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Hello, I'm a Mac. And I'm a $248 Win8 PC.
theodp writes "A little birdie told me which Windows 8 machines would sell out fast. 'Cheep' ones! While no official sales figures have emerged, anecdotal evidence suggests that cheap Windows 8 laptops were a big hit with Black Friday shoppers, leaving some Walmart and Best Buy bargain hunters disappointed at missing out on the sub-$250 deals. So, was the Doctor-Desktop-and-Mister-Metro dual nature of Windows 8 and lack of a touchscreen no big deal to these bargain basement 'Laptop Hunters', or did they not realize what they were buying? Or, as a GeekWire commenter suggests, perhaps they were really just looking to score an ultra-cheap Linux laptop!"
They have no idea what they purchased, it was a cheap buy and they will be sorely disappointed when it runs like crap a year from now.
There was so many people around but I managed to get one! Wohoo! It's great!
I haven't played with Windows 8 out of the box, but I really hope there aren't first boot tutorials that showcase touch capabilities
People aren't buying "Windows 8" PCs, they are buying "cheap" PCs that, as an amazing coincidence, come preinstalled with the latest version of Windows (which is... Windows 8)
What's the point of this article, and why the comparison with Apple?
They work fine, once you put an operating system on them.
A turd is a turd, I wouldnt touch it even for free. Think about TCO and ROI. I used my Mac for more than a year at my job until they actually bought one "for me".
Well yeah, but the underlying hardware might be decent enough. If that's the case then you can put Linux have the best of both worlds: cheap hardware and an excellent OS.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The summary ascribes far more intelligence than is present in people who buy "rock bottom" priced computers. They're only more intelligent than the person they sell it on to.
Do you see what I did there?
Earlier today, the entire chess club surrounded one of these new $250 Windows 8 machines. They were all poking at the screen, but while it was changing colors on them, it wasn't responding. (Guess what guys? That's not a touchscreen. Those colors are what you get when you poke a normal LCD display.) They were convinced that all Windows 8 machines had touchscreens, though, and so they never used the touchpad.
And then they tried shutting it down. I was mocking them for a while, as an entire chess club couldn't figure it out, so then they passed it to me and I couldn't figure it out either. Turns out the option to shut it down is hidden behind an invisible menu, hidden behind two other submenus unrelated to shutting things down.
We eventually had to look it up online, as I expect many people will have to do.
It was an interesting case study though, in how fucked up Microsoft made the Metro UI.
If it worth the effort dealing with hardware, UEFI, lack of support for Linux, hacking and the overall inconsistency (yet), of the several Linux desktops /: I use and hack Linux servers/and in virtual infra-structures (aka cloud for PHBs), but cant bother to have Linux for my desktop. Time is money.
A Linux VM can be a wonderful dev "box". Lots of tools just an apt-get away. But yes, it can be torture trying to get it to on (say) an old Atom netbook with Intel graphics. For some reason, I couldn't get it to recognise the graphics chip as legit :/
You're likely to see a rush of returns and exchanges, for an anything-but-this-thing alternative. Which, of course, will not against total Win8 sales/installs for marketing fodder. Such is the Windows Experience.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
If they wanted a cheap netbook to put Linux on, Google is selling Acer's Intel-based dual-core 64bit VT-enabled chromebook with 2GB RAM and a 320GB HDD for $200.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
it was a cheap buy and they will be sorely disappointed when it runs like crap a year from now.
I know several people who bought very cheap netbooks and were very happy with them for a number of years. Heck, I still use my ageing eee 900 daily.
Cheap doesn't mean bad or badly built. Not everyone needs a 64 processor monster to surf the web.
At home I have a nine year old Dell P4 that was average at the time. It runs Ubuntu 12.04 now, serves as backup host and for my scanning project, batch scanning my slide collection. Browsing the internet is not a problem. Yes it's a lot slower, but still acceptable. Converting a 500 MB DNG image to JPEG takes 5 minutes, but who cares if it's a batch job. I added 3GB RAM and a new videocard four years ago, and just added a 4TB drive. If necessary I can start Virtualbox with XP and run Photoshop and Illustrator CS4 inside. For not too extreme images, it's OK, although that can be sluggish.
That's because Atoms use a licenced PowerVR graphic core from Imagination Technology that provided a binary-only linux driver, and it sucked hard.
Later kernels have the gma500 driver that provides at least basic functionality on those turds.
I bought a $298 Gateway nV series with Windows 8 preinstalled. I played with it painfully for 15 minutes then put Ubuntu 12.10 (KDE) on it. I was amazed to see all of the bloatware still there in tile form. The charm interface is incredibly painful with a touchpad and even more so cause it was a Gateway touchpad which is painful to use in any regular desktop OS.
, but cant bother to have Linux for my desktop. Time is money.
When it comes to installing all the programs I need, keeping security up to date, making sure all the tools run well together, making sure my development environment has access to the libraries I need etc, I can't be bothered with anything but Linux for the desktop. Time is money.
and the overall inconsistency (yet), of the several Linux desktops /
Overall inconsistency? Surely you jest? My window manager config is not much changed from the late 90's. I've not had to adapt to new and more poorly functioning (I've tried, but always revert) desktop environment in a decade and a half.
Linux is the only system that has provided any degree consistency over all these years. Heck, the Window decorations bear much more similarity to pre Window-95 than to 95 and after.
Oh and because of the flexibility of X11, I can configure my window manager to beat poorly behaving applications into submission so thay they behave consistently with the rest of the system. This is some not generally possible on the less good operating systems: if an application programmer thinks they know better you have to put up with their poor decisions. (And now the Wayland folks are trying to bring that to Linux. But that's another rant.)
I haven't even had to give up compositing support. FVWM works side by side with any of the xcompmgr derivatives. I played with drop shadows and transparency and animations a bit for fun, then disabled them because I found they intefere with work.
So actually, if you look at it from another point of view, Linux, or specifically X11, offers a far more consistent user interface than the other operating systems.
Time is money.
Yes and no. I use Linux for two reasons. Firstly it's much more efficient. Secondly it's much, much more pleasant to use. I avoid jobs where I have to use Windows for the same reason I avoid jobs which involve being repeatedly jabbed with pointy sticks. Sure the jobs might pay well, but why do something I disklike?
Time is more than money. You only get time once.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
If they wanted a cheap netbook to put Linux on, Google is selling Acer's Intel-based dual-core 64bit VT-enabled chromebook with 2GB RAM and a 320GB HDD for $200.
I noticed this too. They do seem incredibly good value. I have no idea why Google are not pushing them more. The deal is also unfortunately US centric. I did notice that Google is planning on launching a touchscreen version, which hopefully would bring me Ubuntu with Androids in a virtual machine.
