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Windows 8 Is 'a Work of Art.' But It's No Linux
colinneagle writes "Earlier this week I installed the final version of Windows 8. And it is awesome. That's not a joke. Windows 8 is absolutely, unequivocally stellar. And yet, at the end of the day, I am right back to using Linux. Why is that? What is it about Linux that makes me so excited to use it — even while enjoying another operating system that I view as, in all seriousness, a work of art? Why do I not simply install Windows 8 on every machine I own and be happy with it? For me, it's the ability to slowly chip away and remove items from your user interface until you are left with only want you want, and nothing more. The option of looking at an item on the screen, right clicking on it, and declaring to said item 'Listen up, mister Thing-On-My-Screen. I don't want you anymore. Be gone!' Panels, bars, docks, launchers, widgets, gadgets – whatever is on your screen, there is probably a way to send it to whatever form of the afterlife is reserved for unwanted Desktop Crud. And, I'll tell you this right now – as great as it is, you don't find a whole lot of 'Right click, Remove Panel' in Windows 8."
I don't visit a news site for opinion pieces.
... or legitimate commentary
Referring to this story being first on the front page.
I know others will say the same thing. But I wanted to say it first if that's possible.
On my list of most annoying things about GNOME 3's GNOME shell is that I can't remove or customize the bar on the top... not easily anyway.
I want my old panels back.
Then beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder, and you need to get your eyes checked.
It's not april fools day, what gives? Or... how much were you given to write this crap?
Art is in the eye of the beholder.
Personally I think it's a piece of crap.
Of course, if you definition of 'art' is 'something that evokes and emotional response', then I guess it's art: it evokes a feeling of disgust and revoltion in me, I want to get it as far away from me (and my equipment) as possible.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
useless piece of fluff.
you should be ashamed. get out
you're lame; linux isn't about the UI dillhole.
What's powerful about removing what you don't want is when *you* are in control. Many vendors remove features to simplify user interfaces. But then it's their choices of what has to go -- not yours.
I kid you not, the copy file progress dialog in Windows 8 is a thing of beauty. If you havenâ(TM)t seen it in action, and you are a fan of cool user interfaces, you owe it to yourself. To say I am impressed with what the team at Microsoft has accomplished would be a massive understatement.
So I take this to mean that MS did not fix the dialog's 5000% difference between guesstimated time and actual transfer time?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
When will you nerds realize that the operating system is becoming more and more irrelevant by the day? As a software engineer, I could care less any more about which platform that I develop for. The OS is being abstracted away from developers more and more each passing year. It's all about the tools and applications!
Paid Troll anyone?
'Work of Art' is an interesting choice of words. The art world is full of examples of 'art' that shocks and offends the viewer for precisely that purpose.
So when someone says Windows 8 is a 'Work of Art' I have to ask "Do you mean The Mona Lisa or L.H.O.O.Q.?"
OS-X is almost entirely free of OS-derived graphical gunk. You have the desktop (which can be blank), and the doc (which can be hidden), and a few things along the menu bar in the upper right hand corner (which can be hidden).
Other than that, it already meets his "graphical gunk free" ideal.
Test your net with Netalyzr
I liked most things about win8. It boots SO fast compared to win7. {IMHO} MS shouldn't have put such an emphasis on touchscreen or at least make it configurable for "normal" desktop / tablet use.
I don't find it much easier to remove features from mainstream Linux distros anymore than I do in Windows. The dependencies often prohibit removing even the most useless apps without taking the entire Desktop and other vital things with it. Of course, this is not the case in something like Arch, or Gentoo, but in Windows it's pretty easy to turn services off in Administrative Tasks and even through the registry. Also, I think neither Unity or Gnome3 go out the way to offer customizable UIs.
/*
~ sudo $ apt-get remove completely-unnecessary-application
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
After this operation, ALL disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
...but this piece just reeks of trolling the Windows crowd. Why do we need a multi-hundred word paragraph explaining that you can hide items in Linux but not in Windows? An even better question: what reason do we have to be interested in colinneagle's opinion? It's neither insightful nor unique, let alone relevant to most people, since this is not the feature that will make or break the deal for the vast majority of users choosing between the two OSes. I'm glad he's been able to make a decision for himself, but why should a typical nerd be interested in this opinion piece?
