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With DaaS Windows Coming, Say Goodbye To Your PC As You Know It (computerworld.com)
Ostracus shares a report from Computerworld, written by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols: Microsoft is getting ready to replace Windows 10 with the Microsoft Managed Desktop. This will be a "desktop-as-a-service" (DaaS) offering. Instead of owning Windows, you'll "rent" it by the month. Microsoft Managed Desktop is a new take. It avoids the latency problem of the older Windows DaaS offerings by keeping the bulk of the operating system on your PC. But you'll no longer be in charge of your Windows PC. Instead, it will be automatically provisioned and patched for you by Microsoft. Maybe you'll be OK with that.
Microsoft has been getting away from the old-style desktop model for years now. Just look at Office. Microsoft would much rather have you rent Office via Office 365 than buy Microsoft Office and use it for years. Microsoft Managed Desktop is the first move to replacing "your" desktop with a rented desktop. By 2021, I expect the Managed Desktop to be to traditional Windows what Office 365 is to Office today: the wave of the future. Or maybe tsunami, depending on your perspective. I'm not happy with this development. I'm old enough to remember the PC revolution. We went from depending on mainframes and Unix boxes for computing power to having the real power on our desktops. It was liberating. Now Microsoft, which helped lead that revolution, is trying to return us to that old, centralized control model.
Microsoft has been getting away from the old-style desktop model for years now. Just look at Office. Microsoft would much rather have you rent Office via Office 365 than buy Microsoft Office and use it for years. Microsoft Managed Desktop is the first move to replacing "your" desktop with a rented desktop. By 2021, I expect the Managed Desktop to be to traditional Windows what Office 365 is to Office today: the wave of the future. Or maybe tsunami, depending on your perspective. I'm not happy with this development. I'm old enough to remember the PC revolution. We went from depending on mainframes and Unix boxes for computing power to having the real power on our desktops. It was liberating. Now Microsoft, which helped lead that revolution, is trying to return us to that old, centralized control model.
It seems to me that Microsoft managers don't have a reasonable vision of the eventual results of their recent ideas for the future.
If Microsoft tries to charge a monthly fee for an operating system, eventually 1) Nations will all gather together and try to buy Windows from Microsoft. That would be cheaper than paying monthly. Or, 2) Nations will gather together and contribute to ReactOS, a free operating system that runs Windows programs.
Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC." (August 4, 2015)
We no longer have a usable Windows operating system. We can't go to customers and tell them their computers are not secure from outside access.
Because of the Windows 10 spyware, customers have been delaying buying new equipment.
Who knows, I might be Ok with a lobotomy too, after it's all over. But it's the strapping me down to that operating table that is completely another matter altogether.
They cant be serious. They would have to remove quite a few more IQ points to get even the lobotomized version of me to go along with this.
It seems to me that Microsoft managers don't have a reasonable vision of the eventual results of their recent ideas for the future.
They aren't targeting corporate users they are targeting the mass market idiot consumer, because pioneering by the videogame industry through mmo's, and apple and other phone companies building walled garden appstores for their phones, and steam doing the same thing. They will get it all in the end because the average citizen is tech a illiterate moron.
Software companies can sit in their office and "release" the software via the net, and keep part of it on servers in their offices. Before high speed internet penetration was everywhere, the only way they could get paid was by shipping you the entire software physically or they wouldn't get paid.
The internet allows tech companies to force policies on ignorant consumers because the literate consumer base cannot hold them accountable. You'd need physical proximity to the business for your anger and discontent to effect company policy. The free market is dead and has long since been so, the internet removed any last bit of consumer power consumers had. Welcome to the silicon valley dictatorship driven by idiot half of the consumer buying public.
George carlin said it well about humanity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Extending that model, your apps will come only from the languishing Microsoft Store, where they'll make a commission on it. As the Surface becomes popular (as yet another Chromebook) you'll be tempted into convenience. Like Google/Android and Apple/iOS, Microsoft is trying to know you without selling you a phone. They lost that battle.
They're also hurting from the loss of Wintel, and looking at juicy new ARM CPUs to undercut the vicious cost of Intel/AMD CPUs, believing that competing devices based on ARM are cutting into their sales-- with tolerable performance.
Microsoft is feeling very threatened, and with good reason. Their Windows Beta program, oops, I mean Insider program, has started to backfire on them. It's almost impossible to do good QA when you don't control the hardware architecture. Hell, Apple still has problems when they DO control their architecture.