I find it interesting that this tidbit was glossed over.
However, the scene wasn’t so rosy for Microsoft at the Mall of America in Minneapolis, where analyst Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray and team observed and tabulated traffic and sales at Microsoft and Apple stores. Microsoft saw 47 percent less foot traffic than the Apple Store did, and far fewer sales — 3.5 items per hour, compared with 17.2 items per hour at the Apple Store, as reported by Fortune’s Philip Elmer-Dewitt. Most of the items purchased from the Microsoft Store were Xbox 360 games. During the two hours that the Piper Jaffray team observed the Microsoft Store, they didn’t see any Microsoft Surface tablets being purchased.
But yes, it can be torture trying to get it to on (say) an old Atom netbook with Intel graphics.
On Intel's own graphics, Linux works fantastically well.
That netbook must have had one of those wretched PowerVR derived ones.
Intel releaed them then basically shat on all the users with poor drivers. The Windows drivers were terrible and badly supported, the Linux ones were even worse.
I had a project a while back which involved using a Toughbook CF-U1 (a super hardened macine for which there is basically no substitute). My team (Linux) had terrible trouble. The other team (Windows) didn't fare much better. Intel's OEM customers must have been furious after developing products based on that chipset and essentially being handed a huge, steaming turd for their troubles.
Eventually the Windows drivers stabilised and stopped crashing at the slightest provocation. They were still flakey, but one could ifnd a subset of things to avoid to prevent hard locks or reboots. But the performance went way down with the lack of crashing and it didn't come any where near the performance that it was supposed to, or the crash happy performance.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
WTF? Slashdot is referencing a comment on Geekwire as a basis for people installing Linux? How low can it go? Idiot submitters like theodp and symbolset are turning Slashdot into a anti-Microsoft tabloid rather than any place for serious discussion. Not surprising that people with half a brain are ditching Slashdot in droves in disgust.
Same for me. I've had to use my own Porsche for months on the job now, my boss just refuses to buy me a decent car! I just won't touch that Prius they bought me, a turd is a turd and I wouldn't feel safe driving it. SO I have requested all employees to recieve only Porsche company cars from now on, that will increase speed, efficiency and therefore save a lot of money.
A Linux VM can be a wonderful dev "box". Lots of tools just an apt-get away. But yes, it can be torture trying to get it to on (say) an old Atom netbook with Intel graphics. For some reason, I couldn't get it to recognise the graphics chip as legit :/
I'm quite surprised that someone would be brave enough to make this comment today. What your saying is not just untrue, Linux has dedicated distributions just for Netbooks, and light Linux ones too. If for some reason you still need to force the "intel" driver. There are many ways to achieve this (forcing the intel driver with an /etc/X11/xorg.conf, removing the xserver-xorg-video-modesetting and/or xserver-xorg-video-fbdev, but if your capable of running a VM you are more than capable of these solutions. I have a slew of expensive hardware that won't work with Windows7 including scanners and wireless adapters...and several computers. Linux has a whole host of problems...hardware support isn't one of them.
I will pay an extra $500+
for a well-designed & configured machine.
For a robust, stable OS.
For cheap OS upgrades.
For useful free apps - pages, numbers, etc.
For standards compliance.
For better than average HW, w/ excellent, reliable support.
For a good OBE.
For drivers that work the first time.
For a decent user interface.
For free, professional, in person help in every major city in the world.
For not wasting 200 hrs on configuration.
For a good API & Xcode.
For a useful command-line.
For smart standards & consistently.
For fighting entropy.
For letting me get stuff done quickly.
For a free HW swap within warranty.
For useful online documentation.
For a ridiculous resale value.
For BSD / Unix.
For superior security.
but cant bother to have Linux for my desktop. Time is money.
Are you kidding? Tell that to my windows 7 installation that spends more than 20 minutes in endless updates and reboots, every single time I turn it on.
All normal hardware I need when working has been working out of the box with Ubuntu on almost all computers we've installed the last couple of years.
A quick install of the ION3 (now NotION) WM and putting the configuration files in place, and I have a heavily customised workstation which doesn't change in respect to how I have to work with it. That saves me a lot of time, and up productivity quite a bit since my environment doesn't change.
Yes, time is money, so I can't be bothered with Windows, where I would have to change a lot of settings and preferences manually, having to find drivers after reinstallation (too much crapware in any installation these days to be usable), etc. We have quite a few at work which still prefers WinXP, as they're too busy to learn to work fluently in Win7 and Win8.
Hmm... exactly because time is money, you should use Linux. I don't have any problems here at work. Everyone around me is using Windows and much of the time is gone because they spend it on their operating system weirdness.
And me... I have so much time left, I can even comment on Slashdot... while waiting for lunch time. :)
So... You'd rather have an expensive, well-marketed turd focused on keeping customers through cognitive dissonance than a cheap turd... Got it.
My counter-anecdotal would be that I have A Windows PC, a FreeBSD PC and a Mac at home. The first two are up almost 24/7 (the FreeBSD machine is a server, but I still log into it a couple times a month to do my banking). After the first few months of using the Mac instead of the PC, it only gets booted a few times a year.
SImple. They were buying what they thought was a great deal and the cheapest computer around, as this is the only computer christmas present they could buy while thinking it is a real computer.
Just spent a weekend linuxing one of these - a Samsung NC110p with (I think) GMA3600. Linux Mint 13, after updates and reboots, now goes quite nicely. Uses the cedarview packages, fwiw.
Red to red, black to black. Switch it on, but stand well back.
I love seeing posts like these where someone explains how great, easy, and trouble free their custom config of Linux is, but not where said distro can be downloaded on ISO.
Yes, I know Linux is wonderful if you spend 50 hours getting everything just right (I had to do it many times in the course of upgrading through the Ubuntu line), I just dont have that kind of time anymore.
I will pay an extra $500+
for a well-designed & configured machine.
For a robust, stable OS.
For cheap OS upgrades.
For useful free apps - pages, numbers, etc.
For standards compliance.
For better than average HW, w/ excellent, reliable support.
For a good OBE.
For drivers that work the first time.
For a decent user interface.
For free, professional, in person help in every major city in the world.
For not wasting 200 hrs on configuration.
For a good API & Xcode.
For a useful command-line.
For smart standards & consistently.
For fighting entropy.
For letting me get stuff done quickly.
For a free HW swap within warranty.
For useful online documentation.
For a ridiculous resale value.
For BSD / Unix.
For superior security.
The irony of having al this by just installed Linux. Seriously what a waste of money.