I love tacos, they are a culinary masterpiece, but why do I keep eating pizza? A subjective opinion passed off as actual news; how novel.
>And it is awesome.
Can't argue with that.
"whatever is on your screen, there is probably a way to send it to whatever form of the afterlife is reserved for unwanted Desktop Crud"
Well, on KDE 4 on openSUSE 12.1, I have these screen tips that show up on the programs I have open in the panel. Every time my mouse gets near the panel - such as when I'm TRYING to click on something low on the screen and I overshoot a bit - they pop up and obscure what I want to click on. If I move the mouse a bit I can get rid of the obscuring screen tip but it's incredibly irritating to do this fifty times an hour!
And as far as I can tell, there is NO WAY to get rid of those screen tips without ALSO getting rid of them in the System Tray - which I do not want. I want screen tips on the utilities in the System Tray, just not on open programs. I understand why they're there, of course - if you open a lot of programs on one desktop, the open program display gets scrunched down and you'd need the popups to switch from program to program - except I use Alt-Tab for that when that happens. But I want the ability to selectively remove those screen tips while leaving the ones on the utilities in the System Tray which show useful info like the clock.
So no, you can't get rid of anything and everything.
Still, it's way better than Windows, I agree.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Tech-savvy user prefer highly-configurable things that can be customized by tech-savvy users and dislikes things designed to be used as-is by computer idiots. News at 10...
What I'm really wondering though is whether this "article" is a cleverly disguise Windows 8 plug: the Linux bit is there to prevent the poster for being marked as a Microsoft shill, while the real message is "Windows 8 is a work of art". Because really, that's the only thing people who are afraid of Linux will read.
Linux lovers who find Windows 8 a work of art seem suspicious to me...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
But I think the phrase there was, "It's a piece of work."
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
How deep into Google did you have to dig to find someone that likes that trashy artwork?
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
I don't understand why this guy very often wants to give his opinions about Windows 8, OSX and the Linux as a desktop environment when most of the times he just uses xmonad + some terminals...
Most artists don't like people messing with their artworks. So maybe the lack of customizability is a reflection of that. Linux OTOH is more like a mechanic's (or artist's, for that matter) toolbox. It usually looks like shit, but it can take a beating and still get the job done. And nobody is going to look at you funny if you rearrange things to your liking.
I can certainly understand the author. My home looks a lot more like a toolbox filled with random useful (and some not so useful) things than an architecture exhibit. And no matter how pretty they may look, I wouldn't want to live in one.
Proud member of the Ferengi Socialist Party.
is concerned but ultimately agrees with you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)#Concern_troll
"Linux Is 'a Work of Art.' But It's No Windows" The way people are talking about Windows 8 lately, there might be more interest in Linux.
- -= Napalm means serious BBQ =-
News at 11.
Windows 8 will be great on tablets and phones. Laptops? perhaps 20% less annoying than desktops, where Win8 is a UI fail. Touchscreen UIs are not useful for desktops. We've had touchscreens for ages, but nobody wants to spend 8+ hours a day using gestures, nor does the idea of cheetos-stained fingers smudging up the screen excite me in the least (not that my fingers are cheetos-stained, but I've known plenty of people who fit this general type).
If removing UI elements is your idea of a "Dream OS" then perhaps you don't need a general purpose PC at all. Stick to a tablet or your phone and you'll be happy forever.
Have gnu, will travel.
Yea, a work of art, like picaso. That doesn't make it user friendly. The fact that you said linux is better pretty much sums it all up - it is good but not the best on the market
There was one comment from a keynote speech by John Carmack a few week ago. And for all the rest of the talk that was brilliant, this comment was the most relevant. And that was that he an iD recently switched from Windows Xp to Windows 7. And that yeah, it was nice. It was a bit better in a lot of areas, it did one technical thing a lot better. But for the most part, he just didn't care.
