You aren't alone, Linux does a lot of things right but driver support and commercial software aren't among them.
Ever make a forced move to Windows Vista and half of the recently purchased peripherals don't work any more? I always have to laugh when someone brings up the terrible driver support in Linus, which by corrolary sends teh Message that Windows has superlative support.
Even now, I reently set up a number of dual boot computers that used a USB to serial converters. The converters worled perfectly on the Linux side, Just entered the manufacture number and device number and th eOS went out installed and it just worked.
On the Windows side - it wouldn't work. So I manually get the model number off the device and look it up. No support under W10, and no driver will be written.
So I had to get a different device so that Windows - the presumptive leader in drivers and support of devices - would work with it.
Meanwhile I just set up a real edge case of Linux on a Chromebook, and it functions perfectly.
"doesn't run needed apps
doesn't run needed apps
doesn't run needed apps"
Needed, or desired? If 'needed', there's usually a workaround. If no workaround or alternative, too bad, so sad. You're just gonna have to bend over and take it.
Isn't it funny how Stockholm has taken over the shillings? Or sad maybe.
But I do understand. I have some applications that I need to use software that only exists on the Mac platform. Windows shills don't seem to understand that.
> that reports all of your personal information and activities on the internet
citation please. For exactly what you said rather than some subset of it.
Do we need to give citations for teh existence of asshole on humans? Sheesh, if you haven't paid attention to all of the information about Windows telemetry, Windows ignoring hostfiles that phone home, Windows own settings, and the multitude of places it phones home to, you aren't going to believe any cites at this point
If by some really slim chance you are earnest, Google-fu is your friend. Or DDG-fu.
"I think that there is a real chance of some flavor of Linux making it with decisions like this from MS."
Maybe if they got their shit together and stopped trying to be a hobby OS with 250+ distributions, god knows how many toolkits, window managers, compositors, and other bullshit, maybe. How does anyone not go insane trying to develop for that shit? Oh right, they just don't.
Ummm, you don't quite know how the distro system works do ya?
There was no Russian hacking. There was however extensive DNC vote rigging and sactuary city illegal voting. Now get back to work.
Step up your game Ivan. Most people are numb to your deflection by now, so ya gotta amp it up to 11. Threaten to tell everyone about everyone's midget shemale scat porn addiction if they don't toe the line or you'll never collect those rubles.
What is Russia offering that Israel, Germany, and the UK aren't?
The dirt and espionage on Americans. Which as has already been admitted and is proven in an email trail, is what this administration believes is something anyone would want to participate in.
Worth noting that the problems are mostly South Australia the state, not a general geographic area. And the reason is that unlike the US or Europe, Australia's population isn't evenly distributed, so the electricity 'grid' is more like a long string with South Australia at the end of it. When transmission lines went down, the people at the end of the string were screwed, regardless of generation type.
I've long been a fan of decentralizing electrical power as much as possible. Those long stretches of HV transmission lines with very few if any users is a symptom of a problem. I get into arguments with my NucE friends all the time about this. Smaller, less energy dense power generation is the way to go, without the kaboom risks. While they argued that the power generation must be balls to the wall, economy of scale or not at all; solar and wind have come along and started decentralizing power generation without them.
While what you wrote is true enough, for your case, it is actually a disadvantage.
It's nothing more than a fact. Windows is the best option for gaming, and the only option for AAA gaming.
And the only thing in the world is gaming, amiright? I wouldn't game if my only option was Windows. It isn't important enough to me, and unless you are a professional, it is a completely voluntary activity. In the meantime, I can use other options for the occasions I want to do that.
Wow! What's your point? The internet is mad you are wasting it's bits.
You wrote: "It's far better at hosting games than anything. There really isn't even any competition in this regard."
While what you wrote is true enough, for your case, it is actually a disadvantage. I have exactly 1 program that I have to run Windows, because it isn't on any other platform. So I either run W7 on my Mac, or now have a nice Windows laptop.
I don't consider that as a plus, because that was a thousand plus dollars I had to spend for a computer to run one program.
This got me several visits with the counselors and even a long visit with the school principle
Was it written like that on his door?
