Was Microsoft Right...

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Was Microsoft Right...

#1

Post by Sev »

Well, I just got my Samsung 7 Series Chronos back. The BIOS on it had spontaneously corrupted, necessitating a 4.6k repair. Yay for laptops...

Anyway, the first thing that I noticed when I got it back was that they had wiped the hard drive and put Windows 7 back on (geez, thanks). Obviously, I was annoyed that I would have to reinstall Arch Linux and Xmonad. However, I then remembered a quote from Microsoft a few years ago: Linux is only free if your time is worth nothing.

So, Microsoft, will it take less time to set up an Xmonad like environment on your operating system than it would on Linux? As a point of reference, it took me about 2 days to finish my Xmonad setup.

So, what needs to be achieved in order for me to have an Xmonad like experience in Windows?

Simple...

I need to be able switch between 10 virtual workspaces on the fly (using the super key).
I need to be able to move windows between virtual workspaces.
I need programs to automatically launch in the correct workspace.
I need to be able to launch programs using keyboard shortcuts.
I need tilling (I'll accept manual, but dynamic would be preferred).
I need activation follows mouse cursor.
I need to be able to toggle a window between fullscreen mode and tiled mode.

Even if I get this all working, I doubt that it will feel integrated, but, "challenge accepted".

If I'm successful, I will post screenshots of my setup.
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#2

Post by Rakuen Growlithe »

There's more to it than time/money. Surely part of using Linux is about the philosophy of a free and open source world where you're able to do whatever you want (or at least are able to) on your own device?
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#3

Post by Sev »

Of course, Microsoft and the like can honestly go screw themselves; the world no longer benefits from their existence. This "project", however, was simply about whether or not it was actually possible to set up an environment conducive to productivity.

Let me put it this way: Windows is resisting my efforts to even pin programs to the taskbar. For some reason, I can pin some but not others. I've been trying to fix it, but none of the suggestions put forth by M$ customer support are working.

Windows users, how can you honestly put up with this kind of stuff? The OS is not vaguely extensible, you are forced to use certain software/utilities, and you can't even set up even vaguely advanced functionality (I mean, come on, how difficult would it be for M$ to implement virtual workspaces) without it looking very hacked on indeed.

I haven't tried KDE in a few years. I think that I might try a DE for a while, again.
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#4

Post by Rakuen Growlithe »

I've got Ubuntu with Cinnamon on my laptop. Made it much faster (laptop is really old and slow). Still using Windows on my big PC though but mostly just for two reasons. It plays more games than Linux and I like the way Windows lets me edit Metadata to sort pictures. The Windows search function is pretty nifty too. But I've replaced pretty much all the other Microsoft products.
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#5

Post by Sev »

I have managed to resurrect so many PC's over the years simply by putting linux on them, with a light weight environment; OpenBox, LXDE, or Xfce, depending on my mood. It's absolutely amazing to see a 10 year old PC once again being able to be used in a productive way.

For example, I still use a 30k HP Mobile Workstation that my father bought back in 2003. When running windows, I could just not get it to connect to my wireless network, no matter what I tried, but it had absolutely no issue connecting in Linux. That laptop was set up with OpenBox.
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#6

Post by Sev »

Wow, I'm actually surprised that someone went to such a great length to dismantle an obviously dogmatic statement. Touché, I guess.

In all seriousness, though, most of the stuff that M$ churns out these days seems to be an unequivocal disaster; Windows 8 (which I have been using since the bleeding Developer Preview), Office 365, Skype for Modern UI, Surface, even the Xbone.
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#7

Post by Rakuen Growlithe »

Not a great dismantling. It's aimed at the wrong things. Microsoft made things simple and convenient and people were happy to pay for that. That doesn't necessarily mean that it did or does things better. And once everyone is already using one thing it becomes more difficult to use something else. If everyone is using one IM programme, even if a better one comes along it's hard to switch to it because no one else is using it and you can't use the IM for its intended purpose. Sure, you can say we benefit from Microsoft but that doesn't make it the optimal benefit.