And for that matter neither did I when I made the same switch. Certainly, I wouldn't go back if I were just given a free and clear choice. But really, there's just not a whole lot there, to ANY new iteration of ANY operating system. It doesn't matter what you're a fan of, because each new iteration is just something of an update, for compatibility with whatever new hardware is out. For the most part there's nothing there to get excited about, I mean we're down to arguing tiny UI semantics. Windows 8, a work of art? It doesn't look that much different than Windows 7, nor does it do almost anything different. In fact the biggest change, of the start menu to start screen, is a bit worse for some people. But only a bit, so who cares?
So, why are people excited? Because we're nerds, because we're reading comments on /. and the internet is a great place to argue. But really, it doesn't matter that much. In fact it's beginning to matter so little that I'm wondering if it's worth it to even have inane arguments over anymore. And sure, it's a pastime as boring and pointless to outsiders as baseball is to many. But what I'm saying here is, arguments over the latest OS update are beginning to smell like fans arguing over a handful of old, decrepit has been teams, when there's a bunch of younger, more exciting lineups out there that could be providing a lot more entertainment.
bananaquackmoo wrote:
I don't want ANY of that crud...
You're telling him he *should* want that crud, rather than acknowledging the point that both he and the article make, that it is desirable to make your interface suit whatever you like, rather than making your likes suit the interface.
Eye-candy is not only a demand on the hardware: it's a demand on the user. (Just think about the phrase.) The less attention is drawn to things that don't need any attention, the easier it is to focus on what matters.
"Variety is the spice of life."
Wait, this is Slashdot. Sorry. Ok, it's a reference to human sexuality and how different chicks are endlessly intriguing.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Price, price, and price.
You are welcome on my lawn.
And yet, at the end of the day, I am right back to using Linux. Why is that?
Because you're a human being and we all have different opinions. For some reason yours have been promoted to a Slashdot article, but for the life of me I can't figure out why.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
consistency in an interface is never a good thing
At first I had vowed there was NO WAY I was going to pay to put Windows 8 on my desktop or laptop, but...after seeing these new laptop/tablet hybrids being announced, I think a Windows 8 machine is in short order...and Stardock announced a free tool to put your start menu back, while still allowing you to run Metro apps (something I'm sure Microsoft will add itself eventually) all sort of makes me think...$25? Sure, why not? I actually thought I was going to get a Surface too, but now all these prototypes are coming out and well, I'm very happy as a consumer and Windows user, this will be a good Fall for Microsoft. I think people will hate it a first, but I don't think Windows 8 is going to be the train wreck (including me) that people thought it might be.
Stop with the spam. Without even reading it I can tell this was written for clicks. There is no substance to it. It's one persons preference that doesn't even reflect a small minority of users and has absolutely no relevance to anyone. There are thousands of things which give GNU/Linux on the desktop an edge over Microsoft Windows. And while this is better than the articles which make it out as if the only or main benefit to using is GNU/Linux is "cheap" it's far from being written by someone who has a clue. If your a full time non-technical and heavy GNU/Linux user you'd probably be the best person person to write up a critical analyses to compare the two systems. For better or worse though GNU/Linux has never been about price. No, it's about the freedom stupid. And the technical benefits far outweigh the cost if the non-ethical benefits are your basis of comparison. The problem is doing a non-ethical comparison ultimately is that the main technical benefits are the direct result of freedom.
I'm using RTM and you can right click and remove anything, WTF?
Because you're a freetard shill.
But honestly, what is attractive about windows 8? I admit, I have never used it. But to me it looks god-awful. Just terrible. A completely disorganized mish-mash of ugly tiles. I look at it and can't see how it's supposed to work.
The reviews RAVE about it, but it still looks terrible to me, and none of the reviewers have ever managed to explain what exactly is so good about it.
Can somebody take a stab at telling me just what the appeal is?
Some people find their tools a source of endless excitement. A word for such people is "wankers".