"You're such a smart young fellow, Ol. If you attend Vocationl Electronics as well as Academic, no one will think of you as doing something hard - they'll just think of you as that stupid kid that had to go to Vo-Tech.
And on and on. Finally I just said "You make some sense, I'll have ot think about this!" in order to end the meeting.
Turns out however, that taking both courses has stood me well, both career-wise, and financially.
It's not about "stuff that pisses you off," it's about actively hostile design: designs that impede users that aren't just printing emails all day.
Looks like you won the discussion. Actively hostile designs is brutal and on point.
It is absolutely clear to me that the people responsible for the "start menu" in Windows have it as their mission to thwart and confound power users; they don't give fuck number one about what we want.
Well, I don't know that it is quite that hostile. But it is a matter of replacing an interface that worked well, that people were familiar with, with one that someone decided was better, and that anyone who did not like it was just wrong. And that is tied deeply in with many of the user's who meet every complaint, every problem with blaming the user. It's why I always say Windows never fails, only we can fail Windows.
The look and feel of Windows 95 to XP was very good. Once learned, it was remarkably logical, and a user could work their way around and maintain it pretty easily.
The biggest issue is that all of the advances leading up ot Windows 10 could have been achieved without making it look like a PeeWee Herman sized smartphone. Destroying the look and feel by conforming the Desktop to a now defunct cellphone ranks right up there in stupid arrogance.
And no - add ons do not fix the problem.
If I might use the Dreaded OS X as a counter-example, a person who used an early Macintosh would be able to find their way around in MacOS Sierra after a few minutes of shock. What is more, if people actually wanted a Windows tile sort of interface, they could use LaunchPad, which has nice big icons to click on. Not squares or rectangles, but the same feel.
Yet almost no one uses it, because it isn't all that great a method to get around the OS within.
They've messed up the taskbar by conflating launcher icons with running instances of applications. The "ribbon" crap has added nothing while creating bizarre and unintuitive behavior and unnecessary programming complexity. The split brain Settings/Control Panel stuff is just tragic; a drunken crew operating a rudderless ship.
Damn - you're good! The rest of your post repats their idiocy.
>
There has been some good underlying work in Windows. Startup is fast, the OS is very stable, power management, sleep/hibernate seems rock solid, etc. But damn, the crazy UI people and the update management just ruin it. Then there's the whole telemetry thing and Microsoft's indifference to privacy...
Yes. I have no issue with the securty and operation - aside fomr the wretched update problems. But all of that could have been acheived with an interface that looked and felt like XP, or 7.
"Windows 10 is failing us" is a fair assessment. The unnecessary, self-inflicted suck that permeates the OS deserves criticism.
Yes - it is a failure. An operating system that as usual treats the user like they are stupid if they don't like the interface, has many failures upon updates, and telemetry that gives Microsoft the keys to the kingdom. Which ia why on my lone W10 machine, I have nothing but the program I need it for, a throwaway email account for nothing but that computer, and never a thing bought using that computer.
I once had a Mac Plus that only had one floppy drive. Did they engineer that sound a classic Mac makes when it ejects the floppy specifically to sound annoying and dorky? On a single floppy Mac you spent most of your time listening to it as the Mac spits floppies and prompts for another.
I'm really pissed off at Windows 3.1 too. Did they ever fix that?
It's bollocks anyway. I'm typing this on Windows 8, and it's fine. No a "complete disaster" at all. It works, it's no worse than other desktop environments like Gnome.
Gnome sucks as well as Windows 8. At least in many people's opinion. Your opinion that W8 is fine is a reasonable opinion, but you are in a minority.
Look, every OS has some stuff that pisses you off, and some bits that are half arsed.
On MacOS you still throw drives in the bin to eject them. Doesn't make MacOS a "complete disaster".
The only real major flaw in Windows 10 is the forced updates that always seem to pick the most inopportune moment. Well, the telemetry too maybe, but most people don't seem to care.
Or of course you can right click and choose reject.
