Windows 8 Is 'a Work of Art.' But It's No Linux

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Windows 8 Is 'a Work of Art.' But It's No Linux

Posted by timothy on Thursday August 30, 2012 @08:21AM from the design-team-denied-your-request dept.

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."

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A Review? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-30 08:23 · Score: 5, Insightful

I don't visit a news site for opinion pieces.
1. Re:A Review? by Sir_Sri · 2012-08-30 08:31 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Especially not one as bizarre as this.
  The definitive feature of linux is being able to right click and remove a panel... good for it? That wouldn't even be a feature on windows, it would be a disaster, because my 70 year old aunt would accidentally remove something important, not be sure what it was, and call me to find out how to fix it. All the people in my office would remove things, want them back, and not be able to find them. Etc.
  You can have an opinion piece that makes some sort of interesting argument about why this feature really changes the computing experience, and how its absence in windows renders the OS unworthy to use, ok, that could actually be interesting. But TFA spends 3/4ths of its length on superficial discussions of things - and the places where a serious and sensible discussion could be made are given no real treatment.
  TFA sort of ends on what he should have started with - the different philosophies between linux and windows 8 - that could have made for a very interesting opinion piece that would have been worth posting on /. But it's not there.
2. Re:A Review? by Missing.Matter · 2012-08-30 08:38 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  TFA sort of ends on what he should have started with - the different philosophies between linux and windows 8 - that could have made for a very interesting opinion piece that would have been worth posting on /. But it's not there.
  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.
3. Re:A Review? by cpu6502 · 2012-08-30 08:43 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  >>>That wouldn't even be a feature on windows, it would be a disaster, because my 70 year old aunt would accidentally remove something important
  Strange..... I've been right-clocking and removing shit off my Windows for years. My XP and Seven desktops are completely blank (except for the start button). I'm not sure where either you or the /. reviewer got the idea you cannot remove things from the Windows desktop.
  And yeah Windows 8 may be a work of art (pretty to look at), but I'd really like to get some actual Work accomplished thank you very much The digital equivalent of T&A doesn't let me do that. It slows me down and makes me want to switch to a OS for offices like Seven.
  
  --
  My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
4. Re:A Review? by Zero__Kelvin · 2012-08-30 09:04 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  "The definitive feature of linux is being able to right click and remove a panel... good for it? That wouldn't even be a feature on windows, it would be a disaster, because my 70 year old aunt would accidentally remove something important, not be sure what it was, and call me to find out how to fix it."
  Unless of course you actually knew what you were doing and locked the panel and/or made the appropriate config files read only.
  
  --
  Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
5. Re:A Review? by Blakey+Rat · 2012-08-30 09:04 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  That wouldn't even be a feature on windows, it would be a disaster, because my 70 year old aunt would accidentally remove something important, not be sure what it was, and call me to find out how to fix it.
  Remember those couple versions of Office that had "everything is a toolbar, even the menus"? And users would accidentally either drag their menu bar out-of-position or manage to hide it? And there was no trivial way to get them back?
  It was an unmitigated disaster.
  So yes, I agree with you 100%. There's nothing wrong with customizability, but a lot of time it impacts usability.
  
  --
  Comment of the year
6. Re:A Review? by leromarinvit · 2012-08-30 09:11 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  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.
7. Re:A Review? by sjames · 2012-08-30 09:48 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Funny thing, my Mom (nearly 70) uses an Ubuntu machine I set up for her to do browsing, email, and Mahjong and has never screwed it up.
  The philosophical discussion is there, you're just overlooking it. The point is that Linux is fully modular (right down to the kernel). Don't like it? Remove it. That goes for the entire GUI system if you want, strip it ALL out and it will happily keep working. In extreme cases, you can strip out the entire userspace. Just stick your own app in as init in the initrd and be happy.
  In Linux there is no sense of having anything crammed down your throat. If you don't like something, it's outta there, no questions asked.
  The flip side is that there is nothing there that can get in the way of whatever you DO want on the system.
8. Re:A Review? by icebike · 2012-08-30 10:34 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Seriously though, I believe win 8 is good work. Some idiot in Redmond decided that it was a good idea to unify both the touch interface and the desktop interface into one experience and for the biggest part of it they didn't do a half bad job.
  