I think the point about the article is made...
Blank until
First, you are not talking about operating systems but graphical user interfaces.
But to the point.
My personal opinion is that I love OS X look and simplicity. And I love(d) GNOME 2.x simplicity and pastel look.
But I can not stand neither of them in my computer as I want to do more than copy few files from USB-stick to desktop and use WWW-browser or listen music and watch videos.
(For me, even moving some files with Finder is pain in the ass unless they are right front of me.)
I want to love Metro (or what other name MS will choose for it, hopefully as good as "Metro") as it is what Unix is about, information front of you. Metro is doing something what I dreamed and designed 15 years ago (I even have hundreds of designs stored in closet), but still it is doing it wrong way, by disturbing user, by hiding elements, functions and making simple things too complex (Like easy way to open directory in Finder by simply pressing enter on it when browsing with arrow keys).
So far, only GUI what pleases me on desktop/laptop use is KDE. And especially KDE4 started to do it great.
The customization is the key. Please, just give user a pure and clear GUI and then easy way to _add_ features what they want (contrary to your saying, you want to _remove_ things, I think it should be that people can "opt-in" just by adding features what they need.) and then get the GUI look and work as they need and want, not as one designed in company sees it should work (they can do the very basic usability things, like you can not so easily by mistake delete file or rename directory etc).
But when it comes to tablet, smartphone and even netbook usage, I just love Android 4.0 on them. The style, it is very informative and widgets gives the possibility to have exactly the wanted specific information right under your finger with interactive function (what Live Tiles do not offer at all) and otherwise just the apps with the oldest and purest human understandable way. If you want to nail something, you take hammer and nail and you just hit it where wanted. If you want to cut something, you take saw and you just use it.
The original Unix idea, one tool for one task. It is just so wise and awesome, why even command line interface is so awesome when compared to GUI in many basic cases (like copying files, renaming, moving, archiving, emailing, encrypting etc).
Last few years the trend has been that files need to be queried trough search and automatic filtering systems. Like the computer would know right away what you need and want (I am pointing my finger to you KDE community with activities!). Just give very simple and fast search for files, like Google search web pages (as it is said, it is silly that we can find pages from Internet faster than files from others computer).
I love organized file hierarchic in manner where others can understand easily what is in directories and what file is about by its name.
But when it comes to actually quickly choose and group bunch of files and do something complex to them graphically, there seems not to be better tool than Automator in OS X (unless you count scripting for shell in all Unix systems).
So what Microsoft has done right? They made the GUI touchable with big enough buttons (tiles) what was reason why Windows 7 SUCKED for any tablet computer (I have used 27" touchscreen with Windows 7 and it just was terrible two weeks). And that they got the idea that information should be easy to get presented in wanted form.
BUT.....
Metro SUCKS!
Android is getting again something much better. Chameleon is coming launcher for Android (tablets only?) http://chameleon.teknision.com/ and it is exactly having what I have found most oldery (and young) people to need. To have information at one glance available for them, depending their task, location or time (one awesome app for Android is the Tasker https://play.goog
Apple
Facebook
Google
Microsoft
Sensationalized
Opinionated
Product Placement
"Guy prefers something; blogs about it" is front-page news now? Even more so, "Guy prefers old thing he's grown used to over many years"?
Personally, I like OS X the most. I'm sure we could find other people who think Windows XP, 7, or 8 are the best. What was the point of this again?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Is that you?
Oblig
The "Mona Lisa" is a work of art, but I can't use it to get my work done. I want a *tool*.
A typhoon looks gorgeous from space. The rest (as Valve puts it) is a catastrophe. Been testing Win8 for sometime now and it truly is colorful, has some slickness to it, but does not get the work done for me. Microsoft has for some reason assumed that making things more complex is good. I am sticking to my Tiny Core where everything is right there :)
I used the Beta version of Win 8. And when I first booted it up, I sat back and said to myself "This is going to be painful and useless." And it was painful at first... the Metro UI takes some getting used to. But here's the thing : After you get used to it, it makes sense. There is a point, about two weeks into using it, where things just click and you think "This is how it's supposed to be."
