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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.
Sure, I'll get modded 'Flamebait' for this, but seriously: quit kicking me in the groin, Redmond.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Honestly I think the only reason it will be declared as 'so good' is because Windows 8/8.1 were so bad.
I thought the Windows 8/8.1 desktop was no better or no worse than the Windows 7 desktop. Of course, I banished the Metro interface five minutes after installing. Then again, I never bother with the GUI on Linux, as the command line is always excellent.
A lot of actual Windows users thought that the UI in Windows 8 SUCKED. It's not just Linux users. Win8 was like Vista. The fact that there is even a Win 8.1 is an artifact of how badly genuine Windows users reacted to Win8.
Pretending that this is just the complaints of Linux users is extremely disingenuous.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
"There is nothing -wrong- with Windows 10 aside from the Privacy Policy."
And apart from that, how did you enjoy the play Mrs. Lincoln!!!!
The UI is truly awful with the random flat, single mono-colored tiles and windows. As mentioned in the article, there really is no benefit to upgrading from Windows 7. If games start to make good use of Direct X 12 there might be a reason to switch, but it really isn't an upgrade in most respects.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
“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.”
Cue choir music and white spotlight! This is the way it should be! I've often observed, people use applications not the OS. The OS should make it easy, simple, fast, etc. for people to use their applications in the way that they want. No more, no less. When the OS gets in the way, it is a fail. The best, and best selling, versions of Windows were the ones that moved closer to this principle than their predecessors.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
A real Linux user's review: do you honestly think I'm going to install Windows on my computer?
That's so true. That's also why I use a Mac, because Apple is not at all like Micros- Posted from a Mac mini. Get your own Mac mini today! -oft and will always leave me in control of my device.
The one problem I encountered with Windows 10 is my Linux box could no longer print to the network printer. Sure enough, sharing had been disabled by the upgrade. But even when I re-enabled sharing of the printer, Linux couldn't print to it. Linux could find it. Linux could connect to it. But it would get stuck trying to spool the document and never show up in the print queue under Windows 10.
I opted for the obvious (and easy) solution of moving the printer to my Linux box, but not everyone can do that, especially with a truly shared printer in an office. Though, to be fair, print servers really should be running Linux in the first place. They're more reliable.
I couldn't believe how much crapware I had to disable with Windows 10, though, especially from the menu. WTF would I want an "XBox" account tile for when I don't own a gaming system of any kind, much less one susceptible to the "red ring of death"?
On the bright side, all of my commercial databases seem to run just fine. Even Cygwin hasn't given me grief yet.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
One major advantage over 7 (although 8.1 had it - but who wanted 8.1)
Multiple magnification settings
Win7 allowed ONE windows magnification setting for all screens (100%, 125%, 150%). Win10 allows you to set it per screen. Useful if you have one High DPI screen (my laptop) and one standard DPI - the second monitor in my case.
Other than that? No huge difference. Some things are faster (just as they were in 8.x). The first machine I upgraded was on 8.x, and couldn't wait to get rid of that pig. Then I upgraded the laptop that has the high DPI screen, but right now, my main boxes are still on Win7...
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
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.
I was so chuffed when Gnome and KDE beat Windows at its own game. For years they had been lagging behind Microsoft, mostly mimicking the look and feel of Windows. KDE 4.0 gave us a hint of what was to come - it was a mess. With Gnome 3 we had clearly pulled ahead of Microsoft, producing a complete clusterfuck of an interface in long before Microsoft got their own clusterfuck to the market with Windows 8. Finally, we were setting the pace and Microsoft was following!
But things move quickly, and open source is falling behind again. Right now we are in the "ouch! that hurt phase" and fixing the mess created by the last fad. Microsoft has pared down the Vista "wow, we virtualised the 3D pipeline so everyone wants to watch ponies dancing on a spinning Icosahedron while their windows open" to something that almost always runs faster than Gnome and KDE in Windows 10. In the mean time people who preferred to use Gnome to get shit done rather than watch ponies retreated to Gnome flashback, or whatever it is called today. But, sigh, in a flash of recent inspiration Gnome made flashback depend on the 3D graphics as well, meaning you can no longer debug someones desktop using a frame buffer protocol like VNC, effectively ensuring that in some cases it isn't possible to get any work done with it, at all. Just fucking wonderful Gnome.
