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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."
Then beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder, and you need to get your eyes checked.
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!
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!
Sure you can! And it's a totally intuitive process. You just open your web browser, visit the Gnome Shell extensions site, click through a few pages of poorly organized extensions, and there will be five of them that sort of do what you want and are only partially broken.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
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.
bloody taco shill.
Install KDE or Gnome on OSX then and stop complaining. Aqua isn't a requirement. OSX is a BSD system and can run all compatible window managers accordingly.
That's because a rational discussion on the philosophical and design approaches of different user interfaces is not troll clickbait. The purpose of this article is to drive as many people here to flame about how Windows 8 is terrible and ugly and the worst OS in the world. And what do you know, take a look at first 5 posts below this one and you'll see exactly that.
Then it's a good thing we don't RTFA here. Slashdot - sticking it to greedy publishers since 1997!
Proud member of the Ferengi Socialist Party.
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"?