7 Release Candidate build 7100, Windows Vista with Service Pack 2 and Windows XP SP3, all on an Inspiron Desktop 530 mini-tower running an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E4500 at 2.20GHz, with a 128MB Nvidia 8300 GS graphics card, 4GB of RAM and two 320GB SATA 7,200rpm hard drives. Source: http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029471,49303203-7,00.htm

Re:Anonymous Coward

[bluemonq]

FTFA "Windows 7 feels faster than Windows XP and Vista, but it turns out that's not always the case -- sometimes, it's the slowest of the three operating systems."

Good job at taking things out of context. And as any UX designer will tell you, it doesn't matter if it *is* faster if it doesn't *feel* faster.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[smash]

Good job at taking things out of context. And as any UX designer will tell you, it doesn't matter if it *is* faster if it doesn't *feel* faster.

Exactly. And this is where 7 wins. It "FEELS" extremely quick, because it responds to user input better. If you need to take a minor throughput hit for that, so be it. Most people multitask these days anyway - some fractional of a percentage point difference in throughput loss means jack shit if you can actually use the computer while its doing stuff in the background...

I've been running the RC since it came out, no way I'm going back to XP or Vista for Windows stuff.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[horatio]

We tested four 32-bit Windows operating systems: Windows 7 RTM build 7600, Windows 7 Release Candidate build 7100

I'm trying to understand why the 32-bit? If we're going to have to make the transition because stuff is going to be broken intentionally or otherwise for XP going forward, then do the 64bit stuff right and stop screwing around. Is anyone still making 32bit processors? Is anyone intentionally buying machines with 32bit processors?

Windows XP x64 can be a nightmare because while most stuff works, lots of things still don't - which includes a lot of hardware because the drivers don't work or just aren't available. That is mostly on the product vendors, but at the same time - I have to run x64 or a good part of my system's memory is inaccessible and unusable to Windows. I also, however, blame MSFT. XP x64 is really just server 2003 with some of the components torn out and some of the desktop-y UI stuff added back in - (I could be wrong about this) rather than being a 64bit version of the XP kernel it seems.

So while they continue to play around, we're stuck with either having wasted our money > ~2G of memory, or wasted time on hardware (occasionally software) that doesn't work. For some reason I don't remember the transition from 16 to 32 bit being this much of a pain in the ass. Except that I haven't been able to get my copy of Redneck Rampage to run on anything since Windows98.

If only

[taucross]

"The code is final, and CNet has reviewed the final version of Windows 7, with benchmarks to support the case that it's not only the fastest version of Windows to shut down,

What, you mean faster than Vista?

Windows runs fast if you aren't doing anything!

[thatkid_2002]

I have no doubt that it does perform pretty well - afterall my experience with the RC was that it was more responsive than Windows XP.

But of course this is BEFORE it has crapware loaded onto the system and multiple programs splattering their libraries and crap all over the system and a sprinkling of your favourite malware!

I never shut down

[t0qer]

I know I'm not the only one. Sometimes when I get up in the morning I'll notice the computer has been rebooted due to some hotfix being applied, but other than that I avoid shutting down.

If I did shut down, wouldn't I just walk away? It's sort of like "If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?" I can see shutdown times being important on laptops, but I would think hibernate and suspend functions are more important there right?

Re:I never shut down

[blackraven14250]

It helps for the mandatory reboot when installing lots of things from updates to applications. Other than that, you're right.

Re:I never shut down

[cyborch]

Explain to me again why I would like my OS developers to work on speeding up reboot times rather than working on making an OS that does not require reboots?

Re:I never shut down

[IBBoard]

Sometimes when I get up in the morning I'll notice the computer has been rebooted due to some hotfix being applied, but other than that I avoid shutting down.

That's good if you've got the money to burn, but some of us would rather not leave our home computers running for 20 or more hours per day just to make the "time to use" quicker for the four hours per day (at most) that we actually use it ;) I also trust a shutdown more than a hibernate because it'll clear any remaining cruft that the apps have left in memory.

If I did shut down, wouldn't I just walk away?

You've obviously never had a shutdown fail to complete because of a dialog saying "could not shut down X, terminate?"

Re:I never shut down

[RenHoek]

Say what you will, and I agree this is not a viable system with current operating systems, but the method on itself doesn't seem stupid.

Why does shutting down a computer mean you lose all the programs states? Why should a shutdown not be a suspend?

Think out of the box :)

(Yeah I understand current OS's need to be rebooted now and then for updates and such, but why should the user be bothered with this anyway?)

Re:I never shut down

[Judge_Fire]

Mail on Mac OS X even saves the window positions, come to think of it.

Re:I never shut down

[Bert64]

Because OS reboots are still sometimes required, and a faster bootup makes them less painful...
Many highend machines would take a very long time to boot, mostly due to thorough hardware checks... These machines are designed to be stable, but sometimes power failures and such occur.
And with laptops and such, batteries are not to a level yet where we can just leave a laptop running all day without being plugged in.

Re:I never shut down

[horatio]

oh great, so that BS carries over too. unless an installing app is replacing system libraries (!?) or modifying the shell in some significant way (ie tortoisesvn) then it should never, ever need to force the computer to reboot. ever.

There are valid reasons to scorn Apple for being evil, especially lately with the iPhone stuff. But you can't really beat most of the OSX application installs being as simple as dragging it from the archive to the "Applications" folder.

Re:I never shut down

[Anonymous Coward]

or using the Followup Flag and an appropriate deadline for that reminder to reappear? that is funny though...

Re:I never shut down

[adolf]

As long as we're thinking out of the box...

Why is a shutdown/reboot ever necessary at all?

In the practical sense, it's a silly concept. Get rid of reboots for updates, and nobody will care if program state is maintained between cold boots (since various-and-sundry sleep modes easily pick up the rest of the slack).

Re:I never shut down

[Anonymous Coward]

Because on a machine level it is highly difficult, if not impossible, to replace code while it's in the middle of being used, especially since there is no way of knowing whether there is currently anything happening which isn't technically within that code but still depending on that code being where it is and what it is currently. If you can solve these problems...

Shut Down?

[Mishotaki]

Did they run out of thing to be proud of?

I sure wouldn't be someone to boast about how fast my OS can shut itself down i'd find something that people actually cares and wait for: booting

When i shut down my computer, i'm certainly not looking at it and even less timing how long it takes for it to be completely off...

Re:Shut Down?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did they run out of thing to be proud of?

I'm not even sure they can be proud of this. Windows ME shuts down in five seconds on my old P3 Notebook. And I wonder how fast Windows 3.11 shuts down on recent hardware. If you get it running...

Wait..

[Anonymous Coward]

Taskbar and Aero: blah blah blah asthetics. Also: Launchy, fuck the taskbar.
Stream stuff from your computer!: Ok yea whatever
Fast search: Sweet, only like, years behind google desktop and other various tools.
UAC: Nifty
Can burn ISO's natively: About time.

Office performance: OH LOOK XP IS BETTER.
Itunes encoding: TIED WITH XP
Boot time: One second *longer* than XP
Shutdown: Way faster (how is this useful)
Cinebench: 7 wins by... 2 points.

I'm not seeing what I'm supposed to be excited about. Someone help me out here.

Re:Wait..

[smash]

The stuff you can't see with the benchmarks, that people actually notice and care about in reality. Like UI responsiveness. Seriously, the RC is still available, go download it and check it out rather than speculating wildly.

problems.

[Anonymous Coward]

1. does not install with hd4850 card - blank screen
2. bluescreen more than XP
3. copying takes a long time due to calculating before copy
4. cannot go to safe mode if installer craps out.
5. cannot run a few useful XP apps in 64 bit mode (e.g. daemon tools)
6. not fully 64 bit, still has legacy 32 bit version
overall, not bad.

new benchmark

[muyla]

'the operating system that both Microsoft and its consumers have been waiting for.'

How did they measure that benchmark? can it be seen in a graph?

But seriously.. windows 7 looks and feels like the "I'm a PC" guy from apple advertisements... even the name sounds boring...

Re:new benchmark

[techno-vampire]

even the name sounds boring..

Oh, I don't know. It sort of reminds me of Blake's 7. I wonder: would that make Balmer Travis or Servalan?

Re:new benchmark

[amRadioHed]

But seriously.. windows 7 looks and feels like the "I'm a PC" guy from apple advertisements... even the name sounds boring...

Maybe that's what they were going for. IIRC, Vista didn't do so well in the corporate world.

Re:new benchmark

[mdwh2]

But seriously.. windows 7 looks and feels like the "I'm a PC" guy from apple advertisements... even the name sounds boring...

It's an operating system, for heaven's sake. Do you worry that the SATA cable in your computer doesn't look hip, or your fridge-freezer looks boring, or the exhaust pipe of your car doesn't look trendy?

Personally I'd rather a computer component does its job well, rather than trying to win me over with cheap ads that try to appeal to some corporate-dictated pretence of being fashionable. If I care about the looks of things I own, I've no need to bother with needing advice tips from geeks at Apple or Microsoft.

Re:new benchmark

[B Nesson]

"Windows 7" is too boring? That's your problem with it? Yeah, it really just doesn't have the zest of something like "OS X."

Or maybe you'd prefer something along the lines of "Windows 7: Alliterative Animal?"

Copying

[tsa]

Is the copying issue that Vista had solved now?

Re:Copying

[oever]

No, you still cannot copy it.

Re:Copying

[Anonymous Coward]

After they got the initial bad press they tweaked it so that in most scenarios the copying speed had improved. However I noticed recently that my MBP still copied much faster to an identical target as a friends with Vista at the latest service pack level (or XP obviously).

As someone who doesn't use Vista a lot...it's strange. I had only ever read about it and was under the impression that they had sped up the copying. But it's still pretty slow.

Re:Copying

[rdnetto]

Why on earth would you want to copy it? Let me know how deletion goes :)

Re:Copying

[dave420]

That was fixed over 2 years ago.

Re:Copying

[gmhowell]

That's a feature, not a bug.

Re:Copying

[sqrt(2)]

I'm using 7 right now and copying is just as fast as XP, and that bug was fixed in Vista a long time ago.

Re:Copying

[cbhacking]

Not sre which issue you're referring to. If you mean the way that Vista appeared to take longer to copy, in truth that was never a problem, quite the opposite. Vista uses larger copy buffers and other improvements. The actual process of copying the bits is faster. In SP1, they improved this further - on most operations it's over 10% faster in throughput. However, where prior Windows versions would simply close the handles as soon as the WriteFile calls returned (which simply means the data has been sent to the storage driver stack, which has considerable buffering), Vista waits until the disk buffer is finished flushing before it displays the operation as complete. This means that copy appears to take longer - sometimes much longer, if there is a lot of data or the data is highly non-contiguous - but also means that one common problem people had with XP, where they would see that a copy is "complete" and pull out their external drive (before the data is actually written to persistent storage) no longer occurs.

Incidentally, one of Vista's improvements is that copy (or move, delete, or other such operations) operations executed using Explorer are now transactional. This means that you can roll back an operation if something goes wrong or you just decide to cancel. This might have some minor impact on the time an operation takes, but it is well worth it in my opinion - no more cases of a botched move resluting in a random batch of files that did, did not, or only partially transferred.

Re:Copying

[Bluebottel]

Its not an issue, its a feature.

Re:Copying

[mdwh2]

It can copy? Well, it's ahead of Mac/Iphone OS then...

Fastest shutdown *and* removal!

[Anonymous Coward]

After being shut down, Windows 7 will also be the fastest-removed OS of all time.
Congratulations, Microsoft!

So basically...

[korean.ian]

"'the operating system that both Microsoft and its consumers have been waiting for.'"
So it's Snow Leopard?

Re:So basically...

[blackraven14250]

No, it's the look-alike.

Re:So basically...

[kyuubi42]

no it's the version with a better task bar, more hardware support, better gaming, and that removes the damn application from memory after you've closed all windows related to it

Re:So basically...

[CodingHero]

I would posit that perhaps a major reason for making it more "Mac-like" is because tech journalism as a whole constantly berates Microsoft with arguments that generally boil down to "Microsoft is bad because it is not Apple."

Windows 7 RTM Cracked

[Anonymous Coward]

With the RTM having been cracked, Windows 7 is available for free to anyone now:

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1496144/lenovo-explains-cracked-windows

Re:Windows 7 RTM Cracked

[Tukz]

That OEM key is blacklisted.

Re:Windows 7 RTM Cracked

[geekprime]

So they invalidated all keys generated by lenovo up to date?

They are going to have to reinstall the preboot image on every machine they have manufactured with W7?

Of course for all I know that could be 4 machines or 400,000.

All I can say is OWWWW!

Re:Windows 7 RTM Cracked

[Tukz]

As far as I'm aware, the disk hadn't been taken into use yet.

I read an article a while after, stating that the OEM disk wasn't in use yet, so it wasn't a problem to blacklist em.

However, if it happens when the entire thing goes live, it would be much much worse for Microsoft, as they can't blacklist it without messing up consumers installations.

Re:Windows 7 RTM Cracked

[ledow]

And this is why volume license keys basically defeat all of MS's copy-protection claims. Every major release of Windows that's included VLK's has had it cracked and the VLK posted online within days of release. Hell, I've memorised the XP VLK's that are commonly issued to UK schools after I found three geographically-seperate schools all with the same VLK. With XP you could suck out the key from the registry, so I have copies of some major educational suppliers VLK's too, should WGA want to blacklist a key that we use. We know we're licensed, and getting hold of any VLK in order to continue in business in such an instance isn't a problem.

Microsoft basically say: "We want to know is someone's copied Windows, so we give everyone a unique number that has to be actived online and only allocates to that single PC for the rest of it's life (making provision for hardware changes), that we can blacklist if we think it's been leaked... then we give our "big" customers with hundreds of minimum wage employees that change every month a special number that will work anywhere, doesn't require activation (but passes it if required) and pretty much ignores hardware changes and that to blacklist would knock out millions of PC's worldwide so it's basically a perpetual bypass of all our systems".

I can't see the flaw in THAT plan. No. Not at all. Windows 7 is more tricky in that it's more of a public/private key affair that you can't suck the keys out of supplied machines, but any insider release (minimum wage, temporary employee doing boring OS installation for a living) is inevitable.

MS have blacklisted VLK's in the past (XP era?), but it was years after their initial use (SP2 blocked VLK's that were released pre-RTM) when they were pretty sure most people would have moved on, and they would issue new keys to customers that could prove they had genuinely bought the OS... it didn't hit much of an uproar, but basically those keys worked until the OS was already four or five years old, and then you just had to change the key for another. Not bad for "free".

This is why all the activation nonsense is a waste of time, like any copy protection scheme. The only people it hurts/hinders are the honest.

Re:Windows 7 RTM Cracked

[w0mprat]

VLKs that were blacklisted were not in any significant usage by the organizations they were initially provided to. Of course Microsoft isn't going to brick 1000s of windows machines just to catch pirates.

*mumbles*Microsoft know piracy actually helps their market share.*mumbles*

Does it require insane amounts of extra hardware?

[parallel_prankster]

The question that I have is this - Does it require insane amounts of extra hardware to be fast and good. One huge honking problem with Vista was its huge memory requirements. I mean I did not think XP needed so much more memory than what I had before. I removed Windows ME and put XP on my desktop and it worked fine then. But Vista was soo slow, it doubled all the hardware requirements. I felt like Microsoft had a deal with RAM manufacturers or something. My question is Windows 7 a good OS only if you throw so much more extra or does it work fine with hardware you would expect on most systems ?

Not faster than XP, not faster than Vista

[electrosoccertux]

Just FYI-- the claims of better gaming performance from 7 than Vista or XP have not materialized (not on my machine at least). It's just as slow as Vista.

That said, it's still worth having (like Vista) with UAC turned off, simply because the aggressive prefetching loads frequently used programs into RAM. Stuff opens faster.

Re:Not faster than XP, not faster than Vista

[Anonymous Coward]

Just FYI-- the claims of better gaming performance from 7 than Vista or XP have not materialized (not on my machine at least). It's just as slow as Vista.

That said, it's still worth having (like Vista) with UAC turned off, simply because the aggressive prefetching loads frequently used programs into RAM. Stuff opens faster.

So... it's not faster.. except for the part where you say it's faster?

Re:Not faster than XP, not faster than Vista

[Ash Vince]

That said, it's still worth having (like Vista) with UAC turned off, simply because the aggressive prefetching loads frequently used programs into RAM.

Is it only me that finds UAC useful in Windows 7? I like the fact that applications have to pop up a single extra dialog box to ask me if they are allowed to make changes to my computer. Each app only seems to prompt once when it is run and I generally only get asked by applications that I am expecting to modify my PC anyway.

Re:Not faster than XP, not faster than Vista

[Tukz]

So far, the games I've played on windows 7, has run a bit better than my XP.
I haven't tried a lot of the new generation of games yet though, my Core i7 gaming rig won't come till next week.

Re:Not faster than XP, not faster than Vista

[Tukz]

I do find it useful, however, there should be a checkbox for "remember settings for this application" so it doesn't ask me every damn time I start a certain application.

Re:Not faster than XP, not faster than Vista

[jamesh]

Is it only me that finds UAC useful in Windows 7?

Is UAC under Windows 7 the same as Vista? If so, then I already hate it :)

I run XP on my laptop, so the only exposure I have to Vista is on other peoples computers, and then only because it's broken and I'm called in to fix it. As such, I get the popups every time I want to edit file permissions, edit the registry, or do any of the things I need to do to get it going again. It becomes a very tedious exercise - just think about how many times you have to click things in explorer when you try and examine permissions on files that normal users don't have access to.

