This is why PC vendors should have never allowed Microsoft to control their hardware. Unfortunately, Microsoft's gain = consumer pain, as usual. I'm guessing that disabling the secure boot feature entirely in the BIOS will avoid the machine getting bricked? If I purchase any new machine that will be the first thing I'll do, along with throwing the Windows installation discs in the trash can.
I think this will be a good thing. This is for similar reasons that Fedora also chose LibreOffice over OpenOffice. Fedora continues to be an open distribution and I trust their judgement on which products they choose to include with the distribution.
The new Fedora 18 installer is not good, I totally agree with Cox. The old installer was much more intuitive, and flexible at the same time. The new installer is dumbed down so far that it is cumbersome for those that want a custom installation. Why was it changed????? I've found this, combined with Gnome 3, add to many frustrations. And I specifically work with new GNU/Linux users so this adds to their frustration as well. To be honest, Fedora 14 was the last great Fedora distribution, because it was easy to set up and install, and didn't require a bunch of tweaking because of Gnome 3. However, I have found that doing a minimal Fedora 18 install, then installing MATE after it is up and running provides a fairly clean and usable system.
For some reason the mentality is to make everything more basic and hide options we commonly use, so the new installer is definitely not like it was before. Big blocky icons and very slow, and less intuitive than the old installer because you are forced to click around all over and go in to steps and back to a main screen to look and double check what else needs to be done, in order to continue. The old installer guided the user through the steps in sequence. What also frustrated me is they even stripped out the ability to customize which packages can be installed, such as the graphics suite and other software. LibreOffice was listed, but many other titles were left out. This could be because they are not included on the DVD, I haven't checked. I've used GNU/Linux for almost 16 years and the graphical installers over the years have been changed before, but this one was by far more confusing and took a lot longer to figure out. I can see how it would take a new GNU/Linux user even longer and make them more discouraged and confused.
Since the release of Warcraft II, I was a die hard Blizzard fan. All the way through Warcraft III, Diablo, Diablo II, up to Starcraft II. I run these games on GNU/Linux with Wine, and it's great. However, with the release of Diablo III and forcing online-only game play, I'm done with Blizzard. I think it's great that they may be considering a title for the GNU/Linux platform, which is gaining ground for a great gaming platform, however Blizzard's current focus has been shifted away from providing a quality game to making as much money as possible. And it's very unfortunate as its past products have been top notch.
Canonical has no business collecting personal data. Stallman has identified this and is making a good point, that it is counteracting the benefits of free open source software. Canonical can offer this feature, but it should be turned off by default at least. I understand they are trying to generate a revenue stream, but collecting data and putting ads on a desktop doesn't seem to be the way. They are better off utilizing other methods, similar to how Red Hat has created specific distributions targeted to businesses and support is offered for a premium.
Canonical has no business collecting information from local searches, none. The Amazon integration must be for some sort of revenue stream for Canonical (and I do commend them for supplying a mainstream distribution to promote open source software), but they are approaching it the wrong way. If they added the feature as an option that the user could install at will, that would be better than enabling the feature from the start without the user knowing exactly what it does. This is like software I've seen on Windoze such as HP printer software that installs toolbars in Internet Exploder without the user choosing to do so. Canonical should bundle the distributions similar to Red Hat and offer stable distributions with support. Red Hat has paved the way for creating a successful distribution that generates revenue. There's no reason other distributions can't follow suit.
The next major release of RHEL will almost undoubtedly have some classic desktop included. No enterprises will be able to migrate to Gnome 3 easily so there will have to be an option. Since they've put MATE and Cinnamon in F18, I am guessing one or both of those will be available. This is great news for F18, I am looking forward to using it very soon!!!
If you want to let Microsoft do this time and time again to you, go ahead and continue using Windows. If you want to put a permanent end to this behaviour, make the change to Linux and don't look back. Today's Linux distributions are loaded with software to make the transition easier than ever. Wine is continually being improved to run Windows software on Linux. Try a main Linux distribution like Fedora, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, it won't cost you anything except some time.