Unlike poor Windows users, Linux is all about choice, and so putting up with a window manager that removed features with with each iteration while managing to run slower at the same time (awesome effort, boys!) is some ways my own fault. But the reality is the choosing the right thing from the many choices Linux offers you is hard work, hard work that Windows users are spared. I tend to compensate by sticking like deranged limpet to what I used yesterday. Kudo's to Gnome I guess, for finding a way to force me off my rock.
Now I have a new rock: LXDE. While it may be true Microsoft has moved faster than KDE and Gnome to produce something todays GUI fashion Nazi's just love, if paired down, fast, and just get out of my fucking way is the benchmark, LXDE entered that race long before Microsoft knew even existed, and they now beat Microsoft at it hands down. Saying Windows 10 beats Gnome and KDE in speed as this review does is just plain dumb. Gnome and KDE haven't yet twigged they event that think they are competing in was abandoned last year, at the latest. Microsoft, to their credit did twig, and now they have Windows 10.
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've been a linux user since 1997, except for a couple of years when I ran OS X (10.5-10.6). I started out on Redhat (a couple of weeks with slackware before that, but too short a time to count), then went to OpenSuse after the second Fedora release and migrated to Linux Mint 17.1 because I found too many annoying bugs in the most recent release of OpenSuse. I'm strictly a desktop user and was waiting for the rise of the Linux desktop like everyone else, but always kept a version of Windows on dual boot because A. It usually came with the machine and B. "just in case".
Yesterday, I installed Grub Customizer and switched my default boot to Windows 10. It is, to me, the best version of Windows they've managed to come out with. I happen to love the start menu. I did away with all my icons I normally put on the desktop and, instead, they reside in the start menu. The privacy issues seem to be no better nor worse than you get from Apple, but the OS seems to finally be as good as what you'd get from Apple.
I have to say... I've gotten sick, over the years, of Linux being treated like the red-headed stepchild when it comes to drivers, software and websites. But, just as importantly, I've grown sick of the bugs that continually creep up in the desktop experience. Dilbert stops showing up on the KDE comic applet....search all around...no fixes seem to work....gotta live with it. Can't find an mp3 player that really seems to work, catalog my library, manage the playlists and mp3s on my samsung s3 etc. without hanging or outright crashing... It's the bugs like that which seem to really be in your face on a near daily basis....and they don't seem to be fixed. It's much more exciting to add features than hunt down bugs. I understand that. Some will say that, if I don't like the bugs, then fix them myself. But, I don't want an OS I have to learn to code and help out projects just to make something I can use.... I'm a single parent raising a 7 year old. I just want something I can use and that fits my needs....
Linux Mint has been, by far, the most polished and professional desktop experience I've had in a while. That could be because they've stayed with the same release of Ubuntu underlying it for the last couple of releases. Whatever the reason, I've still found a more pleasing desktop experience in Windows 10.
I do most of my work on Linux, but have to use windows occasionally. Last year I upgraded my computer for the first time in like 10 years, and decided to skip 7 and go to 8.1 for the Windows booting. So, OK, I don't use it a lot - but after installing classic shell and having it boot straight to the desktop, I don't see what all the whining is about. Every time I upgrade or install Linux, I have to customize it to my liking, too, so it's a bit annoying when I hear that as a complaint from Linux users about windows. I'm glad I get to mostly use Linux, but I didn't see what all the fuss was about - plus it had better support for my ssd and, yes, it seems to run better/be more responsive than Windows 7 or XP.
I've heard a couple of legitimate complaints from power users, but by and large what I see is a bunch of people essentially complaining it's not exactly like it was before.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
At work or Academia, I had used all there is to use. DOS, Windows, Solaris, HP-UX, Sinix, VMS, Linux, FreeBSD...
At home, it was DOS (3.2, 3.3, 5.0, 6.22) Windows (WFW 3.11, 95, 98, NT4, 2000, XP, Vista) all the way (with a brief innuendo with Warp), until Early 2009, when I declared my switchover to MAC Successful.
Now, Apple forced my hand by not releasing Win7 Drivers for the 2015 13"Air... So, between having a ragtag fleet of machines on Win732, Win764 and Win8.1 64, I'll go 10 all the way.