We use coal to power 90% of South Africa (not sure exact figure). If nuclear/solar/wind/whatever were going to solve the problems of coal they would have done so by now. Coal is benefiting us. Building new power plants will be more expensive than just using the ones we already have.
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#8

Post by Sev »

The frustrating thing is that Linux is ready for the limelight. DE's like KDE and Gnome Shell are so ridiculously polished that they put the disaster that is Windows 8's UI to absolute shame. Gnome Shell is actually a successful implementation of that radical desktop metaphor, for goodness sake.
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#9

Post by Obsidian »

Ive always wanted to give Linux a go but lack of time, laziness and that I feel windows is acceptable though not optimal kinda stops me
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#10

Post by Sev »

You should really give one of the prebuild Manjaro flavors a try. Using Linux with a DE like KDE is an almost identical experience to using Windows 7 - except that you do not have the drawbacks associated with being a thrall of M$.
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#11

Post by Fluke »

Windows 8 / 8.1's kernel is amazing, it's boot times with a boot-accel. supported GPU + SSD are SCARILY fast.

I don't find going to Linux to be superior to Windows, I've tried many distros over many years. And I still think it's not for me.

Everything in Linux is just a long process method to do, even simple things like installing a program isn't just opening it. No. Command-line time. Ugh. I don't care for it.

And customization in Windows is perfectly fine, I just think you're being hard-headed and not actually wanting it to work so that you can complain about it - rather than finding a way for it to work like you would have done if it was Linux :p (See: Ubuntu side-bar never going away).
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#12

Post by Sev »

I've never understood why people complain about having to use the terminal, because of it, installing software is absolutely trivial.

For example, let's say that I am looking for a PDF viewer. On Windows, I have to open my brower, search though the various entries, go through ten steps to download it, make sure that I untick any boxes so that some toolbar is not installed, and then finally launch the program.

On Arch, I can do the above in 3 commands. sudo pacman -Ss pdf, look through the options and then choose one, sudo pacman -S epdfview, epdfview&!. Done.

Installing something from the AUR is a bit more time consuming, but has its own advantages, like the results being sorted by the number of votes.
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#13

Post by Obsidian »

I somehow don't feel like a thrall using windows ;P
51JHm+2WPaL._SY300_.jpg
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Fluke you be losing Hipster points supporting windows like that :O.

I must agree with you though :P. My friends using 8.1 have never complained about it and I have A LOT of B****y types amongst them ;D so I assume its alright

I still need to format and install 8.1, I normally format every December but i was on holiday last year and didn't get chance too ;/
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#14

Post by Sev »

Let's not even get into how trivial it is to keep everything on your system up to date on Linux (sudo pacman -Syu) compared to how painful and time consuming it is on Windows (having to redownload all of the software manually). That, and the fact that Windows once forced my PC to restart *in the middle of a freaking clan match* so that it could install updates. If I remember correctly, I had to perform some sort of registry edit to stop Windows from automatically restarting after updates.

And you are still their thrall, regardless. Look no further than Games for Windows Live to see M$'s poisonous influence.
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#15

Post by Obsidian »

I feel now like the foot soldier in some massive evil corporation bent on world domination ;P, don't worry though I cant aim properly when shooting at named characters

To stop windows auto restarting you could change the option in control panel to not auto install updates and let you choose when to install it its not hard.

Otherwise the registry Edit is actually a really easy solution, you don't even need to type anything just copy past words from the first link that Google spits out

There is a lot of custom made stuff that bullies windows into working exactly how you want it to

Otherwise to all these "Problems" you find ;P
Fluke wrote: And customization in Windows is perfectly fine, I just think you're being hard-headed and not actually wanting it to work so that you can complain about it - rather than finding a way for it to work like you would have done if it was Linux :p (See: Ubuntu side-bar never going away).
It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, especially if you live near him.

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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#16

Post by Sev »

Except that M$ claims that Linux is exclusively the domain of those who want to dedicate hours just to have a working system, and that Windows works perfectly out of the box.

In order to get things that I take for granted in Linux, like activation follows mouse cursor, I have to perform these registry hacks that result in so many unwanted side effects. Other things require that I install some 3rd party software, which never feels vaguely integrated into the operating system.

To configure anything in Windows, you have to navigate through submenu after submenu. Something as simple as changing my keyboard layout in Windows was a ridiculously convoluted process. What's more, Windows will sometimes just arbitrarily revert back to QWERTY, often in the middle of a sentence.
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#17

Post by Rakuen Growlithe »

Fluke wrote:I don't find going to Linux to be superior to Windows, I've tried many distros over many years. And I still think it's not for me.

Everything in Linux is just a long process method to do, even simple things like installing a program isn't just opening it. No. Command-line time. Ugh. I don't care for it.
I only really have experience with various versions of Ubuntu but not all of this represents what I experienced. The first few versions I tried were pretty bad with lots of broken stuff but then I waited a few years and it got better every time and with the latest version I installed, everything worked the first time.