I think a lot of people used Gnome in the past, because it WAS ahead of the rest. Simplicity, performance, ability to create a custom desktop, and the list goes on. People are complaining because the Gnome team is headed in the wrong direction. Or, at least it seems so for now. Changing to another desktop environment is not fun, but in this case is necessary.
Thank you thank you thank you! Finally some sensible look at this. Of course touchscreens aren't going to replace desktops where we need to get real work done. People that think that we'll all be using touchscreens probably don't use their computers for heavy usage. It's like saying we'll all be using our computers for browsing the web and nothing else. I use the computer for everything, which includes finance, website design, spreadsheets, etc. Some of that just can't be done with a touchscreen interface. The physical mouse and keyboard aren't going away.
Hardware companies need to also release hardware designed for linux. I'm so sick of trying to find a high end notebook only to read that it works with a bunch of "except for a, b, and c". I want a dell/ibm/etc laptop with good battery life, a sleek design, large trackpad, wireless N, and a high end video card that works with linux.
Many distributions like Fedora can install on just about any make/model. Distributions vary because there are still some chip makers that prefer to keep drivers proprietary.
Gaming companies need to release titles for Linux, and this will greatly help. The problem is, Windows is still the most popular OS even though Linux can do a lot of things better. More market share is where the software will be developed for now. The Wine project has made many milestones which have helped closed this gap of Windows & Linux game titles. Let's hope it continues this way.
No surprise there. The same applies to many different areas where Linux is way more efficient than Windows is. Everybody knows Windows is bloated beyond comprehension. I use Linux for my primary machine, and also use Windows machines daily and in comparison the Linux desktop smokes Windows. Everything from data processing, running virtual machines, LAN performance, you name it. Windows has a monopoly and since it has close to 90% of the market, software companies will continue to develop for it. If Linux had more market share, more companies would develop commercial software for it. So, even though Windows has a majority of the market share, it is definitely not the best OS. It's simply the most popular OS, for now.
Last time Dell offered systems but their cost was still higher than those with Windoze. Hopefully they offer the hardware this time at a reasonable price. Or offer PCs without an OS at all, which seems to be hard to find now too. I used to be an avid supporter of Dell, but after they dropped Linux and started playing games and ruined their Dell Outlet site, I stopped buying their equipment.
Techrights definitely has some good content to bring to light a lot of things that happen in the background that we don't see often enough. It's good to hear Stallman's take on the Secure Boot saga. Based on his opinion and the information posted so far, there's nothing to worry about as it can be disabled. Even though Fedora and Ubuntu will use the technology to make it easier for users, it's a temporary fix at least. As Stallman pointed out, the system keys can be modified by the user so that is a good thing, even though I (like he) considers UEFI Secure Boot a form of removable malware.
I've always been a big fan of Blizzard, but some of their moves recently are very questionable. For instance, I've played Diablo II for so many hundreds of hours I can't even begin to tell you how many, all on Wine of course. Now, with Diablo III, you are forced to play online with no offline capability. For this reason, I'm not going to buy the game. There are excuses but overall I don't buy them. Make the game work offline already. It's sad.. very sad.. that even Blizzard is no longer a great game company it once was.
Even though the CLI is more difficult for new users, it is essential for doing most operating system administration, and I think that all users should be aware of how to run basic commands in it. I find it very useful for handling batch tasks for example, and prefer it. But, that's just me. Even Windoze uses CLI with powershell now. It's just part of using an operating system.
The last I knew getting a key will cost $99 for UEFI secure boot. I absolutely refuse to buy anything related to this whole problem, so my first step will be to disable UEFI secure boot and not even worry about it. I will probably use the Fedora or Ubuntu supplied key if I install GNU/Linux on other PCs that might be dual booting for other people, but disabling this technology seems like the best way to me to avoid all of these problems. If users want to buy a key feel free, but why would you want to? I understand that FSF wants to totally eliminate proprietary software, but I don't know how they can in this case. It's unfortunate that this even happened. This is one more reason I refuse to use Microsoft software, just too invasive.