Win 8 makes sense in it's UI, it's fast, it seems pretty darn crash proof and MS seems to have learned their lesson about bloating the system with things one doesn't need. You get the base Windows system and can add what you want on to it in other words. I like that. I like Win 8 - I feel like I ought to take a shower after admitting that after being a loyal Linux fan since Vista came out, but there you go. When Win 8 comes out I will have no reservations about installing it on my machines and using it and I will have no reservations about buying a MS Surface tablet. I love Linux, but Win 8 just makes sense and fits my mindset better right now.
It's hard to explain without pictures or video or (best) actually showing it to you. But the new UI makes sense... that is the best way I can explain it in the space of a reply and in text. The Metro UI looks like a mess if you are coming from the direction of start menu's or docking bars... But using it for roughly 2 weeks and you realize it's making a heck of a lot more sense than either of them...
I spent the last month and a half doing development for WinRT using the new JavaScript/CSS/HTML framework Microsoft has implemented for developers. As someone with some experience developing and testing for Windows 8, I agree wholeheartedly with the article's conclusion. Windows 8 is a beautiful operating system that represents a surprising step for a company that has been pretty conservative in the past.
For the last three years I've used a mac for my personal computer, so I'll admit I was resistant to liking the new os at first. But eventually I was so impressed with Windows 8 (and am increasingly disillusioned with Apple) that I have decided my next laptop will be a Windows 8 rig. To me, the new iteration of M$'s OS is a bit shocking. Generally speaking I think just about everyone on /. can agree that M$ has a conservative track record as a company. Certainly in terms of UI, Windows has essentially been the same since Windows 95. To witness such a radical change to one of M$'s core products is nothing less than shocking, given that Windows 8 could have easily been a tiny incremental modification to Windows 7. Windows 8 represents a big, exciting risk to Microsoft. What's more, with Windows 8, Microsoft has actually done something original. It (brace for blasphemy) actually looks better than OSX/iOS, and it's based on a completely different, very novel UI design scheme. Icons are gone. Tiles and text are everything. And if you've read a review of Windows Phone 7 or 8, then you know it's better than Android or iOS.
Disclaimer 1: Just an intern. /. with years of experience and cynicism beneath their belt. M$ really went out of their way to make the framework good and they did a freakishly good job.
Disclaimer 2: I didn't do development with the C#/C++ and XAML combo. My job was just supposed to be a proof of concept of the JS/CSS/HTML with the rest of my intern team. We concluded it is awesome. Much like PhoneGap and some of the other frameworks leveraging webby development, it allows anyone with web skills to make fully functional apps, though, to add to my credibility I'll say that I'm an actual CS major who can program albeit not the usual grizzled developer vet on
It'a also not a Jack Kennedy.
Some settling may occur during posting.
I configured my Debian box so that it greets me with a matte black screen. Not even a cli. I have to ^t-c to have that. Whenever I open up a program, it takes fullscreen. No taskbar, no surrouding bar or top menu or whatever. Nothing. There's a keybaord shortcut for everything that would normally be done via mouse.
I really like that.
And yeah, that's kinda weird to prefer an OS for some interface tweak, but there's a more fundamental message to catch here: Linux lets you do whatever you want. OSX locks you up in a very, very well designed golden cage. Windows is a bit more tweakable, but there are things that you can't do, like getting rid of the entire graphical layer. Or like code up another one. Linux lets you do that. Free as in free beer, free speech and as in "this is a bunch of Legos. You're free to either follow the plan, or just do whatever you want with them". And I like it, even if that sometimes means that I delete my network manager and that I can't use apt to reinstall it. Hell...
But honestly, what is attractive about windows 8? I admit, I have never used it. But to me it looks god-awful. Just terrible. A completely disorganized mish-mash of ugly tiles. I look at it and can't see how it's supposed to work.