Windows in businesses won't care much because they're already moving into cloud-based applications that hurt Microsoft, Salesforce, SAP, and others are killing them and I'm sure they'd love to get some of that revenue back (as if they ever had it).
Ultimately, the Linux-ification of Windows will not produce Linux. It will produce Windows.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
For the first time ever, Microsoft employees will be forced to actually eat their own dogfood. They will realize finally that their software is completely unmanageable. They will revolt or quit in droves. It will be an unmitigated P.R. disaster. Hundreds of millions of people will give up on desktop computing altogether. Microsoft will single handedly kill their own golden goose and then flail about for someone to blame when the stock prices begin to plummet. Google will eat their lunch with cheap hybridized Android "desktop replacement" devices.
MS gradually seems to be abandoning the lower-end of the market: consumers and small business. They are targeting "enterprise" tools. Google is taking up small business sales with Google Docs and the related office suite, and young consumers are skipping home PC's for mobile devices.
MS can't compete with Google online because Google designed their suite for browsers up front, and we know that MS already flopped on mobile, probably because compatibility with Windows conflicted with simplicity and a small footprint.
MS-Office grew too bloated and Wintel-centric to be re-purposed for different platform(s). MS got feature-happy to drive out competitors, but at the same time locked themselves into an architecture corner. Instead, they decided to turn upward and eat into IBM's lunch.
Table-ized A.I.
This is why some open-source people like Stallman are so fanatical. We have Linux, and no one can take it away from us. In ten years from now when everyone is suffering with DaaS, I'll still be typing away with Linux, free as always.
"What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson
> Linux has VERY poor documentation
Not just Linux but a lot of GPL software does as well in my experience. :-(((
Proof: How many man pages actually have examples.
This is one area the *BSDs do better. (Security too, but that's a separate discussion.)
Yeah, it's not like Linux hasn't been my desktop OS for 12+ years or that people who think using "lol" in lieu of punctuation makes them look witty aren't idiots.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
This just means that I go completely to Linux for development. Chrome and ChromeOS for storage, email, presentation and business apps. Maybe Mac because I love OSX on a laptop - I'm dropping Office on my Mac because Microsoft wants $250 CDN to upgrade to the latest version and won't continue with updates.
And, after doing all this, I don't feel deprived one bit.
So, why would I pay Microsoft a lot more for the same capabilities?
Somebody, down the road, at Microsoft is going to be crucified in front of the shareholders for pushing us away from Windows and Office.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
"Rent-seeking-seeking behaviour", abbreviated "aaS".
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The post you are quoting is absolutely correct. and your post does not dispute it or detract from it.
I'm still using Office 2003. on Windows 7 SP1, and yes, the file format converters still work perfectly, both forward and backward. I don't NEED to upgrade, and I don't want to either. I hate everything about the ribbon interface, I use the ALT menus, and don't you dare try to tell me they have replicated the shortcuts because they fucking haven't! Try selecting some precise area of text with arrows and the shift key, then press "ALT - O and then O". Are you looking at the Font Dialog? No?! Exactly. Lies. (on their part!)
I will never update Windows again. Spyware and "telemetry" killed it for me. Windows user since 3.1
This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
Move to FreeBSD, it is time. It's like Linux but written by rational adults.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
They aren't targeting corporate users they are targeting the mass market idiot consumer,
Unfortunately a lot of people will get roped in because idiots who aren't targeted for this will happily ride along.
I participate in a system that is intended to provide emergency communications via radio, with something that looks like email. I say "looks like" because it isn't, and doesn't obey many of the RFC for email. This system is based on ... Windows. It only runs on Windows 7 now because they haven't figured out how to break it like they broke it on Windows XP. Windows 10 is the preferred platform.
The people in charge of this platform are die-hard zealots for Windows, including every patch and update as soon as it comes out. If you mention that you have disabled Win 10 updates you will be set upon as if you are a bear raiding their honey hive. You will be branded as an outlaw who is setting them up for bots and attacks and personal assaults, even if you are a computer professional who knows how to defend a system against such things without needing Microsoft controlling your devices.
There are REPEATED stories of how Win 10 updates break this system for users, many of whom are providing the gateways between radio and the network. Some of them are unattended, distant sites that can become critical communications resources in a disaster or emergency, and yet it's ok if they crash and burn because Microsoft issued a patch that changes how the sound system works (just one example of failure).