My issues with the Microsoft Operating systems of late are not so much the interface - aside from the whack-a-mole system maintenance of W8 8.1. But we can all learn to get around in even an awful - IMO - interface like Gnome or W8.
It's that so many machines are bitched up after updates. I spend a good bit of time repairing issues on machines that worked fine one day, then not the next, and all because of an update that the user cannot control. I've never had a Linux or OSX update kill the computer's function. The closest thing on the Mac was an update that made th emachine a little sluggish, but was repaired the next day.
Meanwhile, on the PC we're still getting uninstalled and changed drivers - which now don't work, the dreaded eternal reboot, and amaxingly enough, the BSOD. Which every OS since XP is claimed to have gone away.
Everyone seems to be mentioning Windows XP and 7, arguably some of Windows better work. Everyone seems to be forgetting Vista, 8, and 8.1 that shall we say, were not so great.
Compared to those, Windows 10 is a quite decent OS. P
I read that as damning with faint praise. My wife refused to use her Windows 8 computer after a month. She might consider to use W10, but is slap happy with Linux Mint, so I'm happy with it too.
Windows 10 looks, operates similar to Windows 7 for the most part. But hey, same goes for Windows 8. I guess spending 30 seconds disabling the start screen was just too much. Understandable though, we are busy people we can't be bothered with such things.
But since Windows 7 only gets emergency updates, it doesn't get bitched up all the time. That's the biggest difference.
Slashdot Mirror
You aren't alone, Linux does a lot of things right but driver support and commercial software aren't among them.
Ever make a forced move to Windows Vista and half of the recently purchased peripherals don't work any more? I always have to laugh when someone brings up the terrible driver support in Linus, which by corrolary sends teh Message that Windows has superlative support.
Even now, I reently set up a number of dual boot computers that used a USB to serial converters. The converters worled perfectly on the Linux side, Just entered the manufacture number and device number and th eOS went out installed and it just worked.
On the Windows side - it wouldn't work. So I manually get the model number off the device and look it up. No support under W10, and no driver will be written.
So I had to get a different device so that Windows - the presumptive leader in drivers and support of devices - would work with it.
Meanwhile I just set up a real edge case of Linux on a Chromebook, and it functions perfectly.
"doesn't run needed apps doesn't run needed apps doesn't run needed apps"
Needed, or desired? If 'needed', there's usually a workaround. If no workaround or alternative, too bad, so sad. You're just gonna have to bend over and take it.
Isn't it funny how Stockholm has taken over the shillings? Or sad maybe.
But I do understand. I have some applications that I need to use software that only exists on the Mac platform. Windows shills don't seem to understand that.
doesn't run needed apps doesn't run needed apps doesn't run needed apps
Yeah I have that issue too. That's why I have a Mac. It has the applications I must have that aren't available on Windows.
> that reports all of your personal information and activities on the internet
citation please. For exactly what you said rather than some subset of it.
Do we need to give citations for teh existence of asshole on humans? Sheesh, if you haven't paid attention to all of the information about Windows telemetry, Windows ignoring hostfiles that phone home, Windows own settings, and the multitude of places it phones home to, you aren't going to believe any cites at this point
If by some really slim chance you are earnest, Google-fu is your friend. Or DDG-fu.
Linux is not perfect, but it's far better than.......
Windows 10
It's pretty easy to avoid obsoleting hardware when the only hardware you support is your own.
You're on to something there, weedhopper.
"I think that there is a real chance of some flavor of Linux making it with decisions like this from MS."
Maybe if they got their shit together and stopped trying to be a hobby OS with 250+ distributions, god knows how many toolkits, window managers, compositors, and other bullshit, maybe. How does anyone not go insane trying to develop for that shit? Oh right, they just don't.
Ummm, you don't quite know how the distro system works do ya?
> force everyone on to the same version of your OS > start dropping support for older hardware without iterating the version number
You could have predicted this.
https://debian.org/
FTFY
Basically they come in laptops and tablets for the most part.
Wow - that must make a real mess inside the laptop.
But they won't.
Which brings us to the rub of the nub: Why would anybody still bother to use that crap?
No, not the crappy and backdoored hardware. The software.
Stockholm syndrome.