  This is fine, IFF you have a touch screen. But baring that, the interface is just an outright non-starter.
  Even with a touch screen, scrolling like a whirling dervish trying to find the pane that contains the application you want is just inefficient,
  a huge waste of energy (and one that gets more wasteful as your screen gets larger).
  The start bar and application menu that every desktop OS had wasn't developed and perfected over the years on a whim. Windows 8 desktop was.
  
  --
  Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
9. Re:A Review? by justforgetme · 2012-08-30 10:47 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  One very insightful thing:
  Scrolling
  Did anybody notice how the metro interface is generally horizontally scrolling?
  What I perceived in a tablet try out was that while vertical scrolling is very easy and comfortable (you an have both your hands on the device and still scroll perfectly fine), horizontal scrolling, mostly due to the UX mandated device bezels and human anatomy, is much more difficult to do since you get roughly a third of the area of responsive screen real estate, unless you keep one hand free and we all know what that means..
  
  --
  -- no sig today
10. Re:A Review? by dutchd00d · 2012-08-30 18:59 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Linux kicks ass in certain areas, embedded, servers, HPCs, its just not a great desktop.
  It is too a great desktop, I've been using it as such for, oh, 15 years now. It has just one thing going against it: it's not Windows. That means 1. little Johnny from next door can't help you out when you screw things up, and 2. it won't run Windows applications (at least not well), so it's not easy to exchange documents between you and people who do use Windows.
  If there was only Linux on the desktop, people would be just as happy with it as they are with Windows. But it's a Windows world, so you might as well go with the flow and use it too, and there's nothing wrong with that.
  But I maintain that from a pure usability viewpoint Linux-on-the-desktop is just fine.
  (Caveat: talking about the classic Gnome 2/Windows 7-like interface. Haven't used Unity or Windows 8 for any length of time, and not planning to.)
11. Re:A Review? by epyT-R · 2012-08-30 19:22 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  It doesn't change the fact that starting new applications should not be a modal event that takes up the whole screen.. not on a desktop.
GNOME3's GNOME Shell fails the same way! by erroneus · 2012-08-30 08:24 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.
1. Re:GNOME3's GNOME Shell fails the same way! by MrEricSir · 2012-08-30 08:32 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  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."
If win8 is art.... by DeeEff · 2012-08-30 08:26 · Score: 5, Funny

Then beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder, and you need to get your eyes checked.
1. Re:If win8 is art.... by Mike+Buddha · 2012-08-30 08:57 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Isn't Salvador Dali the one who did that painting of the chick with a uni-brow and mustache?
  No, that would be the chick with the uni-brow and moustache, Frida Kahlo.
  
  --
  by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
'a Work of Art' by kheldan · 2012-08-30 08:27 · Score: 5, Funny

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!
1. Re:'a Work of Art' by LoverOfJoy · 2012-08-30 08:51 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  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.
  That's what she said?
lameness by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-30 08:28 · Score: 3, Insightful

you're lame; linux isn't about the UI dillhole.
file progress by TubeSteak · 2012-08-30 08:29 · Score: 3, Funny

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!
1. Re:file progress by X0563511 · 2012-08-30 09:03 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I'll just be happy if it doesn't take 20 hours to "calculate" which files are going to be deleted when things like "del" do the job almost instantaneously.
  