Once Desktop As A Service becomes standard, these folks will leap upon it and cling to it like it's a liferaft and they're drowning rats. It won't matter if they've given complete control of their system on a large scale to a company that does not care if their updates break it, and break it in a way that it cannot recover without significant time and effort on the part of the users. ("Reinstall windows, then reinstall the software ..." is a common "fix". Or just "uninstall and then delete the root directory that contains the software, then reinstall from scratch" is the most common "fix". The fact that the software installs in the root directory of the boot disk isn't an issue for them ... the computer is theirs once you install their software. It has no other use. Oh, "install teamviewer and I'll remote in and fix it for you" is the standard op for minor fixes.)
There are some open-source helpers to this system. You can run a gateway on linux. There's not much to a gateway, after all. It's just a pipeline to the visual basic code now running in the AWS cloud. When you know that the INTERNET side of the "email" system was written entirely in VB you'll understand how Microsoft-locked it is.
They'll be right on board with DaaS. And anyone who wants to participate in that emergency services system will get dragged into the mud with them.
I’m not a typical user, but I’m willing to put up with a walled garden on my iPad. I don’t think of it as a general purpose computer as much as an internet and email tablet. That won’t fly on my desktop, though. And I’m sure as hell not paying Microsoft a monthly fee just to be able to use my computer. That’s straying into the land of batshit crazy to me. I’ve not been a huge Linux evangelist (because I’ve had my share of problems with it that the typical windows user would be completely at sea with), but I’d be happy to recommend it to my friends in lieu of them having to pay $10 a month or whatever to MS.
> Proof: How many (LINUX) man pages actually have examples
FTFY
--I'll back you up on that. But there are only so many resources out there that the average distro has to provide man-hours. They rely on end-users for bugreports, so maybe the best way to add an example to a manpage would be to submit a bugreport to upstream and let it trickle down. Any takers or better suggestions?
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
Once again, thank you, and all who have contributed to the open source movement to provide us with an alternative to profit-driven corporate overlords. History will be most kind to your work...
When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law he tore his robes.2Kings22:11
Proof: How many man pages actually have examples.
This is a problem for people who learned to copy-paste from StackOverflow instead of learning to read documentation.
Of course, it's also a problem of programmers not knowing how to create a proper interface.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
It won't even be a managed desktop. Is Microsoft going to bring the system back up when it goes down? Ultimately it will be exactly the same as Windows 10 except with monthly licensing fees.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
will see a significant increase in Linux, macOS and may actually BE the death of the desktop.
Ironic that the folks who helped bring the desktop to the masses would also be the ones to kill it off. :|
All in the name of greed.
There is exactly ZERO chance I will ever " rent " my operating system and cede what little control I have :|
left to someone like Microsoft. I keep my drawing tablet ( Wacom Studio Pro / Win10 ) offline because I
don't want it updating / breaking anything. Will be impossible to do with a Managed Desktop that is required
to check in on a monthly basis to see if you are still " allowed " to use your computer
Once implemented, I'm pretty sure we're seeing the final days of Microsoft. The smart ones will start selling
their stock off as soon as possible.
This kind of shit is precisely why I won't do Office 360 or any of that other SaaS bullshit. It only encourages more of it.
My computer is mine. Wholly owned by me and used as I see fit. There's no way I'd pay for the privilege of using someone else's desktop environment.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
The whole Google productivity suite is right there when you log in. I think it's okay for kids (don't get me wrong, the Google drive is fabulous and the spreadsheet has its place). I can understand trying to get experience in that model. But personally, I like having software and data locally. Also, putting your data on another company's servers lets them get a really solid grip around your balls/profit.
As I remember it, the PC revolution was slow and stumbling. PCs took a long time to get to the point of really being useful in larger office settings. Sure, it started off popular in small businesses that had no computers previously, or on the desk of execs who otherwise had no terminals, but for places that used mainframs the PCs took a long time to take over. You really had to wait until the 386 era before things started to be more useful for actual work.
There is a long tail of specialty distributions that hardly anyone uses, and then there are four or five options that people use. Here they are with a rough popularity score:
91 Ubuntu
18 Debian 18
6 Red Hat 6 (higher if CentOs is included)
7 Mint
3 Suse
1 Manjaro
You see the top four is what almost everyone uses.