People who can afford real laptops buy them, and the rest buy cheap netbooks. So who is the buyer MS has in mind for the $800 Surface with a netbook-size screen? If I have $800, I can get a primo Asus laptop with a big screen and nice specs. If I can't afford a laptop, I can't afford a Surface. I can't figure out Microsoft's target audience, who they think is going to buy the Surface. If I want a status gadget, I'll get a $600 iPad.
Endless reboots=youre doing it wrong.
Also, IIRC, with Windows it only interrupts the process (cleanly) if you do a reboot as its downloading / applying updates. As I remember, doing so on Linux tends to mess things up. (dont you have to run dpkg-clean or some such after interrupting the apt process?)
95% or more really only want to connect to facebook, yelp, twitter, instagram, etc. email as a stand alone application is dead. Web browsing is dead. In so far as consumers actually need to find something, all they want is the first hit they see when they type "Gimme hurrp durrp whars Twilight playing?" in the Bing search field. And EVEN THAT is going away because MS will put what it thinks you should know or want or need on a crawl that you can stab at with your sticky fat finger.
I am hoping Windows 9 does away with words entirely and uses icons like the cash registers at McDonalds. You want pizza, stab the pizza button. That's all people want anyway. Larnin's for them funny Asian people, bubba.
They bought a computers cheaper than you and your making out your more intelligent. The irony burns. I would be very surprised if any are disappointed with their purchases.
Run Linux on it.
It'll be faster.
I may grant that it's not as bad as Vista, but XP started off fast and as it was patched to less than a virus laden whore it got bigger and slower.
Vista started off big and slow.
7 slowed down on the first SP.
8 will do the same.
They were really just looking for a cheap Windows laptop, and that's what they found. This summary seems needlessly snarky and I fail to see why this is news at all.
I mean, it might be news that Windows 8 isn't crashing and burning as it looked likely to, but it sounds like this exists just to make fun of people who bought 250 USD PCs.
Endless reboots=youre doing it wrong.
Also, IIRC, with Windows it only interrupts the process (cleanly) if you do a reboot as its downloading / applying updates.
Not sure how I can be doing it wrong. I only boot Windows to play a few games, but when I do I instantaneously stop feeling like playing games due to the endless waiting due to the updates. Didn't know I could interrupt the updates, the updating screen seemed pretty clear to NOT shutdown/reboot the computer. Though I would I want to reboot? Wouldn't that postpone the update process into the upcoming boot?
As I remember, doing so on Linux tends to mess things up. (dont you have to run dpkg-clean or some such after interrupting the apt process?)
No idea, I don't use Debian. But if you are updating from the terminal, you can always ctrl+Z and pause the process...
In Gentoo though, things are installed into a alternate disk image which is merged in one shot into the real system if the installation succeeded.
Moving the cursor to a corner of the screen is incredibly painful?
Is it not possible to have any "story" about Windows not include numerous apropos-of-nothing Linux references? We get it; you use Linux (and that pirated XP partition that you all have), no one cares.
Well, Mac or whatever your name is, stop trying to sell me shit. I don't care about your windows 8.
*shuts door in your face*
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
I believe there are people that would just like an up to date laptop as a secondary pc and this inexpensive one will work great because at that price it really does not matter.
That's absurd... I hate wasting time configuring things, I want things to just work - and whether it was Ubuntu (which I abandoned to unity - and yes, I gave it a valiant effort and just didn't like it) or now Debian... download the ISO and install. As someone else mentioned, all my productivity tools are just an apt-get away - a lot easier and faster than hunting down, downloading, and installing all the various editors and scripting and programming languages I use. I had given up on Linux, too, up until about Ubuntu 6 - installed and it just worked. It's true that some releases broke stuff that was already working, but by and large I spent less time tweaking Linux than Windows at that point.
I still have windows, and I am one of the ones that got an inexpensive (but not sub $250) notebook... I'm a cheapskate, my current laptop is over 7 years old, and I want any new one I buy to last just as long, so I spent the extra to get blu-ray and USB 3.0, and also discrete graphics with it's own memory. It comes with Windows 8, and I will try to repartition and dual boot. If push comes to shove, I'll just use LInux, but I would love to try out Windows 8 - so I'm not some rabid anti-MS guy, either. I use what allows me to work the fastest and least aggravatingly. I have all the options - Mac, Linux, and Windows, and I even gave the Mac about a two month trial to see if I could get used to the UI. I still use LInux, currently debain, where I downloaded an ISO and installed it and it "just works." No "custom config," it just works.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Religious sites have been serving up malware more than porn sites now.
YOU were on Religious sites?!?!
I suppose it was by accident because of a Fark link or you were just curious.
Yeah, right.
I love seeing posts like these where someone explains how great, easy, and trouble free their custom config of Linux is, but not where said distro can be downloaded on ISO.
Why? Custom configs can be applied to basically any distro. Window management schemes are elmost entirely distro independent. That's one of the joys of unix/Linux .
I currently use the same FVWM setup on Arch and Ubuntu. I've also used an older version (sometimes much older, since this goes back some way) on OSX, Cygwin/Windows, OpenBSD, Solaris and AIX, not to mention various flavours of Linux (Arch, Ububntu, Suse, Redhat, and probably a few others on the way).
I can't point you to my config file because it's not online anywhere, and you almost certainly wouldn't like it anyway.
Yes, I know Linux is wonderful if you spend 50 hours getting everything just right
There are two points: .bashrc, .bash_login, .fvwm2rc, .vimrc, .Xdefaults and .Xmodmap files, which takes around a minute. Oh and I have to generally apt-get install or pacman -S or zypper a few packages, taking perhaps another few minutes. Then get noscript and flashblock for firefox.
1. A new machine is easy to set up. The install takes however long these things do these days. Customizing is a question of copying my
The total setup time is well under an hour including the base install, and a significant fraction can't be avoided even if I "didn't have time" because I can't do my job without (e.g.) a compiler.
2. Who cares? If you lost 20 minutes per day to a sub optimal configuration, those 50 hours are paid back in well under a year. Though given that it takes less time to set up Linux than anything else, the payback time is strongly negative.
I just dont have that kind of time anymore.
Interesting, so you don't have the time to work efficiently any more? I mean I know "work smarter not harder" is a bit of a cliche these days, but you might wish to consider it.
It's funny that computer people have this odd attitude. I can't imagine a carpenter mashing away with a blunt or inadequate saw claiming that he doesn't have time to sharpen the tools, even though payback would be measured in hours.