On one hand, Nvidia chips are some of the best supported on Linux, so I strictly buy Nvidia cards and have had excellent results especially for gaming. However, on the other hand, Nvidia has kept the drivers behind closed doors for years. While I'm thankful that they release full drivers that work, I would rather see the drivers licensed under the GPL so that they can be integrated better into the Linux kernel and released with standard Linux distributions. The Nouveau project has good intentions but it's essentially duplicating the work.
I'm not holding my breath, as Oracle's moves with open source are scattered. Hopefully Oracle can ensure future kernel modules are clean. However, VirtualBox remains to be free, and as such is a very good product from a user's perspective. I compare it to VMWare Workstation, and I see dramatic speed improvement using VirtualBox running on Linux, over VMWare Workstation running on Windows.
The comment by Microsoft basically says nothing.. it doesn't clear up anything. As usual, Microsoft doesn't play well with others, and essentially users will be left scrambling to find a way to do something because Microsoft doesn't bother. Thanks Microsoft. Thankfully, I stopped using Microsoft software years ago and use Fedora Linux now, so I've got nothing to worry about.
I don't even want to imagine what things would be like now, if Linus hadn't developed the kernel to complete the GNU operating system. Back then, I was a total Windows user and was sour at Apple for dropping their Apple II line and leaving customers in the dark. But when I started using GNU/Linux in 1997 I realized that it is great stuff, and soon after started using it over Windows because of GNU/Linux's amazing stability and cost of ZERO. And look at how it has grown and matured. Today, GNU/Linux is more than capable of running on the desktop and competing with other operating systems like Windows. The problem is use awareness, Microsoft lobbying, and other obstacles that keep it from flourishing in the desktop. But, for those that have the patience to make a change, migrating away from proprietary software and using GNU/Linux is worth it.
We are only at the beginning of Microsoft's vast and long road to do whatever it can to pin the competition and keep real competitors from stealing away market share. I would like to see what supposed violations Android has, and if they are for items that Microsoft actively develops. Shame on Microsoft and its products.
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This is why PC vendors should have never allowed Microsoft to control their hardware. Unfortunately, Microsoft's gain = consumer pain, as usual. I'm guessing that disabling the secure boot feature entirely in the BIOS will avoid the machine getting bricked? If I purchase any new machine that will be the first thing I'll do, along with throwing the Windows installation discs in the trash can.
I think this will be a good thing. This is for similar reasons that Fedora also chose LibreOffice over OpenOffice. Fedora continues to be an open distribution and I trust their judgement on which products they choose to include with the distribution.
The new Fedora 18 installer is not good, I totally agree with Cox. The old installer was much more intuitive, and flexible at the same time. The new installer is dumbed down so far that it is cumbersome for those that want a custom installation. Why was it changed????? I've found this, combined with Gnome 3, add to many frustrations. And I specifically work with new GNU/Linux users so this adds to their frustration as well. To be honest, Fedora 14 was the last great Fedora distribution, because it was easy to set up and install, and didn't require a bunch of tweaking because of Gnome 3. However, I have found that doing a minimal Fedora 18 install, then installing MATE after it is up and running provides a fairly clean and usable system.
For some reason the mentality is to make everything more basic and hide options we commonly use, so the new installer is definitely not like it was before. Big blocky icons and very slow, and less intuitive than the old installer because you are forced to click around all over and go in to steps and back to a main screen to look and double check what else needs to be done, in order to continue. The old installer guided the user through the steps in sequence. What also frustrated me is they even stripped out the ability to customize which packages can be installed, such as the graphics suite and other software. LibreOffice was listed, but many other titles were left out. This could be because they are not included on the DVD, I haven't checked. I've used GNU/Linux for almost 16 years and the graphical installers over the years have been changed before, but this one was by far more confusing and took a lot longer to figure out. I can see how it would take a new GNU/Linux user even longer and make them more discouraged and confused.