I do think it's a great idea to save users from themselves though, although some articles i've read say it doesn't even do that very well...

Re:Not faster than XP, not faster than Vista

[rekenner]

It's not, actually. You can tone it down to, pretty much, only when you install something or a program updates. I hated Vista's UAC after light use, but I left Win7's on. I got a bunch of prompts right after I installed it, but after that? Once a week, if that. Oh, wait. Also for certain compatibility settings, actually.I forgot about that, at first.

Re:Not faster than XP, not faster than Vista

[ledow]

He doesn't say that Windows 7 is faster than Vista. He says that they are BOTH faster if you turn UAC off.

Re:Not faster than XP, not faster than Vista

[Zoidbot]

Win7 UAC is pretty good, much less annoying than Vista, and considerably less annoying than Ubuntus UAC.

Re:Not faster than XP, not faster than Vista

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI, 7 is faster on my machine than both XP and Vista. There. We're even now.

Re:Not faster than XP, not faster than Vista

[electrosoccertux]

That's not possible, the new DX10&11 render path is still there, and with it all the overhead of switching between user and kernel mode to talk to the game and drivers and baton passing in between.

Re:Not faster than XP, not faster than Vista

[adolf]

I find that the prefetching stuff actually makes my systems slower, and habitually turn that part off on my own computers. It works fine on my wife's machine, though.

I can only guess that the disparity is that her usage is more predictable than mine.

granted, I've only played with the RC...

[StrangeTikiGod]

but it's not bad...It's not great, but it's not bad. It's an improvement over Vista, but it's not as intuitive as XP was. I'm happier with my OS X machine, but that's just my personal preference. I can see where they've tried to reduce some of the more egregious dumbassery that Vista introduced, but in a lot of ways, for the average end user, it really is just a Service Pack for Vista, with some bells and whistles and cleaning up. It's what Vista likely should have been. YMMV.

Re:granted, I've only played with the RC...

[moderators_are_w*nke]

Yes, its definitely not as annoying as Vista. I still find myself using ipconfig ahead of their networking GUI though.

Re:granted, I've only played with the RC...

[noname444]

It's an improvement over Vista, but it's not as intuitive as XP was.

Seriously. Windows XP is not intuitive. You're confusing the fact that you know where stuff is because you've used Windows XP since 2001, with the OS being intuitive.

People always hate new windows versions, because stuff isn't "where it's supposed to be" (ie. where it always has been, even if it makes no sense).

What makes the switch from XP to Vista more painful than other version switches is because of the big release gap between XP and Vista (XP - 2001, Vista - 2007). People have simply gotten too used (more so than before) to the XP interface.

Bottom line: Windows Vista is not an exceptionally bad version of windows, and Windows 7/XP is not an exceptionally good version of windows. They're all pretty much a bit better than the previous version in most areas. It's all about marketing.

Re:granted, I've only played with the RC...

[gx5000]

Marketing ?!!

It's about performance. PERIOD !
That's probably the first thing we look at here, then security and such...
We have an industry that promotes hardware obsolescence, and we fight it tooth and nail.
Vista or 7, same difference. I don't care what the GUI is going to look like if they
create an OS that speeds things up. If Porsche came out every few years with a slower
vehicle that consumed more and more gas they would likely fail.
What so hard to understand here ? Give us performance or GTFO.

Hardware

[rampant mac]

FTFA: "Importantly, it won't require the hardware upgrades that Vista demanded, partially because the hardware has caught up"

Yes, but how does it do on my old hardware that struggled with Vista in the first place? I know Mac OS 10.1 > 10.2 > 10.3 > 10.4 gave me better performance on the same hardware. It wasn't until I moved to Leopard that I REALLY noticed my PowerBook 1Ghz PPC chip was at it's limit.

Re:Hardware

[NetNed]

FWIW and from what I heard they supposedly made is run better with less. I herd better then Vista did because Microsoft was a little miffed at all the new netbooks that had XP installed becuase Vista wasn't usable on them because of lower hardware specs. Considering the benchmarks it sounds plausible since 7 was coming close to XP, but seeing is believing.

Re:Hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

how does it do on my old hardware that struggled with Vista

I really like Win7 RC 7100 on my Compaq Armada M700 laptop (P3 845MHz, 578MB RAM).
I used to run 2000 because XP was too slow. Needless to say, I never tried Vista on this rig.

Win7 is damn responsive (as good as 2000), has most features (no glass windows), and using sleep it boots in less than a minute. I get wireless with pcmcia card, surf with Chrome (please fix IE, MS), run remote desktop sessions, play music and video (flash is slow), and stream media from my desktop, but usually not all at the same time. The laptop is awesome and light, even though it's practically a museum piece. If only I could buy a battery that worked! Win7 = Gold.

Re:Hardware

[Zixia]

"Importantly, it won't require the hardware upgrades that Vista demanded, partially because the hardware has caught up"

So the new OS won't need hardware upgrades because the hardware was already upgraded for the previous OS? That's some twisted logic.

Re:Hardware

[je ne sais quoi]

Interestingly enough, if you actually look in the TFA at the benchmarks they ran (Yeah I know, I had to click through a bunch of pages), it says this:

Windows 7 feels faster than Windows XP and Vista, but it turns out that's not always the case -- sometimes, it's the slowest of the three operating systems.

In fact, if you look at their benchmarks, they tested boot time, shutdown time, office performance, itunes encoding, cinebench and the only time that Win7 performance wasn't the same or slower was for the shutdown time. I find it strange that we have articles about how Win7 is the answer MS has been looking for except the actual data suggests the only thing it does any faster is that it shuts down more quickly.

This is useless, cnet even uses a classic line about win7, the one about how it feels faster. Apple fanbois are famous for using this line whenever there was a new release, regardless of whether there was a change in that particular software or not. More importantly, when did Apple and MS switch their positions? Apple was never the evil monopoly, and MS fans were never irrational fanbois, it was always reversed. When did that happen?

P.S. The reason 10.5 is slower on the PPC is because Apple didn't spend as much time optimizing it on the PPC chips, spending their time on the Intels instead. For Intel chips, 10.5 is faster than 10.4.

Re:Hardware

[wolrahnaes]

It runs much smoother in resource-limited environments like netbooks. I don't notice much of a difference on my normal machines, but they're all dual cores with 4+GB of RAM. My Mini 9 on the other hand sees a huge difference, since it doesn't have much to spare with a single core Atom and only 2GB of RAM. Ubuntu Netbook Remix is still snappier, but that's a netbook-focused distro versus a general purpose OS, it's apples and oranges.

Re:Hardware

[mdwh2]

So another words, even though you admit that OS X 10.5 is also beyond running on that old hardware, you expect better from Vista and Windows 7?

10.4 was released in 2005, Vista came later in 2007 (as was 10.5 later that year). So 10.4 should be compared to XP. 10.5 to Vista. And 10.6 to Windows 7.

Anyhow, if running on old computers is all you care about, AmigaOS 1.x, 2.x runs on a 1MB or less 68000.

Re:Hardware

[frank_adrian314159]

Yes, but how does it do on my old hardware that struggled with Vista in the first place?

This is a really good question. The USB wireless adapter I'm using doesn't have a Vista-compatible driver. Neither does the PCI audio I/O device I'm using with my DAW, nor does the add-on video card. I still don't see driver support out there for older hardware.

Re:Hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

It is much better than Vista. We are running the RC on a test laptop at work (P4 2.2GHz, 768Mb of ram) and it feels faster than XP on the same machine. I wouldn't even bother trying to install Vista on it.

Re:Hardware

[Wizlish]

No, actually you find out your 1GHz PPC chip is 'at its limit' when you try to run Snow Leopard... ;-}

Re:Hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but how does it do on my old hardware that struggled with Vista in the first place?

I installed/tested Windows 7 RTM yesterday and found it has no drivers for my Creative Labs sound card, my Adaptec SCSI card, my Hauppauge TV card, or my Canon scanner. They all work fine in Windows XP: so I'll be giving Windows 7 a miss.

16GB?

[reub2000]

What in a OS could be taking up 16GB for a minimal install?

Re:16GB?

[Anonymous Coward]

What in a OS could be taking up 16GB for a minimal install?

Sometimes I think they just keep everything from all previous windows versions:
http://bink.nu/photos/news_article_images/images/13552/original.aspx

But that can't be true, since NT Backup vanished in Vista.

Re:16GB?

[Beriaru]

Copyright notices, EULAs, DRM engines, w98 & XP for retrocompatibility... and a pr0n video of Ballmer and a chair. 6 hours, HD, Harcore. The mother of the easter eggs.

Re:16GB?

[smash]

Libraries and frameworks. You know, bits of software that programmers can use to ensure a consistent feel and program behavior. OS/X has them. Windows has them. Linux is still working on it (KDE/Gnome are getting there, but shit still breaks in a major way from version to version).

Re:16GB?

[Dracos]

Every tile in every possible size of Minesweeper field has it's own dedicated icon dll.

Re:16GB?

[Tukz]

My fresh install of Windows 7 RC Ultimate on my old rig, didn't take up 16GB of space. Only about half IIRC.

Re:16GB?

[ap7]

I cannot see any more than 10 GB taken up on the install I tried. Also, for those of you who have commented without even trying the OS, a few days of actually using it might help. I've installed and ditched Ubuntu thrice now. This is an OS that Linux lovers should really be worried about. Thanks to all in the Linux community for helping make Windows 7 such a good OS :)

Re:16GB?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because there's a massive base of Linux users aching to part with $150 of their money for the privilege of having to chase spyware around their systems...

Re:16GB?

[reub2000]

To be fair, I've had gentoo installations that have accumulated a ton of crud and taken up more than that amount of space.

Re:16GB?

[DigiShaman]

"C:\Windows\winsxs"

That directory is currently 7.35GB on my Vista 64 machine. I've seen it about that same on Server 2008 boxes too (they are based off the same code base, so...) Basically, it's a folder cache of DLL files in case the OS needs to refer back to an older revision should an application have trouble running properly.

And NO, you can't just delete the folder nor run a command to purge it properly. It's to be treated like the registry hive in that your not supposed to touch it. Oh well, at least 1TB drives are cheap these days. :-/

Re:16GB?

[rekenner]

See also: Page file.

Re:16GB?

[lukas84]

Yeah, but it will quickly need more than that.

The new servicing stack in Vista/7 has lots of advantages, but it also eats hard disk space for breakfast.

A non-issue in my opinion, since even our el-cheapo Lenovo ThinkCentre desktops ship with 320GB hard drives.

Re:16GB?

[ledow]

I have no idea but it usually just cruft and poor programming... you'll probably find that it only peaks at 16Gb during installation but uses 5-10 Gb for a "final footprint" after the installation is complete. They might even take into account drive formatting, swapfile, etc. into that which will give quite a hit.

To be honest, the initial install for Windows was always stupidly large for what you got - you can nLite and UPX and do all sorts of stuff and still get a working Windows installation in half the space. And even then, the Windows folder will grow dramatically over time and you install more and more. Every Windows installation I've ever had has hit the partition limit I set (generously, or so I thought on installation) and I've had to play "Program Files Folder Shuffle" to get space back on the boot/Windows drive - it's not even like it's my data or profile - that's stored somewhere else entirely.

However, drive space is going to take a hit in the next few years on Windows 7's main target - netbooks... wasn't everyone planning on using smaller but faster SSD drives?

Re:16GB?

[gbjbaanb]

Ah yes... that old bastard. its only 6 gig on my 32-bit Vista at home. I resent it taking up an entire DVD, just to backup stuff I'm already backing up!

At least administrators are used to backing up lots more data than they used to, and tape hardware is .. well, not that cheap.

Thing is, I've never seen it work, when SQL Server decided to go tits up, I still had to fire up the CD and repair the installation.

Re:16GB?

[Anonymous Coward]

For certain values of "smaller", yeah. Even a 40gb SSD will have plenty of room for windows 7 + office 2010. (I suspect the shitty 2/8/16 GB SSDs that some netbooks come with nowadays, will soon go the way of the dodo).

Re:16GB?

[cbhacking]

Win7 contains a LOT of stuff, like Media Center, IIS, and so forth that a lot of people probably don't use. It's all installed, though; even if you use an edition of Windows that doesn't "have" those features, they are present on the drive so that you can upgrade to a higher edition without needing an install disc. It also makes the installer much faster - copy data image to disk, expand it, apply a bit of customization, and you're good to go.

Also, drivers. Win7 (like Vista before it) ships with a ton of drivers included. As in, several gigs worth. This means that there's a pretty good chance that most hardware will plug-and-play without even needign to search for a driver online, but does drastically increase the size of the install footprint. In any case, it doesn't actually *need* more than about 8.5 gigs after installation, and you can install it into about 12 (counting space to unpack the image). However, when you consider the pagefile and hiberfile - both typically several gigs (even though ther pagefile doesn't need to be, Windows still makes a large one by default) these days - you end up burning a lot of additional space in a hurry.

Re:16GB?

[bcmm]

At least for KDE and Qt, you mean from major (as in integer) version to major version, requiring people who use old applications to have both sets of libraries available (which is perfectly possible). I don't see how things are different on Windows.

Re:16GB?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are so right. I was a kubuntu user before I tried RC1. I hate to sound like a troller, but my wife will use Windows 7, she will not use kubuntu.

Until linux can work on their user experiance, there are not many options out there. OSX does not support my wireless card, so my options are XP or Windows 7. Windows 7 once you get used to it is great. Unfortunatly, most people hate change and are not willing to try something out.

Get our of your rut, give it an HONEST try for a week.

Re:16GB?

[Anonymous Coward]

Partially because most of the line level programmers are fresh out of school and don't have experience (or desire, or knowledge) of optimizing code for efficiency, whether speed or memory consumption. They drink the koolaid of "just buy more RAM" or "get a faster CPU". Once they hit the hard wall of the speed of light, RAM size is what absorbs the impact, and you see RAM requirements going up and up.

Contrast this to the typical Linux developer: years or decades of experience, and often had to buy his own hardware, so efficiency matters.

Re:16GB?

[AndrewNeo]

The contents of WinSxS folder are mostly hardlinks, and the Properties dialog doesn't correctly show the disk-use size on Vista. http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2008/11/19/disk-space.aspx

Re:16GB?

[Anonymous Coward]

The OS of Windows 7, called NT 6.1 does not take 16GB diskspace. The OS just use about 40 MB of RAM and diskspace about few megabytes. But the whole Windows, the System, takes almost 10 GB. It is not bad thing because you get lots of stuff with it. Even that you do not have so many applications preinstalled like on Mandriva or other linux distributions, you have enough nice things.
And 7 does look and feel good. It is what matters for normal users. Not the technical specifications. When avarage joe and lisa buy new computer, they got over 750GB harddrive installed in it. If you loose 20Gb for Windows and they keep other 500GB empty, what does the few gigabytes mean for them what is used for Windows? Nothing.

Linux is different case. You can push it to old machines, even with the newest release of the OS like 2.6.30 and you can still manage to get it work on PII 200Mhz with 64MB RAM. And you can even get nice looking for it with compiz even then if you just have avarage 3D card (GF3).

Re:16GB?

[Mr Bubble]

I read somewhere - sorry, no link - that Snow Leopard upgrades will actually gain you several Gigabytes. Seems hard to believe, but I am eager to try it.

Re:16GB?

[gparent]

It doesn't. It takes about 8 GB on this virtual machine.

Re:16GB?

[Anonymous Coward]

So how did it fit on my little 10gig HD I had sitting around on my old P4 1gig Ram Machine?

Re:16GB?

[Anonymous Coward]

It removes the ability to use it on PPC macs. So all the executables will be only the half-size of before.

Re:16GB?

[Blue Stone]

Winsxs doesn't necessarily contain that much data though. Most of the files in there are links to files elsewhere on the hd. Sometimes the same files counted multiple times. The size of winsxs that windows reports comes from the sum of all the files linked to.

Re:16GB?

[SilverHatHacker]

Posting to cancel accidental mod

Re:16GB?

[kamatsu]

Kubuntu is a pretty awful Linux distribution, just saying.

Re:16GB?

[kamatsu]

It doesn't automatically trim it's content in Leopard for your architecture anyway? Eeugh.

Re:16GB?

[reub2000]

I'm using Kubuntu right now, and I like it.

Re:16GB?

[reub2000]

You're right, 10GB is nothing on modern hard drives. However, that has probably killed any chance of me installing it on my desktop, as I currently boot both Windows XP and Kubuntu from the same 80GB hard drive.

Also, as you pointed out, a base install for many linux distros includes many useful apps. The first time booting up on many distros, I have enough software to start using the computer for normal tasks like web browsing and word processing, but this is not so on a Windows install.

Re:16GB?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fellow nerds, I believe the geekless invader is referring to swap.

Note even mighty Wikipedia frames the article largely in the Microsoftese of the hoi polloi.

Anticipation, check.

[Cur8or]

Disappointment, check. Anticipation for next windows, begin.

(plus one I1nformative)

[Anonymous Coward]

you all is to let Are 7000 users aF sad world. At

"the fastest version of Windows to shut down"

[kinema]

"the fastest version of Windows to shut down"

I'm pretty sure that Windows 3.x owns that title. If I remember correctly Windows 3 and earlier didn't need to be "shutdown", rather you could just turn off the computer.

Re:"the fastest version of Windows to shut down"

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, you were supposed to exit to DOS before turning off the computer (at least in 3.0).

