how do you people buying this stuff get over the noise of the fans? and how often do you have to exchange the fans? i buy only hardware with speed-to-noise ratio near infinity.
Well, the Sox fans can be a real nuisance around here... But I hear they're nothing compared to Packers fans...
(And speaking of playing video without issues - trying to innovate before getting basic functionality like that working is, in my opinion, the wrong way to go about it... Functionality first - then get fancy...)
And who exactly is doing that? I've been using mplayer to play videos on Linux without issues since 2002.
It depends on the videos, of course. The version of VLC currently in Debian has awful problems with subtitles (it makes them huge when you go to fullscreen mode) - though I believe that bug's already been fixed in the version on debian-multimedia... Until recent versions of mplayer I couldn't get soft subtitles from ogg and mkv files at all.
With either version I had serious issues trying to play DVDs - some crashes and some seriously messed-up display. I'll be generous and say it could be an interaction between marginal-level defects in the DVD's encoding and the app playing it...
VLC has bugs where attempting to jump forward or back using keyboard shortcuts sometimes sends you back to the beginning of the file (for certain video formats, I guess...) I have had issues with various players not always cleaning up its child processes, too.
Of course, the situation is a lot better than it used to be. I remember "gtv" being a big improvement over "xanim"... Things are moving forward - I just think there's still a lot to do in terms of basic functionality (not just talking about video players, here...), and it's probably worth focusing on that before we try to get too fancy...
In other words, there is no "normal" user--each individual's use of software changes over time. Designing for this is what makes UI work so tough.
True - that has to be a real challenge with something like Office, where there's so much functionality but they still have to try to make it all easy to reach...
My point was that, basically, it seems to me that the usual UI dogma states that the "typical end user" should always be the target audience for an application unless the purpose or scope of the application makes it impossible.
Of course, obviously if you design your application so that it is accessible to the broadest possible audience, that is generally advantageous for maximizing the number of people who will use it... I just don't feel that technically-oriented people as a group should be treated as though they don't matter when it comes time to decide how software applications should be designed. There's no reason we can't have a system designed specifically for our use - so I am more interested in helping create that system (with Linux as a base, presumably) than writing code to help make Linux commercially viable as an end-user system, for instance...
There will be no year of Linux where Linux goes from 0.9% to 100%, that's a myth but 1/3 of the netbook are sold with Linux.
It could happen... Didn't you ever see that Twilight Zone episode with Burgess Meredith? "Time Enough At Last"? Something like that could make the Linux Desktop share skyrocket overnight...
Not as in "it replaces Windows and Mac OS X" but as in "more and more people are buying Linux computers", which are those small netbooks.
The general public started buying Linux machines without really being aware of it. They don't need to know about Linux, all they need is a web browser, email, IM, etc.
That was pretty cool - but it seems like netbooks are moving back toward large drive capacities and Windows now...
I'm sure to some extent the use of Linux on netbooks will continue - but for most users, the Windows versions represent a modest (if any) increase of cost for a significant increase of functionality (particularly, the ability to run Windows software...) - so for many users the Windows version would be the better buy.
I used to be a big fan of Palm. For the life of me I have NO IDEA WHAT THEY HAVE BEEN DOING.
I don't think they do, either - not for the last five or six years at least. I'm sure selling off their OS seemed like a good idea at the time (the time when other companies besides Palm made PalmOS devices)
It's kind of sad - they were in decline ever since their peak in 2000 or so, and they had one damn good shot at a comeback, which was their success with the Treo 600 and 650... For a while it really was the best smartphone out there - good browser, good form factor, good display... But it only took, what, a couple years for the competitors to catch up?
Six years of PACE (and more recently, NVFS) was enough to kill my interest in Palm development, and with it any interest in getting another Palm device. It's too late for them - competitors have been providing better products for too long, their momentum as the former kings of handheld computing is long gone... Time for something else.
Every time I get a new version of Windows or Office at work my productivy goes through the floor because I have to learn to use the damned thing all over again, as it's more different from its earlier counterpart than from its competetion.
You're joking, right? I mean, I understand your post is to "rah, rah" Linux, but seriously? Relearning Windows?
I don't feel like Windows changed too drastically in the versions I've used (I guess, 95 through XP) but Office... The version of Office on my machine (Office 2007) apparently doesn't follow any of the UI rules that govern other applications, and bears little resemblance to its predecessors. I can't stand it. I can appreciate that they're looking to provide a lot of functionality there - so I take that in part as an attempt to make the UI present that functionality better...