Most of the others are based on one of these anyway, so if you learn about Debian-like Linux systems, you just 80 different distros. Plus they are all Linux, of course. Often I don't know or care which distro I'm using at the moment. A paper towel is a paper towel is a paper towel, regardless of brand. In many ways, Linux is Linux, regardless of distro.
You've spent perhaps 20 years learning Windows, then re-learning it differently every three years when Microsoft redoes it. If you learn Linux in a week, that's about a thousand times faster than you learned Windows.
For the first few years I used Linux, I frequently referenced a Unix book from the early 1980s. Everything in the book still worked the same 20 years later. I have scripts my mom wrote 30 years ago which still run fine on my Linux machine today. No need to forget what you knew and learn completely different every few years like you do with Windows.
There will be lawsuits by the hundreds, if not thousands, when your "managed desktop" causes downtime in excess of the EULA, or if, in your case, an emergency cannot be managed properly because the damned computer went down for an update, and one or more people die as a result.
I imagine emergency services will be told to buy redundant systems so that computer "A" can update while computer "B" maintains services - or something along those lines.
If Microsoft want control of your desktop, they can damn well pay for the consequences.
I will run Win 7 as a guest under Debian until the heat death of the universe. If I'm ever required to run software that will only run under Windows Managed Desktop, it too will run in a VM. I'm learning a lot about iptables these days.
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
285 is really stretching it. This is a list of "all" Linux distros, that covers everything from x86 to Arm and even Risc and PowerPc processors as well as BSD distros. Most of the distros are just repackaged versions of two or three main distros with not much more than a new theme added. Very little is different after you pass the first few.
The fact is that Windows has suffered for years without any competition. The fact that they can make a turd sandwich and you'd eat it is why the OS has not gotten noticeably better.
Personally I still don't get the issue with windows updates. Yes I know you can have it update at night, then wake up to needing to reboot and install more only to have to leave for work before you can check your email and then come home to have to click another checkbox that takes another length of time at least as long as a full install before you can use it. All because NTFS still has no reasonable way to deal with inodes in memory. Seriously, no other OS has that problem. Right now I have windows install on a disk that won't upgrade because of circular dependency issues. You know the problem you claim Linux has, which it doesn't because installing concurrent versions of libraries is done all the time for all kinds of software.
I don't feel like reinstalling windows because my Linux system works so well, and doesn't have all those issues. Unless of course your talking about not being able to run really expensive proprietary software that you need to buy and relicense every couple of years.. so what.
once more into the breach
corporate users are already "renting" windows AND office, per seat and per month or year, via volume license agreements. this "new" and "innovative" approach is to get the small businesses and home users on the same page...
apparently, we're still not buying new computers (with new windows licenses) often enough.. add that to the decrease in the market due to mobile.. microsoft is starting to strangle its dwindling customer base, to squeeze out every penny they can, just like cable and satellite tv providers have been doing since the netflix generation took off.
the writing has been on the wall for a decade. microsoft toyed with a subscription-based windows 7 in a couple small markets back then. combine with secure boot (where microsoft holds the keys) to lock people out of their hardware.. the push towards "apps" and subscription office.. on top of forced updates... and boom. you have subscription windows going to be forced on everybody.
they did not lie. windows 10 IS "the last windows you'll ever buy" --- because the next one will be rented, not purchased.
fuck microsoft. long live linux and bsd.
If Microsoft tries to charge a monthly fee for an operating system, eventually 1) Nations will all gather together and try to buy Windows from Microsoft. That would be cheaper than paying monthly. Or, 2) Nations will gather together and contribute to ReactOS, a free operating system that runs Windows programs.
And now back to reality: people will continue to bitch and moan about Windows and Microsoft, but take no meaningful action to help themselves. Then they will be shocked, SHOCKED, when Microsoft continues its predatory monopoly abuses unabated.
ReactOS will never be a viable Windows substitute. Ever. A HUGE advantage Windows has over even Linux is its platforms. MFC and ATL, Terminal Services, Internet Explorer/Shdocvw.dll, VB6 runtime, etc will just never be implemented. While it may be binary compatible, the software backend just doesn't exist. And if you are ok with Windows sans everything that makes Windows Windows, then you can just move to Linux or something else just the same.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Not even slightly, no. ChromeOS is a locked down operating system that's essentially gratis, not an externally managed operating system that you rent.