Excellent post - you've earned your rubles there, comrade.
Boris has indeed served the motherland well, comrades. We shall see that he gets an extra ration of Vodka, and maybe a pair of shoes for his children.
Don't forget what we know about you Boris, you wouldn't want that to get out.......
There was no Russian hacking. There was however extensive DNC vote rigging and sactuary city illegal voting. Now get back to work.
Step up your game Ivan. Most people are numb to your deflection by now, so ya gotta amp it up to 11. Threaten to tell everyone about everyone's midget shemale scat porn addiction if they don't toe the line or you'll never collect those rubles.
What is Russia offering that Israel, Germany, and the UK aren't?
The dirt and espionage on Americans. Which as has already been admitted and is proven in an email trail, is what this administration believes is something anyone would want to participate in.
Yoy have jusy won the idiot of the day competition
Try having less to drink at lunch. You'll be amazed at what you can accomplish.
Well, Ivan and Boris do like a nip of Vodka with all their meals.
It is true - It was a harbinger. Just not the way people thought it was.
Worth noting that the problems are mostly South Australia the state, not a general geographic area. And the reason is that unlike the US or Europe, Australia's population isn't evenly distributed, so the electricity 'grid' is more like a long string with South Australia at the end of it. When transmission lines went down, the people at the end of the string were screwed, regardless of generation type.
I've long been a fan of decentralizing electrical power as much as possible. Those long stretches of HV transmission lines with very few if any users is a symptom of a problem. I get into arguments with my NucE friends all the time about this. Smaller, less energy dense power generation is the way to go, without the kaboom risks. While they argued that the power generation must be balls to the wall, economy of scale or not at all; solar and wind have come along and started decentralizing power generation without them.
While what you wrote is true enough, for your case, it is actually a disadvantage.
It's nothing more than a fact. Windows is the best option for gaming, and the only option for AAA gaming.
And the only thing in the world is gaming, amiright? I wouldn't game if my only option was Windows. It isn't important enough to me, and unless you are a professional, it is a completely voluntary activity. In the meantime, I can use other options for the occasions I want to do that.
Wow! What's your point? The internet is mad you are wasting it's bits.
You wrote: "It's far better at hosting games than anything. There really isn't even any competition in this regard."
While what you wrote is true enough, for your case, it is actually a disadvantage. I have exactly 1 program that I have to run Windows, because it isn't on any other platform. So I either run W7 on my Mac, or now have a nice Windows laptop.
I don't consider that as a plus, because that was a thousand plus dollars I had to spend for a computer to run one program.
Was it written like that on his door?
"You're such a smart young fellow, Ol. If you attend Vocationl Electronics as well as Academic, no one will think of you as doing something hard - they'll just think of you as that stupid kid that had to go to Vo-Tech.
And on and on. Finally I just said "You make some sense, I'll have ot think about this!" in order to end the meeting.
Turns out however, that taking both courses has stood me well, both career-wise, and financially.
Siemens quotes 2.6% losses for a 800 kV high voltage DC transmission line over 800 km. Nevada to NYC is 4000 km, so that would be about 13% loss.
Seems odd to have any substations, eh?
It's not about "stuff that pisses you off," it's about actively hostile design: designs that impede users that aren't just printing emails all day.
Looks like you won the discussion. Actively hostile designs is brutal and on point.
It is absolutely clear to me that the people responsible for the "start menu" in Windows have it as their mission to thwart and confound power users; they don't give fuck number one about what we want.
Well, I don't know that it is quite that hostile. But it is a matter of replacing an interface that worked well, that people were familiar with, with one that someone decided was better, and that anyone who did not like it was just wrong. And that is tied deeply in with many of the user's who meet every complaint, every problem with blaming the user. It's why I always say Windows never fails, only we can fail Windows.
The look and feel of Windows 95 to XP was very good. Once learned, it was remarkably logical, and a user could work their way around and maintain it pretty easily.
The biggest issue is that all of the advances leading up ot Windows 10 could have been achieved without making it look like a PeeWee Herman sized smartphone. Destroying the look and feel by conforming the Desktop to a now defunct cellphone ranks right up there in stupid arrogance.