Re:"the fastest version of Windows to shut down"

[dingen]

Windows 3 isn't an operating system, it's just a DOS-application allowing you to run things in a GUI. DOS requires no shut down procedure, you can just pull the plug to turn it off. But it was recommended to quit your active application first, which could be Windows. In fact, Windows 9x ran in the same way... when shutting down, it was actually quitting to DOS.

Re:"the fastest version of Windows to shut down"

[peppepz]

Actually, Windows 3.1 required to be "shut down", otherwise it left tons of temporary files in C:\DOS (at least in Standard Mode).
DOS required to be shut down, too, if you used SmartDrive (which, IIRC, was active by default at least since MS DOS 5.0, as it improved performance quite a bit). What you had to do was to press CTRL + ALT + DEL before turning off the system, to let SmartDrive write back to disk the dirty blocks in its cache. It would display a short message during the operation, then reboot the computer. This behaviour was recommended in the DOS user's manual.

Re:"the fastest version of Windows to shut down"

[jones_supa]

Hmm, didn't know about that way.

I always used "smartdrv /c".

Re:"the fastest version of Windows to shut down"

[Corporate Troll]

Only if you used smartdrives write caching functionality, and that wasn't turned on by default.

Re:"the fastest version of Windows to shut down"

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true. SmartDrive by default flushed the cache every time you saw the C prompt. It could be configured not to do it, but that was definitely NOT recommended by the DOS manual.

Re:"the fastest version of Windows to shut down"

[Anonymous Coward]

Files were saved to %TEMP% not C:\DOS

Re:"the fastest version of Windows to shut down"

[peppepz]

The default value for TEMP was C:\DOS.

Re:"the fastest version of Windows to shut down"

[blind biker]

DOS required to be shut down, too, if you used SmartDrive (which, IIRC, was active by default at least since MS DOS 5.0, as it improved performance quite a bit). What you had to do was to press CTRL + ALT + DEL before turning off the system, to let SmartDrive write back to disk the dirty blocks in its cache. It would display a short message during the operation, then reboot the computer. This behaviour was recommended in the DOS user's manual.

And only NOW you tell me!?

Re:"the fastest version of Windows to shut down"

[Sheepy]

DOS required to be shut down, too, if you used SmartDrive (which, IIRC, was active by default at least since MS DOS 5.0, as it improved performance quite a bit).

Many hard disks, in the days of DOS, didn't auto-park their heads. We used to run a park.com program prior hitting the power switch.

WHich is it?

[Plasmagrid]

"Touchscreen features worked surprisingly well. The hardware sometimes misread some of the multitouch gestures, occasionally confusing rotating an image, for example, with zooming in or out of the image. Overall, though, there were few difficulties in performing the basic series of gestures that Microsoft promotes, and this places Windows 7 in an excellent position for the future, as more and more computers are released with multitouch abilities."

We have "Surprisingly well" then in the same breath "sometime misread" to Occasionally confusing" then Few difficulties". Sounds like it was Surprisingly made up.

Free ugrade for Vista sufferers?

[purpledinoz]

Microsoft should give Vista users a free upgrade to Windows 7. Unfortunately, my laptop doesn't work well with XP, because the drivers are unstable. So I'm stuck using Vista, which is a huge beast, slow, and shitty. Now that Windows 7 is coming out, I would love to use that instead, but I get stomach pains when I think about handing my hard earned money to get what Vista SHOULD have been. Now I wait for the /. crowd to flame me to death me for using windows.

Re:Free ugrade for Vista sufferers?

[Tukz]

OMG YOU USE WIN.. wait, that wasn't why I replied....

Anyway, with that out of the way, I kinda agree. Vista was such a failure at release, and for such a long time, that Vista owners should indeed get a free Windows 7.
At least a home edition.

But from what I've been told, since the latest service pack to vista, it's actually quite ok, and not that far from Windows 7 in terms of driver compatibility and stability.
Not that I know it for sure, haven't touched Vista for more than "install.. omg craponastick...format".

Re:Free ugrade for Vista sufferers?

[mxh83]

Now I wait for the /. crowd to flame me to death me for using windows.

With a sentence like that, we wouldn't bother.

Re:Free ugrade for Vista sufferers?

[Ant P.]

Vista is sufficient punishment in itself.

Complaining about how bad your OS runs and demanding handouts while actively refusing to take the free upgrade path already there... can't say you don't deserve it.

Re:Free ugrade for Vista sufferers?

[b4dc0d3r]

We've been paying for a product and not getting it since Windows 95. The only time they admitted it was when they killed ME and tried to get everyone on XP.

Personally, I legitimately purchased one OS (W95) with a computer long ago, and I've been upgrading with all of the service packs they have released since. I am currently deciding whether to upgrade to the latest service pack nicknamed Windows 7, or to throw away my investment and switch to something I can at least fix if it misbehaves.

If they hadn't put out so much shoddy work, I would have happily paid for each version. If I had source code to some of the lesser apps so I could fix the problems myself, I definitely would have paid for it. Windows to me is like a table you buy and bring home, and one of the legs is shorter than the others. Of course you can't just fix it yourself, you have to wait. Service pack 1 is a deck of cards you're supposed to put under the short leg almost but not quite the right height, so it's still a little wobbly. SP2 is a table leg-shaped patch that sits under the leg and is the right height, but they wait till SP3 to give you the special glue to attach it. Now you have a table that works, except now there's a hole in the top you didn't notice before. Guess that's where they took the material for the peg-leg...

I paid for something long ago and never got it. Sounds like a class action suit waiting to happen - except the average person in the jury box will be swayed by the "computers just break sometimes" argument. Partly because computers are a mystery and they don't understand that software can be quite reliable, and ironically, partly because they are used to using Windows.

Re:Free ugrade for Vista sufferers?

[Anonymous Coward]

At least if you are flamed to death you don't have to worry about forking over your hard earned money for Win 7.

Re:Free ugrade for Vista sufferers?

[snadrus]

Visit Ubuntu.com and try Linux. Use Synaptic to install Wine if you're worried about a few programs not running. Worst case, VirtualBox will run windows (XP recommended, but anything runs) for those last few stubborn programs, driver-problem-free. It just needs a blank CD or 2gb USB drive.

Re:Free ugrade for Vista sufferers?

[cffrost]

[...] I get stomach pains when I think about handing my hard earned money to get what Vista SHOULD have been.

Pepto Bismal

D&D de-maximization? Metacity has it.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Dragging a program away from the top or sides will return it to its original size. This is an entirely new feature in Windows 7"

Well, it's been included in Metacity (Gnome window manager) for as long as I can remember. The only difference is that Windows 7 also allows to maximize a window by dragging; this has not been inclueded in Metacity due to usability reasons.

The Mantra stays the same

[get quad]

Mantra: always wait for SP2!

In Depth?

[purpledinoz]

The title of the article is deceiving, they claimed to have tested in depth, but there are only 5 benchmark scores, and only tested in 32-bit. WTF

OSX?

[Toonol]

Forget that. How does it compare to XP? That's the most important question.

My impression from various benchmarks is that it's much closer to XP's speed than Vista was. That's a big relief. I'm not going to upgrade anytime soon, but it's nice to know there's at least a path ahead. Now: Does it still allow for a Windows Classic theme?

Re:OSX?

[NervousNerd]

There still is a classic mode in 7, but due to the interface changes in Vista and 7, it won't look exactly like XP/2K. Also, the Start menu can no longer revert to classic mode.

Re:OSX?

[Bert64]

The start bar is also a lot taller and i can't find a way to reduce it to it's previous size (or smaller)...
This is especially a problem on netbooks which have small screens, having a thick startbar at the bottom and a thick titlebar at the top significantly reduces the available screen space for your applications.

Re:OSX?

[revlayle]

in the taskbar properties, you can revert to smaller icons and tell it to have labels. However, it will still *behave* like the new task bar - pinning items the aero-peek interface will remain, etc...

Re:OSX?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did they remove autohide?

Re:Does it require insane amounts of extra hardwar

[smash]

It will run fine with $50 worth of RAM (ie, 2gb or more).

The fastest version of Windows to shut down?

[PhunkySchtuff]

the fastest version of Windows to shut down

How is this even a bullet point. Who stands (or sits there) thinking "Damn, I wish this machine would shut down faster"?

No seriously... I own desktop and laptop computers. None of them are shut down on anything like a regular basis. They both are put to sleep quite frequently, the desktop with a keystroke command (that could also be a menu-driven command) and the laptop by just shutting the lid.

I seriously can't remember the last time I actually shut my computer down. Put it to sleep yes, even rebooted it every now and then, but actually shut down? I dunno!

Re:The fastest version of Windows to shut down?

[jamesh]

No seriously... I own desktop and laptop computers. None of them are shut down on anything like a regular basis. They both are put to sleep quite frequently, the desktop with a keystroke command (that could also be a menu-driven command) and the laptop by just shutting the lid.

me too. I don't shut the lid as that screws up the second monitor configuration - always standby then shut lid, but otherwise the same deal. If the battery runs down while it's in the carry bag it wakes up and hibernates itself, although that is rarely required.

This new laptop (still XP) was giving me grief though. Winlogon was leaking handles horribly (eventually holding up to nearly 30000 instead of a few hundred) every time it went through a standby->resume cycle. I uninstalled the craptastic HP fingerprint scanner / credential manager thing and the problem seems to have gone away.

On the occasions where I have had to shut down though, it's normally as a last resort to fix a problem and I normally want it to happen fast so I can get back to work. The latest one is it the cwd is on the CDROM drive in a command prompt and I remove the CD, the command prompt hangs and even task manager won't kill it, and the OS starts falling apart from there until the next reboot.

Re:The fastest version of Windows to shut down?

[maxwell demon]

reboot = shutdown + boot
So every time you reboot, you shut down.

Re:The fastest version of Windows to shut down?

[ledow]

Even taking that into account, the OP's comments still ring true.

If you're rebooting (and I thought we'd pretty much eliminated that in this day and age, to be honest, but some programs "insist" on a reboot when few are necessary) then you're at the behest of the BIOS, drive speed, boot loader, etc. anyway. And shutdown is less important that startup because at startup, by definition, you're waiting to USE the computer. Any semi-reliable machine is left unattended once the shutdown button is pressed, so who cares if it takes 10 or 30 or 60 seconds?

This is true of all OS's. My Linux setup actually takes a LONG time to shutdown (the wrapper script around squid itself imposes something like a 15 second delay, then the kill scripts hard code a 5 and 10 second delay for programs to respond to signals before even *thinking* about killing off processes). I can't remember the last time I watched it happen - first, I avoid rebooting, second the shutdown is an automated process that allows me to walk away and just check that it's off next time I walk past.

Shutdown time is, possibly, the most stupid metric ever to publish for a home PC. The second you install an antivirus or other "common" software, you'll triple those times instantly. The fact that it's the ONLY benchmark that 7 wins just tells me one thing - they're obviously not caching/swapping enough and/or intelligently enough - thus hindering performance but when it comes to shutdown... wow... not so much to clean up.

Same applies to programs as well as OS's here... if a program takes an extra second to clean up and shut down, I don't really care. If that *hinders* me starting up a new process (heavy swapping, etc.) I care. On is more important than off by orders of magnitude.

Re:The fastest version of Windows to shut down?

[SeaFox]

How is this even a bullet point. Who stands (or sits there) thinking "Damn, I wish this machine would shut down faster"?

If it's my computer at work, I do. One thing I've noticed is that occasionally processes hang/crash when Windows is trying to end them to shut down. Sometimes this interrupts the entire shutdown sequence and allows one to exit out of the crash dialog and work with the machine after that. That's an issue when you have an employer that pays way too much attention to who was logged into a machine when something bad happened or you have information on your workstation that's sensitive.

So at the end of the workday I usually stand there after choosing Shutdown and wait until I get to the "Windows is shutting down" final message before I walk away from the computer, otherwise I could end up with something NOT shutting down and my machine being open for anyone to fiddle around with/cause problems, pinning them on me.

Re:The fastest version of Windows to shut down?

[noname444]

Put it to sleep yes

I've put my windows computer to sleep too.

Start-bar aka Dock!

[SectoidRandom]

I have to say, being one of those closet users who has always admired the OSX Dock (and chosen to emulate it as close as possible whenever using Linux), I have to say after using Win7 for a couple of months I love the new start-bar! Finally almost 15 years (roughly since Win95) of pretty poor UI design when you consider the the Start-Menu and task bar, finally Windows has a task bar that *works*!

All it needs in the next version is to cut off the unused part (up to the sys-tray) then it will truely be a Dock! Seriously for those of you who have tested Win7, how many of you have found that your applications almost never fill up the entire bar? With everything stacked (properly stacked that is not like in previous Windows's) even with my usual 5-10 apps running the icons at most take 2/3 of the task bar, it's great.

Although it has to be said it is a personal thing, some people will of course choose to ungroup their start bar icons, and make it all more like the old versions, those are probably the same people who have 50+ program icons (not documents) on their desktops. :)

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[TheLink]

I'm one of those with double height taskbars in windows classic mode. I find it faster to be able to directly click on a taskbar item to select any of the 30+ windows open, than to click one of 6 items, then click again to select one of 5 items. I don't care how cluttered or messy it makes it look.

I've used KDE before and the problem with KDE was (is?) the sort order is wrong when you have a double/multi height taskbar - the items are organized from top to bottom then only left to right. This is bad because if one item is removed, everything to the right of it gets shuffled up or down. So you lose track of where stuff is. Windows does it right - right to left then only top to bottom. Perhaps I should put the taskbar on the side to sidestep the problem.

The other problem with KDE is "everything" is named starting with a "K" which makes it harder to scan to find stuff quickly.

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[DimmO]

It's good in theory, but there are usability glitches and apps need to be updated to make full use of it. eg: if you have Firefox pinned to the task bar and running, but the only window left is the Firefox downloads window, how do you get a new browser window? you can't just click the pinned firefox icon (which would be similar behaviour to the quick launch bar in xp/vista). You have to right click and click 'new window' (I'm not at my win7 box atm, so i don't know the exact command). Live messenger chat windows take 2 clicks to get them un-minimised (click the messenger icon, then the thumbnail of the chat window), instead of 1 (click the chat window task bar item in xp/vista). Don't get me wrong, I like the look of it, but it has a little way to go to be perfect. I know you can set the win7 task bar to behave a bit like xp/vista too, without grouped icons.

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[karstux]

True, the new task bar and start menu are pretty awesome. There's a good bit of OS X "inspiration" about it, but I don't mind - the usability is great. Now if only they had cloned Exposé and Spaces (or any good virtual desktop manager, really) while they were at it, it'd be the perfect windows.

Ah well, they need to sell Windows 8, at some point...

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[B1oodAnge1]

The other problem with KDE is "everything" is named starting with a "K" which makes it harder to scan to find stuff quickly.

This drives me absolutely batshit insane...

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[sopssa]

I'm one of those with double height taskbars in windows classic mode. I find it faster to be able to directly click on a taskbar item to select any of the 30+ windows open, than to click one of 6 items, then click again to select one of 5 items. I don't care how cluttered or messy it makes it look.

I agree here, I've always used atleast double height on taskbar and I hate it when the programs stack. It's just extra clicks and you dont see it just by looking at it - you have to click first and then look again. This is especially true when you keep your pc on 24/7 and you have lots of ssh/scp windows open, chat windows, notepads (yeah I tried using tabbed notepad++, but it has basically the same issue with extra clicks). I also like to run almost everything full screen (well, not the IM windows, but else) so the trick of showing the window when hovering isn't going to improve it so much.

However I haven't yet tried Windows 7, so maybe and hopefully it works way better than stacking in Vista and XP.

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[ShakaUVM]

>>However I haven't yet tried Windows 7, so maybe and hopefully it works way better than stacking in Vista and XP.

Nope. As yet another example of Microsoft demonstrating they have no concept of what usability means, two levels to switch to a window will now be standard in Win7. One mouseover to the dock, the next to click on the subwindow that pops up.

Like you, and most sane individuals, I like to be able to do everything with a single click. Making one of the most commonly used tasks take twice as long is ridiculous. But they've done the same thing with breadcrumb navigation and ribbon menus in Office 2007, which just goes to show how little they understand anything.

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[hairyfeet]

Dude, you never heard of Rocketdock? It even lets you minimize apps to the dock. Great app if you want a nice dock on older version of Windows, low resource and they even have an OSX looking theme built in if you want the whole Apple look. Really nice and free to boot. Not sure if it works on Win7 or not, but since it works on Vista it probably does. Give it a try, it might be what you are looking for.

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[w0mprat]

Not OSX inspired beyond superficial looks.The only thing OSX-ish about the new taskbar is the large icons that can be pinned. Otherwise it is very much the Windows paradigm. It looks dock-ish but thats about it.

Before Windows 7 you can easily configure the quick launch bar to have large icons, and XP introduced task grouping. The new dock only combines these two features, and adds a new largely original one: Jump Lists. For an extreme contrast, Rocketdock, AWN and cairo-dock are direct dock-clones.

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[w0mprat]

Right Click on the start bar -> Properties -> Taskbar buttons set to 'never combine' ... and you have the single click you are talking about.

Many users turned off task grouping in Windows XP, you can kwityetbitchin and do it in Windows 7 too :)

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, yes, the K's really get on my nerves, especially in, "Plasma", "Solid", "System Settings", "Dragon" and, "Soprano". I mean, geeze!

I prefer to have the consistent, "K" then the inconsistent, "Microsoft" OR "Windows" before the name. Microsoft Word, Windows Live Messenger, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Windows Movie Maker - hell, are new users just supposed to GUESS this stuff?

