The ultimate reason is not however that it's inherently inefficient for the government to enter into contracts with private companies, but that large scale microchip fabrication is so expensive that no (private, US) company is willing to do it.
Like, you know, that nasty foreign company Intel? The one that's generally considered to have the best chip technology in the world?
So that multiple programs can share the same settings system-wide. The worst thing about Linux is that every program works in a different non-standard way.
Like putting system config in/etc and user config in $HOME, you mean?
I'm as anti-Windows as anybody, but calling it "fragmented" is a bit silly.
At work I have an XP VM, with one interface. At home I have Windows 7, with a somewhat different interface. My laptop came with Window 8, which has a radically different interface (of course I pulled out the HDD, installed an SSD and put Linux on it). There's also Window 8.1, which has a somewhat different interface. Oh, and there's 32-bit and 64-bit, and Home and Pro and Basic and Ultimate and...
It proves the cameras are working, and people are speeding less. What's the problem? In an ideal world, the cameras would never go off, and never issue a ticket.
There's Window 8, and Window 8.1. There's 32-bit or 64-bit. There's Windows 7. There's about half a dozen different versions of Windows 7, and I've no idea how many of Window 8.
There's the XP interface. There's the Windows 7 interface. There's the Window 8 desktop interface. There's the Window 8.1 desktop interface. There's the Metro interface.
How can anyone expect someone to pick Windows for their desktop when there's so much fragmentation?
I am an experienced Linux user, and I have tried several times to install Windows. Each time I look on a retail site, I see aabout a dozen different versions of Windows for sale, and I find endless discussion about which version I should install and UI changes that developers should not include in the releases, and how I should download some third-party apps to make the UI not suck.
It always ends the same, with me putting my credit card away... be thankful Linux works well.
Linus is NOT good for the desktop or average user.
Is Linus the Linux version of Microsoft Bob? I'd agree, then, that the average user wouldn't want him swearing at them every time they do something stupid.
Most people just want something that works out of the box, even if there are a lot of tradeoffs.
It does seem like corporations tell consumers what they want, how else do you explain the SUV.
Uh, the SUV came about when the US GOVERNMENT demanded than cars meet some--for the time--crazy fuel consumption requirements, but trucks didn't. Americans wanted big cars, but couldn't buy them because the US GOVERNMENT had pretty much made them impossible to build, so EVIL CORPORATIONS invented the SUV by sticking a stationwagon body on a truck frame.
But, yeah, blame the EVIL CORPORATIONS if it gives you a stiffy.
Unlike Windows, which regreses with every new release, Android is still improving. We actually look forward to new Android releases, rather than fear them.
you should care when the X *developers* decide that in the long run it is unmaintainable and the number of people who actually understand how everything works are less than four.
Developers always say the code is unmaintainable and they must start from scratch.
By 'X' here, most people are referring to the X Windows code they run on their PC. That code mostly works, and is updated largely to fix bugs and support new hardware.
Most developers find fixing bugs and supporting new hardware boring, so they continually want to throw everything in favour of The New Shiny! which will inevitably be full of bugs and not support half the hardware it used to. Then they get back to fixing bugs and adding new hardware support, at which point they start dreaming of The New New Shiny!
X was great for its time. But its time was when graphics hardware was slow and software was relatively undemanding.
Ha-ha-ha... you clearly never used an X-Terminal back when we were all going to have dumb terminals on our desks talking to The Cloud... sorry... super-powerful 68020-based Unix servers The X overhead is miniscule today, unless you're trying to push X sessions over the Internet, or video over the LAN.
It was also standard practice after the Apollo 1 accident. The problem with Apollo 1 was that they filled it with oxygen at sea-level pressure, not the pressure normally used in space.
My PC doesn't send everything I do to Google's servers, where the NSA can scoop it up.
And what planet are you living on, exactly, to have missed the news for the last few years? The tinfoil hat wearers were undestimating what the NSA has been doing... they weren't paranoid enough.
Today, if the designer is competent, you can do something like a single page app that perfectly fills the viewport and everything, including fonts, scale perfectly with the size of the window.
And looks like crap on a 6" tablet screen.
Allowing the designer to control layout, rather than the web browser, was the original sin. If content and layout had remained separate, we wouldn't need to deal with crap like blogs and news sites randomly deciding to send me to their mobile version instead of the desktop version when I'm sitting in front of a 24" monitor.
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The ultimate reason is not however that it's inherently inefficient for the government to enter into contracts with private companies, but that large scale microchip fabrication is so expensive that no (private, US) company is willing to do it.
Like, you know, that nasty foreign company Intel? The one that's generally considered to have the best chip technology in the world?
So that multiple programs can share the same settings system-wide. The worst thing about Linux is that every program works in a different non-standard way.
Like putting system config in /etc and user config in $HOME, you mean?
Don't forget the joy of thumbnails, so now you don't even need to open the image to exploit the codec bug that pwns your machine.
I'm as anti-Windows as anybody, but calling it "fragmented" is a bit silly.