  --
  For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
2. Re:file progress by LinuxIsGarbage · 2012-08-30 15:07 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  As long as it doesn't say "One file in the middle of your large copy / move operation is in use, so I will have to abandon the entire rest of it in an unknown state"
Yah Right... by KlomDark · 2012-08-30 08:30 · Score: 4, Insightful

Paid Troll anyone?
One man's art, is another man's trash by Eldragon · 2012-08-30 08:31 · Score: 3, Insightful

'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.?"
Then why not a Mac? by nweaver · 2012-08-30 08:31 · Score: 5, Insightful

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
1. Re:Then why not a Mac? by bananaquackmoo · 2012-08-30 08:35 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  You're kidding right? OSX has TONS of OS-derived graphical gunk. Gradients, drop shadows, and I hope you like chrome. A dock and a menu bar that you can't get rid of? Animations you can't turn off? Transparency? I don't want ANY of that crud, especially since its eye-candy that slows things down.
2. Re:Then why not a Mac? by jedidiah · 2012-08-30 08:48 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  My "shitbox" is fine. I can put a new video card into it.
  Its my Macs that will have problems with this nonsense. They can't be upgraded.
  
  --
  A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
3. Re:Then why not a Mac? by R3d+M3rcury · 2012-08-30 13:39 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  [...] Gradients, drop shadows [...]
  Try this.
  
  A dock and a menu bar that you can't get rid of?
  If you can deal with it just being hidden, you can hide it by going to the Apple menu and choosing Dock -> Turn Hiding On. If you want to actually get rid of it, there's this.
  The menu bar? Uh...you got me there. But without a menu bar, there's not that much you can do. Kind of like saying, "Why can't I get rid of the Start menu" in Windows.
  
  Animations you can't turn off?
  Well, you can turn off window animations, and a bunch more.
  
  Transparency?
  You can turn off the translucent menu bar by going to System Preferences, choosing Desktop & Screen Saver, and unchecking the "Translucent Menu Bar" checkbox.
  Anything else?
I'm not even a fan of Windows 8... by Anubis+IV · 2012-08-30 08:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

...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?
Re:First TROLL by Spy+Handler · 2012-08-30 08:33 · Score: 5, Insightful

not a troll, maybe a stealth shill. Look at the print in bold:

That's not a joke. Windows 8 is absolutely, unequivocally stellar.
It boots fast, looks great and, right out of the gate, fully supports every bell and whistle on my laptop (including the touch screen). Applications launch faster, and are generally more responsive, than I have ever seen on this piece of hardware. Hell, I even like the copy file dialog.
As I sat in traffic yesterday for a few hours -- as those of us in Seattle seem to enjoy doing so much -- I thought long and hard about this.
Awesome by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-30 08:34 · Score: 5, Informative

>And it is awesome.

adjective: awe-inspiring, striking, shocking, imposing, terrible, amazing, stunning, wonderful, alarming, impressive, frightening, awful, overwhelming, terrifying, magnificent, astonishing, horrible, dreadful, formidable, horrifying, intimidating, fearful, daunting, breathtaking, majestic, solemn, fearsome, wondrous (archaic or literary), redoubtable, jaw-dropping, stupefying
Collins Thesaurus of the English Language â" Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 Â© HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002
Can't argue with that.
What a surprise by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · 2012-08-30 08:35 · Score: 5, Insightful