If we keep copying whatever Microsoft implemented 3 years ago, we'll never pass them... What we need are real killer applications in completely new spaces.
Yeah, yeah, people keep saying that. In every thread that in any message board where anyone had declared "the year of Linux on the deskop", someone has tried to argue that "the problem with Linux" is that Linux developers are just trying to copy Windows. And the people making that argument always fail to include the same thing: a single idea on what different/new thing Linux developers are supposed to include.
But the fact is, it's never that easy to come up with a revolutionary idea, and it's often not necessary. What most people use their computers for is still web surfing, email, the word processor, and maybe storing music and pictures. If Linux is enabling people to do those things easily, reliably, and without frustration, then it has already "passed" Windows.
I'd like to add to this my perspective:
First off, if every Linux application developer sets themselves to the task of making their program innovative in some way, you'll wind up with a bunch of different innovative designs - and they may not all fit in with each other. Useful innovation requires clear leadership on the form that innovation will take - and for that clear leadership, striking out in an exciting new direction, to actually yield a good result across a wide range of software, that requires a lot of good thought about the problem, combined with experimentation to see how the design plays out.
Now, combine that with a second factor: when something new and different comes along that's better than what came before, people aren't necessarily going to flock to it right away. To some extent people enjoy staying with what's familiar to them. This is where really good PR and advertising comes in handy. It's not enough to create an exciting new product, you have to get people to use it.
The latter is a problem I've thought a lot about: I want to create a new Unix shell, quite different from the typical ones. I believe it will be a big improvement - but I also recognize that, once it's written, it's going to be an uphill battle to get people to use it.
Basically, when you're talking about "innovation" there is a big advantage to being the company who controls the de-facto standard OS in the computing world - able to make almost any change to the OS without significant fear of losing business, with the resources to make these changes carefully and to get people to embrace them as well. Now, that doesn't mean it always works out right or that Microsoft's designs are always the best for everyone - just that Microsoft has a kind of power to make and promote change that is difficult for Free Software to match.
One final point - I am a big advocate of the idea that, despite common ideas about UI design, a UI isn't (and perhaps can't be) "one size fits all". Most commonly applications are targeted at "normal" users - people who are normally expected to be content within a somewhat limited range of functionality, so long as it's easy and it works right. I think there is room in the world for applications targeted at users like myself - people who are happy to see things like scripting interfaces to an application not only present, but reflected within the UI itself (as in Emacs, for instance). There is not always a huge overlap between these groups and one does not need to "take over" the other. In that sense, the innovative side of Linux is as a proving ground of experimental code for this kind of user. If I can have that, plus be able to watch my video files without issues, then I'm a happy Linux user.
(And speaking of playing video without issues - trying to innovate before getting basic functionality like that working is, in my opinion, the wrong way to go about it... Functionality first - then get fancy...)
If you fuck with the firmware of any device you are asking for the device getting bricked. Now, are you demanding from Apple to make sure their updates don't break iPhones that got hacked in any conceivable way?
I agree with that, to some extent - a good analogy is when the release of DS Wi-Fi titles bricked Nintendo DSes that had been flashed with old versions of FlashMe. That's fair, you hack the device, you take the risk.
You can't have it both ways, is all. If you go up the thread a few steps, I was replying to the claim that Apple has done nothing to lock down the iPhone, since it's so easy to hack the firmware. But Apple is happy to have everyone know that if you do this, you run the risk of ruining your device. Thus, there's a technical restriction in place (the framework of the stock firmware) which impedes people from hacking the iPhone, and then there's the FUD layer introduced by "oops, your phone is ruined by the software update we just pushed out, and it's your fault". Two separate approaches to stopping people from hacking their hardware - one technical, one psychological. Even combined, of course, they're not entirely successful - but Apple has done what it can (and continues to do what it can) to prevent people from gaining access to their hardware.
Even if you don't take the dangers associated with jailbreaking an iPhone into account, one cannot say that Apple has done nothing to prevent people from hacking the iPhone - because there were certain challenges that had to be met in order to solve the jailbreak problem in the first place (and again, each time Apple patches the firmware to stop jailbreaks)... The fact that they can make people worry about the dangers of jailbreaking (dangers Apple introduced themselves, by creating the situation in which a jailbreak was necessary in order to take control of the device) is just one more way they work to impede that and retain control over the platform.