Or a semi driver hauling a semi trailer along at 5 mph using a compact car in first gear. No, I don't have time to go out and get a tractor because it's already taking me too long to get where I need to go, and I have lost too much time already to having the clutch replaced. I just don't have time to get a tractor.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Well... it sounds like you have the same problem I do - boot into Windows once every few months and get inundated with updates. At the same time, I have the same problem with Linux - up until recently I rarely used my laptop for work, and might grab it once every couple of months. That was frustrating because I would only use it when I was going to be waiting for a long time somewhere and only had wifi (often tethered to my 3G phone); at least it would ask me if I wanted to update before downloading, though - Windows was very frustrating that way because it would automatically start downloading things even though I was on a slow connection. Yes, in either case you could go out of your way to turn that off, but then you have to remember to do it manually when you had a good connection.
Anyway, as I mentioned earlier in another post, I did get a BF laptop (ordered online, though). Not quite that cheap, but comes with windows 8 and I'm actually looking forward to checking it out although, at minimum, I will try to make it dual boot. I'm agnostic about OSes, but for the kind of development I do, I the least frustrated with Linux at the moment.
On a side note, about these people claiming Linux takes too much time, I was doing a peer session with another programmer using a Mac. At every step we found he was missing something we needed (his laptop - it was our first session on a new project using Django, a small project just to learn about it). Every library we needed was really annoying to get and install... he was getting mad at me because I just kept smirking and saying "apt-get install mysql-server," "apt-get install MySQLdb" while he was trying to find a download. Windows would have been worse. So I really don't get how any developer could possibly think they need to "waste" time on Linux when my experience has always been the opposite - but I suppose it depends what kind of work you do.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Windows8 can still do everything Windows7 do, stop being lame with posts like that
Precisely! Since we are telling stories I would also like to share mine..
My current Gentoo installation was performed around 2004. At the time, I lost around a week with trial-error learning my way how to install the damn thing. Well..it has been 8 years, I changed laptop meanwhile and with successive updates, the same installation persists.. When I first installed it, Gentoo was one of the few Linux distributions supporting the new amd64 architecture. My laptop was an Athlon64 beast that would take all the space of my backpack. Around half the way, I bought a Turion64 X2 laptop; because the system was binary compatible between these two CPUs, I copied the whole system into the new laptop. I changed the compilation flags to use a few extensions that new CPU supported and let the system update (the newly compiled stuff will benefit from the flags) over time.. I did however, perform a fresh Gentoo installation very recently because I decided to turn into x86 (the binaries are smaller, takes less RAM).
Currently, the laptop is certainly old by today's standards but my system has been fast and stable as it has always been, I don't see any reason to upgrade.
I believe there are people that would just like an up to date laptop as a secondary pc and this inexpensive one will work great because at that price it really does not matter.
Exactly. Even as an IT professional, that's what I do.
- A solid desktop for my main needs: gaming, programming, database-work, etc. Large screen, comfortable use, fast speeds.
- A cheap portable laptop for when I need to do something mobile or I just need to do something casual while sitting on the couch.
Sure, if money AND space were an issue I'd consider just a solid / expensive laptop to fit both needs. But in my case, having both is quite fine.
Admittedly, when my laptop died my tablet filled "most" of the void left by the loss of my portable machine. But sometimes in IT you do need a portable rig.
The support for your hardware, too? (See 7th line)
I also wasn't aware that Linux comes with hardware swap warranty (see 5th last line).
And how does Linux provide you with a ridiculous resale value? (3rd last line)
I'm really glad that you brought up these points, Apple have recently got in trouble for fitting their [not your] overpriced electronics [not computers] with refurbished parts..in China no less. They also got in trouble in the EU for only offering a 1Year Guarantee...When EU has a mandatory 2Year Warentee. As for resale value, cheaper machines drop less in price, Apple used to have good second hand value...but that was before the move from a computer company to an electronics company where upgrades to old hardware extended the hardware life...an option available to other manufactures.
Apple rip-off their customers :)
Which is why you don't buy cheap crap.
Buy decent hardware like @ ThinkPenguin and your issues go away.
It's the only company that is doing Linux right. They aren't shipping with crappy propitiatory decencies so stuff actually works right and there isn't and fudging about.
I'm typically on Linux, when I do boot under Windows 7 for my kids, once in a while, it's update time! can last a good hour sometimes. Yes, many reboots
In parallel I maintain a fleet of compute Linux servers, they are not on the internet, but of course I update them every time the compute load goes down a bit. I may have hundreds of packages to update every time, but there is only one reboot.
Seriously the W7 update scheme is not ideal.
I did that, and most everything worked except for wireless. After several hacks, that started working.
Upgraded to 7.04; whoops, X is broken. Several hacks later, its working again.
Upgraded to 7.10; whoops Wine is broken, your G15 keyboard is broken. Several hacks later, its working again.
Upgraded to 8.04. Whoops, sound, flash, G15, and Ventrilo are all broken. X customizations ignored. Several hours (days?) later, we're back in business.
Upgraded to 8.10. Whoops, sound is broken. Several hours later we're back in business.
Upgraded to 9.10. Whoops, I got fed up and stuck my Windows 7 install disk. Hey look its working again.
No free professional help in every major city in the world
Your seriously arguing that there is no help for Linux...or that Apple support is free [hint: its not stupid], and they also break the laws in the EU/China for offering less support than is mandatory. http://www.ubuntu.com/support Personally though if you really need greater support pay for it its $105...but the vast majority don't.
Interesting, so you don't have the time to work efficiently any more?
I find the Windows 7 GUI to be quite efficient, along with its multi-monitor keyboard shortcuts, thanks. I had a bit of fun with Compiz and the cool multi-desktop things you could pull off, until I realized how much time I was spending trying to get things right.
At this point, Id rather have sane defaults than spend chunks of time trying to fix sound. Its great that others like Linux-on-the-desktop, and I am a fan of *nix on the server, I just dont want to deal with trying to get my favorite program or device to cooperate any more. Between hacks to get Logitech devices (G15, G9) working, hacks to get Ventrilo working, hacks to get my wonky Motherboard wifi working, hacks to get sound working, hacks to get Blackberry working, I kind of had enough. It would be great to live in a world where Linux had all the drivers for all these devices because the vendors played nice; tell me when we get there (and when they stop breaking the sound system every 6 months).
Just a follow up: it occurs to me that it would be kind of nice to run Linux on my home computer for a few days until I decide to install Win 8, and for the moment at least my only "killer app"-- VMWare Workstation-- runs natively on Linux.
What distro do you recommend? Im no dummy with Linux, I just dont want to spend hours trying to get things to a sane place.
The pre-installed Windows 8 bloatware was still there in KDE?
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
You claimed that customizing tools was a waste of time. You haven't done much to convince me of that. So, I have a question for you:
Given a brand new, totally blank PC, how long does it take for you to install Windows, and set it up how you want (including all the programs you need/want and all the customizations you like)?