Don't be stupid. The only reason you KNOW there's a, "Windows" and not a, "Microsoft" before Windows Movie Maker is because you've seen the name so often that you've learned it. At least you can tell KDE applications are KDE applications because they have just one, measly, "K". Konqueror, Kopete, Kontact, KOrganizer, KTorrent... if it was anywhere near as messy as Microsoft's (or is that, "Windows'"?) approach, they'd be jumping between, "K" and, "J" every other application. THAT would get on my nerves, but it obviously doesn't happen.

Furthermore, there's nothing wrong with going to the menu and searching, "Instant messenger". That brings up Kopete. "Web browser" will bring up Konqueror, as well as Firefox and others you have installed. "Programs" will show Adept in Kubuntu. "Settings" will show System Settings. "Music" will bring up Juk (though I prefer Amarok), "Image" will bring up GWenview, "Video" will bring up Dragon, etc...

Besides, if the single reason that stands out the most for you NOT to use KDE is one, measly letter, then it suggests good things about the rest of the OS.

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[gbjbaanb]

agreed. Its *the* worst thing about KDE.

About as annoying as everything in Windows being blahblahbah.NET now.

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[The_Noid]

You should start using virtual desktops, they exist just to solve that exact problem. Give every desktop a "task" and always put programs belonging to that task on that desktop. If a desktop ever contains more than 5 windows for a longer period of time, subdivide the task for that desktop.
After a while you'll be automatically switching to the correct desktop whenever you need to do something, even if you just started your machine and all desktops are empty. You'll never be searching for a window ever again.

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[V!NCENT]

The other problem with KDE is "everything" is named starting with a "K" which makes it harder to scan to find stuff quickly.

It is easyer to find something in KDE4. Like with Vista KDE4 has a searchbar in the K menu. Also other stuff that makes you find things extremely fast. With KDE4 they broke away from the 'Kapp' scheme. Only when a K makes sence, like with AmaroK, it is still used.

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[Anonymous Coward]

Double height taskbars drive me nuts, personally. To do task switching, I often alt tab or win tab and then click on what im looking for.

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[Anonymous Coward]

You can configure Windows 7 either way, even though it groups windows under one icon by default.

You may want to first try it the default way, however. I used to be like you. However, I now find that having a known location on the taskbar to always move to for a given app makes the related windows quicker to find, instead of having to scan the taskbar for buttons that move around as different windows open and close. Plus, those same icons now hold jumplists to recently opened documents (or to any others that you pin to the list), making things overall more efficient since you can launch to a document with fewer clicks in the first place.

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[Civil_Disobedient]

This is bad because if one item is removed, everything to the right of it gets shuffled up or down.

Ever get the feeling the person who wrote that part of the app never even tested this particular feature? Because that's one of those things that would be instantly recognizable and universally agreed-upon as a UI fuck-up.

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[je ne sais quoi]

This drives me absolutely batshit insane...

*Ahem* I assume you meant: This drives me absolutely Kangarooshit Kooky.

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[Real1tyCzech]

Shift-click opens a new instance.

Problem solved. ...in one click.

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[PitaBred]

The problem isn't that everything is named starting with a K. It's that almost, but not quite, everything is named starting with a K, so you have a sub-list alphabetically sorted at K inside of a larger alphabetically sorted list. If everything started with a K, it wouldn't be a problem ;)

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[B1oodAnge1]

actually, kbatshit_insane.

Sorry for the mistake. O.o

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[ShakaUVM]

Right Click on the start bar -> Properties -> Taskbar buttons set to 'never combine' ... and you have the single click you are talking about.

Many users turned off task grouping in Windows XP, you can kwityetbitchin and do it in Windows 7 too :)

I did in XP, and will do so in Win7 as well.

That's why I said, "it is standard in Win7" to require two clicks. The point is they think it's better, by default, to require two levels of indirection to do things, which is mind-bogglingly stupid.

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[SectoidRandom]

Ah but that is my point entirely. That whole stacked start bar ala-win2000 (? I think when it was first introduced), is so very poorly designed!Hence the usual workaround of disabling it and increasing the size of the task bar, something that I too have done before.

My point before is how good it is too see that they have *fixed* that design! It is no nothing at all like that hopelessly poorly designed method of task switching.

Try it, I mean really try it for a month, i.e. unlearn your old habits, I think you might just see it is so much better than before.

I for one welcome any new UI advancements, thank you Apple for showing the way on this one!

2c.

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[Anonymous Coward]

The other problem with KDE is "everything" is named starting with a "K" which makes it harder to scan to find stuff quickly.

This drives me absolutely batshit insane...

Kinsane?

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[MrHim]

The other problem with KDE is "everything" is named starting with a "K" which makes it harder to scan to find stuff quickly.

Don't you mean that it's harder to find stuff Kwickly?

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm one of those with double height taskbars in windows classic mode.

If you allow me to give you a hint, move your Windows taskbar to the right side (like this). This way you can have as many windows opened as you wish without cluttering.

Additionally, this setup frees vertical space in exchange of horizontal (which is usually wasted in today's wide-screen monitors).

I started with this setup about a year ago, and although it was a bit "uncomfortable" the first days (due to muscle memory), now I find the default setup very cluttered. Combined with virtual desktops this setup shines :)

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[Anonymous Coward]

What? I can now be in C:/Users/Public/Public Desktop and go back to C:/ in one click with the breadcrumbs, whereas before I would have had to hit folder-up three times. Or just bypass the breadcrumbs and use the folders pane, but who would let that get in the way of a good misguided complaint? Or, for that matter, click in the address and erase back to C:/, but I can still do that also.

I can understand disliking the breadcrumbs for their inconsistent sizing and placement, which as far as I have heard has been improved in Win7, but for them making you have to click more? What exactly are you doing that leads to this situation?

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that would still be a problem, among other things because human brains normally never optimised themselves for scanning through a list of things beginning with K, and because it reduces the worthwhile amount of the name visible.

Re:Start-bar aka Dock!

[ShakaUVM]

>>I can understand disliking the breadcrumbs for their inconsistent sizing and placement, which as far as I have heard has been improved in Win7, but for them making you have to click more? What exactly are you doing that leads to this situation?

If you're in a folder on the desktop you can't single click to get back up to the desktop level, like you can in XP. Also, if the name is long, the breadcrumbs for higher level directories are hidden, which means you have to click, let the names resize around, click, etc., or, as you say, click, delete out everything after the C:\, and delete it.

In XP, you just whack backspace a bunch of times. Much much faster.

Typo in article?

[OverZealous.com]

First, they list the 6 (6? Still? Sigh...) versions of Windows 7 as:

Microsoft is offering six versions of Windows 7: Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate, OEM and Enterprise.

Then they immediately say:

The three versions that Redmond will be promoting most heavily are Home Premium, Professional and Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor

(Emphasis mine)

I assume they meant "Ultimate", but it is still a pretty silly mistake.

Another question I have (as a Mac user who is excited for the industry competition, if not the OS): is the new Windows 7 Taskbar resizable the way the OS X Dock is? With the dock, I have the option of instantly gaining more room (both on-screen and within the dock itself) by scaling it down, or back up when preferred. The magnification feature ensures that I can easily tell which icon I am hovering over. I haven't spent much time with Windows 7 because almost all of the new visual features are disabled in a VM, making the new taskbar significantly less useful than the old one. :-(

Re:Typo in article?

[mxh83]

I noticed those errors too. And then discounted the rest of the article.

UAC still sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

This is based on using the RC. I have a game that is made before Windows 7 and does not have its executable signed. UAC keep asking for confirmation every time I launch it, and there's no way that I know of to, say, sign it myself or add it to a list of trusted programs so that I'm not asked every time.

If it were malware, running it once should have already caused enough damage anyway so I don't see the point of UAC asking again and again.

Of course, adding a way for the user to make UAC not ask is probably equal to adding a loophole that can be exploited (e.g. software that adds itself to Window firewall exceptions), but this is annoying enough to make me turn off UAC so I'd say the cure (asking every time) is worse than the disease (potentially untrusted applications) in this case.

Re:UAC still sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

An executable being unsigned is not a cause for UAC. I would think that the most probable cause is that the game is writing to Program Files. Try giving write permissions to Users for the game's folder and files.

Wondering..

[Anonymous Coward]

If they implemented working virtual desktops yet?

Progress ...

[foobsr]

From TFA: "and slower than either of its predecessors in its Microsoft Office performance"

... so that companies have to license a few more copies in order to get the work done.

CC.

Re:Progress ...

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA, 40% slower than XP for Office (not likely what businesses use, right?), it's no small feat.. http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029471,49303203-7,00.htm

Re:Progress ...

[maxwell demon]

You open your document in two word processors at once if you consider the word processor to be too slow?

If Operating Systems Were Guns

[bmo]

Linux is anything from a little single shot Derringer to a 30 mm GAU-8/A Avenger Gatling gun at 4200 rounds per minute.

OSX is clearly stamped down the side "Desert Eagle point five oh"

And Windows has "'Replica' written down the side"

--
BMO

Re:If Operating Systems Were Guns

[Afforess]

You forgot to mention that the Linux gun comes in a box with a notice "Some Assembly Required."

Re:If Operating Systems Were Guns

[bmajik]

OSX is clearly stamped down the side "Desert Eagle point five oh"

That's certainly an apt comparison, since most people that have or want DE50's think they look cool and work really awesome, but have no fucking idea what they're doing when using a gun. They feel this strange sense of smugness about the elite status their choice in firearm has afforded them, perhaps not having any idea that a boring old Casull 454 has more muzzle energy, or that the DE50 is utterly impractical for essentially any worhtwhile endeavour. They know that they spent way more money than other guns cost, but they don't realize that there's always something cheaper that does a better job.

Yet nothing else seems to have caught and held the affection of hollywood so effectively, so nothing else will suffice for the discriminating individuals that know nothing about firearms or marksmanship --- except that they are better than everyone else at both by virtue of their wise purchase.

I'm not sure you had any idea how good of an analogy you were making. Bravo! :)

Re:If Operating Systems Were Guns

[bmo]

Well, I tried.

Thanks for the compliment.

Sure is /k/ in here.

--
BMO

Re:If Operating Systems Were Guns

[gbjbaanb]

yeah, but everyone knows you have to clean your gun regularly or it'll stop working properly.

which is a lot like Windows too, shame the detailed disassembly instructions are never included in the box.

Re:If Operating Systems Were Guns

[Anonymous Coward]

What is this? Some form of elitist computer/gun nerd hybrid? Safe to say you have never actually fired a gun, being content to obsess about the stats of the various calibers. It would probably snap your carpal tunnel ridden wrist.

Re:If Operating Systems Were Guns

[Doctor_Jest]

And most people who buy a "replica" are convinced "it's just as good as the real thing..."

Re:If Operating Systems Were Guns

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't Windows field-strip itself automatically?

Re:If Operating Systems Were Guns

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll take a Ruger GP100 .357 revolver with a 4" barrel (6" if I'm just target shooting, but that's too long to be feasible as a self defense weapon) over a Desert Eagle any day of the week. Never tried a S&W 686, I hear it's really nice, but you gotta go with what you know. The larger caliber weapons have far too much recoil, and thus take longer for target re-acquisition, to be worth much in combat. It's not about the size of the gun, it's about stopping power, ease of target re-acquisition, accuracy, draw time, and how cumbersome a weapon is. A big gun with a big barrel with take longer to draw, will be too clunky and unwieldy to put a bead on the target in decent time, will have too much recoil and thus take too long to reacquire the target, and have a ton of wasted power; meaning your shot will likely overpenetrate rather than dumping as much energy as possible in the target. Not to mention it will weigh a ton and thus make maintaining aim more tiring than noobies realize.

Re:If Operating Systems Were Guns

[Anonymous Coward]

OOOHHH sick burn! good call.

Re:If Operating Systems Were Guns

[Anonymous Coward]

pwnt

Re:If Operating Systems Were Guns

[Mipsalawishus]

Not to mention it jams during combat.

Re:If Operating Systems Were Guns

[Anonymous Coward]

GP100 = Good gun. My wife has one, and she does very well with it. I don't know what it is with me: grip, trigger pull, or sights - I can't settle in with it, however. But she likes it, and that what counts.

Re:If Operating Systems Were Guns

[Leolo]

DEAGLE BRAND DEAGLE!

(Wait, is this /. or /k/?)

Re:If Operating Systems Were Guns

[sloth jr]

Could be that many people who buy into MacOS X don't know as much about computers as others, just as you imply. Just for grins, though, try attending a technical conference sometime (one that doesn't have "MSDN" in the title), and count how many Apple laptops you see. Ultimately, I suspect that most people who use MacOS X, whether or not they're computer savvy or otherwise, just want something that they don't have to fight with or think about much.

Re:If Operating Systems Were Guns

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but just like my DE50 is only good for one thing so is my unibody Mac. Pistol(laptop) whipping non scenesters!

Think different! (NOW BITCH!)

yes, isn't it wonderful...

[Anonymous Coward]

to come back to your laptop after a few hours, which you thought was off or on standby, only to find it warm and with 8% battery remaining, displaying an unresponsive Windows desktop?

Re:yes, isn't it wonderful...

[pavon]

Ah yes. About 1 in 5 times my laptop wouldn't suspend when I closed the lid, and I'd get home to see the "Your computer crashed because it overheated in your laptop bag" boot message. I've given up on ever getting suspend to work reliably in Windows or Linux.

Re:yes, isn't it wonderful...

[bemymonkey]

Use a button. Turn off the "wake up on open lid" function. Never had any problems with standby on my previous machines, but my Thinkpad (which wakes up when you open the lid) often turns on in my bag when it gets bounced around a bit.

Re:yes, isn't it wonderful...

[Bert64]

The problem is mostly the diversity of hardware (and drivers) that windows/linux are expected to work on...
Macs suspend reliably when you close the lid... My eee 901 running linux does too actually, but that machine was pretty much designed to run linux like the macbook is designed to run osx.

Shutdown sound?

[Anonymous Coward]

I vaguely remember an article where a Microsoft engineer talked about speeding up the shutdown process. I thought this was for Vista, though...

Supposedly they were trying to improve the user experience and began performance testing many legacy areas of the operating system. For shutdown, which was introduced on slow machines to acknolowdge the process, the sound being played took up the majority of the time. They shrank it and saw a massive performance gain. It was one of those amusing stories that performance engineers are full of. I'm wondering if that little fix went into Windows 7, not Vista.

Hey guys!

[selven]

We know our operating system sucks so we've decided to help our customers by making it even easier to shut it down!

Re:Hey guys!

[value_added]

We know our operating system sucks so we've decided to help our customers by making it even easier to shut it down!

A bit inflammatory, doncha think? If they did want to want to make things easier for their customers, they would have added a default icon to the desktop labelled "REBOOT".

Annoying

[okmijnuhb]

I believe it will still be the world's most annoying operating system.

Like XP

[Anonymous Coward]

So, in short, they're saying it's quite a lot like XP?

Now With ShutDown Boost!

[Anonymous Coward]

New Windows 7 with ShutDown Boost (tm) shuts down faster than ever for when you just want to get the Hell away from Microsoft operating systems! NEW! IMPROVED! ACTUALLY SHUTS DOWN (only with Windows 7 SP1).

it doesn't matter if the OS is better...

[Tumbleweed]

I'm for _anything_ that gets more people to stop using IE6. :)

Re:it doesn't matter if the OS is better...

[hab136]

But that's what XP mode is for - running IE6 in XP on top of Windows 7.

But Wait...

[Nom du Keyboard]

But wait, it's not Vista 3.0 yet.

Re:But Wait...

[DarkEmpath]

wat

SMB still sucks

[FranTaylor]

Windows network file service is just as slow and as network-chatty as ever.

When you compare it to NFS4, it is most miserable. With SMB, the client and server shoot packets at each other all day and barely any data gets transferred. NFS4 will totally saturate my gigabit ethernet and it's almost all data in those packets.

Microsoft should just embrace NFS4 and drop SMB like a hot potato. It serves noone's interests to have such a crappy file service system in this day and age.

Re:SMB still sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

SMB2 is even more chatty than SMB.
And you don't want to know how many packets travel on your network when you open printer properties page of remote printer!!!

Re:SMB still sucks

[bwalling]

I found all the Need For Speed games to be mostly the same and not very fun. The Mario games have a little more variety and have been getting more interesting.

Re:SMB still sucks

[Bert64]

MS could have used NFS in the first place, but they always prefer to come up with their own proprietary crap instead of using an existing standard...
They even had their own networking protocol (netbeui), but were forced to implement tcp/ip because it became so ubiquitous.

Re:SMB still sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

They already replaced smb with smb2, which is far less chatty than smb. It's more chatty than nfs4 but it's a big improvement. And it's got more features than nfs4. You need smb2-capable client and server to see the benefits.

Re:SMB still sucks

[Sinbios]

Wait, have you actually tried this?

One of the things I noticed about the Win7 RTM was two Win7 computers see each other's shares, and changes thereto, almost instantly. Way way faster than when I was trying to get Vista to see the shares on the Win7 beta.

And no, I'm not using homegroups or whatever they are.

Re:SMB still sucks

[mr_flea]

My biggest problem with NFS is share permissions as well as some bad experiences I've had with it previously.

I remember an old FreeBSD installation I had (6.0?) had a mounted NFS share, which was subsequently disconnected (without unmounting, I had forgotten). It stuck the process in some state that made it completely unkillable. I had a zombie NFS client process for about a month before I gave up and rebooted the computer remotely. Never had such a problem with SMB. (Although, that was probably an implementation problem and not a protocol problem.)

