It's not quibbling over language. The obvious and plain reading of your text was that you were expecting to have to use a touchscreen input on an Android OS.
But regardless, I don't necessarily disagree with you. Though I don't necessarily agree with you either as I have never used Android as a desktop GUI (have you?). From the times I have used the emulator, it hasn't seemed that terrible to use with a mouse and keyboard but that is certainly a different use-case.
There are (amongst others) left and right libertarians. The ones I most closely align with tend to take personal property as a high principal and believe its defense is one of the truly valid things that government can do. You may want to look a little more.
Way to miss the point. Windows 7 works on current hardware because all the drivers are known (although it doesn't support a lot of older hardware). Wait a year or two and it'll be hunt-the-driver just like it has been before.
That is a key problem with the Linux desktop, the only people that care about it and develop it are hardcore geeks/programmers and the stuff they want is diametrically opposed to what ordinary people want in a desktop.
What are you doing to fix it? No, that's not a pat response. You say you want things to change but the simple fact is that changes which are occurring are occurring because people want the changes and are either implementing them or paying others to do so. These people care diddly about what *you* want, why should they?
No one actually reads menus once they've had more than 5 minutes of experience. Possibly just add something that makes the menus "more readable" if you hover over them for a couple of seconds.
They also can't include drivers for hardware which does not yet exist.
Win7 is still fairly young, just wait. I've had trouble installing XP on systems running SATA without having to mess with all that slipstreaming stuff (and that slips into advanced user territory)
That's the problem, it's not a "standard", it's a proprietary Microsoft format that many people have spent more time than they should have needed to to reverse engineer.
And it's my understanding that far from being standard, it's pretty much just a dump of internal state and even Microsoft have had issues reading the format with new software when they have had to.
Exactly. It's not like I don't run into missing libraries on Windows from time-to-time either. It's the same problem, just different solutions and both have their pros and cons. There's no reason that a Windows-style installer can't be used on Linux and I've even seen things which are close a couple of times. For most developers, using the existing infrastructure is cheaper and more reliable.
It's time to stop the command-line/GUI factionalism and come up with a true hybrid desktop that implements the best of both worlds. Even Microsoft have been unable to kill off the command-line, someone was showing windows 8 at work today and in response to someone who didn't like it told them, "You can always hit the windows key and start typing". Let's allow things to be centered around tasks too. directories and virtual desktops lean this way but let's make it a fundamental part of operations.
Also, let's lose the application-centric model and go to a true document-centric model. It looked like Windows was starting to go that way as far back as 3.1 and maybe earlier but then it stalled out. Unix's "everything is a file" metaphor is a good step in that direction too but never really got explored. Mac's resource forks probably would have been something to feed into that too (Though you'd probably get sued for that these days). This is more of a top-down OS change than a desktop change, however.
Let's lose annoying focus grabbing pop-up dialog boxes and per-window menus. One menu at the top, per the old Mac style and some kind of docked dialog/tool area. Remember, document/task, not application centric. Think something like the Visual Studio IDE but designed better and as the actual desktop.
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It's not quibbling over language. The obvious and plain reading of your text was that you were expecting to have to use a touchscreen input on an Android OS.
But regardless, I don't necessarily disagree with you. Though I don't necessarily agree with you either as I have never used Android as a desktop GUI (have you?). From the times I have used the emulator, it hasn't seemed that terrible to use with a mouse and keyboard but that is certainly a different use-case.
Truth. 7 is truly a whole lot better than Vista but under the hood, it's pretty much the same engine.
There are (amongst others) left and right libertarians. The ones I most closely align with tend to take personal property as a high principal and believe its defense is one of the truly valid things that government can do. You may want to look a little more.
Yes it is. I got my start with BASIC, in fact. I avoid it like the plague now though.
Do you not pay your doctor?
That's a different complaint.
If $LANGUAGE_OF_THE_WEEK didn't keep getting bundled into Linux, it wouldn't be quite such a bloated mess.
Don't the electric motors factor into that somewhat though?
Want to go for the trifecta?
Way to miss the point. Windows 7 works on current hardware because all the drivers are known (although it doesn't support a lot of older hardware). Wait a year or two and it'll be hunt-the-driver just like it has been before.
Multiple apps can run at the same time. Just hold down the home button to switch between them (clunky as that is)
You know you can plug a mouse into some Android devices, right?
Eugenics?
That is a key problem with the Linux desktop, the only people that care about it and develop it are hardcore geeks/programmers and the stuff they want is diametrically opposed to what ordinary people want in a desktop.
You see it as a problem, I see it as a solution.
What are you doing to fix it? No, that's not a pat response. You say you want things to change but the simple fact is that changes which are occurring are occurring because people want the changes and are either implementing them or paying others to do so. These people care diddly about what *you* want, why should they?
Maybe the next android release will be JellyDonut?
No one actually reads menus once they've had more than 5 minutes of experience. Possibly just add something that makes the menus "more readable" if you hover over them for a couple of seconds.
I have a command prompt open at all times on windows because the command line is still exceedingly useful.
And the HOSTS file is protected from writing by standard users so there's that...
They also can't include drivers for hardware which does not yet exist.
Win7 is still fairly young, just wait. I've had trouble installing XP on systems running SATA without having to mess with all that slipstreaming stuff (and that slips into advanced user territory)
That's the problem, it's not a "standard", it's a proprietary Microsoft format that many people have spent more time than they should have needed to to reverse engineer.
And it's my understanding that far from being standard, it's pretty much just a dump of internal state and even Microsoft have had issues reading the format with new software when they have had to.
Hard to tell if that was a good or bad move though since the whole ipod thing kinda overshadowed everything.
Exactly. It's not like I don't run into missing libraries on Windows from time-to-time either. It's the same problem, just different solutions and both have their pros and cons. There's no reason that a Windows-style installer can't be used on Linux and I've even seen things which are close a couple of times. For most developers, using the existing infrastructure is cheaper and more reliable.
That's the same as in BASIC. So what's your point?
Another one: let's lose the file extensions too. mime-types go in the resource forks.
It's time to stop the command-line/GUI factionalism and come up with a true hybrid desktop that implements the best of both worlds. Even Microsoft have been unable to kill off the command-line, someone was showing windows 8 at work today and in response to someone who didn't like it told them, "You can always hit the windows key and start typing". Let's allow things to be centered around tasks too. directories and virtual desktops lean this way but let's make it a fundamental part of operations.
Also, let's lose the application-centric model and go to a true document-centric model. It looked like Windows was starting to go that way as far back as 3.1 and maybe earlier but then it stalled out. Unix's "everything is a file" metaphor is a good step in that direction too but never really got explored. Mac's resource forks probably would have been something to feed into that too (Though you'd probably get sued for that these days). This is more of a top-down OS change than a desktop change, however.
Let's lose annoying focus grabbing pop-up dialog boxes and per-window menus. One menu at the top, per the old Mac style and some kind of docked dialog/tool area. Remember, document/task, not application centric. Think something like the Visual Studio IDE but designed better and as the actual desktop.
Oh, and ponies.