At work I have an XP VM, with one interface. At home I have Windows 7, with a somewhat different interface. My laptop came with Window 8, which has a radically different interface (of course I pulled out the HDD, installed an SSD and put Linux on it). There's also Window 8.1, which has a somewhat different interface. Oh, and there's 32-bit and 64-bit, and Home and Pro and Basic and Ultimate and...
Windows is at least as fragmented as Android.
It proves the cameras are working, and people are speeding less. What's the problem? In an ideal world, the cameras would never go off, and never issue a ticket.
There's Window 8, and Window 8.1. There's 32-bit or 64-bit. There's Windows 7. There's about half a dozen different versions of Windows 7, and I've no idea how many of Window 8.
There's the XP interface. There's the Windows 7 interface. There's the Window 8 desktop interface. There's the Window 8.1 desktop interface. There's the Metro interface.
How can anyone expect someone to pick Windows for their desktop when there's so much fragmentation?
I am an experienced Linux user, and I have tried several times to install Windows. Each time I look on a retail site, I see aabout a dozen different versions of Windows for sale, and I find endless discussion about which version I should install and UI changes that developers should not include in the releases, and how I should download some third-party apps to make the UI not suck.
It always ends the same, with me putting my credit card away... be thankful Linux works well.
Linus is NOT good for the desktop or average user.
Is Linus the Linux version of Microsoft Bob? I'd agree, then, that the average user wouldn't want him swearing at them every time they do something stupid.
Most people just want something that works out of the box, even if there are a lot of tradeoffs.
So why would they want Window 8?
Choose your OS, average user:
1) Windows
Which Windows, out of the dozens of confusing versions and three or four different UIs?
It does seem like corporations tell consumers what they want, how else do you explain the SUV.
Uh, the SUV came about when the US GOVERNMENT demanded than cars meet some--for the time--crazy fuel consumption requirements, but trucks didn't. Americans wanted big cars, but couldn't buy them because the US GOVERNMENT had pretty much made them impossible to build, so EVIL CORPORATIONS invented the SUV by sticking a stationwagon body on a truck frame.
But, yeah, blame the EVIL CORPORATIONS if it gives you a stiffy.
Man, web apps are so early 2000s. We're all running local apps on tablets and phones now, dudes.
Uh, so developers can check their software works properly before the new release is pushed to end users?
Unlike Windows, which regreses with every new release, Android is still improving. We actually look forward to new Android releases, rather than fear them.
you should care when the X *developers* decide that in the long run it is unmaintainable and the number of people who actually understand how everything works are less than four.
Developers always say the code is unmaintainable and they must start from scratch.
Sigh.
By 'X' here, most people are referring to the X Windows code they run on their PC. That code mostly works, and is updated largely to fix bugs and support new hardware.
Most developers find fixing bugs and supporting new hardware boring, so they continually want to throw everything in favour of The New Shiny! which will inevitably be full of bugs and not support half the hardware it used to. Then they get back to fixing bugs and adding new hardware support, at which point they start dreaming of The New New Shiny!
X was great for its time. But its time was when graphics hardware was slow and software was relatively undemanding.
Ha-ha-ha... you clearly never used an X-Terminal back when we were all going to have dumb terminals on our desks talking to The Cloud... sorry... super-powerful 68020-based Unix servers The X overhead is miniscule today, unless you're trying to push X sessions over the Internet, or video over the LAN.
What's wrong with X?
Fixing old code that mostly works is boring. Must Have New Shiny!
And which of those is enough to justify living with that appallingly awful Start Menu and transparent window bars?
Windows 11 is sure to suck worse, so my gaming PC upgrade can wait for Windows 12, thanks. Unless SteamOS is running all my Windows games by then.
You do know that us evil dirtbags in First Class are the reason airlines can sell you your Cattle Class seats so cheaply, right?
The biggest difference between the Russians and Americans was definitely safety. It's amazing how far you can go once human life becomes expendable.
But the Russians killed a bunch of astronauts in the early years, too.
It was also standard practice after the Apollo 1 accident. The problem with Apollo 1 was that they filled it with oxygen at sea-level pressure, not the pressure normally used in space.
My PC doesn't send everything I do to Google's servers, where the NSA can scoop it up.
And what planet are you living on, exactly, to have missed the news for the last few years? The tinfoil hat wearers were undestimating what the NSA has been doing... they weren't paranoid enough.
Yeah, the NSA will have a complete database of everything these kids did at school. What could possibly go wrong?
is it stable? or is it the way everything in linux is - a hack?
Troll rating: -1/10. Please try much harder next time.
Today, if the designer is competent, you can do something like a single page app that perfectly fills the viewport and everything, including fonts, scale perfectly with the size of the window.
And looks like crap on a 6" tablet screen.
Allowing the designer to control layout, rather than the web browser, was the original sin. If content and layout had remained separate, we wouldn't need to deal with crap like blogs and news sites randomly deciding to send me to their mobile version instead of the desktop version when I'm sitting in front of a 24" monitor.