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."

Comments

A Review?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't visit a news site for opinion pieces.

Re:A Review?

[Sir_Sri]

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.

Re:A Review?

[Missing.Matter]

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.

Re:A Review?

[cpu6502]

>>>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.

Re:A Review?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"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.

Re:A Review?

[Blakey Rat]

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.

Re:A Review?

[leromarinvit]

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!

Re:A Review?

[sjames]

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.

Re:A Review?

[icebike]

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.

Re:A Review?

[dutchd00d]

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.)

Re:A Review?

[epyT-R]

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!

[erroneus]

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.

Re:GNOME3's GNOME Shell fails the same way!

[MrEricSir]

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.

If win8 is art....

[DeeEff]

Then beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder, and you need to get your eyes checked.

Re:If win8 is art....

[Mike Buddha]

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.

'a Work of Art'

[kheldan]

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.

Re:'a Work of Art'

[LoverOfJoy]

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?

Yah Right...

[KlomDark]

Paid Troll anyone?

Then why not a Mac?

[nweaver]

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.

Re:Then why not a Mac?

[bananaquackmoo]

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.

Re:Then why not a Mac?

[jedidiah]

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.

Re:Then why not a Mac?

[R3d M3rcury]

[...] 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...

[Anubis IV]

...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

[Spy Handler]

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

[Anonymous Coward]

>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 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

Can't argue with that.

What a surprise

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

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...

Re:What a surprise

[bws111]

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.

I'll bite

[wonkey_monkey]

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.

Re:file progress

[X0563511]

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.