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Windows 10, From a Linux User's Perspective
Phoronix features today a review of Windows 10 that's a little different from most you might read, because it's specifically from the point of view of an admin who uses both Windows and Linux daily, rather than concentrating only on the UI of Windows qua Windows. Reviewer Eric Griffith finds some annoyances (giant start menu even when edited to contain fewer items, complicated process if you want a truly clean install), but also some good things, like improved responsiveness ("feels much more responsive than even my Gnome and KDE installations under Fedora") and an appropriately straightforward implementation of virtual workspaces.
Overall? Windows 10 is largely an evolutionary upgrade over Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, rather than a revolutionary one. Honestly I think the only reason it will be declared as 'so good' is because Windows 8/8.1 were so bad. Sure, Microsoft has made some good changes under the surface-- the animations feel crisper, its relatively light on resources, battery life is good. There is nothing -wrong- with Windows 10 aside from the Privacy Policy.
If you're on Windows Vista, or Windows 8/8.1, then sure, upgrade. The system is refreshing to use, it's perfectly fine and definitely an upgrade. If you're on Windows 7 though? I'm not so sure. ...
Overall, there's really nothing to see here. It's not terrible, it's not even 'bad, it's just... okay. A quiet little upgrade.
My big hope is that this version's Environment Variable easter egg is buried under a few more layers of indirection.
With each new version, one must spend several extra minutes figuring out where the Double Secret Super Duper Advanced Don't Try This At Home Brutal Power User Steel Cage Death Match Of Dh00m dialog is located, merely to set the PATH.
You're kidding, right?
Hit the Windows key, type the first couple letters of "environment" (on my machine "env" is enough) and hit down arrow a few times to select "Edit the system environment variables" (or "for your account", whichever tickles your fancy). Hit Enter.
This has worked reliably ever since the search feature got built into the Start menu in Windows 7.
If remembering that PATH is under "environment variables" is too hard then searching for "path" will actually work just as well.
Win + Break gets you to the link for 'Advanced system settings'. Works in at least win7, 8, 8.1, 10.
Nothing about the Windows key ever suggested using it like that. I've always waded through the User menus as close as I could get to the system menu, and put a shortcut on the desktop.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Live tiles are fantastic. I love how people denigrate live tiles while plastering widgets all over the desktop.
Until you reboot and then it disappears smartass. Next you'll be telling us to update autoexec.bat
Well, Windows Print Server/Print Management has been very reliable in my own experience (in a domain environment.) The only time I've ever had an issue with it is when I mistakenly tried to install an HP printer CD instead of just downloading the basic driver from HP's site. Never again...
From TFA:
Windows 8 era Start Menu replacement apps like ClassicShell and Start8 seem to retained perfect compatibility with Windows 10
With all this need to install third-party addons to undo the crap that the vendor has put in, it's almost like using Firefox.
First, he complained about the download. I anticipated this problem, downloaded the ISO on Windows 7 with Microsoft’s stupid downloading program, and burned a DVD/USB. Problem solved. Also, you can buy Windows 10 OEM media in stores.
Then, he complained about the updater not having a clean install option. It’s not obvious, but there’s an option somewhere in the installer to “Keep nothing.” This does a clean install.
He did not complain about tying the Windows account to a Microsoft account. It’s possible to make a local account not connected to a Live.com, and it’s more obvious how to do so than in Windows 8.
Then, he complained about the hybrid Start menu. That can be resized.
Other than that, I guess the review was okay. I liked the part about the Hi-DPI experience.
Have a nice time.
From win7 to win 8? /a/s in a command prompt
1. loss of custom window metric adjustments, font sizes, and colors
2. loss of classic desktop (eg win2k/xp)
3. forced color schemes (2:1 brightness ratio prevented darker configurations)
4. fullscreen start menu was distracting and irritating to use compared to a simple menu.
5. dwm locked window updates to 60hz (win8.0, was fixed later)
6. dwm broke a ton of easily fixed backward compatibility with programs that used ddraw to change modes etc.