NFS also requires a lot of configuration, with SMB I can just open smb.conf and set up another [share] section, usually pretty much just copied from another one. And after setting it up, I can easily access it from anywhere without having to change much.

And, with SMB, I have easy compatability with my Windows machines as well as my Linux/FreeBSD machines, as well as a very stable implementation pretty much everywhere. It's bloated, but it gets the job done for the most part. I just want to share files, after all.

Re:SMB still sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, be honest and compare NFS4 with SMB2 (2006 with Vista).

SMB is with MS at least since 1990, and before with IBM.

Has NFS4 something like Named Pipes with integrated autentication?

Slowest windows yet!

[nobodyman]

Is this article a joke? I clearly see that vista beats Win7 in 3 out of 5 benchmarks, and XP beats Windows 7 in all but one (how can we forget the all-important "shutdown time" benchmark.

Yet CNet is telling me that *this* is the version of Windows I've been waiting for?

Re:Slowest windows yet!

[Ant P.]

Yes, CNet is telling you this.

In case you haven't noticed already, they make Fox News look fair and balanced.

Re:Slowest windows yet!

[Twinbee]

Smaller latency waits for general GUI stuff are much more important than the slightly slower benchmarks shown. Even if they're not noticed easily, they're like a dripping tap on the subconscious, so I'm glad W7 improves in this area.

Re:Slowest windows yet!

[TheDarkMaster]

Well, I used the 7 RC1 and I need to agree they is fast, a LOT faster than Vista and seens to have a "magic trick" to load faster the applications. But the memory usage is still to much for me, 1GB only for system on a PC with 4GB without any user aplications loaded.

Re:Slowest windows yet!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a joke. CNet sells advertising space. Microsoft buys lots of advertising space.

Lots of reviews have noted that Windows7 is fast, almost as fast as XP is. Users shouldn't notice much of a performance hit after moving from XP, except some of the hardware and software won't work. (Nowhere near as bad as it was when Vista first came out, however.)

Re:Slowest windows yet!

[FlopEJoe]

Can I just get XP that can use more that 3 point whatever G of ram? And still get drivers for it. All I use my quad-core, Vista, big rig for is gaming and video processing. Everything else easily works on my four year old, single core, XP machine and even that's more than I need.

Re:Slowest windows yet!

[raphael75]

From TFA:
"As you can see in the chart, we found that Windows 7 RTM was the fastest to shutdown, and was tied with XP for iTunes encoding. It was slower than XP and Vista, however, for both booting up cold by a little more than 1 second, and slower than either of its predecessors in its Microsoft Office performance. After having used Windows 7 beta, RC and now the RTM for more than six months combined, it still feels faster for us when launching programs, opening the control panel and dragging icons, files and folders around than XP. That's not to denigrate the value of the benchmarks, but keep in mind that the perception and reality might differ based on hardware and usage."

Oh, so it feels faster. Right. Feelings really aren't good at measuring things. As the charts show, XP destroyed vista and 7.

Re:Slowest windows yet!

[Civil_Disobedient]

Can I just get XP that can use more that 3 point whatever G of ram?

Windows XP Professional, x64 Edition.

Released nearly five years ago.

Re:Slowest windows yet!

[nobodyman]

And that's a fair point, but why not post benchmarks on *that*? I imagine that they are harder to test, but it's not totally intangible. The article makes no attempt to quantify any of these supposed improvements.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Win7 UI is more responsive than Vista, but I doubt it would be snappier than, say, WinXP. Of course, I don't know either way and this article is no help.

Re:Slowest windows yet!

[Twinbee]

Agreed.

Re:Slowest windows yet!

[shutdown -p now]

Effectively unsupported, with dismal driver support (far worse than Vista x64).

Re:Slowest windows yet!

[Civil_Disobedient]

That hasn't been my experience at all, which makes me think you're talking out of your ass and not from any actual experience.

My Wacom tablet, colorometer, video card, 16-port RAID card, wireless USB network adapter, USB sound (server MB)... even my Frankenstein motherboard with dual PCIe and PCI-X slots... all supported.

In fact, the only manufacturer that I've had trouble with is Nikon, but they don't support any MS 64-bit OS (XP, Vista, or Win7).

So, please tell me what peripherals you can't get XP64 drivers for, but have no problems finding Vista 64 drivers.

Re:Slowest windows yet!

[shutdown -p now]

That hasn't been my experience at all, which makes me think you're talking out of your ass and not from any actual experience.

I've been using an XP x64 desktop for 2 years at work. It worked fine mostly because of simplistic hardware configuration.

At home, I immediately ran into troubles with wireless. Can't recall which it was, but IIRC it was Atheros-based. From various Windows forums, I know that it's not a rare occurence; and printers & scanners specifically seem to be another troublesome area.

Just as with Linux, your single anecdote of having it work out of the box doesn't mean that it does not have problems with hardware support in general. Do a quick Google search, you'll see the big picture.

Re:Slowest windows yet!

[Civil_Disobedient]

Just as with Linux, your single anecdote of having it work out of the box doesn't mean that it does not have problems with hardware support in general.

No, you're right. But I have to say I was pleasantly surprised after all the reflexive FUD that people had been spouting off about lack of driver support, like a knee-jerk reaction based on seeing everyone else's knee-jerk reaction. In my experience, XP64 is the best OS Microsoft has released since Windows 2000. Fast, low resource overhead, with support for all the latest-and-greatest "must-have's" (wireless support, directx 9, etc.) There's no similarly compelling "must-have" for Win7, save for the fact that it doesn't suck as much as Vista.

Re:Slowest windows yet!

[shutdown -p now]

The problem is that you're essentially cornering yourself the same way you'd do with Linux, since now you need to carefully check all hardware you buy for XP x64 drivers. Especially for newer stuff targeted at consumers, drivers are scarce, because hardware manufacturers don't see it as a common desktop platform (and rightly so) after Vista was released, and they don't even want to bother with server (and thus don't target 2K3 x64). In fact, quite often you can see something for which there's a 64-bit Vista/Win7 driver, but no 64-bit 2K3/XP driver.

In fact, as time passes, the situation will only worsen, as combined Vista/Win7 share will grow to become overwhelming - unlike Linux, where hardware support does in fact gradually improve, albeit slowly.

That said, nothing wrong with using it so long as it works for you - just as people have used Win2K for a long time after XP and even Vista were released.

fud? Really?

[msormune]

I really love that fud tag with this article. I mean, where's the "fud" in the article? They say only good things about W7.

Re:fud? Really?

[pmontra]

Yes they write good things about Win7 but they also show bad benchmarks about it, particularly the Office one. This may not be FUD in the traditional way but makes me a little uncertain and doubtful about both CNET and Win7.

How long and how many versions did it take?

[Helldesk Hound]

> "...but also looks like 'the operating system that both
> Microsoft and its consumers have been waiting for."

Lets see...

The first officially released version of MS Windows was released way back in 1985 (1.01) - two years after Apple released its first version of the MacIntosh and 12 years after Xerox developed the Alto.

Microsoft has subsequently re-released it 21 times.

Windows 1.0
Windows 2.0
Windows 2.1x
Windows 3.0
Windows 3.1
Windows 3.11
Windows 4.0 (marketed as "Windows 95")
WindowsNT4.0
Windows 95A
Windows 95B
Windows 95B USB (included basic USB support)
Windows 95C
Windows 98 (original release)
Windows 98 ("Second Edition")
WindowsNT5.0 (marketed as Windows 2000)
WindowsNT5.1 (marketed as WindowsXP)
WindowsNT5.2.x (marketed as Windows Server 2003)
WindowsNT5.2.x (re-released and marketed as Windows Server 2003 R2)
WindowsNT6.0 (marketed as Windows Vista)
WindowsNT6.0 R6002 (marketed as Windows Vista Service Pack 2)
WindowsNT6.1 (marketed as Windows Server 2008)
WindowsNT6.1.7600 (marketed as Windows Server 2008 service Pack 2 and also as Windows 7)

Now this review of Microsoft's most recent re-release of Microsoft Windows describes it as the "operating system that Microsoft and its consumers have been waiting for".

That is truly a _long_ awaited piece of software that is neither original nor innovative!

MS Windows is crippleware - in that the full version is always installed, but features are crippled depending on how much $$$ has been paid. Not even this fact is innovative.

Please feel free to contribute additional facts about the history of MS Windows.

Re:How long and how many versions did it take?

[chefren]

You forgot Windows ME! Nevermind please keep forgetting it in the future too.

Re:How long and how many versions did it take?

[lukas84]

WindowsNT6.0 (marketed as Windows Vista)
WindowsNT6.0 R6002 (marketed as Windows Vista Service Pack 2)
WindowsNT6.1 (marketed as Windows Server 2008)
WindowsNT6.1.7600 (marketed as Windows Server 2008 service Pack 2 and also as Windows 7)

You're completely wrong here.

Windows 6.0.6000 = Windows Vista RTM
Windows 6.0.6001= Windows Vista SP1 / Windows Server 2008 SP1 RTM (WS08 RTMed directly as SP1)
Windows 6.0.6002 = Windows Vista SP2 / Windows Server 2008 SP2
Windows 6.1.7600 = Windows 7 RTM / Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM

Re:How long and how many versions did it take?

[Anonymous Coward]

And...what about Bob? How soon we forget.

Re:How long and how many versions did it take?

[mdwh2]

By that logic, how many revisions of MacOS did Apple have to go through, before they realised it was better to just ditch it and bring in Next?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

The joy

[rossi]

As an IT contractor I've made a very good living from Microsoft's shoddy OS. With the impending release of Windows 7, I can forsee green shoots rising once again. :)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

CLI

[Anonymous Coward]

When doing remote support via the phone, the CLI is more often than not a lifesaver.

Ever told a user "now in the right half, ca. one third down, there should be a button saying 'Advanced settings' - or was it 'Special settings'? Nah, it was 'Expert settings', click it ... aha, so you have a german version ... aha" ?

I cry for every function not available on the CLI.

Let's put it that way: Clicketty and Tippety are brothers - both have their strengths and weaknesses, some people like one better than the other. Just a pitty, that in Redmon Tippety is a bit of a retard.

Re:CLI

[hairyfeet]

Actually there are tons of really nice sites with these things called "reg files". I know, its a concept. damned shame that Linux don't have anything like them. You see, lets say my customer has a classic Windows problem that I have found with certain Realtek and Creative sound cards-the dreaded "no device" even though they have the driver issue. You know how I fix it? I send them a reg file that resets the Windows audio server, tell them to reboot and voila! Problem go bye bye.

I have literally hundreds just like that tucked away on a DVD and on a folder on my work drive. Takes all of 30 seconds to fix. And the most important part? NO CLI. That's right, none at all. Zip zilch nada baby,yeah! That is how Windows users LIKE it, and until Linux guys accept that "Open up Bash and type" should ALWAYS be followed by "please get someone to install Windows for you" then Linux will NEVER EVER get better. Because I repeat: Windows Home users will NEVER EVER IN A MILLION YEARS USE CLI, I don't give a crap if you think it is the best damned thing since sliced bread. They don't like it, they don't want it, and they won't use it PERIOD.

And as for the Power users? Well they don't get bugs and their games play nice, why should they want Linux? Answer: They don't. If you can't get the home users Linux will stay at single digits. If you want to stay a niche, fine and dandy. It is a free country after all. But do NOT expect the world to change to how you want them to behave, because it is just delusional. If you want the home users, then it better be all GUI and nice and easy, with lots of hand holding. Have you used Windows 7? It holds your hand through every little thing. A little too much for this user, but hey, I can get past them. easier to get a power user to ignore wizards than it is a home user to RTFM or use CLI.

Look guys, if Linux rocks your world, great. I'm really happy for you. But Linux requires CLI, and that won't fly with home users. I should know, I deal with them 6 days a week. Sorry, that is just reality. And that is why until CLI is killed by fire then Windows will continue to rule the market, with Apple taking the high end. Because both of those OSes know that CLI=FAIL.

Re:CLI

[linuxrocks123]

I can't tell if you're trolling ... are you actually holding up the Windows Registry as a paragon of UI design?

I want to help someone out. I need to know about their hardware.

Linux: "Open up a terminal and type 'lspci -vvv', then post the output here."
Windows: "Open up Device Manager and, uh ... post a screenshot after clicking all this crap?"

Which is easier for you to describe? Which is more likely to result in you getting the information you need? Hell, which is easier for /the user to do/?

Again, it's not that Linux GUI system config tools suck; it's that they all suck, because it's fundamentally the wrong way to solve the problem.

Re:CLI

[hairyfeet]

Actually I can't tell if YOU are trolling. You are calling that bunch of CLI crap a "virtue"? What, are you high or something? You DO know that Windows has had a nice little GUI that will give you full info, and has for fricking ages. It is in start/programs/accessories/system tools/system info.. Even my 65 year old dad can go "push start,go to programs/choose accessories(it is at the top dad)/ choose system tools/choose system info." And guess what? NO CLI baby, yeah!

And yes, despite all the bad things said about it folks should get down on their knees and thank the guy that invented the reg. You know why? Because before, Windows used a bunch of .ini files, kinda like Linux, and it royally sucked. There was NO way to easily fix problems like the one I posted. Now? I just go into my "reg fixes" folder, pick the file, and email. Wow, that could not have been more simple. Need to reset environment variables? Reg file. Sound server issues? reg file. Problem with default applications? Reg file baby yeah! With Linux, can you actually fix another person's computer, using nothing but email WITHOUT using anything but GUI? BWA HA HA HA HA HA! Not a chance in hell! Because there isn't standard dick in Linux. Is he running a distro based off of RH? Or Debian? Is it based off stable? Or testing? What packages are installed? Does he/she have dependency problems?

I will say it again: Linux rocks for servers. Servers have admins that are at home in CLI and Linux is built like a tank. Linux is fine and dandy if you are willing to research your living ass off on every. single. piece. of hardware you purchase, and have no problem going CLI if an update bones something like your sound or wireless. But home users? You would have better odds of getting them to solve cold fusion in their basement than getting them to pull off all that CLI and actually make it work. So just admit it Linux guys: Most of the world HATES CLI, they will NEVER use it, and until Linux kills CLI with fire then it simply will not be a viable OS for them. It really is just that simple.

That is why I am making a prediction: Despite Linux being free, and the economy being in the shitter, Windows 7 will be a runaway hit, the like of which we haven't seen since XP. Why? Because MSFT listened to their users when they said "this sucks!" and they fixed it. When users tell Linux developers that "This sucks!" they get "You just don't GET it. Run back to Windblowz newb, LOL Windblowz!". And because of that I will make another prediction: Five years from now we will STILL be waiting for this magical year of "Linux on the desktop" while it rots somewhere around...ohh I'll be nice and say it will make it to 3%. Personally I'll be amazed if it breaks 2%. Because you listen to the users or you pay the price. The users do NOT want CLI. Listen or rot. Your choice. But they will NEVER, I repeat NEVER EVER adapt to your way of doing things. Adapt to them or rot, your choice Linux guys. Me? I'll be gearing up to sell Win7. The business guys don't care for it but the home users look at it like fat kids look at candy. Cha ching baby, yeah!

Re:CLI

[linuxrocks123]

lol wow, I haven't talked with someone as blinkered as you for a while...

"push start,go to programs/choose accessories(it is at the top dad)/ choose system tools/choose system info."

(really more like)

"Push start ... yeah, bottom left hand corner. Now go to Programs ... yeah, the menu is supposed to come out like that. Okay, go to Accessories ... it should be near the top, yes, I'm sure it's there ... did you find it? Okay, good. Now go to System Tools ... yeah, another menu is going to come out. Okay, choose System Info. Do you see the box that it popped up? Okay, read that out for me ... you can skip the title bar..."

etc., etc., etc., until you start crying blood

versus

"Type 'lspci -vvv'"

(really more like)

"Type 'lspci -vvv', followed by enter, ... yes, all lower case ... yeah, put a space after the 'i' ... and read (or email) me what it says."

Which is shorter? Right, the CLI way.

I usually don't even bother trying to help people do GUI stuff over the phone or email now. We set up VNC -- or, theoretically, Remote Desktop, except that all the people I support are on Linux now -- or they wait until I can physically get to them. It's just too painfully slow to work any other way.

And then your talk about the registry just cracks me up. You only have to have these regfile fixes because Windows sucks so much it will randomly corrupt its centralized, labyrinthian configuration data! Text config files are so much easier to understand and if there's an actual problem you have to diagnose (versus Windows just shitting itself in a predictable way), it's much easier to ask someone to read out a text config file -- or even edit it -- than it is to ask them to open regedit and futz around. I'll admit that both of them suck -- tech support works best on-site, and passably with remote access of some sort, but phone and email-based methods royally suck ass.

It sounds like you sell Windows support, so it doesn't surprise me you'd be fearful of a better system taking away your business, and I guess you've made up a nice little fairy tale about why the other system isn't really better. I've already established Linux has GUI config tools anyway. The ones in Ubuntu even suck a little less than the Windows ones, though that's kind of like a spitting contest between dehydrated people. CLI is just better for system configuration, as it's better for so many other things. It's a shame you don't get that; it would make your life easier.

Oh, and lol @ the 2% thing. Linux is probably already above 2%, though it's hard to measure. 3 months ago, the anti-Linux ranters would be talking about how "Linux will NEVER EVER BREAK 1% MARKET SHARE until it !". Now, even the totally skewed HitsLink stats have Linux over 1%, so you've all started bumping your SMALL_NUMBER to 2%. Awesome :)

Re:CLI

[linuxrocks123]

*sigh*, HTML tags...