And how much time do you think it is worth spending "tweaking" if it improves your workflow? How much of a modification to your environment do you think is acceptable?
Onto the specific points:
I find the Windows 7 GUI to be quite efficient, along with its multi-monitor keyboard shortcuts, thanks. I had a bit of fun with Compiz and the cool multi-desktop things you could pull off, until I realized how much time I was spending trying to get things right.
I've never used Compiz for anything serious. It'a probably not very good. But you can still hardly argue that the Windows experience is more consistent since Windows 7 is clearly different from Vista or XP in this regard.
I've been using more or less the same shortcuts since the early 00's.
And by the way, just because you can tewak things endlessly doesn't mean that you have to.
At this point, Id rather have sane defaults than spend chunks of time trying to fix sound.
I'd suggest not breaking sound in the first place. Sound went through a rough patch a while back (I'm sure if you cared, you could dig out some of my /. rants about pulseaudio). These days it just works.
hacks
Well, I have a few random devices and bits of software, like some random logitech wireless keyboard and mouse etc. They all work. I have a webcame which works fine under Linux but has no drivers for anything other than XP. Your point is that if you're careless with purchases then they won't work with your OS of choice (including your favoured one). I won't disagree with that.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
My window manager config is not much changed from the late 90's.
Mine has. Since the late 90's, I picked up another monitor, then rotated one of them 90 degrees, then set that up for both (and upgraded monitors here and there along the way). I got tired of fiddling with X config files to do this kind of thing. I think one thing Windows does really well is support multi-mon, allowing different sized monitors and different resolutions (at least on Vista and later, I remember in the Win2000 era both monitors had to run at the same rez), and dealing with screen rotation.
I'm a regular linux user (at times) so if this is straightfoward to do on Linux, it sure as hell is hidden away somewhere.
I've been steadily virtualizing my linux machines (although to be fair I am doing that to my Windows dev boxes as well).
I use Linux for two reasons.
One other reason I use Mac and a Windows PC is for DVD playback. Is there a legal way for a U.S. resident to play back encrypted (commercial) DVDs? Last I tried a few distros all the codecs were "download from overseas, use at own risk" kind of disclaimer things. I remember a slashdot article not too long ago about how the FBI still considers linux dvd players illegal.
Bitch and moan about how screwed up that is but it doesn't change the situation right now.
Wrong car analogy. Mac would be the Prius, while Windows 8 would be a Ford Pinto with racing stripes. And, of course Linux would be a V8 Go-Kart.
So instead you spend 50 hours configuring Windows every time you have to reinstall it?
Linux is only free if your time is worth nothing.
Windows is only $70 every 3 years if your time is worth nothing.
What distro do you recommend? Im no dummy with Linux, I just dont want to spend hours trying to get things to a sane place.
I've never used VMWare workstation, so I don't know of it's a bit picky with respect to distros.
I, personally, like Arch. You probably wouldn't. It's designed to be simple from the point of view of someone who expects to make modifications, rather than "just work", though once set up it does that rather well. It meshes well with my idea of how a computer should work.
Ubuntu gets a lot of shit these days but it seems to pretty much just work. I'm running 11.10 since that was current when I bought the laptop, and I haven't taken the time to upgrade.
Modern ubuntu variants some with unity which many people have a strong dislike of. I have no particular love for it, but I'm very picky.
TBH, I'm mostly out of the loop with respect to desktop environments these days since every time I try one, I prefer my own, so I've more or less given up on experimenting.
From what I've heard, Mint is pretty good. It's basically the "just works" bits of ubuntu coupled with a more conservative desktop system. You can always install unity if you like, and it's marginally easier to install unity on mint than mate or Cinnamon on Ubuntu.
TL;DR Probably mint, but I've not tried it myself. I've heard good things about it.
Anyone else got a recommendation?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Not kidding anyone, if you read further up the thread, I am a Mac user. And deleted the Windows 7 emulation, couldnt be bothered to have it updating everytime I thought I needed it.
I've used two video cards to get output to three monitors, also a usb device to get a third monitor in windows before. The hardest part was always getting the wires to actually reach the third monitor, everything else was "plug and play". I shudder to think what it'd take under linux to get that kind of setup working.
This, a million times this. I don't get how they even dared to sell that shite. My father in law had a tablet with a single core Atom 1.3 GHz and this terrible turd from hell GPU. It was totally unusable with the standard drivers, and with the updated drivers it was somewhat usable, but still really bad. He got the tablet for a function he has at the local government, and now an investigation has been launched into how these terrible machines where purchased, because all of his colleagues refuse to use them anymore.
That's sucks, I haven't spent more than 5 hours setting up a Linux laptop in years.
Here's what I do:
1. Go to walmart, buy the cheapest laptop they have (usually around $300 or just below).
2. Go home, plug laptop in, wait 1-2 hours for Windows to start and install/update all that crapware that is installed on it.
3. Test the hardware (vidoe, network port, wireless, dvd drive, keyboard (every key), mouse, trackpad and EACH USB port). -- return if any hardware issue found.
4. Spent 2-3 hours creating the Recovery DVD's.
5. Test with ubuntu liveboot DVD to ensure laptop works (-- if it doesn't, I return the laptop -- has happened once in 10 years -- I also like to run the memtest for a few hours too).
6. Install Ubuntu. (1-2 hours)
7. Use laptop until it has a hardware failure (usually get 3-4 years out of each one, but I do buy a new one every year or two since I like to play with new toys and my kids usually need an upgrade by then and they get my older one).
8. Let the update manager run overnight (same for Windows and Linux, but come morning, 100% of the updates to Linux are installed, I have never had that with Windows -- either it is waiting for me to click something like a EULA or rebooted and waiitng for me to start the update again).
So, most of the work is similar even if I were to just use Windows that came on it (steps 1 to 4, and 8) although I recommend everyone do step 5 for any computer as well so that you can return it without the hassle of sending it in for warranty (Walmart and most stores usually just take back laptops -- even without a reason -- in the first 7 days, and a simple reason will usually get them to take it back within 30 days).
Since the laptop was tested to work with Ubuntu in step 5, the install goes very smoothly and, about the worse I have to do, is install special video drivers to get better performance for games (but that is 100% optional as everything works fine generally with the system just as it is). I will note that since 12.04 I do install xfce (takes about 1 hour) and then use that for the Window Manager. So, lets say, in total about 10 hours per year to have a system I will not then have to touch again until I replace the hardware. Even with Windows I never had so small a time commitment, generally, on Windows, every few months the updates would cause some issue or monthly there was something that had to be changed (e.g., av software, some crapware installed, some manual security updates for software) which takes 1-2 hours each and adds up over a year. Now times that by 5 computers in my house (wife and 3 kids plus my own) and that eats a LOT of time to run Windows....