And no - add ons do not fix the problem.
If I might use the Dreaded OS X as a counter-example, a person who used an early Macintosh would be able to find their way around in MacOS Sierra after a few minutes of shock. What is more, if people actually wanted a Windows tile sort of interface, they could use LaunchPad, which has nice big icons to click on. Not squares or rectangles, but the same feel.
Yet almost no one uses it, because it isn't all that great a method to get around the OS within.
They've messed up the taskbar by conflating launcher icons with running instances of applications. The "ribbon" crap has added nothing while creating bizarre and unintuitive behavior and unnecessary programming complexity. The split brain Settings/Control Panel stuff is just tragic; a drunken crew operating a rudderless ship.
Damn - you're good! The rest of your post repats their idiocy.
>
There has been some good underlying work in Windows. Startup is fast, the OS is very stable, power management, sleep/hibernate seems rock solid, etc. But damn, the crazy UI people and the update management just ruin it. Then there's the whole telemetry thing and Microsoft's indifference to privacy...
Yes. I have no issue with the securty and operation - aside fomr the wretched update problems. But all of that could have been acheived with an interface that looked and felt like XP, or 7.
"Windows 10 is failing us" is a fair assessment. The unnecessary, self-inflicted suck that permeates the OS deserves criticism.
Yes - it is a failure. An operating system that as usual treats the user like they are stupid if they don't like the interface, has many failures upon updates, and telemetry that gives Microsoft the keys to the kingdom. Which ia why on my lone W10 machine, I have nothing but the program I need it for, a throwaway email account for nothing but that computer, and never a thing bought using that computer.
I once had a Mac Plus that only had one floppy drive. Did they engineer that sound a classic Mac makes when it ejects the floppy specifically to sound annoying and dorky? On a single floppy Mac you spent most of your time listening to it as the Mac spits floppies and prompts for another.
I'm really pissed off at Windows 3.1 too. Did they ever fix that?
It's bollocks anyway. I'm typing this on Windows 8, and it's fine. No a "complete disaster" at all. It works, it's no worse than other desktop environments like Gnome.
Gnome sucks as well as Windows 8. At least in many people's opinion. Your opinion that W8 is fine is a reasonable opinion, but you are in a minority.
Look, every OS has some stuff that pisses you off, and some bits that are half arsed. On MacOS you still throw drives in the bin to eject them. Doesn't make MacOS a "complete disaster".
The only real major flaw in Windows 10 is the forced updates that always seem to pick the most inopportune moment. Well, the telemetry too maybe, but most people don't seem to care.
Or of course you can right click and choose reject.
My issues with the Microsoft Operating systems of late are not so much the interface - aside from the whack-a-mole system maintenance of W8 8.1. But we can all learn to get around in even an awful - IMO - interface like Gnome or W8.
It's that so many machines are bitched up after updates. I spend a good bit of time repairing issues on machines that worked fine one day, then not the next, and all because of an update that the user cannot control. I've never had a Linux or OSX update kill the computer's function. The closest thing on the Mac was an update that made th emachine a little sluggish, but was repaired the next day.
Meanwhile, on the PC we're still getting uninstalled and changed drivers - which now don't work, the dreaded eternal reboot, and amaxingly enough, the BSOD. Which every OS since XP is claimed to have gone away.
That's my issue with W10, and W8.
Everyone seems to be mentioning Windows XP and 7, arguably some of Windows better work. Everyone seems to be forgetting Vista, 8, and 8.1 that shall we say, were not so great.
Compared to those, Windows 10 is a quite decent OS. P
I read that as damning with faint praise. My wife refused to use her Windows 8 computer after a month. She might consider to use W10, but is slap happy with Linux Mint, so I'm happy with it too.
Windows 10 looks, operates similar to Windows 7 for the most part. But hey, same goes for Windows 8. I guess spending 30 seconds disabling the start screen was just too much. Understandable though, we are busy people we can't be bothered with such things.
But since Windows 7 only gets emergency updates, it doesn't get bitched up all the time. That's the biggest difference.