I also almost never need to use the command line. There's a whole software centre which handles 99% of installation requirements and keeps everything up to date. There are (at least now with Cinnamon) the same sort of start menus as Windows so it's easy to find everything. About the only time I've had to use the command line is when I was doing something really unusual (mostly related to trying to get things to work from behind university firewalls).
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#18

Post by Sev »

Auric wrote:Amazing that nobody's brought up the fact that the most (and the best) games run almost exclusively on Windows.
But for how much longer?

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n ... px=MTY1NDM
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#19

Post by Rakuen Growlithe »

Auric wrote:Amazing that nobody's brought up the fact that the most (and the best) games run almost exclusively on Windows.
Fourth post.
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#20

Post by Sev »

That's just a side effect of M$'s dominance, anyway. As games like Metro: Last Light have shown, Linux is perfectly capable of being a viable gaming platform.
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#21

Post by Sev »

The number of Linux supported games on Steam has increased exponentially in the last year. An increasing number of developers have taken notice of Linux. Project Eternity is coming to Linux, Star Citizen has plans for a Linux client, Valve have ported over almost their entire catalogue. Even DICE made a positive comment about Linux not too long ago.
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#22

Post by CourteousCastellan »

Although the game situation on Linux seems to be getting much better, I don't think it could seriously compete with Windows any time soon.
Many developers don't even bother to port their games to Windows with any real effort, let alone all the games which never get ported at all. Big game developers tend to take the attitude of forcing you to buy a system that will run their game instead of making their game run on your system.
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#23

Post by Sev »

No one's denying that it'll be a long and hard process, but, with regards to gaming, Linux has had more progress in this past year than it has in its entire life span. For example, almost every Kickstarter project lists Linux support as a stretch goal.
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#24

Post by Fluke »

MontgomerySeven wrote:That's just a side effect of M$'s dominance, anyway. As games like Metro: Last Light have shown, Linux is perfectly capable of being a viable gaming platform.
Because if Microsoft didn't do it, gaming would be decades behind where it is now actually.

OpenGL/CL is pretty crap, there are plans to really fix it up but as it stands today. It's crap.
DX 11.2 isn't perfect either, nor is Mantle. But they're all improving at a good pace lately.

Not that there is any game that uses DX11.1+ but hey, it's good. And Mantle is AMD GEN-architecture only cards right now. And DX12 enables low-level access to the CPU of Mantle - but no GPUs can support DX12 until Maxwell Q42014/15.

Neither Windows nor Linux is perfect, and I use Windows 7 because it's what suits my needs best.

There is no way in hell you can find programs for Linux that I am running on Windows, and thats a huge deal breaker for me.
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#25

Post by Leeward »

My two cents on the topic is that I like coding and doing most of my work in a Linux environment, but the proprietary software I have to use for coursework (and ultimately work work) mostly only runs on Windows. Also the game support issue is quite the deal-breaker. Therefore, Windows on gaming desktop, and Linux/Windows dual-boot on work laptop.

All operating systems have their merits. I just use what I have to and get used to whatever interface. I'm not too fussed about learning to adapt to change... unlike my dad who until a few years ago was still using Windows 95 in his business.
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#26

Post by Kangee Gold »

I'm a huge supporter for linux and open source, and I feel that all software needs to be forced open source, since that would greatly stimulate constant growth and better development for all forms of end-product software.

Whenever I see a system with single focus of job and designed to be absolutely minimalist in resource consumption, (a store's point of sale, for example) and it uses a windows operating system, I cringe so badly. I know linux would a far cheaper, more capable, and more efficient, and more secure, system to use for that.

That said:

For the range between average PC user and hardcore gamer, Windows is the best choice since it's versatile, and has the HUGE financial backing to create things like newer versions of DirectX which in turn makes it easier for software developers, big and small, to create high quality products.

The biggest issues I have with Windows, especially newer versions, is backwards compatability. Why is it so hard to have the old OS versions emulated into the new one so that old games and other software can still operate on the newer ones just as well as if they were on the original platforms?
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#27

Post by Fluke »

Kangee-Gold wrote:I'm a huge supporter for linux and open source, and I feel that all software needs to be forced open source, since that would greatly stimulate constant growth and better development for all forms of end-product software.

Whenever I see a system with single focus of job and designed to be absolutely minimalist in resource consumption, (a store's point of sale, for example) and it uses a windows operating system, I cringe so badly. I know linux would a far cheaper, more capable, and more efficient, and more secure, system to use for that.
OpenLAD and FreeIPA just don't have the usability and features of AD. You'd end up with a lot more downtime and user issues because of this - and that would cost the business time and therefore money. With PoS concerned it's always almost Windows XP Embedded PoS, sometimes 7 Embedded PoS.