So, my experience is that the little extra amount of time I put into the initial configuration of Linux on the hardware is saved about 10 fold over running Windows for the same amount of time (I have machines that installed originally with Ubuntu 9 that are still used today by my family (but upgraded with Ubuntu 12.04 and I didn't have to install anything new, it was all upgraded through the linux update manager for me), that is MANY years of me not having to do anything for those machines.
Therefore, show me any Windows software where you can go 3-4 years with just clicking one button (Update Manager) once a year and have everything update for you automatically and I'll then I will consider Windows again (after all, I paid for the license so I can switch back anytime I want to). Keep in mind my keeps do install software all the time for the Ubuntu repository and would do the same with Windows, and all those programs must be updated as well since I don't want to have to be cleaning the system every few months as well (been there, done that, not doing it every again).
I know that I just don't want to spend the kind of time to get linux to behave how I want anymore.
In college it was no big deal, I was 100 pct linux, had my machine configured for optimal everything. And I was happy with it. I had time that I was willing to spend configuring my computer . I don't want to spend my time that way any more. I used to compile my own kernels, got pretty good with make files, and spent hours figuring out library mismatches.
And That was the last machine I ever set up Linux on. I did keep it running a few years until the hardware died. I ended up getting a mac laptop to replace it, And I am happy with it.
My job keeps me in front of a computer for more than what would be considered a healthy amount of time. So at home I want something that I don't need to fuss with and still lets me do everything I want to do with it.
Linux on the desktop is for
Your laptop running Linux (Ubuntu), Chrome (Google), and Flash (Adobe) is unstable and you blame whom exactly?
Just because Google and Adobe do not have their shit together while developing for Linux, does not necessarily mean that Microsoft can take credit for a fine OS.
That said, I run Mac OS and Windows 7 just fine on a dual-boot Mac Pro. Adobe products do suck pretty much anywhere though.
-ted
They want cheap. They got it. I operate a small town computer repair/refurb center and Black Friday we dread: nothing but crazed Best Buy deal-missing mongrels who never seriously shopped Laptops before, looking for the cheapest deals. We sell refurb, hell those should be half what that $248 BF special was.......pitiful mentality. Between this and the number of Windows 8 Machines I think will be returned, we should have a banner year selling Windows 7 machines....
Their prices seem a bit high, though. Once you start speccing those machines with something other than a Celeron, and adding Bluetooth and reasonably-sized hard drives, you're up in Apple territory.
Their no-monitor desktop comes out to within $50 of an iMac, but with slower CPU and video and no monitor, and their all-in-one is $700 *more* than an iMac with a slower CPU and *much* slower video.
Don't most Linux distributions support Apple hardware these days? (I'm actually asking - I've never tried.)
See, this is exactly why linux/unix are annoying to setup. There's always some hack that needs to be done since I have a dozen different wireless adapters, video cards, etc, etc.
In point one serviscope_minor says:
"A new machine is easy to set up. The install takes however long these things do these days. Customizing is a question of copying my .bashrc, .bash_login, .fvwm2rc, .vimrc, .Xdefaults and .Xmodmap files, which takes around a minute."
No it does not take a "minute." I have no idea where those files are, what they do, how to open it, etc in a linux environment.
Personally I would learn to figure that out but the average user will not.
No, Mac is a Volt. Windows 7 is the Prius. Windows 8 is a concept car with two different steering wheels, seven wheels, and two gas tanks -- one for petrol and one for diesel.
I cannot even fathom how shitty a $250 Windows 8 PC must be.
That's the problem.
Despite trying to be efficient by extending the life of old hardware, running a P4 or Sempron 1.8Ghz will consume so much more power than a netbook or nettop over the course of a yr or two that it's actually less efficient than just replacing it with a nettop.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
That's what the Microsoft store is selling, vs 17.5 per hour at the Apple Store in the same location.
That's not consumerism for Microsoft. It's a subsidised operation.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
"I actually like [new_windows-1] - it was a shame what they did to it in [new_windows]."
Facts take all of the premium out of arm waving - T. Reynolds
You're guilty of a massive case of double standards. You're also either very badly mistaken or intentionally misunderstanding.
There's always some hack that needs to be done since I have a dozen different wireless adapters,
I'm talking about configuring user preferences for programs, not setting up hardware. User application preferences and obscure hardware configuration is a totally different kettle of fish. The former is done by the operating system at install time, the latter has to be set up by the user since they are by definition preferences.
No it does not take a "minute."
You're right! It takes even less. I just typed the following:
scp remote_host:{.bashrc,.bash_login,.fvwm2rc,.vimrc,.Xdefaults,.Xmodmap} .
and it took 38 seconds.
I have no idea where those files are, what they do, how to open it, etc in a linux environment.
There preferences for my shell (bash) my window manager (fvwm), my editor (vim) and for old style X11 programs. If you're using bash and vim, you almost certainly know what those files are. If you're not you almost certainly don't need them.
So, it takes 38 seconds to get most of my user preferences from my old machine to my new one. How long does it take to do that under any other operatying system?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
"The charm interface is incredibly painful" you lost the all rational reasons to say this when you installed ubuntu (even with kde).
"lack of support in Linux"
Here corrected it for you.
Don't blame the faulty HW support of one OS onto the hardware (that's is like blaming IBM Power8 for not running OS/X).
Consumers buy cheap computers because they want something for nothing. 99% of them do not realize exactly what it is they are buying other than the fact that they see "laptop" which is associated in their minds as expensive listed for a price that forces their brains to shut of and go into zombie mode.
If it'd be possible to get the cost of windows removed, it'd be a good buy for a laptop...I don't want a red cent going to Microsoft.
Sounds to me its a problem of ubuntu and not other Linux distributions. That or you chosen really crappy hardware (unsupported) to run Linux on.
I know it's hard for people on here to believe, but Windows 8 is actually pretty amazing. I would never go back to Windows 7 at this point.
Same with XBox: Popcorn, check. Wine, check. Snuggled up to wife, check. Lights down, check. Fire up Xbox to watch a movie on Netflix, Xbox needs to be updated, Netflix needs to be updated, no way to skip. WTF?
Thank god I got the Wii fixed. I don't need to buy some stupid subscription to use a service I'm already paying for either.
Most people don't know or don't care about any perceived issues with Windows 8. TFS honestly sounds like nothing more than clickbait. They aren't buying Windows 8. They're buying a want a laptop that comes with Windows 8. If they actually care enough, they can take their existing Win7 license if they have one and put it on the new laptop, or just buy a license.
Most likely wont.
That actually sounds kinda cool.