And while ChromeOS is locked down, it's possible to unlock for free in an approved, universal, supported way with some minor inconveniences. Additionally, Crostini promises to open it further even without switching the operating system into an unlocked mode, allowing arbitrary applications to run in a sandboxed environment.
So ChromeOS costs nothing, and is becoming more and more open. Windows costs money, is in the process of being locked down, and this article suggests it'll become more and more closed, and more and more expensive.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
What everyone here seems to fail, and it is tagged as such right at the very top of the article, is that this isn't journalism. This article is one person's opinion piece. That is it.
This entire thing, this article, something that has gone fucking viral all day in every goddamn tech site that I visit, is nothing more than an oversensationalistic bullshit opinion piece.
It is a click-bait viral article to drum up views to get advertising dollars, and all you fell for it.
None of the Xaas offerings have this kind of liability. Best case is maximum damages of that month's service costs times two... which comes to you as a credit against future invoices.
The sales people will all say they take on certain liabilities and all that sounds so great for the people listening but when you look at the contract details... the only benefit you have is that you can cancel the service and stop paying almost whenever you want. All true liabilities stay with you.
And isn't DaaS = DEVICE as a service? Not desktop. Couldn't they say WaaS or MSaaS? I think it's a marketing thing to ride HPs coattails.
Afraid not friend. Their printer/scanner/fax, their camera software, their favorite game, their bookkeeping software, hell i could go on all damned day and NONE OF IT will run on Linux.
Ya see this is the problem that the FOSSies just don't seem capable of grasping, every single person using Windows has some programs they consider "must have" or there is no point in having the PC...and none of it works on Linux. Sure you might come up with a wine layer for MS Office or Quickbooks (does Quickbooks even work in 2018? haven't looked in years) but that is 2 programs out of several million, and that isn't counting all the hardware out there that was written with ONLY a Windows driver, which believe me is VERY numerous indeed.
So I'm sorry, it would be nice if it really was "just people using email and FB" because that would mean the majority would be a simple switch...but that user is a myth, they don't exist. What you have is all these millions of users that MOSTLY use FB and web BUT they ALSO use a half a dozen windows only programs...which programs? Its different for every user and if those programs don't work? Then its "I don't want this, its broken" and they go back to Windows. Sorry friend but that is why the network effect is so powerful, those millions of programs are a better lock in than any walled garden and the users will happily take whatever MSFT offers as long as those programs work, PERIOD.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The title of this article and the ComputerWorld article are misleading. If you read the original ZDNet article that is being linked to, you will find that this is just Microsoft trying to take a piece of the DaaS market. This will be offered as an additional service, primarily intended for enterprise users. Not your desktop at home.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-got-a-new-plan-for-managing-windows-10-devices-for-a-monthly-fee/
You wouldn't stand for a walled garden on the iPad either, if you had to pay for it monthly.
I think the rent-is-the-only-option approach and the walled garden approach are fairly orthogonal. The comments about Joe Idiot consumer not caring are wrong too. People hate recurring fees, especially when they've gotten used to not having them.. Just ask any online news source.
Just when you thought Windows can't get any worse they pull this out. I'm not weeping I'm chuckling.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
That would be ChromeOS, which already has window dragging support coyly tucked away in developer options. Also now runs Android apps and full Linux distros (in a vm in a container, how's that for paranoia).
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
This is a problem for people who learned to copy-paste from StackOverflow instead of learning to read documentation.
True, but - a lot of "modern" solutions are basically built to work like that. I'm doing some hobby stuff in a Javascript framework right now (not my choice, the only tool available for this job) and doing copy-paste is literally the only way to get things working because there are so many virtually identical ways to get to the same goal and none of them are explained anywhere or make an intuitive sense that the fastest and only reliable way to get it working is to go through teh stackoverflow solutions until you find the one that works for your particular combination of patchwork bullshit.
Entire generations of coders grow up being copy-paste people not because they are lazy, but because their ecosystem supports this as the most viable way.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
They will just write the eula in their favor so they get a free out of jail card.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
My main use case nowadays doesn't work in a virtual machine - playing games. ON silly or old hardware. And I hope the Linux trolls don't try telling me that GPU pass thru is a useful or working feature, when none but the most expensive and newest graphics chipsets are supported properly. Mobility Radeon 3470 running Skyrim at native resolution at 40+ frames per second on a dual core with high-res textures. No updates / malware. That's how I like my Windows, fast and lean.