Since the release of Warcraft II, I was a die hard Blizzard fan. All the way through Warcraft III, Diablo, Diablo II, up to Starcraft II. I run these games on GNU/Linux with Wine, and it's great. However, with the release of Diablo III and forcing online-only game play, I'm done with Blizzard. I think it's great that they may be considering a title for the GNU/Linux platform, which is gaining ground for a great gaming platform, however Blizzard's current focus has been shifted away from providing a quality game to making as much money as possible. And it's very unfortunate as its past products have been top notch.
Canonical has no business collecting personal data. Stallman has identified this and is making a good point, that it is counteracting the benefits of free open source software. Canonical can offer this feature, but it should be turned off by default at least. I understand they are trying to generate a revenue stream, but collecting data and putting ads on a desktop doesn't seem to be the way. They are better off utilizing other methods, similar to how Red Hat has created specific distributions targeted to businesses and support is offered for a premium.
Canonical has no business collecting information from local searches, none. The Amazon integration must be for some sort of revenue stream for Canonical (and I do commend them for supplying a mainstream distribution to promote open source software), but they are approaching it the wrong way. If they added the feature as an option that the user could install at will, that would be better than enabling the feature from the start without the user knowing exactly what it does. This is like software I've seen on Windoze such as HP printer software that installs toolbars in Internet Exploder without the user choosing to do so. Canonical should bundle the distributions similar to Red Hat and offer stable distributions with support. Red Hat has paved the way for creating a successful distribution that generates revenue. There's no reason other distributions can't follow suit.
The next major release of RHEL will almost undoubtedly have some classic desktop included. No enterprises will be able to migrate to Gnome 3 easily so there will have to be an option. Since they've put MATE and Cinnamon in F18, I am guessing one or both of those will be available. This is great news for F18, I am looking forward to using it very soon!!!
If you want to let Microsoft do this time and time again to you, go ahead and continue using Windows. If you want to put a permanent end to this behaviour, make the change to Linux and don't look back. Today's Linux distributions are loaded with software to make the transition easier than ever. Wine is continually being improved to run Windows software on Linux. Try a main Linux distribution like Fedora, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, it won't cost you anything except some time.
I think a lot of people used Gnome in the past, because it WAS ahead of the rest. Simplicity, performance, ability to create a custom desktop, and the list goes on. People are complaining because the Gnome team is headed in the wrong direction. Or, at least it seems so for now. Changing to another desktop environment is not fun, but in this case is necessary.
Thank you thank you thank you! Finally some sensible look at this. Of course touchscreens aren't going to replace desktops where we need to get real work done. People that think that we'll all be using touchscreens probably don't use their computers for heavy usage. It's like saying we'll all be using our computers for browsing the web and nothing else. I use the computer for everything, which includes finance, website design, spreadsheets, etc. Some of that just can't be done with a touchscreen interface. The physical mouse and keyboard aren't going away.
Hardware companies need to also release hardware designed for linux. I'm so sick of trying to find a high end notebook only to read that it works with a bunch of "except for a, b, and c". I want a dell/ibm/etc laptop with good battery life, a sleek design, large trackpad, wireless N, and a high end video card that works with linux.
Many distributions like Fedora can install on just about any make/model. Distributions vary because there are still some chip makers that prefer to keep drivers proprietary.
Gaming companies need to release titles for Linux, and this will greatly help. The problem is, Windows is still the most popular OS even though Linux can do a lot of things better. More market share is where the software will be developed for now. The Wine project has made many milestones which have helped closed this gap of Windows & Linux game titles. Let's hope it continues this way.
No surprise there. The same applies to many different areas where Linux is way more efficient than Windows is. Everybody knows Windows is bloated beyond comprehension. I use Linux for my primary machine, and also use Windows machines daily and in comparison the Linux desktop smokes Windows. Everything from data processing, running virtual machines, LAN performance, you name it. Windows has a monopoly and since it has close to 90% of the market, software companies will continue to develop for it. If Linux had more market share, more companies would develop commercial software for it. So, even though Windows has a majority of the market share, it is definitely not the best OS. It's simply the most popular OS, for now.
NVidia needs to simply comply with the GPL and get it over with so that we can move forward and collaborate.