You've heard the advice "make it so simple a 5-year-old could use it", right? Well, unfortunately the head of Windows development is a bit hard of hearing - he thought they said "make it look like a 5-year-old designed it".
#DeleteChrome
Now hold on a minute, there's lots of different kinds of art.
Is it art, as in Manzoni's "Merda d'artista"?
I was kind of hoping that with Apple being the devil now we could finally have a rational discussion of a Microsoft product.
Someday...
you can't find out how to easily remove panels, but don't pout that on people who actually learn the system. RC->Remove panel.
and this :
"The lack of virii (I know people usually say “viruses”, but “virii” just sounds cooler)? "
viruses sounds cooler, virii is at best, ignorant. Since you know better, then it's just being fucking stupid. Stop it, we have enough dim witted morons without you needing to play at one because you feel it's 'cooler'.
In short, you make technical decisions on 'what's cooler'. As such, you are worthless.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Must learn how to smell it beforehand...
To me looks like they crunched all the current favorite social apps and added buzz words put it all in an mixer and it shit out Windows 8
I write in LaTeX, compiling from the command line, using bash and vim. This is easy with Linux and a pain in the butt with Windows. On the other hand, Linux doesn't run Ableton.
-- The Grand Teddy Bear has Spoken: "Windows 8 Source Code Available NOW! more disgusting than your pr..."
Windows 8 is like anime. Ask me about Ranma, Tenchi, Prince of Tennis, or INSERT_YOUR_FAVORITE_ANIME_HERE, and by the time I'm done explaining the basics of the anime you'll likely wonder what the hell I'm talking about.
Then there are the people who've watched anime. They just get it. That's kind of what Windows 8 is. Once you've seen it live it might just make sense. You might hate it because you don't understand it (like Serial Experiments Lain or the end of Evangelion) but hell...it's still anime...and it's still Windows.
I rarely use Windows and then only because something absolutely requires it. Like the TFA author, removing unwanted cruft from the desktop (and system) is a key reason I dislike Windows. For example, Windows Update repeatedly nagged to install Windows Media Player 11 (the newest one) which I finally did to watch (I thought) DVDs. However, as many of you probably know, Windows Media Player 11 will NOT play DVDs. Instead, it advises you that the necessary decoder is not present on the system and points you to places where you can purchase the decoder 'plugin' for a price of anywhere from $15 to $30. Okay, fine, now it's time to dump (uninstall) the newly-installed Media Player 11 but...not so easy is that. It can only be removed by (according to Microsoft) either 1) booting to safe mode and running something called 'appwiz.cpl' or, if 1) doesn't work, then 2) running something as '%windir%\$ntUninstallwmp11$\spuninst\spuninst.exe'. This is just one small example but, generally, Microsoft decides what the user should install, use and see and then makes it extremely difficult for you if you try to stray off of the reservation.
Yes. I even claim it's modern art. Let's see:
Looks kinda pretty or cool? Check.
Makes people think and ponder about its purpose? Check.
Makes people talk about it? Check.
Serves no practical purpose? Check.
Is overpriced eye candy? Check.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
...interesting customization for Windows 8
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9225016/Free_tool_restores_Start_button_to_Windows_8
It is made by the same people who made Window Blinds and it supposedly adds a "Start" button to Windows 8. So if you are one of those people that misses the "Start" button then your answer lies above.
"What is it about Linux that makes me so excited to use it"
you have to much time to faf about getting your OS to do something useful rather than doing something useful with your OS, thats what.
a couple hundred files without freezing up for ten minutes while it calculates god knows what. I know, I'm an unreasonable bastard, expecting the worlds largest software maker to make an OS that can handle something as obscure as deleting files. And they've only had about 30 years to work on this.
But the pretty progress bar, well that's a serious step in the right direction.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
The one thing that really, really pissed me off was that for single-sign-on you seem to be tied to Microsoft. I know, it's hardly a shock, and it's the same as Apple. But I wish that the concept of Account Providers from Android had rubbed off on them. Sure, they could offer the 'premium' facility, as they know their platform better than anyone. But in this day and age when people are picking cloud providers to go with, it would be wonderful to have the opportunity to use 'your' provider of choice, and have them plug in to the OS via shared API's.