They keep publishing lies about how bad Windows 7 is for gaming, but my personal extensive experience with going backwards and forwards comparing Windows versions on the same hardware, with the same games, every time i fix, borrow or scrounge a new machine, goes as far back as Win 3.1, as far forward as August Creator's Update, and hardware-wise, I still have a P2 Toughbook, the above mentioned Qosmio Classic, and an i7-based GTX 1070 rig. My experience is consistent: On most hardware, Windows 7 beats the rest. It's faster than Vista, and faster than 8.1, on the same hardware, across AMD and Intel CPU's, and across AMD and nVidia GPU's using the same games and settings. 8 and 8.1 are much, much faster than 10.
Anybody benchmarking anything different must be cheating, or there's some hobbles in the updates since the i3, i5 etc. were released, aimed at forcing Windows 7 stalwarts to upgrade, similar to the Intel / AMD "un-optimizing" compiler Intel created a few years back.
This last bit sounds a bit paranoid, but Intel are usually considered less evil than M$ and look what they did with their compiler!! (it sent AMD CPU's through a longer version of the same program on the chip instead of using faster built-in microcode extensions on the chip, to slow down the competitor when running code generated using the Intel compiler!)
This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
The mass market no longer buy PCs. They are content consumers they buy Apple and Android. They use smart TVs, smart phones, smart tablets because they are dumb and just want their computer to do simple things for them. The power PC user will absolutely tell M$ to go fuck itself, what is that Hitler one, on yeah with a pineapple pointy end first.
So M$ is basically driving down a one way street with a brick wall at the end and accelerating. They watched their mobile phone crap die because people hated what they were doing and thumb in bum, mind in neutral, they just keep going straight down that path. They simply can not be told and are not listening to what a pack of cunts they truly are.
So now the shift will occur, obviously Android is killing it on content consumption devices and Apple is doing is doing better in spite of themselves with selling you privacy, rather than selling your privacy. SteamOS (steam was kind of dopey no distributing FOSS on steam to promote steamOS) and Linux winning everywhere except the desktop. Playstation of course well they're a bit slow and are sort of going nowhere.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Additionally, Crostini promises to open it further even without switching the operating system into an unlocked mode
Let me know when the supermajority of new Chromebook models support Crostini. Right now it appears to be limited to select high-end Chromebooks. I don't want to see it stay limited to the high end because if it does, it's more likely to become one of those things that Google abandons three years later for lack of use, like Google Reader and Chrome apps in Chrome for Windows, macOS, and GNU/Linux.
Geez, it's in the first line of the article:
"Microsoft is getting ready to replace Windows 10 with the Microsoft Managed Desktop. This will be a "desktop-as-a-service" (DaaS) offering."
And it'll be up to a court to decide liability. Nothing in a EULA or even arbitration clauses can remove your right to sue. If someone else assumes the decision-making power over the uptime of your emergency services comms gateway (e.g. the PC mentioned above), they can assume the responsibilites, too.
Judge: "Let me make sure I understand this. Your company decided that the emergency services comms gateway would shut down to complete updates at 2:17am on the 10th ?"
MS Lawyer: "Yes, your honour"
Judge: "During the wildfire?"
MS Lawyer: "My client didn't know about the wildfire"
Judge: "Did they not think to ask? Why not use a - what do they call it?"
Prosecutor: "A dialogue box, your honour. It presents a question and the ability to answer 'no' or 'yes'."
Judge: "Ah, yes, a dialogue box"
MS Lawyer: "Only a small percentage of people have their computers in use at that time. It causes the least disruption."
Judge: "Tell that to the dead firefighters and their families. In fact, tell it to 999 when your house is on fire. I find for the plaintiff. Case closed."
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
> you must have a pretty awesome mom if she wrote linux shell scripts...
She is awesome, thanks. She wrote them for Unix, all the same utilities and most of the same conventions are on Linux.
> I wish there were some stuff to make the transition from Windows hell to Linux easier
Are you the type who enjoys fiddling with the registry? For most people, the switch is transparent. Chrome and Firefox still look and work exactly the same. Facebook is no different, Google Docs is exactly the same.