"Linux will NEVER EVER BREAK 1% MARKET SHARE until it !"

should be

"Linux will NEVER EVER BREAK 1% MARKET SHARE until it [fixes whatever random, stupid complaint I have about it because I'm an opinionated dolt]!"

Re:CLI

[hairyfeet]

How many years has Linux been free? What, 15 years now? And according to those that just luv the Linux it has been really good since 2002. That is 7 years where a free product can't even break 2% against a product that costs $89 minimum, and $139 for the "good" one. Win7 will probably be higher still. Want to bet Linux STILL doesn't break 3%? How come OSX, with a minimum $1000 entry fee, is kicking the dog snot out of Linux, which is free?

The answer is actually quite simple my friend. It is because both MSFT and Apple actually listen to their customers, and Linux just cops an attitude. With OSX design is king, period. All GUI and very intuitive, which is why MSFT loves to rip them off whenever possible, going back to the "look and feel" lawsuit in the 80s. MSFT put out Vista, users said "this sucks!" and MSFT said "okay, we'll fix it with the next one" and low and behold, that is what they did. GUI all the way, lots of wizards, search on everything so everything is one word away. VERY good design.

So what about Linux? Well it is like this. Users go "We don't like CLI. This sucks" and instead of actually listening to their users, you know the CUSTOMERS they want to get? They just go "You don't know anything! CLI is better in all ways! It is faster! It is leet! You newbs better just suck it up or go back to Windblowz,LOL!"

And THAT is why Linux will NEVER crack 5% of the home market, ever. Linux developers don't give a shit what the audience they are trying to reach thinks, it is "our way or the highway" and even with the higher cost the users have chosen the highway. Just look at how Netbooks, which were built to Linuxes strengths, got completely swallowed up by WinXP. Why? The Linux was cheaper! But folks don't WANT CLI, that's why! It really isn't hard folks. A decision has to be made: Do you want to compete with MSFT and Apple? Or do you want to stay a niche?

If you want to compete, then Bash must die. It is just that simple. CLI must die in a fire. Because Apple users haven't have to deal with it in what? A decade? Windows users since Win9x. The rest of the world wants GUI and NOT CLI. And they will NOT bend to your will. So kill CLI or accept that Windows will rule the desktop, your choice. But you can't eat your cake and have it too, and you can't get home users to like CLI. It really is just that simple.

Re:CLI

[linuxrocks123]

Nontechnical users are technically incompetent and therefore make incompetent technical purchasing decisions.

The goal of Linux isn't market share per se; it's to create a good OS. Therefore, when ranting numbskulls suggest making crap changes to the operating system, the developers generally just ignore those ranting numbskulls. That might result in market share being low in the short-term, but it also results in a better system for anyone who does use it, and we'd rather be correct than popular.

Linux market share isn't where it is because it still has a CLI you can optionally use for various tasks (OS X and Windows have that too...), or because it doesn't have Photoshop (it does, through WINE), or because Ubuntu is hard to pronounce, or because of a lack of games/drivers/programs-that-make-little-animated-cats-jump-across-your-title-bars. Linux market share is where it is (at or close to that of your beloved OS X, btw.) because it wasn't here first. People know Windows, and the average, stupid person hates learning, so they keep using what they know. First-time computer buyers won't use Linux unless a helpful friend or family member steers them toward it, because it's not preinstalled unless you know where to look, and first-time computer buyers don't know where to look. Addressing your and others' blinkered, ignorant complaints wouldn't accomplish anything except, at best, wasting developer time and degrading the system until someone patches the stupidity back out.

But, while we're waiting for Linux world domination (which I'm guessing will start in offices, since office IT managers are typically more competent than home users), Linux is now popular enough that problems with new printers and wireless cards are quickly becoming a thing of the past, so I don't really have any personal motivation to see its market share increase further. We just needed to get big enough to make it an economic loss for hardware manufacturers to ignore us, and we needed to get there without accepting non-free device drivers. We have succeeded in both of those aims :)

Re:CLI

[hairyfeet]

Thank you ever so much for proving my point! In fact I have bookmarked your post and will use it as a perfect illustration of why Linux will never top 3%! Thank you ever so much! When pointed out that the users, your customers, don't want CLI? Well then "Nontechnical users are technically incompetent and therefore make incompetent technical purchasing decisions." You just proved my point sir, better than I ever could. You posted an almost perfect "Users are duh stupid! CLI is leet! Our OS is duh roxorz! They should go bax to duh Windblowz!"

So now you have admitted that Windows will always rule the desktop, and with good reason. Because MSFT gives the customers what they want, and Linux says "take our leet or suxorzz!!!!" which is why the vast majority (what is Windows and OSX share combined? Something like 99% right?) will simply let your "leet" OS rot, even if it is 100% free. It is so nice to finally see a Linux guy just admit that they don't want any marketshare. Please spread the word to your fellow Linux users so we won't hear anymore of this silly "Linux is ready for the desktop!" nonsense, okay?

It really isn't hard, do you want driver support from hardware manufacturers? Do you want those big companies to support you with a wealth of software like OSX and Windows? Then you have to give the customers what they want. They don't give a flying piss about "free as in beer and freedom" because hey, all the FOSS works on Windows too! They don't give a fart about lockin, or MSFT, or any of the things you care about so dearly. They just want everything nice and pretty and easy. NO CLI at all. They have spoken. Listen or rot. But thanks again for that post, which I will reference often whenever an uninformed Linux zealot says "Linux is ready for the desktop!" as a perfect example of why it is not. Thanks!

Re:8GB?

[Anonymous Coward]

What in a OS could be taking up 8GB for a minimal install?

Strong and useful operating system?

[johnkzin]

"reassuring the world that Microsoft can still turn out a strong, useful operating system."

Wouldn't that imply that they did, at some point, put out a strong, useful operating system?

Re:Strong and useful operating system?

[Bert64]

They used to publish Xenix...

Sorry...

[msimm]

Sorry, I don't shill for Microsoft or hope to continue to use its products but if we ever hope to talk intelligently about Linux as a desktop operating system we have to be able to step back and look at what the #1 desktop operating system gets right.

It's pure ignorance to pretend Windows hasn't reached the level of popularity it has without doing some things right and like it or not its got one thing distribution after distribution fails to get right: cohesiveness.

There's nothing wrong with supporting Linux or even championing it but 'Linux' doesn't care and ignoring the reality of the market will do just ZERO good for anyone, including penguins and men with beards (and certainly not Linus who seems to be genuinely pleased so many people like and are using it).

Re:Sorry...

[johnw]

Sorry, I don't shill for Microsoft or hope to continue to use its products but if we ever hope to talk intelligently about Linux as a desktop operating system we have to be able to step back and look at what the #1 desktop operating system gets right.

Indeed, and once you analyse it that comes down to just one thing - its manufacturer does deals to get it installed by default on pretty much all hardware. This is and always has been Microsoft's sole USP - right back to the days of MS-DOS. Microsoft is first and foremost a marketing company, and always has been. The software is incidental.

Re:Sorry...

[msimm]

Don't know why you got moderated flame bait. I think Microsoft has got more right then just the pre-install with vendors, but it's the mostly complete vision of their GUI that makes using the product tolerable. A Linux based distro aimed at the desktop should begin by using the Windows experience as their base-line. Once the gui is able to match ui functionality feature to feature we can focus on improving things.

But instead what happens is each distro first chooses either Gnome or KDE, adds some custom graphic elements (without dramatically really changing anything) and ends up producing another patchwork desktop that feels (and behaves) like it was made from a lot of disparate pieces of open source software (which it is, but with full access to code it isn't necessary).

As long as I've used Linux distros (8 or 9 years now) there's been a kind of conservative approach to building distributions, where the developers end up taking one of the biggest advantages of open source software (total control of the software) and ignore it. It's like our community has a MASSIVE blind-spot and keeps churning out only very slightly different versions of the same thing, maybe a slightly updated package management system occasionally. But OSS provides the opportunity to make much more dramatic changes. To create a vision where you can control every single piece to provide the experience you want and tailor it to do EXACTLY that.

But instead we trundle out version after version with point releases and version updates, backporting patches on essentially generic Linux distributions we attempt to market using desktop backgrounds and color schemes to differentiate.

If you think about it for a second, if Microsoft was forced to concede and really focus on competing against Linux they could actually drop windows and port their desktop environment to run on on top of Linux. There's value in having a completely integration DE essentially vanilla versions of KDE or Gnome don't currently provide and even if they did, distributions should create and provide their own vision instead of relying on a hodge-podge of other developers to do that for them.

Of course it must be daunting to go against long standing community traditions and complex to provide a fully realized vision but that's a risk we as a community of innovators should be willing to take. Conservative desktops which strive to provides posix-compatible server environments with fairly standard DE's aren't going to go away because their useful to developers but they aren't necessary for desktop users and they do seem to divide our focus on the users experience.

Windows Vista was Microsofts New Coke

[Ryyuajnin]

I swear, Microsoft must have intentionally made Vista suck royally just like Coke made New Coke absolutely a guaranteed failure. And just like Coke Classic, Windows 7 was delivered quick, to rescue Microsoft's flagship product with the spirit of its predecessor hand-in-hand, 'WITH XP MODE', to placate the public with the comfortable familiarity of the past... Windows 7 should have just been called Windows Classic.

Question about Windows7 RC

[allcoolnameswheretak]

I've downloaded the RC and have wanted to try it out, but I don't have a test PC, only my main work and home computer. Does anyone know if it's possible & safe to install the RC on a seperate partition, without breaking my running XP installation?

Re:Question about Windows7 RC

[TheRealFixer]

Yes, that works fine. It'll modify the Windows boot loader to create a menu option for the Windows 7 install so you can dual-boot.

Re:Question about Windows7 RC

[allcoolnameswheretak]

Thx for the info.

Re:8GB?

[Tukz]

Don't forget that's Windows 7 Ultimate.
So it's actually not minimal install, it's almost full.

Easy for you to say

[westlake]

Saying "Open the terminal and type..."

Try this over the telephone with someone who does not know the vocabulary, grammar and syntax of the command line - and is deathly afraid of the typo that will bring his system down - permanently. Try it again with a line of more than ten to fifteen characters. Try it with a hunt-and-peck typist - who uses a symbol like the tilde only once every six months.

Re:Easy for you to say

[kamatsu]

Why not just tell them (via the intuitive GUI) to add a user and give him sshd power? Then you can type your silly 10-15 char commands.

Yawn.

[Anonymous Coward]

'the operating system that both Microsoft and its consumers have been waiting for.'

Who effing cares? And why would wanyone believe it anyways?

Not just home users. Businesses will use it too

[theshowmecanuck]

It is targeted at home users.

I have to disagree entirely that Windows and Windows 7 is only built for home users (as you seem to imply). It will be in use in corporate and medium, small, and every business basically too. Unlike you it seems, I see a lot of power users in corporate settings, all of whom like to tweak their PC if they are able to provide themselves with at least a little personalization in a bland corporate environment. And as a power user (as is, I am pretty sure, most anyone who reads Slashdot, regardless of whether they like it or admin or program for other systems) I find that Windows 7 is a supreme pain in the ass, and dumbed down and locked down to the point of being frustrating as hell to use. For instance, why do they lock so many folders even for admins. It's plain stupid. I and I know others like to rearrange even things like their start menu hierarchy, which is now an onerous activity. Or if my account is an administrator account, why do I have to install apps using 'run as admin' to avoid the install screwing up half the time? And if they are going to do that, why did I have to add a new registry key to do the same for MSI files?

I can't name all the frustrating things in W7 because there is no one big thing, but a seemingly never ending things that hamper operations and personalizations that were a lot easier to do in XP. And while I am purposefully trying dive right in to W7, when I try to do things I often feel like I am being asked to fix a time piece wearing oven mitts (and sometimes being asked to beat off using cactus thorns, its not just hard, it hurts a fuck of a lot). I am learning to use it as it seems I will have to if I want a 64 bit system on a home PC, but I don't particularly like it... it reminds me of Gnome (I prefer KDE). Unfortunately my system is quite new so I will have to use it till it wears out when I will buy a Power Mac workstation (or Apple gets their heads out of their asses and sells a version of their OS to work on PCs). I have given up on Linux for the desktop and decided to only use it for server purposes. And before any Linux fans who don't know me starts to lambaste me about being only some know nothing Windows user, I am very well versed in Unix and Linux. I'm getting older now, and don't enjoy screwing around with configuration or compiling and installing programs by hand or the free time it eats into when I am at home. I just want the OS (the tool) to work so I can concentrate on the things I really want to do, whether it be investigating new programming languages or frameworks, or surfing the web.

I do want to comment on your CLI argument. It is at the very least a little specious (mmmmmm... kind of along the lines of 'a little pregnant'). Sure Windows power users don't use the CLI very much, but when they do, they want/need to be able to do what they need to do. They need it to work. In Windows it does to a certain extent, but I think power users would enjoy the flexibility and shear functionality of a Bourne (type) shell. I would think at a minimum, the corporate Windows admins would love it... I am pretty sure they still use the CLI and would benefit from a CLI with greatly expanded functionality. And saying to remove the Bourne shell and try using Linux is completely specious; it is a fundamental part of the OS as it is in every *nix system in existence, including OSX, even if not accessed by the user. It's like saying "I'd like to see how well that stupid Windows OS works if you take away the WinAPI libraries. I bet it can't, so stupid Windows is."

Never reboot?

[shani]

Explain to me again why I would like my OS developers to work on speeding up reboot times rather than working on making an OS that does not require reboots?

You mean like this:

http://www.ksplice.com/

In theory combined with suspend/resume one would never need to reboot.

No, it's like Vista, only slower.

[argent]

No, if it was "quite a lot like XP" it would be faster than Vista in all benchmarks, it wouldn't have tilt switches and encrypted communication between drivers and all the other MPAA/RIAA fetishware lagging the kernel, and it would run well in less than half a gig of RAM.

They're catching on!

[UbuntuniX]

"fastest version of Windows to shut down" - because with Windows, you need an escape plan.

How does it compare to XP?

[argent]

It's slower than XP for everything but the critical "shut down" benchmark.

No, I'm not making this up. That's straight from the article.

Windows 7 is Vista R2.

The server version even makes that explicit. Vista's server version is Windows 2008. Seven's server version is Windows 2008 R2.

Re:How does it compare to XP?

[xenolion]

With that thought then 98 is 95 R2, in which Win2k is NT R3, Right? Look if you have a machine that works fine with XP then stay with it. If your buying or building a new machine go for 7. Since it can take more advantage of the hardware. Windows might make SP4 for XP so that it can do more, just don't count on it they have tried a few times to but an end line to XP and build on different software just like every software company does.

Re:How does it compare to XP?

[argent]

Windows 9x was a completely different development line. Microsoft's version numbering for NT tells the real story... Windows XP is "Windows 2000 R2", and Windows 7 is "Windows Vista R2".

Windows NT 3.1
Windows NT 3.5
Windows NT 3.51
Windows NT 4.0
Windows 2000, or Windows Server 2000, is NT 5.0
Windows XP is NT 5.1
Windows XP 64-bit, or Windows Server 2003, is NT 5.2
Windows Vista, or Windows Server 2008, is NT 6.0
Windows 7, or Windows Server 2008 R2, is NT 6.1

Re:How does it compare to XP?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's slower than XP for everything but the critical "shut down" benchmark.

No, I'm not making this up. That's straight from the article.

Windows 7 is Vista R2.

The server version even makes that explicit. Vista's server version is Windows 2008. Seven's server version is Windows 2008 R2.

Server 2008 didn't release until 2 years after Vista. I think 3 years between releases of the desktop OS allows for a major revision number versus 1 yr between Server 2008 and Server 2008 R2. But you can just keep living in a closet and refuse to use an excellent OS.

Not that it will matter to you, but I'm running Windows 7 RC on a laptop that wouldn't run Vista and runs 7 better than it ran XP. I will admit some driver issues, but I don't blaim that on MS. Hardware mfg's need to support equipment more than 2 years old and provide updated drivers. Just my opinion... I got it working with Vista drivers and it works well.

Re:How does it compare to XP?

[argent]

I think 3 years between releases of the desktop OS allows for a major revision number

Took them three years to paper over enough of the screw-ups in Vista to make a new release, but they still didn't increase the major revision number in the kernel.

Don't argue with me, argue with Microsoft. Tell them to release Windows Seven as NT 7.0 instead of NT 6.1.

Re:How does it compare to XP?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you going to pay for every application update necessary to fix all the programs that check for version 6 and that refuse to load/load incorrectly when it's set as version 7? And to get these fixes distributed to everyone using these programs?

Great. Remember to let Microsoft know when you're done.

windows 7

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 7 presents a stable platform that can compete comfortably with OS X.........only taken them 10 years then......

vi & others

[ccozan]

vi or nano does that, even openoffice. kill it and by the next time you want to edit the file, it asks for recovery.

Still a Pig

[derspankster]

I ran it for a while and found it a bit of a porker. Slow and unintuitive. It does compete nice with OSX in that it's almost as restrictive. No thanks MS.

Reality

[Anonymous Coward]

You trollers and die hard unix fans / microsoft haters need to get a grip.

I installed RC1 on my netbook (R61I Ibm thinkpad. slow, can't run vista) and I LOVE IT. I ran Kubuntu on it, and found from the point I open the lid, to checking my gmail would take over 30 seconds. With 7, I can be surfing in under 10.

Seven connects to my wifi uber fast, the hybrid sleep does not drain my batter overnight and I can open the lid, type in my password and open IE and surf the web RIGHT AWAY. Sometimes if my router needs to re-PPPOE, it takes an extra 5 seconds, but I do not get a dns error web page, or whatever, it pauses and then presto.