I know why they've done it - to tie you in and maximize the use of the Windows Store and ecosystem. But it's frustrating that we're increasingly 'locked in' to the platforms we use - be it MS or Apple.
And before anyone points out I could opt for a local account - you're right, I could. But the benefits of an Internet-based roaming profile is pretty neat. I just wish the syncing mechanism was accessible to third parties, to really get some competition going.
Don't worry, Gnome3 will remove that option for you. That's too much choice for the stupid user to understand! It might be confusing if someone removes a panel item! Gnome devs know better than you what you want on your own computer!
From my perspective, the most important UI advantage of Linux distributions over Windows is built-in support for virtual desktops, though there are several virtual desktop Windows add-ons available.
Timothy needs to be smashed in the face and knocked on his ass with a big wet dirty barracuda
Astroturfing much?
It wastes far too much valuable screen space on pointless eye candy and takes more time and operations than to do the same thing in windows 7.
Its therefore a massive downgrade in the things that actually matter: usability and productivity.
Some people find their tool is a source of endless excitement. A word for such people is "wankers".
There... I fixed if for you.
But I really like linux. there is just something about the warm cozy feeling you get when that terminal window opens up and you can customize anything, given enough time and knowledge. I like my windows PC's too and my Mac experiences have been mostly favorable (no darn right click...) There is a community for each of these OS's but the linux community can actually steer the os in ways that most others cannot. Again I like them all, but I love Linux.
Chief Thinker www.devotedskeptic.com
When you say "art", do you mean in the style of Michaelangelo and Mozart or something more reminiscent of Goatse and 2 Girls 1 Cup?
The appeal of the tiles: they provide at-a-glance information. I can see how many emails, IMs, Facebook notifications and messages, and so on are waiting for me, without launching anything. I can see the current weather, or a forecast. I can track a friend's status updates, etc. Yeah, it's all pretty basic stuff, but it really does improve the experience a bit. Too bad I spend virtually no time in the Start screen...
The appeal of Metro-style apps: sandboxed, simple UI, can subscribe to a simple inter-process "sharing" system. Can display live updates on their tiles. I feel that the simplicity is taken too far, but for a lot of users, that's probably the level they want.
The appeal of the Marketplace: app discovery, automatic app updates, apps have been vetted for safety, apps follow you from PC to PC, you can get and leave ratings on apps. One of the best user-facing features of Win8, in my opinion, if it weren't for the looming walled garden aspect.
The appeal of the desktop: mutli-monitor taskbar and wallpapers that can cover multiple monitors too. Window chrome that updates along with the background slideshow (a suprisingly pleasant visual effect). Vastly improved file management UIs.
The appeal of Live ID integration: use your Live ID to log into your PC, have access to your documents and apps and bookmarks and contacts and calendar, have your settings remembered, be able to reset your password through an alternate email account, automatic integration with Live ID-based services.
The appeal of the features: ISO mounting, Client Hyper-V, reset/refresh (restore the PC to a specific snapshot state, or remove all user changes entirely). The ability to track your data usage (for built-in cellular chips, for example) and limit certain actions to while on WiFi or other unlimited networking. Anti-virus (basically, Security Essentials) now built into Defender.
The behind-the-scenes appeal: lower memory usage. Faster startup. Lots of new or improved exploit mitigations (like ForceASLR to mandate relocating DLLs linked without the /DYNAMICBASE flag).
That's not an exhaustive list, by any means. However, it should give you a good idea of the kinds of things people like in Win8. I personally think the Start screen (with the tiles) looks awful and is a pain to use, but fortunately, I don't have to. I launch programs by just typing the start of their name and hitting Enter, or by hitting Winkey+R and typing the binary name.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Either is grammatically correct, since more than one person implies more than one tool (though it's a big world, so I wouldn't rule out some kind of time-sharing arrangement in some cases).