If you enjoy fiddling with the OS itself, Linux is very different and much easier. It's all about combining simple parts that are reused all over the place. One such simple thing is "everything is a file". Reading or searching your hard drive sectors works exactly the same as reading and searching a text file, because the bare drive is a file. Each partition is a file. A network connection is a file, an email is a file, even your keyboard is a file, which can be read like any other file (though slowly, unless you're a very fast typist). To search ANYTHING you can use the "grep" command. That'll search your drive sectors, it'll search your email, it'll search whatever because grep searches files, and everything is a file. That makes it much easier to learn because for example there is one tool that searches everything. There is another tool called "sort", which sorts - anything. You don't have to learn how to sort different kinds of things with different programs.
That's why the uproar about systemd - it's not a simple, small tool that can be used with other simple, small tools to build whatever you want, to whatever level of complexity you want. Like Microsoft Office, systemd is a big, complex thing with a lot to learn about it. Very not *nix style.
If you read the referenced article, it references another article which seems to pretty clearly indicate that this is designed for the Enterprise. As a manager of a large number of corporate desktops, this actually sounds like a good idea. Keeping users updated and running is a pain and requires expensive tools and expertise. You are welcome to it, Microsoft.
This is not for your personal PC. Let's face it, Microsoft isn't completely stupid. They aren't going to put themselves on the hook for managing and supporting hundreds of millions of desktop computers used by people like your mother.
While I don't disagree on people not wanting to pay for their OS as a service, I really doubt it's going to be ReactOS that they'll try to switch to. More likely than not it's going to be Linux with wine and/or an older version of Windows in a VM for legacy windows applications.
"Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
There is another alternative: Big app developers will realize MS mistake and start investing in native Linux versions (Ubuntu or Fedora seem to have the biggest corporate backup).
I have 2 Windows 10 PCs because: laptop with i7-7700HQ where intel "forbids" IGP drivers (I think I go into windows 2 times/month); the other is a tablet where Ubuntu is inconsistent (1st standby is good, 2nd does not turn on the backlight).
Gaming? Win7, ever since Win10 update disrupted my iRacing practice (aug 2016 ????). Might still go with 8.1.
HTPC: Used win8.1 for 1 year until I found how to stop tearing in xubuntu (but I haven't tested 3D and 5.1 support).
I see, so a consumer who doesn't need a computer to do whizzy things, just email and web surfing is somehow dumb for not getting a PC with rocket engines and fighting the OS for the sheer thrill of not being labeled dumb by...errr...you.
rtb61 (opens new computer store, first Potential Customer comes in): Hi ya, want to buy a computer.
PC: Well, I don't know, I just need a device to do simple things, a bit of email, and I like to see videos of cute kittens.
rtb61: You want this BambleWeenie 4000, it has AI to predict your wants and needs, an Intel MultiStroke Engine of Power, 500 JigaGobs of RAM, just enough to run the latest Microsoft Software.
PC: I don't know, I just want something simple to use.
rtb61: Errr....you one of those dumb users who doesn't know what a machine like this can offer you?
PC: Not until I walked in here....
rtb61: Hey...where ya going? Come back!!! I, G-d-of-Thunder-Computation, command you to come back.
PC: (at door) Yeah, well, have fun with your BambleWeenie, I'll go find a store that will sell me what I want.
Cool. A desktop computer with a few "phone" processes that you can't get rid of, just like I can't get rid of them on my tablet. And a "location manager" that runs 24/7.
Ah, I see you've used the Microsoft Surface hardware too!
What keeps Linux from becoming a gaming platform isn't even anymore software support. With Unity and UE4, it's never been easier for small studios to develop for Linux in parallel, even if their primary market is Windows.
The actual problem today is drivers for consumer hardware periphery. You have a programmable mouse? Consider yourself lucky if you get it to work as a two-button mouse, let alone actually find a way to program those extra buttons. Flight sticks? Steering wheels? Head tracking device? Programmable keyboards? If there is a driver (I'm not even hoping for a configuration tool at this point anymore) so they at least work in their minimum configuration, it's haphazardly slapped together, woefully out of date and at best in a state of "existing" to be able to tack "Linux support" onto the box. Last update approximately at first shipping date.
This is what keeps Linux gaming down these days. Certainly not software support. Log into your Steam account on Linux and be amazed just how many games you own that would run smoothly in Linux.