Why is it that all the haters out there blame Windows for the crapware and all the BSOD's? How about compatibility or hardware issues???? Or is it just another way to bash M$FT????? Crapware comes from OEMs, not Microsoft. Idiots and haters.
See, this is exactly why linux/unix are annoying to setup. There's always some hack that needs to be done since I have a dozen different wireless adapters, video cards, etc, etc.
....
I have no idea where [.bashrc, .bash_login, .fvwm2rc, .vimrc, .Xdefaults and .Xmodmap] are, what they do, how to open it, etc in a linux environment.
They are user profile files that live in your home directory, normally, or in /etc.
Configuring a new system is an exercise in frustration, whether it's Linux or Windows. (Macs may be different?) I chalk this up to my personal preferences being complex, and different from the defaults in _both_ operating systems. It tends to take a day+ for me to configure a new version of windows, since I need to research the tweaks that need to be done (registry changes, helper programs, etc) in order to enact the changes that I want. (I like focus-follows-mouse, don't raise windows, and install a virtual desktop system that doesn't suck.) It took me a while to figure out how to configure Windows 7's interface so that it made more sense to me, but there were always things that frustrated me. (I still haven't upgraded at home.)
In comparison, I now use Ubuntu at work. When I installed it, it had Unity as its interface, and I couldn't stand it. Some like it, but there's lots that I dislike. After spending a week trying to get one alternative desktop interface to work, I switched gears and switched to XFCE (another desktop environment for linux); installing it was simple, and ran overnight. I'll never be able to modify Windows' desktop experience as thoroughly or easily. From there, I had to configure my personal settings (menus here, mouse behavior the way I like it, etc), but __in the future__ I know it will be easier: I know the window manager that I like, and can either copy or recreate my customizations more easily than in Windows.
Wait, how is rebooting being that hard? The "normal" approach is to go to one of the right corners with the mouse (bottom will be closer), then move up to the Settings button, click it, click Power, and click the option you want. That's a gesture and three clicks - not ideal, but a hell of a long way from the claimed level. If you like keyboard shortcuts, you can open the Charms bar (what the gesture does) using the chord Win+C, reducing it to a key chord and three clicks.
Locking the screen can be done using Win+L, as it always has been, or by clicking your name/icon in the upper right of the Start screen, and then choosing Lock. Logging off can be done using the same click on the Start screen, but choosing "Sign Out" instead. Counting opening the Start screen, that's three clicks either way (or one keyboard chord).
There are other approaches, too, including a bunch of old ones that have been around for literally over a decade:
* Put one or more shortcuts / scripts to shutdown.exe on the desktop (with command line specifying the desired options for rebooting or whatever).
* While the Desktop is selected (press Win+D if you have a maximized app open), hit Alt+F4. This will bring up an (circa Win2k) old-style shutdown option list.
* Actually just run shutdown.exe with parameters (from any command line or the Run dialog, which can still be accessed anywhere using Win+R).
* Ctrl+Alt+Del, then click the Power button in the lower right and select your shutdown option.
* Win+L (to lock the session), then click once (to dismiss the lock screen) and click the Power button in the lower right. Only works if using a password.
I'm sure there are some that I'm missing. You can also find scripts and such that will add the power "buttons" to the Start screen as tiles, including some from Microsoft themselves.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
You don't even need to use a corner. Win+C opens the Charms bar. You can (still) use the keyboard to do anything you want in Windows, and while some things take longer than before (the change to Start search, where "Settings" now require an extra action, annoys me), others take the same amount or less (try managing WiFi or volume on Win7 using the keyboard...).
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Fuck any Jewish-owned company.
My understanding is that Microsoft is working real hard on preventing that.
Also cheaper laptopsmean cheaper BIOS which mean less options, most of those options are probably the ones you most want if you are going to install an alternate OS.
every one of those is in your home directory
go to menu >file manager and it opens to this very place(unless you change it yourself)
go back to redmond and sharpen up your skills
there just redmond hacks, they know it too
"LOOK OUT FOR FLYING CHAIRS!!"
ill give a second voice saying that it ALL just works right out of the box(disk)
i still dont like pulseaudio, but it works
I spent 3-4 hours and about $20 in parts this weekend getting a "cheap" Win7 laptop back into decent condition and it's still not quite right. Not worth the money. The worst issue seems to be the hinges but this one also had crappy heatsink design (requiring a full teardown and a shim). Keyboards and screen connectors also seem to be weak spots. These days I spend the extra money and buy something that will last. I'm liking the Thinkpads but there's other brands too (Dells Latitudes seemed to be pretty decent).
You don't mess anything up if you're downloading. If you're installing next time you resume the system says: do an aptitude install -f . Guess what, you do that and then you can return to installing stuff happily.
Besides you are not allowed to say "you are doing it wrong" because that was exactly the response many linux users used to give and they were flamed for that "oh yes, blame the user! that's a soo user friendly OS if the user can get in that trouble!"....
Please direct me to the dealer that sells new porsches for 1000$.
As an IT person looking at a client, yes, that would be something I would consider. As someone not wanting to have two jobs (one at home and one at work), I dont really care what the issue is, I care that installing Windows made my life easier.
For this same reason I am entertaining trying Linux rather than Windows 8 on my new build.
You don't have to download and install the updates every time you boot up. Here are the 4 options: 1) Install updates automatically 2) Download updates and let me choose to install 3) Check for updates but let me choose to download and install 4) Do not download or check for updates automatically
i hope those windows people are getting paid well for this
they spend a lotta time here
You should change your Windows Updates settings to not force a reboot, and to download but do not install--only notify. That way you could have the updates apply when you are done, do a reboot, they will finish installing, and you can shut down.
My understanding is that if you pause the updates ctrl z, and then reboot, you will possibly break the update system. Certainly dpkg doesnt like it, and I assume yum doesnt either.
(skipped long point-by-point reply to get to the real point:)
Not surprising that people with half a brain are ditching Slashdot in droves in disgust.
And what does that make us two?
"Live tiles turned start screen into “incessantly blinking, unruly environment that feels like dozens of carnival barkers yelling at you simultaneously."
"Give me the zen garden calm of Steve Jobs' "less is more" approach to interface design any day."
These are two best quotes from this article and the comments section.
The real deal is just come over to the dark side all the way.. MAC anything! Since moving along my HP's and my Windows OS .. I am a happy convert, with actual time to produce and to be productive rather than talk about it in hope on endless forums.
Mine has. Since the late 90's, I picked up another monitor, then rotated one of them 90 degrees, then set that up for both (and upgraded monitors here and there along the way). I got tired of fiddling with X config files to do this kind of thing.