Blank until
Simple: Linux is useful and fun for my purposes. In Linux (and other UNIXes), if a thing is logically possible, then it is by and large also possible to simply go and do it. In Windows I have always run in to what seems like arbitrary limitations on what I am allowed to do.
I thought it was obvious... Windows 8 appeals to squares... Litterally.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
I booted up Win8 in a VirtualBox machine. So far, there is no way to open the control panel. All I can do is right click the desktop, select Personalize, and drill up to the main control panel. I'm sure there is some obscure way to open the control panel by doing something that's not obvious on the screen (going to a hot spot, some weird key combination), but this is a symptom of the disaster Win8 will be. No one is going to drink the kool-aid and think an inaccessible control panel is better than Start -> Control Panel in Win7.
The MATE desktop on Linux Mint 13 suits me just fine, I see no need to move to something like a giant Windows Phone styled interface.
liberare massarum ex ignorantia, clausa descendit molestie.
Vista failed because it was worse than XP. W7 succeeded because it was better than Vista and XP.
Switch on a large scale between Linux desktops and Windows desktop is a giant step compared to imminent pressure in many organizations to make a choice between staying on W7 and switching to W8.
Bring me that comparison
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I've actually attempted to run the most recent RC of Windows 8. I put it on my laptop, which is normally a Windows 7 system; I have too many issues with the "Clickpad" on it under various Linux flavors, as well as a need for Photoshop. It seems to run very well, and "feels" a bit snappier than 7 which already runs well on the system, a Sandy Bridge i5 w/ 6 Gb of RAM, Nvidia Optimus graphics and a 750GB 7200 RPM spinny disk.
For bog standard use, which is most of what I use the laptop for, aka web browsing, couple terminal windows and some graphic and photo editing, it works fine and is not much different than Windows 7. That was the case, until I installed a couple utilities than tried to use them a few days later. It took me a few minutes to realize I had to type search for them because they don't show up in any of the "panels" in metro. Not to mention previewing pictures wants to launch a huge full screen app that you have to close out of. Oh, and that app doesn't scroll through the pictures nicely either, it seemed like a weak implementation of iPhoto. I spent ~4 weeks running 8 on the laptop before I couldn't tolerate the productivity hit any longer, and went back to Windows 7.
It really does seem like they have made some good improvements to it's bones, it's just the horrid interface change (for anything non-touch) that seems to do nothing but slow me down. As I noted, for the basic Facebook/Web/email user, sure, it's probably fine, but even in that case, it's not BETTER than 7, it's just... different. Definitely not what I would consider a "work of art", though I suppose it's better than some things I've seen in museums.
For a point of reference on my opinions above, I try to be an equal opportunity OS guy; I have owned MacBooks (and find OSX to be a nice OS, I have few complaints with it), have run Linux desktops quite a bit (mostly Fedora and older Ubuntu versions), and generally run Windows on my "daily driver" computers. I actually HAVE used most popular distros and Windows/Mac release in the past 10 years.
Just another ignorant American.
Harvey Mudd students have long used the word "artistic" euphemistically, from an immortal conversation that occurred many years ago, about a Counterstrike map being played at a LAN party at the time:
"[The bomb sites] are...artistic."
"And by 'artistic', you mean 'stupid'."
"Yes."
Also, later in the evening:
"We've taken an 'interesting' route. And by 'interesting', I mean 'dumb'."
"I thought that was 'artistic'..."
er, that's because Linux was never a work of art....
for you
Not to join the expanding chorus of Unity-haters . . . but really - I agree with your point that UI customizability is KEY for efficient workflow. And Windows 8 is a horrible step backwards. Apple has certainly spiraled downwards over the past 5 years. And Ubuntu's Unity swirls right down that same awful drain.
Of course, any competent linux user CAN choose other desktop environments. But the point is; what is rapidly becoming standard compliance among application developers, limits the choices of those alternatives.
Or you can start with a clean desktop and not have to remove anything. Try XMonad :)
Windows 8 is a work of faeces. It looks foul, it stinks and nobody wants it.