Posted on 05/08/2012 8:54:21 AM PDT by ShadowAce
I use Fedora on my personal machine, and I admin RH boxes.
I Loathe the Windows 8 excuse for a desktop interface and the first thing I did witht he beta was to hack it to look like windows 7.
I use Ubuntu in a VM and it is okay, but yeah RedHat is a lot better for doing a lot of certain tasks.
Count me as one of those that hates Unity. I’m becoming a fan of Linux Mint. However, I have to run as a VMware guest OS on a Windows 7 platform for now.
sigh
Maybe one day my company will allow a Linux desktop.
Excellent points.
Microsoft has a history of forcing unwanted changes and “feature” on the users.Most users would be quite happy if they could just continue to use their XP systems,I know I would.Windows 7 isn’t bad.But I don’t want to have to relearn again for Windows 8.
I wouldn’t be surprised if consumer and corporate resistance plays as big a factor in this rollout as for Windows ME -and WinME actually didn’t cause me any difficulty.
You've GOT to be kidding me. They have run out of actual IDEAS in Redmond, but they have to change SOMETHING or how do they sell the new OS, right? Guess everything old is new again -- looks like those old menuing programs we used to buy as a front end for our DOS machines.
I wonder how the kinect and touch screen interfaces are going to integrate into everyday life on Windows 8.
Linux boxes are non-starters for the front office non-it departments.
When hiring a secretary we don’t say “do you know linux” unless it is an it department MAYBE.
I count myself lucky to be able to run Linux at work. Of course, it helps to have a rock-solid case for it to take to management--I admin RH boxes, and putty is just too darn clunky to use productively across hundreds of servers.
I’m becoming a fan of Linux Mint.
I've heard good things about it, but have never seen it. The fact that it is based off of Ubuntu tends to scare me off. :)
However, I have to run as a VMware guest OS on a Windows 7 platform for now.
Run it full screen and do everything in your VM. See how long it takes them to complain. If they don't notice, you may be able to take that experience as part of your sales pitch to management. :)
And whatever comes after that could well be the next XP or Windows 7.
This is a joke of an article Right? I mean it’s so onesided you can just put a big * by the whole thing and say...all this can be ignored.
I wonder how the kinect and touch screen interfaces are going to integrate into everyday life on Windows 8.
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That whole kinect type of technology is going to take off like crazy. I expect in 2 years touch screens will be obsolete and our windows interface will be hand/finger motions and eye tracking.
I don’t know about you, but, when I look at those two screens, I see one that informs me about what’s going on within the computer, and the other one tells me that, the computer is waiting for someone to do stuff, or is not informing the user about what’s going on with the active processes. Ubuntu 12.04 is just the latest version, with newer eye candy, of the same old stuff.
And, what the heck is that about “Ubuntu replaced the popular GNOME 2.x”? How popular can GNOME 2.x have been if the total user base for the whole Linux family is around 1%? So, a fraction of 1% would make it popular? How about providing context/perspective for what is being talked about?
Sorry, Charlie, most people on the planet will be sticking with Windows 7 or Windows 8 when it comes out.
Those people at ZDNet are just like the rest of the subsidiaries of CBS, and that is, they spin and demagogue and confuse the issues, while trying to sell people on the virtues of failed products.
(And, I’m just talking about the desktop/laptop market, in case someone wanted to chime in with how great Linux is for servers. This is about the PC market, where Linux is virtually irrelevant for the regular user out there.).
The real play for windows 8 will be tablets and pads. And we have yet to really have those launched on the public yet. I’ve been using windows 8 everyday. I pretty much use it in desktop mode. But I clearly see where once the apps are there I will be living in the metro interface.
I didn’t think windows phone 7 was going to be any good when I saw the interface, but when I tried it I had to admit I was dead wrong. It’s the best interface to date on a phone.
I see it being a fusion of technology. Touch, eye, body, hand tracking all inside the tablet you carry. And it can connect to a larger display. So you carry your gaming, work, and social hub with you everywhere you go.
I have gray hairs to prove otherwise.
My old company (IBM) had a Linux / RedHat build for the laptop. Upon rare occation, I had to run MS Project and MS Visio which I did so from a guest VM. The rest of my work was done on Linux via Open Office and local Linux clients.
I also was the only laptop that ran solid for 3 years without the need for local support - even though I traveled all over the globe. Other Windows members of my team were constantly having laptop problems.
I even built a bootable USB stick version that I could at least get into a “bad” laptop and recover files that customers needed.
Windows 8 seems like something designed for a phone or tablet, not a desktop computer. Of course, some desktop computers today do have touch screen capabilities, so there might be some advantages for casual browsing and such.
Well, I’m not a Windows-hater or a Redmond-hater in general, and almost all of my machines run on some Redmond product, but that Win8 interface looks ludicrous to me. Sort of a “Computing for Dummies” look. It really does remind me of the old batch-file-based and commercial menu programs we used back in the DOS days.
For me, the Metro theme is just painful to look at, with all these ugly and bright colors. However the tiles, as shown, do not tell you anything. They could, in theory, but what do you need to see there? How many new emails you have? That's displayed by all OSes, and the actual number is not too important. Subject and content? Click and you will find out. There is hardly anything else that needs your constant attention. But if you insist, Windows Vista and 7 have gadgets, which are tiny dockable applications. You can also run regular applications, resized to any size, with any transparency, reacting to hover, etc. etc.
I don't have Windows 8 and have no particular desire to download the Beta. But if tiles are not resizable, this removes a very important capability - the ability to arrange things on your desktop as that is required by whatever you are doing right now. Linux comes with virtual desktops, they are like separate desks and you can "turn" to any one of them, and items are arranged on each. In Windows world you need to pay for an advanced, 3rd party window manager that can do that.
I played with Unity in several releases of Ubuntu, but not the 12.04. I might download the CD and stick it into a spare [virtual] box to see what's happening. I'm not very enthused about Unity, generally, but as long as you only need a few applications it works fine. Its configuration is not very intuitive, though. The dashboard is quite awful; what's up with all these recent tendencies to force people to drop the mouse, move hands to the keyboard and type the name of the program? If I knew the name I could do that; but I have tons of programs that I don't know names of. Unity continues this tradition, reducing discoverability and putting more emphasis into the "direct dial."
But where the rubber hits the road I have only a few applications that could run on Linux (Firefox and Thunderbird.) WINE is not a consideration, it sucked enough of my blood in earlier years. Besides, many 3rd party applications are barely working in the native environment; running them under WINE is just asking for trouble. Ubuntu could be very usable as a kitchen computer, or an ebook-reading computer, or as a media center. But if you need a general purpose computer - one that can run Office and Photoshop and your favorite chat and your webcam and your wireless and your printer - you'd be stuck in Windows territory for a while. Windows 7 is pretty good, and it will be around for a very long time.
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