You should try using some of those products. Yes, the iPod doesn't make coffee, but your coffee maker doesn't play music. If you want coffee, don't buy an iPod.
So... If I like coffee then I wouldn't like an iPod? That's good to know. Thanks!
I'm also glad that people still make real smartphones like Treos, because I am a PDA user and I refuse to give up meaningful features for marketing fluff and looks. My four-year-old Treo model has many, many features that the iPhone lacks, including multimedia features like stereo bluetooth support and over a decade's worth of third-party software available directly from the people who developed it.
I'm with you there - except that Palm dropped the ball on PalmOS in a major way. For instance, the version of PalmOS installed on the Treo 650 has a fun little bug - where if the device crashes while a database is open, the database ceases to exist. This is a known bug, they even fixed it - but they couldn't be bothered to issue a patch for the people stuck with this problem... PalmOS in general is in a sorry state these days. And most everything still runs on the PACE M68K emulation layer, which is really just sad...
I guess in terms of credit where credit's due for the iPhone: Moving away from stylus operation of the touchscreen was in many ways a good idea... You don't get the fine control that you would with a stylus, but on the flip side, that means that interfaces are designed such that you generally don't need one... In a sense this is an improvement upon the Palm devices' design philosophy of making the most of the limitations of a device given how people have to interact with it. Bringing multi-touch, accelerometers, and gesture-based UI was perhaps long overdue...
Apple actually understands the difference between a general purpose computer that geeks can program and customise and a domestic appliance which "just works".
If you buy a general purpose computer from Apple these days, it comes with a complete set of developer tools and all the Unixy command-line goodness that a geek could want (or you can just slap Linux on it). Buy an iPod, however, and, shock horror, it works like an appliance in that is a bit closed with a simple interface, for much the same reason that TVs haven't come with vertical hold and convergence knobs since sometime last century.
If they could they would turn computers into "appliances" as well - the only reason they can't is because people's expectations of computers haven't settled into a stable pattern yet. Anything else they can sell you - phones, music players, TV boxes, etc., they'll make much more limited, and lock 'em down so they can lock you in to their services.
There is a difference between providing a computer device that does just one thing and does it well, and going a step further and preventing it from doing anything else. From the manufacturer's perspective there are good reasons to do this - that, however, does not mean that I have to like it.
See, it seems reasonable that a 32-bit OS kernel will not handle more than a few gigabytes of RAM as efficiently as a 64-bit OS kernel. By default, 32-bit Linux puts memory over the 960MB mark into a "highmem" pool that's less efficient. It wouldn't surprise me if Windows does something similar. I'm less familiar with its VM and its limitations, although I recall hearing rumblings about XP and a 2GB limit. (Note: I haven't looked into it and could be talking out of my ass there about XP.)
The page there says that under normal circumstances the per-process addressable memory space for a process in 32-bit Windows is limited to 2GiB - up to 3GiB (a bit more than that, actually, IIRC) if some option is set.
Of course, as you say, not a lot of stuff actually needs all that RAM... I guess it'll be a gradual transition, then - as more people upgrade to machines with the 64-bit instruction set, more programs will be built for 64-bit...
For me, just having those extra registers is worth it. GCC's a lot better at optimizing code when it has a bit of elbow room.
Why have a Linux distro focused solely on wine when you could have an operating system based off of it? http://reactos.org/
For that matter, there's a mature, actively-developed operating system that runs Windows applications better than any other OS out there... That one might be another option if you want to run Windows programs...
Slashdot Mirror
how do you people buying this stuff get over the noise of the fans? and how often do you have to exchange the fans?
i buy only hardware with speed-to-noise ratio near infinity.
Well, the Sox fans can be a real nuisance around here... But I hear they're nothing compared to Packers fans...
A fight to the death? No! A fight to the pain!
Misread that for a second as "A fight to the Palin"...
But then the image of Michael Palin slapping Sarah Palin made it all worthwhile...
(And speaking of playing video without issues - trying to innovate before getting basic functionality like that working is, in my opinion, the wrong way to go about it... Functionality first - then get fancy...)
And who exactly is doing that? I've been using mplayer to play videos on Linux without issues since 2002.
