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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.'"
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.
> 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?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
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.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Hmph.. No comments that even remotely imply having RTFA'd, but sure enough there's an "astroturfing"-tag. Classy..
"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?
"In the absence of the ability to establish the attribute of truth they tried to establish the noble attributes."
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 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?
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...
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.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
'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...
Is the copying issue that Vista had solved now?
-- Cheers!
"'the operating system that both Microsoft and its consumers have been waiting for.'"
So it's Snow Leopard?
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.
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
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.
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
Sand's overrated... it's just tiny little rocks.
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.
"split the clouds and divide the sea and show those evil guys how nasty the Tiki gods can be."
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.
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
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.
They can pry my Ubuntu from my warm sweaty palms!
What in a OS could be taking up 16GB for a minimal install?
Disappointment, check. Anticipation for next windows, begin.
Winkey shortcut mapping for 64bit windows. WinKeyPlus
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.
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)
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
"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.
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.
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.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
These two are dueling now, but some third OS might have the last laugh here still.
Mantra: always wait for SP2!
"To err is human, to mod Funny divine."
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
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.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
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?
It will run fine with $50 worth of RAM (ie, 2gb or more).
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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. :)
That OEM key is blacklisted.
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
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. :-(
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.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
"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.
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
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.
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.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
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
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?
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!
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..."
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
We know our operating system sucks so we've decided to help our customers by making it even easier to shut it down!
I believe it will still be the world's most annoying operating system.
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.
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
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 :)
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
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.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
I'm for _anything_ that gets more people to stop using IE6. :)
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.
But wait, it's not Vista 3.0 yet.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
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?
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.
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.....
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.
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).
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".
I hate to do this (not really), but here is the obligatory xkcd reference (and from the newest comic too). http://xkcd.com/619/
Since when is checking SMART info a standard task in Windows?
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...
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?
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.
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 ;-)
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.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
"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!
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
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!".
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
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?
reboot = shutdown + boot
So every time you reboot, you shut down.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
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.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
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.
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.
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....
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.
Excuse me, wtf r u doin?
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.
"Linux is for noobs"-The new MS fud strategy
> "...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.
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.
Slashdot anagrams to "Sad Sloth"
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.
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.
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.
RUGBYRUGBYRUGBY
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.
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...
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.
open source modern art: laser taggi
- 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.
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.
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.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
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.
"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)...
Objective studies have repeatably shown this.
suspiciously vague. care to offer a link to one?
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"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.
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.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
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. :)
I want to meet the guy who invented beer and see whats he's up to now.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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....
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.
Work bio at MMWD
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.
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...
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
"application" development, obviously... *sigh*
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Can anyone figure out the Vista/7 control panel without anyone holding their hand?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. ... interface.
You seem to believe CLI in these OS is just some kind of, well,
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?
"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?
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.
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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I should cut down on the use of the phrase 'That said...' ;-)
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
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.
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.
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).
Quack, quack.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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*
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
"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...
Don't forget that's Windows 7 Ultimate.
So it's actually not minimal install, it's almost full.
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
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.
At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend I don't care that you're not here with me
'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.
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.
"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.
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.
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?
... I should add that she could hold a normal conversation in perfect English. She just didn't have a good vocabulary of computer terms.
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."
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
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.
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).
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
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.
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
Good to know... maybe I should give it another try.
Probably will, the next time I'm drunk off my ass... :)
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.
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.
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.
That pretty much jives with a study by google. They found SMART to be pretty damn dumb.
The Goal: A long simple life filled with many complex toys.
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.
I do.
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.
Simple solution: make it an option to activate it. Just like "Simple File Sharing". I'd settle for that.
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".
That's what I meant. I was thinking ssh ;-)
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.
Put it to sleep yes
I've put my windows computer to sleep too.
vi or nano does that, even openoffice. kill it and by the next time you want to edit the file, it asks for recovery.
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 !
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
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.
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.
Your primary assumption, that CLI is inferior to GUI is fallacious.
That's what is wrong with your argument.
You are more than welcome.
Always back up, never back down. ---- Think you're cool 'cos your uid is prime? Take mine, modulo the one digit integers
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.
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
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.
"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.
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.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
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.
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Made from the freshest electrons.
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.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
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.
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)
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
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.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
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...
User error - strike user to continue!
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
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.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
If by discoverable you mean click everywhere until it works, then yes. That's how I find most folks "discover" stuff on Windows.
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.
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.
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...
... 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.
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
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.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
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
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
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.
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.
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
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.
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.
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Made from the freshest electrons.
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).
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.
Sic Semper MicroSoft
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
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.
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.
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.
today is spelling optional day.
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.
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.
do not read this line twice.
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.
FreeBSD.org - The power to serve
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.
Yep. I dunno why, but I find them easier to remember ;)
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.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
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.
The television will not be revolutionized.
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.
Your head a splode
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.
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?
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.
Always good for at least of couple of Insightful mods ;)
I don't care why you're posting AC
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.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
Anyone think Vista was the `New Coke' of operating systems?
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.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
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.
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:
Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
Oh, I hate that... rejecting a point on the basis of "ah, who needs that?"
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".
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.
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.
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')
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.
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
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.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
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".
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 ?
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
"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.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
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.
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".
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)
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
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." ... post a screenshot after clicking all this crap?"
Windows: "Open up Device Manager and, uh
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.
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
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.
"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.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
No it was Ubuntu,,/a> not Windows.
"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?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
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. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
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.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
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.
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.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
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?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
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
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...
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.
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
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.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
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.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
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?
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
It's well past Windows in terms of usability and elegance.
Wow, what the fuck are shooting up?
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)
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.
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.
I don't care why you're posting AC
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.
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
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.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
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.
Thank you for once again proving why the majority of Slashbots Don't Get It(tm).
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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.
There is very little future in being right when your boss is wrong.
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.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
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".
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Whattya know, they finally fixed that.
So what keeps a developer from putting their app in a stupid place?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
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.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
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
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!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Ergh, UI Design? I was tired. I meant OS design.
Linux's GUI configs may suck, but Windows' are DEPLORABLE. OSX is closest to good, SUSE's YaST isn't bad either.
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.
http://www.mhall119.com
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).
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.
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!
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?
Even my parents were able to enable Remote Desktop and install Hamachi with a little bit of coaching via Skype. Et voila!
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.
RTFM then :-p
Please, please, please, *please* shut up. No one cares about your stupid ip addresses.
I've always wondered - can you run Wine in SUA?
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.
>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.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
:))
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
Removing Bash (and the rest of the shells) will break shell scripts. Removing the terminal emulators is a better idea.
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.
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 :)
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
*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]!"
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
So, make up your mind. You don't like a text interface on Linux, but it's okay when you use it on Windows?
God is imaginary
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.
If you don't see the blatantly obvious differences between GNOME-Do/Windows start search and the bash shell, you are beyond help.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
God is imaginary
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.
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
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.
Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?
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.
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
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.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
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?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
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.
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.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
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.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I'll do without a CLI when you do without a registry.
I am anarch of all I survey.
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...
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...
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
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.
That's an absurd thing to say and betrays your ignorance here. ... revealing.
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
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".
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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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 :)
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
yes, you're waiting for it... and waiting... and waiting...
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
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.
Whats the harm in yelling 'Computer, end program!'? You could be living in Star Trek! Go on.. give it a try.
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!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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.
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.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
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.
Sorry, wrong link.
http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/7183/fontu.png
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.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Maybe it should be. I can do this in OS X. Without accessing a CLI, BTW. :)
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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
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);
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
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.
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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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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.
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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.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Ok, You hate shells, you made your point already.
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