Hate M$soft all you want, but 7 works better then XP for my laptop, and when all I do is read web sites, and do a little coding, I have no problems at all with 7. IT is being released tomorrow via MSDN and I am installing it on both of my PCs at home.

Benchmarks or not, Kubuntu takes too long to start firefox. Perhaps there are better flavours, but my laptop does not support the fancy new bios linux boot, running off of a flash drive was slow and dual booting into one of the TINY appliance flavours of linux still is too slow. I check my gmail as much as someone looks at their phone to see if voicemail is flashing, I want to open the lid, double click my google notifyer and see the webpage in seconds.

Kubuntu would be good if I left my PC on ALL the time, but I do not.

Re:Reality

[ledow]

I am glad that you're happy.

However, to me, sleep time, boot time, shutdown time, etc. mean *nothing*, even on my XP laptop. Opening the lid on my laptop, however, and browsing to a new website takes seconds. And I have OpenVPN running over WPA2 in order to access the Internet, which has to renegotiate it's connection with the WAP and server every time it goes into sleep - I don't even notice any pause, it's just a slight swapping of the disk that slows anything down but that's just Windows "logging back in". And run an POP3 client - why on earth would you want to keep logging into Gmail via HTTP and via IE, for goodness sake? Just use... Opera both notifies me of and downloads any new GMail on the same account without any hassle at all... anyway...

Connecting to wifi uber-fast? How vital. Those two seconds you save over me on every disconnection must really be important to you to upgrade the entire OS for. And I have God-knows how many layers of things running over wifi (Zonealarm only lets OpenVPN through, which allocates it's own IP via DHCP seperate to the IP given to the wireless adaptor from the PC running over the other end of the house via the Linksys WAP in between running WPA2 - and that's if I just use the minimum).

I don't get DNS errors, either, but that's more an application issue than an OS issue (any idiot can program it to just wait for 30 seconds and keep retrying if there's an error).

"7 works better then XP for my laptop, and when all I do is read web sites, and do a little coding, I have no problems at all with 7."

Good for you. Some people use their computer. Some people even choose their OS upgrades based on the usage of their computer too, rather than upgrade for little reason other than to read websites within a fraction of a second less than under XP when waking from sleep.

"running off of a flash drive was slow"

State the obvious.

The fact is that Windows 7 isn't necessarily "bad"... it's just not necessarily as good as previous incarnations for the vast majority of people. It's much worse if you actually USE your computer and have setups of programs that have been installed for years (like, say, most home users?) where you DO NOT want to reinstall or upgrade just because of minor niggles like "it takes a second or two to log onto the wireless". Seriously, could you find a more petty example? You're basically sounding like upgrading a PC to Windows 7 gets me the equivalent of moving one metre closer to my AP.

Windows 7 is probably a good OS. But you think I'm PAYING (not everyone has MSDN or wants it or even cares) to UPGRADE my entire machine (I'm in the EU, which means wiping it back to bare metal which I've never had to ever do previously with any machine except in the case of hardware failure) so that I can resume from sleep in a second or so less? This is why people troll you.

The GUI is not the end-all, be-all

[Junta]

I take issue with a viewpoint that a GUI magically makes things easier. If you have thousands of paths with very advanced concepts, it will not be possible to extract the data with any degree of enhanced ease. In fact, navigation becomes clunky when there are too many options to parse at once or too many layers of depth to traverse. In that aspect, Windows really punishes advanced users or those seeking to give simple instruction. In linux support, I can generally paste a line or few of shell script. For Windows, I end up having to take several screenshots generally (the command was quicker to type as well, *and* more amenable to scripting and using against many machines at once). The 'cmd' scripting is painfully bad and severely lacking and awkward (many MS provided capabilities are possible via CLI, but not in as useful a manner, and many installers must run with a GUI, even if not interacted with). 'Powershell' is their 'answer' to the inadequcies of their cmd shell, but it's horribly slow and in many ways misses the point. An example central to that is how they deal with piping. They thought piping providing a dumb stream was not useful enough, so they made their piping require more work to describe simple concepts. Yes, dumb piping is limited to some types of programming, but for shell, the simplicity makes 95% of the usage cases easier, and you just have to go to a language like python for the other 5%.

For me, Windows not having a CLI for everything is worse than Linux distros not having a GUI for advanced features that you either had to search online for or already know ahead of time even under Windows. However, I believe at least SuSE endeavors to have a GUI for everything within YaST that is not frequently used by typical users.

Re:The GUI is not the end-all, be-all

[FishWithAHammer]

You make some good points. I like the command line, but only for quick-and-dirty stuff that I don't have to screw with regularly. However, normal end-user software should not have "thousands of paths". Ever. If you do, you are either dealing with very specialized software and people can just suck it up and deal with it, or your design is shit.

YaST is generally a good option, the problem is just that it runs on SuSE.

Re:The GUI is not the end-all, be-all

[LingNoi]

I have to agree with this viewpoint. Today I was trying to play penumbra on my Ubuntu desktop but the pulse audio sound was being directed to the wrong place. I couldn't load up the GUI app (pavucontrol) because penumbra is locked in full screen so I wanted to alt+ctrl+F1 into the terminal there and change it.

Problem is pavucontrol is GUI only so I have been unable make the sound work.

Re:The GUI is not the end-all, be-all

[Junta]

With respect to thousands of paths, it is a reality when you can do thousands of 'things'. You can't have 5 total things that you can possible describe to the computer and achieve anything more than 5 actions. Basically, GUI doesn't scale as well with general capability as CLI does. Now, the argument about 'normal' end-user software is valid, but where does the line get drawn between 'normal' and 'non-normal' user actions? If you draw the line wrong, you just pollute the 'normal' user view with extraneous stuff they have to wade through as they search for what they want to do.

This anti-MS stuff has to stop

[Overunderrated]

FTFA: "... and finally places it on competitive footing with other major operating systems such as OS X and Linux." Give me a break. 90% market share doesn't indicate "competitive" now? How can Mac and FOSS fanboys even take themselves seriously? This blind hatred for everything MS is old.

Yes, but...

[xactuary]

When it updates, will it tell me the Advantages of Using Genuine Software? I don't ever check that box, but always chuckle thinking that I could, if I wanted to.

Does it matter?

[YetAnotherProgrammer]

Microsoft will force an upgrade. No business will be able to get XP and that is all it will take to get the ball rolling.

"I'm Vista 7"

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm Vista 7

Problem #1

[Benanov]

You're using a VAIO. Sony is a lot like Apple--do what they want you to be able to do and the "experience" is great. Anything else, forget it.

Consumers still waiting for OpenGL games and more

[Anonymous Coward]

""'the operating system that both Microsoft and its consumers have been waiting for.'"" - by korean.ian (1264578) on Wednesday August 05, @02:13AM (#28952467)

There are some things in Windows VISTA, Server 2008, & yes, Windows 7 that consumers HAVE been waiting for... such as OpenGL gaming support!

(E.G. -> Where is it?)

See - The last time I checked into OpenGL on VISTA? Well, you could not even install Quake 4, let alone play it, because of Microsoft playing "DirectX 'Uber Alles'" games on VISTA onwards... & to get it to work??

Well, last I knew you had to 'hack in' something called an OpenGL icd layer (not trivial to do, & only translates API calls from an OpenGL game to DirectX api calls, & then looks like "$heet" when its played, from what I have heard on this note (don't quote me on this, it is only "rumor mill" stuff I heard over time, about how to get OpenGL gaming working again in VISTA)).

I.E.-> Thus, I do NOT see how Microsoft can say "Windows 7 is better", when it clearly LACKS FUNCTIONALITY & ABILITIES its older predecessors had that worked fine!

There's more "hassles" in Windows VISTA, Server 2008, & Windows 7, albeit, on a networking oriented note... & until I am proven WRONG on what I am about to state here? I will stick by it, & I won't "buy into" Windows 7 until these issues are fixed (because Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003 can do them, just fine, & better than Windows 7 or VISTA/Server 2008), & here we go, on my points on those:

Windows 7, VISTA, & Server 2008 have a couple of "issues" I don't like in them, & you may not either, depending on your point of view (mine's based solely on efficiency & security), & if my take on these issues aren't "good enough"? I suggest reading what ROOTKIT.COM says, link URL is in my "p.s." @ the bottom of this post:

1.) HOSTS files being unable to use "0" for a blocking IP address - this started in 12/09/2008 after an "MS Patch Tuesday" in fact for VISTA (when it had NO problem using it before that, as Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003 still can)... & yes, this continues in its descendants, Windows Server 2008 &/or Windows 7 as well.

So, why is this a "problem" you might ask?

Ok - since you can technically use either:

a.) 127.0.0.1 (the "loopback adapter address")
b.) 0.0.0.0 (next smallest & next most efficient)
c.) The smallest & fastest plain-jane 0

PER EACH HOSTS FILE ENTRY/RECORD...

You can use ANY of those, in order to block out known bad sites &/or adbanners in a HOSTS file this way??

Microsoft has "promoted bloat" in doing so... no questions asked.

Simply because

1.) 127.0.0.1 = 9 bytes in size on disk & is the largest/slowest
2.) 0.0.0.0 = 7 bytes & is the next largest/slowest in size on disk
3.) 0 = 1 byte

Using a 0 also eliminates the need to perform the "decimal-to-hexadecimal" conversion process that 127.0.0.1, or even 0.0.0.0 go thru, since 0 decimal = 0 hex... plus, since the filesystem, memory mgt, & caching kernel mode subsystems of the OS itself use 4 kb sweeps/reads/passes to load up, using a SMALLER string via 0 usage (vs. 0.0.0.0 or 127.0.0.1) will tend to "pack" more records into each pass of the read being done, on disk & in memory, per pass/sweep/read as well.

Even "security guru" Oliver Day @ SecurityFocus.com sees using HOSTS as a good thing for added layered security AND MORE SPEED ONLINE -> http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/491

AND?? So do folks like "SpyBot Search & Destroy" also (since their app populates not only the HOSTS file, but, also files like Opera's Filter.ini, FireFox's block lists, & IE Restricted Zones also, for LAYERED SECURITY (this is the trend & recommended practice by security folks by the by, myself included))

Hey - Even this sl

7 failed? I think not

[symbolset]

It's not even out yet and it's sold 200M licenses. How could it fail?

I've tried the betas a few times and they're not bad. I'm still reserving judgment on the thing itself until I actually see it.

Re:7 failed? I think not

[intheshelter]

Is this like the Vista licenses that weren't actually Vista, but were in reality XP but were counted as Vista licenses?

Aside from that credibility gap in anything MS reports, selling a lot of licenses does not make it a good OS, nor does it make it anything more than a Vista service pack. It's smoke and mirrors to get away from the Vista brand that is associated with failure.

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

CNet? Really? Who cares what that shill has to say about anything? I doubt the Slashdot crowd thinks of CNet as anything more than a joke.

Re:Snappy

[b4dc0d3r]

Vista added I/O priority settings, so you can tell which apps get to use the storage device first. It's about time too, since the first thing I noticed switching from Windows 95 to NT 4 was the OS just halted while disk activity happened, and it still hasn't been fixed in XP.

With automatic updates running, mandatory disk encryption, and on-demand antivirus, I literally watch controls being painted one by one on a 1.7 gHz processor.

Windows 7 probably has greater/finer control over this by the OS, and hopefully apps intended for use on Win7 will include this as well. It's the only reason I wanted to upgrade to 7, and I just learned last month that Vista had it. If I'd known that I'd have switched to Vista day 1.

Vista==New Coke?

[patrickthbold]

Anyone think Vista was the `New Coke' of operating systems?

you dont own a laptop

[Anonymous Coward]

many many people do

Oh yeah?

[Anonymous Coward]

But it's not free. That's the big problem. I'll wait until Linux contributors rip off every innovation that Microsoft's paid engineers came up with. I am such a revolutionary.

Windows 7: My First 24h

[fahrvergnugen]

Reposted with a few slight edits from my own blog a few days ago:

My poor PC broke. Some of my RAM went bad due to the summer heat, combined and my obstinate refusal to turn the AC on until the temperature in my office is well into the 90's. Fortunately RAM is cheap as hell these days, and I can get twice as much memory for half the price I paid a year ago, so I ordered a full 8GB of replacement memory, as much as my motherboard can handle.

The problem is that I was running Windows Vista 32bit, which can only address a bit under 4GB of RAM. The only way my Windows computer could use the extra memory I'd purchased would be to re-install a 64-bit version of Windows. But I've already pre-ordered Windows 7 Pro, and it seems silly to install Vista 64-bit now when my copy of Windows 7 will arrive in October. So, over the weekend I got a correctly-checksumming ISO of Windows 7 from The Usual Sources and installed it without a key, giving me 30 days to register. The plan is to just use the rearm trick to tide me over until my legal activation keys come in the mail.

It took a few hours to get everything installed, but today all my apps and games are back, and my files are copied over. I gotta say, if you're going to run a Windows desktop, this is the way to do it. It's NICE. It feels much snappier than Vista, and while it's got more overhead (and thus runs a bit slower) than XP 64-bit, the UI enhancements make up for it. Since today is apparently a bullet-list day, here's a quick rundown of my favorite things:

• The taskbar / quicklaunch toolbar / system tray / start menu have all been revamped, and the new way is awesome. The taskbar and the quicklaunch bar have been completely integrated, making the functionality very similar to the OS X Dock. To see the open windows for a running application, just hover your mouse over the icon. IE8 integrates very well with this, showing a preview window for each of the open tabs, regardless of window, and allowing you to switch quickly. It's like mini-expose. All very polished. Right-clicking on a Windows 7-native app, whether it's open or not, gives you a jumplist of recently used items, similar to right-clicking on a systray icon.
• The icon management in the system tray is much improved. You can banish icons from your sight forever, so annoying applications that refuse to let you remove the icon can be shoved off the desktop. No more company logos cluttering up your screen.
• IE8 rules. Who'd have thought? The privacy filters let you duplicate the functionality of adblock by importing an XML file, and the accelerator framework lets you do things like hilite text and post it to a blog, or email it to someone, all with a couple of clicks. New pages and tabs are linked in a security jail with their parent and can't work with other tabs/windows, and they're automatically color-coded. I like it a lot.
• The 'show desktop' hover / button in the bottom right. I HATE not being able to look at the desktop for stray icons or whatnot. Now there's a permanent show desktop button in that little strip of pixels between the system tray and the edge of the screen. Formerly useless real estate has been reclaimed for a good purpose!
• Vista's sidebar gadgets are now completely free-roaming anywhere on the desktop. This is nice, since I always liked the idea of gadgets but didn't want a whole sidebar. Now I can put them wherever, not worry about putting Windows over them, and just hover over the "show desktop" area on the taskbar to check the weather.
• Fast fast fast. 64-bit IE is speedy! File copies are speedy! The operating system is speedy! Everything just feels snappy and quick.
• Libraries - this is really neat, Libraries are consolidated collections of folders that all have the same kind of data. So if C:\photos and d:\photos both contain images, I can make them both part of the photo library, and view it as one folder. What makes this interesting is that I can plug in an external disk o' photos, add it to my Library, and as you

my 2 cents...

[Simulant]

startup/shutdown benchmarks are practically meaningless because the time will vary widely depending on what's installed on the machine.

That said....

Win7 x64 RTM, unlike Vista, won't annoy you right out of the box. (or at least not nearly as much)
It seems faster/more responsive than Vista and even runs acceptably well on netbook class hardware (x86 version).
Compatibility (x64) seems excellent so far (tested with many games, audio (think VST), and video apps.
Very stable. No crashes yet despite trying.

on the other hand:

No seriously compelling reason to switch from XP, yet...

The GUI, with all bells & whistles enabled, does't scale well when trying to manage 1000s or even 100s of multimedia files. Media Player would bog down a bit while previewing dozen's of mp3s, one after another. Media Center takes many seconds (10+ some times) to browse/sort directories of video. Thumbnail and metadata generation for video files is noticeably slow. I would think that anyone with a large and somewhat organized multimedia collection would be better off disabling this stuff. I'm used to a more or less instant response when working with just file names & dates under XP. (note files, were supposedly already indexed by Windows Search)

Included and Windows Update drivers, while copious (nearly everything works after an install on various hardware) are often limited. You still need to go out and find the latest drivers for full functionality. (still, it's nice that most everything basically works right away...)

Aeropeek on anything less than a 9600 GT is freaking annoying, and even then the frequent screen blanks with autoplay, video driver installation (something like 20 screen blanks!), and full screen 3d swithes are jarring.

Bottom line, I doubt many people will be requesting XP downgrades once they get their hands on Win 7 so we may as well get used to it.

Re:my 2 cents...

[argent]

Win7 x64 RTM, unlike Vista, won't annoy you right out of the box.

What differences are there in Seven that will make it less annoying than Vista?

The only UI changes I've seen described are the larger task bar and the elimination of the classic menu, both of which will annoy me.

So what makes it less annoying?

It's ironic that Apple has been reducing the garish carp in the user interface for the last four or five years. Leopard's UI reminds me more of the late '90s, with dull gray Platinum/Windows 9x colors.

Re:my 2 cents...

[Simulant]

Well, first and foremost, UAC doesn't pop up 5 million times a day. (though I still prefer it off, completely)

Also, It feels snappier, some things are more intelligently arranged (control panel for one, though only marginally), Explorer works a little better, fewer compatibility issues.... lots of little things that just add up to a better experience.