It depends on the videos, of course. The version of VLC currently in Debian has awful problems with subtitles (it makes them huge when you go to fullscreen mode) - though I believe that bug's already been fixed in the version on debian-multimedia... Until recent versions of mplayer I couldn't get soft subtitles from ogg and mkv files at all.
With either version I had serious issues trying to play DVDs - some crashes and some seriously messed-up display. I'll be generous and say it could be an interaction between marginal-level defects in the DVD's encoding and the app playing it...
VLC has bugs where attempting to jump forward or back using keyboard shortcuts sometimes sends you back to the beginning of the file (for certain video formats, I guess...) I have had issues with various players not always cleaning up its child processes, too.
Of course, the situation is a lot better than it used to be. I remember "gtv" being a big improvement over "xanim"... Things are moving forward - I just think there's still a lot to do in terms of basic functionality (not just talking about video players, here...), and it's probably worth focusing on that before we try to get too fancy...
In other words, there is no "normal" user--each individual's use of software changes over time. Designing for this is what makes UI work so tough.
True - that has to be a real challenge with something like Office, where there's so much functionality but they still have to try to make it all easy to reach...
My point was that, basically, it seems to me that the usual UI dogma states that the "typical end user" should always be the target audience for an application unless the purpose or scope of the application makes it impossible.
Of course, obviously if you design your application so that it is accessible to the broadest possible audience, that is generally advantageous for maximizing the number of people who will use it... I just don't feel that technically-oriented people as a group should be treated as though they don't matter when it comes time to decide how software applications should be designed. There's no reason we can't have a system designed specifically for our use - so I am more interested in helping create that system (with Linux as a base, presumably) than writing code to help make Linux commercially viable as an end-user system, for instance...
Correlation is not explanation.
Correlation is not causa... wait... huh?
Text mismatch error.
Correlation is not explanation.
You guys have got it all wrong... ATI cards are all the rage... Or, I guess they were until the Radeon...
There will be no year of Linux where Linux goes from 0.9% to 100%, that's a myth but 1/3 of the netbook are sold with Linux.
It could happen... Didn't you ever see that Twilight Zone episode with Burgess Meredith? "Time Enough At Last"? Something like that could make the Linux Desktop share skyrocket overnight...
Not as in "it replaces Windows and Mac OS X" but as in "more and more people are buying Linux computers", which are those small netbooks.
The general public started buying Linux machines without really being aware of it. They don't need to know about Linux, all they need is a web browser, email, IM, etc.
That was pretty cool - but it seems like netbooks are moving back toward large drive capacities and Windows now...
I'm sure to some extent the use of Linux on netbooks will continue - but for most users, the Windows versions represent a modest (if any) increase of cost for a significant increase of functionality (particularly, the ability to run Windows software...) - so for many users the Windows version would be the better buy.
I used to be a big fan of Palm. For the life of me I have NO IDEA WHAT THEY HAVE BEEN DOING.
I don't think they do, either - not for the last five or six years at least. I'm sure selling off their OS seemed like a good idea at the time (the time when other companies besides Palm made PalmOS devices)
It's kind of sad - they were in decline ever since their peak in 2000 or so, and they had one damn good shot at a comeback, which was their success with the Treo 600 and 650... For a while it really was the best smartphone out there - good browser, good form factor, good display... But it only took, what, a couple years for the competitors to catch up?
Six years of PACE (and more recently, NVFS) was enough to kill my interest in Palm development, and with it any interest in getting another Palm device. It's too late for them - competitors have been providing better products for too long, their momentum as the former kings of handheld computing is long gone... Time for something else.
Every time I get a new version of Windows or Office at work my productivy goes through the floor because I have to learn to use the damned thing all over again, as it's more different from its earlier counterpart than from its competetion.
You're joking, right? I mean, I understand your post is to "rah, rah" Linux, but seriously? Relearning Windows?
I don't feel like Windows changed too drastically in the versions I've used (I guess, 95 through XP) but Office... The version of Office on my machine (Office 2007) apparently doesn't follow any of the UI rules that govern other applications, and bears little resemblance to its predecessors. I can't stand it. I can appreciate that they're looking to provide a lot of functionality there - so I take that in part as an attempt to make the UI present that functionality better...
95% of people only need a Word processor, a browser and photoshop. You can get that with any OS from the last ten years...