7. metro apps were (and still are) useless on the desktop. ugly and clunky too
8. unified search was compromised, forcing users to go back to dir filename
9. This is a big one for me: removed technical information in stop errors. If stop errors prevent the system from booting, it makes diagnosis a lot harder.
10. two control panels. with windows 10, it's worse because some needed options for the desktop are in one while others are in the 'classic' vista era panel.
I'm not sure how well known it is but there is "God Mode" for Win 7, 8, and 10. To get God Mode you create a folder on the desktop and rename it as described below:
1. Go to the Desktop
2. Right-click and select New Folder.
3. Right-click on the New Folder and select Rename.
4. Change the name of the folder [just copy & paste the following string]: GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
5. Open the folder and you will find every setting/utility under the sun organized into a sensible menu that you can browse through without knowing what name to type into a search bar.
You missed a few biggies. ... menu, when it was one of the most used features. Some apps have preferences in the up swipe app menu, others have them in the right swipe system menu.
11. Requiring mouse users to use invisible gestures to accomplish some tasks, and ignoring inherent usability differences between tablet users and desktop users.
12. The schizophrenic split between Metro and the desktop extended far beyond the two control panels. Every app remained different.
13. Whatever human interface guidelines were used for Metro were 'fail'. Metro apps still have no consistency in how you access settings or access other features. Mail hides the "sync" button behind a three
And 10 is no picnic of usability, either. They've tried to unify Metro and Windows, but it's still awkward feeling. Some Metro apps are hard coded to expect the whole screen, not some reduced drawing area shortened by a task bar. The Metro division bar is capricious and untrustworthy. The start menu still covers the entire screen with a handful of tiles; the giant flat list of apps is still hiding and is still lacking folders, and search only helps if you remember the name of an app, not just the task it does. (Example: searching for 'home' does not identify "Grasshopper", a home automation app.) 10 may be more usable than 8, but it's still a whole shit-ton worse than Windows 7.
The problem is that while Metro may have been a good idea on its own, it was not a good idea to mix it with Windows. And Microsoft knew they wouldn't sell 10 copies of a Metro-only platform (but they tried anyway, unfortunately for the 8 people who bought RT) all because some idiot Monkey-Boy deluded himself into believing millions of people were just waiting for Microsoft to save the day with Windows Phone so they could throw away their awful iPhones.
John
11. Much of the UI became non-discoverable. I'm not sure if the default hiding of menu bars came with 8 or 7, but it meant that unless you knew that the alt button was magic you were unable to access the menus. Similarly, there was no discoverable way of exiting the Metro apps that would occasionally pop up when you accidentally hit one of the magic key combinations - alt-F4 works, but unless you know that that's a way to quit Windows apps, you're stuck.
I didn't realise how truly bad the UI was until my mother bought a new machine that came with Windows 8 just before I visited the Christmas before last. She's been using Windows since 3.1 and, though she's not exactly an expert, she's got more than a passing familiarity with the OS. Lots of things just left her completely stuck. I've no idea where MS found the people that they put in their usability testing lab, but they don't seem representative of users. When my girlfriend bought a new laptop, I persuaded her to buy one that came with a Windows 7 downgrade. It took her about two weeks before deciding that it was worth using, and she was someone who had managed to tolerate Vista for years. She seems pretty happy with 7 (though some parts of the UI suck: anyone know how to set up an ad-hoc WiFi network with Windows Vista, 7, or 8? The network config UIs are completely different in all three and I couldn't figure it out in any of them).
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Since OpenGL 3, GL ES has been a subset of OpenGL, so you can run a GL ES program on any compliant OpenGL implementation. The main difference in the initial GL ES release was the half-precision floating point type, which was not widely supported in hardware on desktop GPUs.
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In addition to his, you now have to "enable safe mode" on a running system before you can use it (http://www.7tutorials.com/5-ways-boot-safe-mode-windows-8-windows-81).