Mainly, I'm still not swearing at it after a few weeks of constant use whereas I was (and continue to be since I have to support it) fed up with Vista within hours.

OpenGL, HOSTS files, and WFP issues... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

"So I'm stuck using Vista, which is a huge beast, slow, and shitty. Now that Windows 7 is coming out, I would love to use that instead, but I get stomach pains when I think about handing my hard earned money to get what Vista SHOULD have been. Now I wait for the /. crowd to flame me to death me for using windows." - by purpledinoz (573045) on Wednesday August 05, @02:32AM (#28952599)

Not here to flame, but rather, to "enlighten you", on 3 things in VISTA/Server 2008, & yes, Windows 7 that you may or may not be aware of & that have been BLATANTLY DONE WRONG...

First, there is the lack of "NATIVE-TO-THE-OS by default" (for lack of a better way to describe it) OpenGL gaming support (which MS has 'torn out' of VISTA, & forces a user to 'hack in' something called an OpenGL icd (client driver) layer in order to play OpenGL games (which from what I heard long ago, this icd merely translates API calls to OpenGL from games into corresponding DirectX api display calls only, & looks like crap upon said translation but don't quote me on that, because I read this here on that note -> http://www.opengl.org/pipeline/article/vol003_7/ & it merely states MS is removing native OS support for OpenGL & you have to rely on your vendor for your vidcard to supply it only.

Without that "OpenGL icd 'hack'"? Well - From what I have heard, very recently too mind you from a pal of mine that is outraged he cannot install & play his copy of OpenGL based Quake 4 on VISTA even?? It's ticking folks off that have existing investments in OpenGL games... & I also do myself, & this also makes me 'steer clear' of VISTA + its descendants in Server 2008 + Windows 7. To myself @ least, it appears to be a "cheap trick" on MS' part to make "DirectX 'Uber Alles'" on the PC gaming front, by removing OpenGL as a competitor to Ms' own DirectX... I cannot respect that, & I DO consider it, "dirty pool". Yes, that is what I think of the "why" of why MS has done this to native OpenGL support in VISTA onwards.

Gamers: Feel FREE to correct me on this note though - I am NOT the gamer I once was, & I do NOT use VISTA, Server 2008, OR Windows 7 here (I only support them on the job on occasions where it is used, rare really, & not for gaming when I have done work on them), so I MIGHT be "off" on this account... however? On the next parts I note below, HOSTS & WFP?? That much I am confident of in what I state.

Thus, anyhow/anyways - I just cannot SEE how Microsoft can say "BEST WINDOWS EVER" etc. et al, when VISTA, Server 2008, & yes, Windows 7 clearly have been CRIPPLED on this account (&, yes, others too, I get into them next, though they are NOT about gaming but imo, something more important) &, the Operating System now LACKS FUNCTIONALITY compared to its earlier predecessors on this account (OpenGL gaming)

Secondly, & imo @ least, MORE IMPORTANTLY?? What's happened to HOSTS files, & the design of the WFP (windows filtering platform) for security... these deal in efficiency & security, respectively, & here we go on THAT note:

Windows 7, VISTA, & Server 2008 have a couple of "issues" I don't like in them, & you may not either, depending on your point of view (mine's based solely on efficiency & security), & if my take on these issues aren't "good enough"? I suggest reading what ROOTKIT.COM says, link URL is in my "p.s." @ the bottom of this post:

1.) HOSTS files being unable to use "0" for a blocking IP address - this started in 12/09/2008 after an "MS Patch Tuesday" in fact for VISTA (when it had NO problem using it before that, as Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003 still can)... & yes, this continues in its descendants, Windows Server 2008 &/or Windows 7 as well.

So, why is this a "problem" you might ask?

Ok - since you can technicall

Not what I recall...

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I recall of the DOS days, SMARTDRV had a mode (and was set up that way by default) where it would flush its cache whenever you went back to the command prompt. So if you were at the prompt, you could turn off safely.

Not for my old test PC at work.

[antdude]

It is a Dell Dimension 8250 with 512 MB of RAM and an IDE HDD. 32-bit Windows 7 UE RTM got stuck at shutdown when I tried to reboot. I haven't had time to analyze what was cauisng it. :(

So friendly first thing in the morning

[symbolset]

Blog center blues?

The product is not generally available - the current moment is "prerelease". That this reviewer has it is direct evidence of bias.

An OS platform is a complex product. Unless it's totally pathetic it takes time to examine. We must fit it into an evolved environment with lots of legacy hardware and software. You don't just drop everything and roll it out based on a clearly biased prerelease review.

Re:So friendly first thing in the morning

[LinuxAndLube]

Everybody who's interested can download it from MSDN. Actually, that's what the professionals are doing right now in order to properly evaluate the thing.

Re: cant magically get more CPU power

[neonsignal]

Well, you can 'magically' get more CPU power - it is called buying the latest machine, just happens to be faster than last year's one. Which (coincidentally) everyone seems to have to do when they move to a new version of Windows...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Windows 7 antivirus software... why?

[harmlessdrudge]

If Windows 7 is so secure why does it need anti-virus software? Fooled me once with Vista. Now using Ubuntu as well and not planning on using Windows 7 any time soon.

You can "look around" in Linux too

[Anonymous Coward]

And if either don't have a widget thingy for what you need to do:

1) Windows
Decode the Registry to see what you're allowed to edit.
Guess the right answer to put in.

2) Linux
man -k thingy (or just look in /etc, no more difficult to remember than "Open up System..")
find the config file for it
edit the config file (which has EXPLANATIONS in it, so you know what to change and what to change it to).

CASE IN POINT:

Via install of drivers WILL NOT WORK. There's NO WAY to get it to work.
Kept complaining that there was a registry error and exited.
What it turned out to be was I didn't use IDE drives so turned them off.

Where was that information?

And if that bit of info was unavailable? SOL.

Linux still lets me see inside it so I can fix it. If I don't want to, I am no worse off than I would be under windows.

"type in the letters see dee and space"

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm?

So very difficult.

Now get someone to move their icon over the little down-chevron thingy to expose "hidden because you don't use them" options in windows UI.

"what's a chevron?"

Hmm?

Shills are shrill today...

Re:Consumers still waiting for OpenGL games and mo

[kamatsu]

Please, please, please, *please* shut up. No one cares about your stupid ip addresses.

discoverable?

[Rob Y.]

>A good operating system is discoverable and user-centric.

I tend to agree with you on that, but for what it's worth, in my occasional forays into Apple software, I haven't found things to be particularly discoverable (or even all that well designed). I occasionally use iTunes (granted, the Windows version), and it amazes me that stuff like the blue dot next to podcasts offers no explanation of what it is or does. It seems to indicate that the podcast hasn't been listened to yet, but doesn't always reset after listening (there must be some minimum percentage you have to play before it goes off). Didn't Apple 'invent' balloon help? So why don't they use it?

That's a trivial example, but there's stuff like that all over. It seems to me that the Apple philosophy is 'easy to teach' rather than 'easy to discover'. i.e. they assume somebody's going to show users how to do things, and after that, it'll all make sense. And that fits with an orientation toward non-technical (if not computer-phobic) users. That kind of user wants to be shown what to do - and then do that and nothing else.

To tell the truth, I think Windows does 'discoverable' better, and to the extent that KDE follows the Windows model (lots of right-click context options, 'advanced' features tabs, etc), it does a pretty good job too. Where Windows and KDE break down is in having too many options and too many ways to do the same thing. Not too sure about GNOME, but I tend to agree with the 'GNOME is too stripped down' argument. Isn't there some happy medium between too much and too little configurability? In any case, GNOME definitely has Mac envy - I just haven't yet figured out what is so enviable about it.

Uh that's still two clicks

[TheLink]

How does that help? That's still two clicks. One to select the correct desktop and one to select the window.

With my current method, I just click on the relevant taskbar item.

Here's an example of what would be more useful to me:

Currently most desktop environments already keep track of the existing windows in a stack sorted in the order of most recently active to last. This is for the "alt-tab" feature.

What I want is that the UI _automatically_ assign key strokes to the last "n" tasks/windows in the "last active/focused" stack.

winkey+0= renumber current stack from most recently used to oldest used (alt+r?),
where:
  winkey+1= current window
  winkey+2= previous window
  winkey+3= window before previous window
  winkey+4= ...

Say you clicked on tasks E, B, A , D, C on the taskbar (or selected them in some other ways), and then pressed winkey+0.

then
winkey+1= C (for example: an ssh session to a machine X)
winkey+2= D (ssh to a machine Y)
winkey+3= A (some documentation?)
winkey+4= B (notepad of stuff to be copied/pasted from/to machines)
winkey+5= E (edit of source code)
winkey+6= whatever was active before E
and so on.

AND it _stays_ that way until you do winkey+0 again.

So even after you press winkey+4 to switch to B, winkey+1 still switches to C (until you "renumber" again).

With this feature, I do NOT have to spend minutes to custom bind keys to apps/windows. I just click on the bunch of windows I want to work with and then press: winkey+0.

After that, I can instantly switch amongst any of the windows by pressing winkey+<1-9>.

If winkey is not acceptable pick some other key or keycombo.

I've actually suggested this to KDE more than 3 years ago. But nobody seems interested. Maybe it's only be useful for me?

It's quite disappointing to me. There are so many ways of making things faster and more efficient but Microsoft just moves things around and caters for the naive users without adding stuff that allows skilled/trained users to be augmented dramatically.

As for "Linux Desktop", they're busy giving us silliness like "wobbly windows" and other "UI" equivalents of annoying cutscenes. The "cutscenes" (aka animations etc) might be cool the first time you see them, but after the 100th time, they're useless crap that gets in the way of what you want to do.

Re:Uh that's still two clicks

[The_Noid]

Nope, it's not two clicks, it's 1 key-combo. Because there are so little windows per desktop, you generally only need to switch to the right desktop (with 1 key-combo) and you're done. You really should try it. You basically achieve exactly the effect you want by putting your apps in fixed desktops. And you don't even need to remember any most-recent order, or spend time putting your apps in a specific order, you just start your apps on the same desktop, or you drag&drop 'em there.

There's no accounting for taste

[TheLink]

> Because that's one of those things that would be instantly recognizable and universally agreed-upon as a UI fuck-up.

Not really. See:

http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=99905

Worse, when I tested on kubuntu 8.04 it's still the same behaviour, BUT with the addition that they've got it to sort by alphabetical order by default.

That's worse since if I have say 20 tasks, alphabetical would mean the new window is inserted in the middle of "somewhere". Close one window and open two new windows and it's hard for me to predict where the resulting tasks will be on the taskbar.

Maybe I've strange tastes, but I don't see how the addition of alphabetical sorting on top of "top-down-left-right sort" is an improvement in UI terms.

KDE used to be better than GNOME. This and other stupidity makes KDE a sad joke to me.

Re:The competition is OSX (And .net)

[TheSunborn]

And how could I forgot .net. The system where Microsoft once again wrote an entire widget system to replace the widgets in win32. A .net button is not a win32 button.

It seems to me that the standard way(As in: done by most) to develop a gui for Windows is to first find an alternate for the win32 widgets. And I don't see the difference between using the hellspawn that Adobe/Microsoft/Adobe use, or using Qt. It's all just a new gui system, which use gdi+ (And a few win32 calls) as a backend.

Win 7 - behind the times

[Anonymous Coward]

It might be the best Windows yet, but that doesn't really say much, yeah its still shit.

Responsiveness should be foremost in desktop OS design. The guys back in the 80s and 90s got it right with the 8 and 16 bit variants. Admittedly they weren't as complex or tolerant against unexpected application behaviour. Take AmigaOS or RiscOS for instance. Phucking responsive. As for Win7 they're behind the times if they've not realised that UIs should be fast all the time. Who gives a damn if that scheduled defrag has to pause half a second so the user isn't getting cheesed off with the wait.

On Windows, try this ultimate benchmark. Use the OS as you would for a while, surfing, watching movies, updating your blogs and letting the world what you're generally up to - basically anything that'll exercise the it for a while. Now on the desktop, press the right mouse button and wait for the menu to appear...

Depending on your RAM/swapping activities, this can take up to 5 seconds - for me it regularly does, even with 4GB!

The WinOses even swap UI components which generally makes them sluggish.

We're screwed either way

[u64]

XP3Pro: kinda slim and works well enough. But dont run perfect on newest hardware.

Vista: suck

Win7: =VistaAgain. Bloated to make new hardware go as slow as possible.

Xubuntu: Runs fastest and easiest to use for both n00bs and pros. But,
it is not Windows. People still think they want Windows. If only there was
a rename-patch for Linux...

Re:Snappy

[smash]

My experience with windows in the past 15 years or so does not concur. it sounds very much like you do not have DMA turned on, on your hard drive controller.

I actually noticed that disk i/o was better (as in, did affect the rest of the system as much) in NT4 than 95 or 98...

Um, 64-bit Benchmarks...

[ndykman]

This article was pretty light on real data, but one thing that struck me is that they benchmarked the 32bit version. Well, why you would run the 32bit edition unless you had to, I don't know. I'd like to see some benchmarks with XP/Vista/7 32bit and Vista/7 64bit and see those outcomes.

The numbers for Office show very little difference in performance, so I can't help but feel that the responsiveness gains will make 7 more tolerable to use, and the UI improvements seem to be genuinely interesting and useful. While Vista has been fine for me (64bit version), I expect 7 will be better tuned.

They all suck in way or another

[Anonymous Coward]

I use all these OSs almost daily: Leopard, Linux, XP, Vista and Win7.

For day to day general use you can't beat a mac, for games windows is your friend, for speed on a budget linux will do.

Having used windows 7 for a bit it feels faster for some operations but has the same annoying slow down or freeze for others. As far as shutting down is concerned, OSX can have the same issues if it is interrupted. Linux is still not for ready for Joe public it's for computer savvy, Macs work and are relatively easy to learn, Windows doesn't work but has useful messages to tell this and everybody know where things are (Office 2007 being the exception).

Some of you guys are right though we should be able to expect one of them to get it right. It seems in computer land the bigger the company gets the more we poke a stick at them. It doesn't happen to Linux because there isn't really any one to poke a stick at but Linux is far from perfect either.

yes!

[AlgorithMan]

yes, you're waiting for it... and waiting... and waiting...

Re:Consumers still waiting for OpenGL games and mo

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not one to talk. No one cares about your opinions so why don't you take your own advice.

Who cares what you think, goofy

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject above, "just sayin'", you fucking ill informed goof.

Re:Consumers still waiting for OpenGL games and mo

[Anonymous Coward]

I certainly care about his opinions more than I care about APK's.

Who cares what you think? Who says you can think??

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject

yay some logic finally

[cheekyboy]

To all those speed geeks, if a background task takes 4:03hrs vs 3:59hrs, who cares, really who cares.
But If I have to endure 4hrs of sluggish gui and windows taking 500ms longer to appear, then that is crap.

This aint 1987 any more, wakeup and smell the grando.

The current window, focus of my pointer should always be higher priority than any background task on desktops.

Btw when will we get a dual cpu usage Firefox, so all plugins are in one core, and the main firefox in the other, so no damn
stupid flash plugin or high speed JS can ever take down firefox GUI/menus/keys. FF should always respond no matter if a plugin
does while(1);

The timestamp on your comment is 8/5/09

[symbolset]

Everybody who's interested can download it from MSDN. Actually, that's what the professionals are doing right now in order to properly evaluate the thing.

Windows 7 wasn't available on MSDN until the next day. Obviously you, a newbie to slashdot, have an advance copy and are projecting an expectation of what "professionals" will do. Naturally this is because in your part of the world you received your "launch day" talking points in the blog center before "launch day" actually occurred. You haven't actually ever seen the product, and likely never will see a fairly licensed copy in Bangalore. Not your fault, really, but it blunts your effectiveness.

You from farther up the thread:

They did not 'review' a prerelease, but the RTM. Are you by any chance a moron?

OK, I think I've outed you as an astroturfer, and a poor one. Obviously you think getting abusive with me is going to get me quivering in fear, but you couldn't be more wrong. You've blown it. Whether you're a professional in real life or not, the LinuxAndLube persona clearly isn't. I'd say that account is well and fairly burned out for effective astroturfing.

Oh, and is the 'symbolset' slashdot account not already forbidden for trolling in your blog center? I've outed more than a dozen of you dweebs so far, and all of the rest of you have failed to deliver their message convincingly when sparring with me. You guys should know better by now. You're down a few million dollars in marketing. I hope your supervisor wasn't dumb enough to award you points for that feeble crap.

It's not your fault, really. You don't understand what's happening here and you can't without many more years of experience. Until you have more understanding, it's best if you don't reply to posts with user IDs lower than, say, 1000000.

Let me reiterate what I said, in case you're having trouble grasping it: I have no opinion about whether Windows 7 is good or bad, and will not until I've tested it myself. Even you should have no trouble understanding that that is a responsible position to take. The betas look promising, thankfully. But the product itself? When I've tested it to my satisfaction I'll have an opinion and not before. Until then your impatience does not express professionalism.

Re:The timestamp on your comment is 8/5/09

[LinuxAndLube]

symbolset, if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. Maybe you should find yourself another forum, where people are more gentle?

It was already the 6th when I posted the message, but just not so in your timezone. Anyway, the RTM was not yet available through MSDN, so I was wrong saying that people were already downloading it. So, the reviewer must indeed have gotten it from a different source.

I come to Slashdot as LinuxAndLube to have fun. I press some buttons and observe the completely predictable behavior of the slashrobots. I do have an older account, with an ID much smaller than yours, but I don't see much point in using it these days.