Photoshop might be a problem on Linux... But then, most people don't need Photoshop. GIMP is plenty for what I do.
If we keep copying whatever Microsoft implemented 3 years ago, we'll never pass them... What we need are real killer applications in completely new spaces.
Yeah, yeah, people keep saying that. In every thread that in any message board where anyone had declared "the year of Linux on the deskop", someone has tried to argue that "the problem with Linux" is that Linux developers are just trying to copy Windows. And the people making that argument always fail to include the same thing: a single idea on what different/new thing Linux developers are supposed to include.
But the fact is, it's never that easy to come up with a revolutionary idea, and it's often not necessary. What most people use their computers for is still web surfing, email, the word processor, and maybe storing music and pictures. If Linux is enabling people to do those things easily, reliably, and without frustration, then it has already "passed" Windows.
I'd like to add to this my perspective:
First off, if every Linux application developer sets themselves to the task of making their program innovative in some way, you'll wind up with a bunch of different innovative designs - and they may not all fit in with each other. Useful innovation requires clear leadership on the form that innovation will take - and for that clear leadership, striking out in an exciting new direction, to actually yield a good result across a wide range of software, that requires a lot of good thought about the problem, combined with experimentation to see how the design plays out.
Now, combine that with a second factor: when something new and different comes along that's better than what came before, people aren't necessarily going to flock to it right away. To some extent people enjoy staying with what's familiar to them. This is where really good PR and advertising comes in handy. It's not enough to create an exciting new product, you have to get people to use it.
The latter is a problem I've thought a lot about: I want to create a new Unix shell, quite different from the typical ones. I believe it will be a big improvement - but I also recognize that, once it's written, it's going to be an uphill battle to get people to use it.
Basically, when you're talking about "innovation" there is a big advantage to being the company who controls the de-facto standard OS in the computing world - able to make almost any change to the OS without significant fear of losing business, with the resources to make these changes carefully and to get people to embrace them as well. Now, that doesn't mean it always works out right or that Microsoft's designs are always the best for everyone - just that Microsoft has a kind of power to make and promote change that is difficult for Free Software to match.
One final point - I am a big advocate of the idea that, despite common ideas about UI design, a UI isn't (and perhaps can't be) "one size fits all". Most commonly applications are targeted at "normal" users - people who are normally expected to be content within a somewhat limited range of functionality, so long as it's easy and it works right. I think there is room in the world for applications targeted at users like myself - people who are happy to see things like scripting interfaces to an application not only present, but reflected within the UI itself (as in Emacs, for instance). There is not always a huge overlap between these groups and one does not need to "take over" the other. In that sense, the innovative side of Linux is as a proving ground of experimental code for this kind of user. If I can have that, plus be able to watch my video files without issues, then I'm a happy Linux user.
(And speaking of playing video without issues - trying to innovate before getting basic functionality like that working is, in my opinion, the wrong way to go about it... Functionality first - then get fancy...)
If you fuck with the firmware of any device you are asking for the device getting bricked. Now, are you demanding from Apple to make sure their updates don't break iPhones that got hacked in any conceivable way?
I agree with that, to some extent - a good analogy is when the release of DS Wi-Fi titles bricked Nintendo DSes that had been flashed with old versions of FlashMe. That's fair, you hack the device, you take the risk.
You can't have it both ways, is all. If you go up the thread a few steps, I was replying to the claim that Apple has done nothing to lock down the iPhone, since it's so easy to hack the firmware. But Apple is happy to have everyone know that if you do this, you run the risk of ruining your device. Thus, there's a technical restriction in place (the framework of the stock firmware) which impedes people from hacking the iPhone, and then there's the FUD layer introduced by "oops, your phone is ruined by the software update we just pushed out, and it's your fault". Two separate approaches to stopping people from hacking their hardware - one technical, one psychological. Even combined, of course, they're not entirely successful - but Apple has done what it can (and continues to do what it can) to prevent people from gaining access to their hardware.
Even if you don't take the dangers associated with jailbreaking an iPhone into account, one cannot say that Apple has done nothing to prevent people from hacking the iPhone - because there were certain challenges that had to be met in order to solve the jailbreak problem in the first place (and again, each time Apple patches the firmware to stop jailbreaks)... The fact that they can make people worry about the dangers of jailbreaking (dangers Apple introduced themselves, by creating the situation in which a jailbreak was necessary in order to take control of the device) is just one more way they work to impede that and retain control over the platform.