The fact that I can get Windows 10 Working on a Toshiba Satellite A123 ** (My last windows machine), with an Xpress200m Chipset whose graphics part is based on a chip (R300) released in Aug. 2002, and a processor whose architecture (Yonah T2080) was released on 2006 speaks volumes at the effort microsoft has put in preserving compatibility AND make the OS perform better.
On the same resources, Win 8 will perform better than 7 and Win 10 will outperform them both. It has actually breathed new life into the old machine.
What really interest me is the new powers under the hood. Better performance (as said before), Edge, better included antivirus and security tools, DX12, etc, etc, etc.
Maybe things moved around a lot from what I remember, but is in no way as bad as windows 8, were I had to rip of the virtual machine due to the hotcorners, and wanted to pull my hair everytime I had to use a Win8 machine from a friend without a shell replacement. Besides, if one does not like the interface, one can change it (as they said in the TFA, Classic Shell works like a charm, and I am sure there will be other customization apps in no time), if they removed mediaplayer, there is MithTV or VLC, the app store is empty, so what, is not like I forgot how to download an exe or a msi file...
But then again, I use this only for some games (currently Batman Arkam Origins, and anything that strikes my fancy that Steam has not ported to Apple yet) on bootcamp, and via VirtualBox on raw partition for Visio and Project.
The fact that the upgrade is free sweetens and seals the deal (if I had to pay for it, or had to go through the hoops of the university to get the license key, well....). Yes, there are privacy concerns, and I will deal with them, the same way I dealt with iCloud and all of Apple's privacy invasions, I have the knowledge to do so, and I can relay on my fellow techies when my knowledge fails me.
For me is a welcome upgrade, one that will bring homogeneity to my fleet, along with better performance accross the board, and I am recommending all non-techie friends to upgrade (after updating FW, maxing RAM and putting an SSD, of course), especially from Windows XP. Besides, I already issued them a stern Warning. After march 2016, I'll only answer questions about Win10 or "El Capitan". That will drastically cut the amount of free tech support I must do... ;-)
Welcome Windows 10, you may not warrant a rolling stones theme song, but your low-key entry will make many lives easier...
Suerte a todos y feliz dia.
** Yes, after firmware updates, maxed RAM to 2GB, and put a SATA3 64GB SSD on the puny SATA1 interface of the Xpress200M
PS: For what is worth, I have CrunchBang++ for basic Linux demos to my students in the Toshiba (the machine I carry around in mass transport to class, because, if they mug me, I'll not miss it), and have A few CentOS and Oracle Linux machines for, you know, stuff...
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
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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The laptop appeared to upgrade ok but upon rebooting was excrutiatingly slow and unresponsive. It kept asking for permission to run an activesync exchange app or somesuch and neither Windows Update or Edge could connect to the internet even though Firefox could. I suspect that the machine had family safety turned on in 8.1 and it fucked up on the upgrade. In the end I reverted to 8.1. I might turn off family safety and try again.
The docking tablet upgraded fine but the drivers for the keyboard and touch pad are botched. I can't type certain keys on the keyboard and after a while it goes completely haywire. I'll probably live with it for a week to give Lenovo a change to produce a new driver and if they don't I'll revert to 8.1 there too.
The only one which worked relatively well was the Windows 7 desktop which migrated and booted back up in a good state. But even here there are glitches - some of my tiles look like they've been cut in half and shifted over. All my software works and the desktop experience is good even though the start menu still has a lot of room for improvement. I also discovered that Win 10 has a setting (enabled by default) that allows Microsoft to stuff promotional tiles into your start menu which is annoying.
Overall I'm not impressed at all with Windows 10. It was released prematurely as far as I'm concerned. From an administration point of view, it's also more of a burden because now there isn't just a control panel but also now a settings and clicking a button in one often leads to the other. It's a mess for configuration. None of the administrator tools seem to have gotten any attention either so they're not high-dpi aware for example which means they look blurred on a high density screen.
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).
Someone here commented that they'd worked at Microsoft and that they'd done internal user testing of Win 8 and people hated. Of course we all know that management pressed on anyway.
Of course I can't ensure anything of this is true but sounds believable to me.
I agree with other comments that say that most changes to Win 8 and 10 were exclusively to the benefit of Microsoft