If you could control them...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
When I have to run Chinese software so I can actually be free in my own computer, the transfer to Bizarro-World is complete.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If I may ask, who does tech support for Windows?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Let me see, Linux since 1994 in my case? Sure, I also have Windows for gaming, but as soon as Win7 goes out of service, gaming is the only thing I will be doing on Windows and it will get exactly the network access needed for that, nothing else. For the occasional use of MS Office, I will use a Win7 VM under Linux with no network access.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
If I may ask, who does tech support for Windows?
The guy who keeps phoning me from India to tell me I have a windows problem?
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
I have two current consoles and I pay no monthly fee...
I also don't even look at a game if there is a monthly fee associated with it.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
The problems you are listing are Windows problems and not Linux problems. It's like you are complaining that your Ford parts don't fit on your new GM.
The MS Office argument is B/S. Very few need MS Office because very few need Macros but keep telling yourself that.
Printer/Scanner/fax is faster on Linux than Mac or Windows but I guess it's what you buy or how long you keep your stuff. I have a scanner that is 20 years old and still works on Linux but there is no support on Windows.
What I see is people making choices and then complaining why their choices suck but don't want to even try a different solution. Windows sucks because of the items you listed. On Mac, Linux *BSD's or even Windows you don't have these issues if you choose OSS. It's the decisions you make. 30 years I've had no issues running business and personal stuff without being dependent on MS or Apple.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
I use linux as a gaming platform. I have 100s of titles to choose from on steam. What few titles i want that are not there run fine on wine (ok so only one title, Eve online).
Also gaming mouse/keyboards etc work out of the box for me, on linux. So yea think your a bit behind the times on plug and pray. It really is mostly plug and play. Including bluetooth stuff, game controllers, etc.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
I'm thinking the opposite. Are there actually any people who use web-based apps for serious day to day work? Which kind of applications? I can't think of a single work-related application type for which the available desktop choices don't outperform any web-based choices by a large margin. For many types of applications such as image, movie, and audio editing there are not even any serious web-based competitors yet, for other types of applications they are abysmal or vendor-lock you in for no reason.
To me the web application hype seems more often about burning VC funding and selling startups rather than creating attractive and sustainable products.
With Unity and UE4, it's never been easier for small studios to develop for Linux in parallel, even if their primary market is Windows.
Sure indie developers support Linux, especially since the PS4 is BSD so they can share much of the codebase. But the problem is the non-indie devs. Bioware? Bethesda? Blizzard? Square-Enix?
Flight sticks?
They work. I've tested an HOTAS with the Linux version of War Thunder and while I don't have the hardware for TrackIR on Linux, it is possible to do headtracking on Linux.
Its not a "MS Windows problem" as its NOT a problem if you stay with Windows...which is the point. Know how easy it is to install a printer in Win 7? "Clicky clicky next next next" and with win 8 and 10? you don't have to do anything, its all automatic by default.
And lets get to the real nasty rotting elephant in the room which is Linux sucks donkey nuts when it comes to backwards compatibility. i have customers with some programs that are 10+ years old, know how hard it is to get them running in the latest Windows? "choose compatibility mode, clicky clicky next next next" and that isn't even required for more than half of them, for those just install and run OOTB. You just try getting a program from 2001 or even 2010 running on Linux and you will quickly find you are royally fucked, because thanks to the lack of a stable ABI every damned thing is tied to some old kernel that hasn't been supported in years and is incompatible with anything modern...makes the .DLL hell of Win9X look sane by comparison.
Look its REALLY simple, offer a better product and users will take it, offer a worse one and they won't, its really THAT simple and honestly Linux is simply an inferior product in all the ways that users give a shit about, hardware/software compatibility, ease of use, backwards compatibility (which if anything has gotten WORSE not better) and quality of software...Linux just doesn't have it. Instead what they have is sadly a bunch of antisocial devs that think their shit doesn't stink and honestly believe that offering some shitty half ass substitute like GNUCash or Libreoffice or GIMP, zero backwards compatibility, and frankly piss poor compatibility with so many devices that end users come into contact with every day like Wifi adapters, scanner/fax/printer combos, and cameras is "good enough"...sorry but the user has a choice and the choice is waste time with an inferior product that doesn't do half of what their old system did or simply stick with Windows and have it "just work", now which do YOU think the average end user is gonna choose?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.