...to name it after Robert Heinlein.
I can see it now...
"The Pompous Windbag Commemorative Spaceport"...
Wasn't there the small matter of some iPhones getting bricked?
What if someone took a video of a goatse-style feat, and edited it to make it effectively lip-sync "Never Gonna Give You Up"? Best of both worlds?
Maybe Steve will die for a few days and then come back from the dead, like Jesus.
We could crucify him - would that help? Let's try it.
I'm pretty sure the reason that Jobs won't be presenting at MacWorld is that "One More Thing" at the expo will be a Cyborg Steve Jobs.
Station's Creation!
You should try using some of those products. Yes, the iPod doesn't make coffee, but your coffee maker doesn't play music. If you want coffee, don't buy an iPod.
So... If I like coffee then I wouldn't like an iPod? That's good to know. Thanks!
I'm also glad that people still make real smartphones like Treos, because I am a PDA user and I refuse to give up meaningful features for marketing fluff and looks. My four-year-old Treo model has many, many features that the iPhone lacks, including multimedia features like stereo bluetooth support and over a decade's worth of third-party software available directly from the people who developed it.
I'm with you there - except that Palm dropped the ball on PalmOS in a major way. For instance, the version of PalmOS installed on the Treo 650 has a fun little bug - where if the device crashes while a database is open, the database ceases to exist. This is a known bug, they even fixed it - but they couldn't be bothered to issue a patch for the people stuck with this problem... PalmOS in general is in a sorry state these days. And most everything still runs on the PACE M68K emulation layer, which is really just sad...
I guess in terms of credit where credit's due for the iPhone:
Moving away from stylus operation of the touchscreen was in many ways a good idea... You don't get the fine control that you would with a stylus, but on the flip side, that means that interfaces are designed such that you generally don't need one... In a sense this is an improvement upon the Palm devices' design philosophy of making the most of the limitations of a device given how people have to interact with it. Bringing multi-touch, accelerometers, and gesture-based UI was perhaps long overdue...
Apple actually understands the difference between a general purpose computer that geeks can program and customise and a domestic appliance which "just works".
If you buy a general purpose computer from Apple these days, it comes with a complete set of developer tools and all the Unixy command-line goodness that a geek could want (or you can just slap Linux on it). Buy an iPod, however, and, shock horror, it works like an appliance in that is a bit closed with a simple interface, for much the same reason that TVs haven't come with vertical hold and convergence knobs since sometime last century.
If they could they would turn computers into "appliances" as well - the only reason they can't is because people's expectations of computers haven't settled into a stable pattern yet. Anything else they can sell you - phones, music players, TV boxes, etc., they'll make much more limited, and lock 'em down so they can lock you in to their services.
There is a difference between providing a computer device that does just one thing and does it well, and going a step further and preventing it from doing anything else. From the manufacturer's perspective there are good reasons to do this - that, however, does not mean that I have to like it.
Except nowadays people think that's a bad thing because instead of checks and balances it's called "activist judges".
That's because they had a nice streak of creating laws rather than enforcing rights.
What laws?
See, it seems reasonable that a 32-bit OS kernel will not handle more than a few gigabytes of RAM as efficiently as a 64-bit OS kernel. By default, 32-bit Linux puts memory over the 960MB mark into a "highmem" pool that's less efficient. It wouldn't surprise me if Windows does something similar. I'm less familiar with its VM and its limitations, although I recall hearing rumblings about XP and a 2GB limit. (Note: I haven't looked into it and could be talking out of my ass there about XP.)
I can verify that...
Windows Memory Limits
The page there says that under normal circumstances the per-process addressable memory space for a process in 32-bit Windows is limited to 2GiB - up to 3GiB (a bit more than that, actually, IIRC) if some option is set.
Of course, as you say, not a lot of stuff actually needs all that RAM... I guess it'll be a gradual transition, then - as more people upgrade to machines with the 64-bit instruction set, more programs will be built for 64-bit...
For me, just having those extra registers is worth it. GCC's a lot better at optimizing code when it has a bit of elbow room.
Why have a Linux distro focused solely on wine when you could have an operating system based off of it? http://reactos.org/
For that matter, there's a mature, actively-developed operating system that runs Windows applications better than any other OS out there... That one might be another option if you want to run Windows programs...