Are you talking about X configs or window manager configs. They are ver different things. I'm sure the X11 config on the SGI and IRIX machines is nothing like the almost nonexistent xorg.conf on my Linux machine.
My WM config hasn't changed much. It did mostly the sane thing already when xinerama was introducd, and I modified some shortcut keys to shove windows to a specific monitor.
I'm a regular linux user (at times) so if this is straightfoward to do on Linux, it sure as hell is hidden away somewhere.
Really? If you have an nvidia card, then run nvidia-settings, otherwise run your faviurite xrandr gui. Like arandr, for example.
One other reason I use Mac and a Windows PC is for DVD playback. Is there a legal way for a U.S. resident to play back encrypted (commercial) DVDs?
No idea, I'm not American. The way the law is written, you probably do 5 illegal things before breakfast anyway. Why worry about this one which never even been ruled on definitevly.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
My understanding is that if you pause the updates ctrl z, and then reboot, you will possibly break the update system
repeat after me:
i dont reboot a linux system
i dont reboot a linux system
i dont reboot a linux system
i dont reboot a linux system
wouldn't Windows 8 be something like this?: http://bit.ly/QK6L7M
"the fax machine is nothing but a waffle iron with a phone attached to it." - Grandpa Simpson
You got a Gateway and were surprised to see bloatware? They are one of the worst bloatware vendors. Next you'll be surprised that you buy an Apple computer and it comes with MacOS, or that copy of Ubuntu you are using is running on the Linux kernel...
dumbass.
He's right - to an extent - I had similar problems, where working things broke on new releases and you had a lot of WTF? moments, but I chalk it up to always wanting the latest and greatest without letting other people "beta" test it. Ubuntu has their six month release cycle, ready or not. I did switch to Debian and I'm a lot happier.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
The fact that Homer looks eerily like Steve Ballmer is the icing on the cake. I tip my hat to you, sir.
I'm looking for a computer that can be logged into by any thief with a Microsoft ID!!
Given a brand new, totally blank PC, how long does it take for you to install Windows, and set it up how you want
Just did this on my laptop back in june-- dont remember why. Took all of about 1-3 hours to get completely in my zone, and it WASNT for things like "trying to get sound working"; it was mostly for installing the programs I want which takes about as long on either OS. Cant recall any major customizations I did other than SSD opts, moving the taskbar to the right and switching to mini-icons, changing the power policy, and changing what stuff is always visible in sys tray.
Again-- I actually like the Win7 interface, thats the reason I went for the upgrade from XP.
Bull. Blackberrys require installing a program off of sourceforge called barry-utils. G15s require a different program. G9s require yet a third to fully access all the buttons. Many wifi cards historically required downloading the firmware. ATI graphics are notorious for not "just works"-ing. Even Intel NICs had huge issues (I believe kernel?) in Ubuntu 2 years ago (but if it was kernel as I recall, it would be all distros that shipped with that kernel before it was fixed).
Youre calling the wrong guy a "redmond hack"-- I love linux in many ways, but Ive used it too much to have any of these naieve "its perfect and has no flaws" assessments of it.
Im going to bet you reboot your desktop linux system to install new kernels, and to test new bootloader installations.
Im also going to bet that you dont have the ability to selectively apply patches using the default package manager. For better or worse, Windows does updates quite differently which allows programs to keep just working regardless of what updates are done to the system. It has downsides, but I rather like that a random apt-get upgrade wont break my music player or vmware client.
If it's shiny, new, and looks cool - it'll sell in the USA, no matter the product. All it took for me was the plethora of YT vids showcasing the
crappy "Surface" technology, and 1st time firing up of the machine taking 8-12 minutes or more. Then I read that the clickon keyboard is tearing apart
with less than a month of usage.
What did M$ do? They "tried" to jump in on the Apple and Droid bandwagon and sorely missed. W8 SUCKS!!! and the consumer doesn't know how to use a PC
anyway, so why and the hell would they know how to use it with a touch interface (not intuitive, slow and clunky)
Better options under the tree this year are a Nexus or iPad4 (skip the iPad Mini) - and forego the wave of surface and W8 toys.
IF you want a rock-solid laptop on good technology(OS-wise) & hardware, try a MacbookPro or get a cheap W8 PC and fire up Ubuntu or another flavor of Linux -it'll save you the pain.
M$ can't write a decent OS anymore - and nor do they seem interested in innovation, but rather in only playing catch-up and imitation.
I'll take OSX any day or (pick your flavor of Linux) but, in this monopolized world we live in (don't kid yourself, it IS a monopoly) users have to choose
what works... and OSX dominates.
If I wanted to worry about tearing down and rebuilding each little component, I would bring back the days of Heathkit from not so long ago - but no, ALAS, consumers just want something that DOES what they need it do, without having to pass a MSSE test in order to use their machines at home.
This is where iOS and Droid thrive - now we only need to move those to the larger home pc platform, which is why Apple wins in this dept., with Google
arriving on the scene as well.
Microsoft's big clients who buy millions of dollars of licenses are in the drivers seat at Microsoft.
If you've ever been a large enterprise client of Microsoft, then you know that they treat you like gold.
If you have a nice shiny new computer from a major manufacturer Windows 7 runs just fine. That's what the enterprise clients are running. So will Windows 8.
There is no reason at all for them to support your cobbled together old PC at a rock bottom price. They don't need you.
If you honestly believe they built Windows 8 strictly to appeal to consumers, you need to go back to business school. Most likely, a large enterprise client (The Military perhaps) is why we have Windows 8, and the whole consumer hoop-la is just another revenue stream - but not the primary one...
It's not the size of the processor, it's how many units it plugs into.
I've thought about it, and I think Windows RT and the restrictions are all about Office, and really nothing else.
Microsoft sees OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice taking market share from the real linchpin of the Windows monopoly, Office. The reason is simply that it's cheaper. So, they find a way to preserve their Office monopoly by making a version of Windows that will only run Office. In order to compete with a regular PC with OpenOffice.org, they make the hardware cheaper, thus squeezing the hardware margins, but leaving their software margins largely intact. Now the consumer can get a machine that does everything they really want (Office and Internet) for cheap, and it supports Microsoft Office formats "perfectly." Because of API restrictions, users can't get OpenOffice.org to run on these new, cheap computers even if they wanted to. (Not that they would want to, as "real" Microsoft Office is included "for free.")
Windows RT is about monopoly maintenance for the Office monopoly, plain and simple.
Moving the cursor to a corner of the screen is incredibly painful?
I take it you've never used a Gateway touchpad.
It's not called Black Friday anymore. It's called Buy Nothing Day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buy_Nothing_Day
Buy it. Look as all the pretty apps that are pre-loaded and want you to pay money to use them---Reformat the HDD and install Linux.