Last time Dell offered systems but their cost was still higher than those with Windoze. Hopefully they offer the hardware this time at a reasonable price. Or offer PCs without an OS at all, which seems to be hard to find now too. I used to be an avid supporter of Dell, but after they dropped Linux and started playing games and ruined their Dell Outlet site, I stopped buying their equipment.
Techrights definitely has some good content to bring to light a lot of things that happen in the background that we don't see often enough. It's good to hear Stallman's take on the Secure Boot saga. Based on his opinion and the information posted so far, there's nothing to worry about as it can be disabled. Even though Fedora and Ubuntu will use the technology to make it easier for users, it's a temporary fix at least. As Stallman pointed out, the system keys can be modified by the user so that is a good thing, even though I (like he) considers UEFI Secure Boot a form of removable malware.
I've always been a big fan of Blizzard, but some of their moves recently are very questionable. For instance, I've played Diablo II for so many hundreds of hours I can't even begin to tell you how many, all on Wine of course. Now, with Diablo III, you are forced to play online with no offline capability. For this reason, I'm not going to buy the game. There are excuses but overall I don't buy them. Make the game work offline already. It's sad.. very sad.. that even Blizzard is no longer a great game company it once was.
Even though the CLI is more difficult for new users, it is essential for doing most operating system administration, and I think that all users should be aware of how to run basic commands in it. I find it very useful for handling batch tasks for example, and prefer it. But, that's just me. Even Windoze uses CLI with powershell now. It's just part of using an operating system.
The last I knew getting a key will cost $99 for UEFI secure boot. I absolutely refuse to buy anything related to this whole problem, so my first step will be to disable UEFI secure boot and not even worry about it. I will probably use the Fedora or Ubuntu supplied key if I install GNU/Linux on other PCs that might be dual booting for other people, but disabling this technology seems like the best way to me to avoid all of these problems. If users want to buy a key feel free, but why would you want to? I understand that FSF wants to totally eliminate proprietary software, but I don't know how they can in this case. It's unfortunate that this even happened. This is one more reason I refuse to use Microsoft software, just too invasive.
On one hand, Nvidia chips are some of the best supported on Linux, so I strictly buy Nvidia cards and have had excellent results especially for gaming. However, on the other hand, Nvidia has kept the drivers behind closed doors for years. While I'm thankful that they release full drivers that work, I would rather see the drivers licensed under the GPL so that they can be integrated better into the Linux kernel and released with standard Linux distributions. The Nouveau project has good intentions but it's essentially duplicating the work.
I'm not holding my breath, as Oracle's moves with open source are scattered. Hopefully Oracle can ensure future kernel modules are clean. However, VirtualBox remains to be free, and as such is a very good product from a user's perspective. I compare it to VMWare Workstation, and I see dramatic speed improvement using VirtualBox running on Linux, over VMWare Workstation running on Windows.
The comment by Microsoft basically says nothing.. it doesn't clear up anything. As usual, Microsoft doesn't play well with others, and essentially users will be left scrambling to find a way to do something because Microsoft doesn't bother. Thanks Microsoft. Thankfully, I stopped using Microsoft software years ago and use Fedora Linux now, so I've got nothing to worry about.
I don't even want to imagine what things would be like now, if Linus hadn't developed the kernel to complete the GNU operating system. Back then, I was a total Windows user and was sour at Apple for dropping their Apple II line and leaving customers in the dark. But when I started using GNU/Linux in 1997 I realized that it is great stuff, and soon after started using it over Windows because of GNU/Linux's amazing stability and cost of ZERO. And look at how it has grown and matured. Today, GNU/Linux is more than capable of running on the desktop and competing with other operating systems like Windows. The problem is use awareness, Microsoft lobbying, and other obstacles that keep it from flourishing in the desktop. But, for those that have the patience to make a change, migrating away from proprietary software and using GNU/Linux is worth it.
We are only at the beginning of Microsoft's vast and long road to do whatever it can to pin the competition and keep real competitors from stealing away market share. I would like to see what supposed violations Android has, and if they are for items that Microsoft actively develops. Shame on Microsoft and its products.