Inside a company it would be an awful idea to distribute and use Linux as a main OS for the user computers in that organization because of how much better AD is and how much more integrated all the Windows products are to one another.
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#28

Post by Valerion »

Fluke wrote:
Kangee-Gold wrote:I'm a huge supporter for linux and open source, and I feel that all software needs to be forced open source, since that would greatly stimulate constant growth and better development for all forms of end-product software.

Whenever I see a system with single focus of job and designed to be absolutely minimalist in resource consumption, (a store's point of sale, for example) and it uses a windows operating system, I cringe so badly. I know linux would a far cheaper, more capable, and more efficient, and more secure, system to use for that.
OpenLAD and FreeIPA just don't have the usability and features of AD. You'd end up with a lot more downtime and user issues because of this - and that would cost the business time and therefore money. With PoS concerned it's always almost Windows XP Embedded PoS, sometimes 7 Embedded PoS.

Inside a company it would be an awful idea to distribute and use Linux as a main OS for the user computers in that organization because of how much better AD is and how much more integrated all the Windows products are to one another.
Awfully broad brush there. Not all organisations are alike.

We specialize in developing UNIX software for clients, and do dev & test on Linux (because Solaris sucks). It would for the majority of our devs be impossible to use Windows, as we can't do anything productive with it.

Also, upper management likes their OS X machines.

Windows works well as long as EVERYTHING is Windows. If you create a heterogeneous network environment it falls apart pretty quickly, or become a setup nightmare.
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#29

Post by Tetsudra »

Valerion wrote:Windows works well as long as EVERYTHING is Windows. If you create a heterogeneous network environment it falls apart pretty quickly, or become a setup nightmare.
It gets equally nightmarish if you go all-Windows. Just because all the software ships under the same brand name doesn't mean it works well, or even works together. Our company has been MS-centric since 1999, with our AD forest established in that time.

Today, we can't migrate to Microsoft Office 365 because of the age of our domain, and the hundreds of issues with OUs and objects and whatever else. We can't upgrade the forest because there are Windows servers that we cannot upgrade the OS on, because old Microsoft products that wouldn't work under Server 2012.

We couldn't integrate Exchange and Lync to provide in-browser IM in OWA, something that Gmail's had for years. We couldn't integrate SCOM and Lync to provide centralized monitoring and reports. We couldn't get the various flavors of Office to play together well, so anything installed via 365 will not have the same functions as that installed via VL.

Maybe it used to be the case that if you went all-Microsoft, everything would work together well, but that's simply not the case these days. There are far too many moving parts in any given corporate network, and different product divisions at Microsoft responsible for each component.

Microsoft is basically open-souce software that you pay for:
  • The code would be too complex for any one developer to maintain
  • You need to go to support communities to find documentation and help
  • The paid-for helplines are useless
  • A lot of functionality requires workarounds, scripts and hacks that look an awful lot like Linux-ish "fixes"
  • People have left Microsoft and taken their knowledge with them, so products are stagnating just like older open-source products
  • You have to pay third-party vendors for implementation and migration support - Office 365 openly requires this for successful migrations, since they cannot build a tool powerful enough to pull any on-prem config into the cloud, for their own stack
  • Different products have different standards and formats, and it's very difficult to integrate functionality between them
  • Things break for no reason - I have an ASP.NET MVC 3 application using EF, that occasionally fails to create in-memory objects, causing YSODs for absolutely no reason.
  • You're more likely to find a fix for an obscure issue on a third-party blog than Microsoft's own documentation
  • Microsoft is moving all the administration features to Powershell, without all the accompanying documentation. When we set up Lync 2013 we had to run commands as per a third-party guide, trusting that the cmdlet would accept the parameters.
In almost every respect, you get the same level of performance from open-source than you do from Microsoft, except that with Microsoft you're paying license fees on top of everything else, and you're having to deal with proprietary standards in most of their products.

The only thing that Microsoft has going for it at the moment (at our company anyway) is inertia. The cost of migration is higher than the cost of paying the licenses, so we'll continue to do so.
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Re: Was Microsoft Right...

#30

Post by Fluke »

365 is Satan, and you should really have done an overhaul if your policies remained unchanged since 1999...

edit - oh yeah powershell is super frustrating too. Not sure what else to be said about it :D

edit2 - the problem with moving to LDAP wouldn't just be inertia - it'd be the 'cost' of training to become as integrated as you are/were with AD.

Other services I don't know about your environment.
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