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
1. Re:What a surprise by bws111 · 2012-08-30 09:32 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  I disagree with your assessment. It is not tech-savvy users who prefer highly-configurable things, it is people that have nothing better to do than tinker with their system. And it is not computer idiots who like things to work as-is, it is people who just want to use their tools.
  I am tech-savvy. I have been developing Linux applications (server-side) and using them in critical production environments for over a decade. No complaints, Linux works perfectly and is trouble-free in that environment.
  A few weeks ago I decided to take the plunge and switch from using Windows on my primary workstation, to using Linux. Installation (RHEL 6) was very smooth, no problems.
  Here is my experience. Log on first time, get desktop window. Looks reasonable. Start web browser (firefox). Dear god, what is with those fonts? They are absolutely hideous. OK, I'll see what the wisdom of the web says about that. Aha! All you have to do is intall the msttcorefonts package, and you are good to go. OK, I'll give that a try - it works! I have usable fonts. Hmm, I wonder what the msttcorefonts package did? I see, it installed fonts from Windows!
  Go to another web page. Uh-oh, more trouble. Thi s pa ge h as tex t that lo oks li ke thi s. WTF? Back to the web. Well, you must be missing a font. Find out what the web page is trying to use. OK, it is using Helvetica, about the most popular font in the world. Well, you are in trouble then, because there is no legal Helvectica package for Linux. But, you are in luck, thanks to the wonderfulness of Linux. All you need to do I write some obscure XML and put it in the /etc/fonts/local.font file, and all of the 'Hevetica' requests will be automatically changed to use Microsofts(!) Arial font. I do that, and lo and behold it does work.
  OK, some I am doing some work with a maximizde window, and I move the mouse up to the lop right corner of the screen to close the window, and WTF! All of the windows on my desktop make a cute little circle, and I have to click on the window I wanted to close to make it active. Try to close it again, same thing! Oh, I see, I have to be very careful not to put the mouse all the way in the corner. I can't think of any reason I would want this behavior, so I want to turn it off. Should be easy, right? Just right-click on the desktop and there will be an option to turn that off, right? Nope. Well, I am stumped. Back to the web. Look, you stupid noob, that is not a desktop setting, it is a window manager setting. You must go into the 'Compiz Settings' app from the Control Center. Why didn't I think of that? It is plainly obvious that something called Compiz would be controlling what happens with my mouse! OK, I am in the Compiz settings, so where is the setting that says 'put the windows in a circle'? Aha! It is the one with a music note icon and the name of 'Scale'. Makes perfect sense. How could I be so stupid as to not know that?
  OK, now it has been a few days, and I want to add one of my frequently-used programs to the 'Favorites' menu. Right-click on the Favorites menu - nothing. OK, I'll create it on the desktop. Lo and behold, there is a 'create launcher' function. I create the launcher. The icon shows up as a spring with a board on it, but I don't really care about that. Right click on the icon, and Tada! there is an 'Add to favorites' option. Click it. Absolutely nothing happens. Back to the web. No, you stupid noob, you did it wrong. You need to go into the .local/share/applications directly and manally create a launcher. That launcher will the show up in the 'Application Browser', and you can add it to the favorites from there.
  I was never any kind of Windows fan, but I think I am starting become one after that experience.
2. Re:What a surprise by bmo · 2012-08-30 14:17 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  And guess what? Helvetica isn't on Windows either. It's a commercial font you must buy to have. And this "hurr, you must make an .xml file" to replace another font is stupid, because after installing a font, you can just go to whatever control panel you use in Linux (kde's Gnome's, LXDE's, whatever) and set the font for the browser or desktop or whatever. Nobody *ever* goes to the command line anymore to install and use fonts. Not sane or smart people, anyway.
  You're a moron *and* a liar.
  --
  BMO
I'll bite by wonkey_monkey · 2012-08-30 08:52 · Score: 4, Funny

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.
Re:News for Herds? by AwesomeMcgee · 2012-08-30 08:52 · Score: 3, Funny

bloody taco shill.
I don't want a work of art by Chris+Mattern · 2012-08-30 09:19 · Score: 3, Insightful

The "Mona Lisa" is a work of art, but I can't use it to get my work done. I want a *tool*.
Re:The OS Is Irrelevant...Resistance Is Futile by Maow · 2012-08-30 09:31 · Score: 3, Insightful

No it is not, you fscking moron. Ulgh...
/reaction to morons who found their way to /.
If you mod this down, may God strike you dead at once.
--
You and I are both universe. We all are. So why get 'personal'? ;-)
Interesting conflict between post content & signature.
Re:Slashdot is probably the wrong place to ask thi by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2012-08-30 09:50 · Score: 3, Funny

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
A Work of Art? by Rob_Bryerton · 2012-08-30 09:51 · Score: 3, Funny

Now hold on a minute, there's lots of different kinds of art.

Is it art, as in Manzoni's "Merda d'artista"?
Not a lot of right-click-remove in ANY Windows by dtjohnson · 2012-08-30 11:04 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.