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Ubuntu on Windows

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Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#881

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

stevetrewick wrote: post #880
TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #792

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft is a very different company than it used to be. Based on what, exactly? That they opened part of .NET, except that it's only the web stack, and not the part everyone wants (WinForms)? That they released a reskinned version of the Atom editor? That they announced the release of a Linux version of SQL Server, except that it will be a simplified version, absent of the enterprise features? That they submitted…

>Office suites are hardly important any more A solid majority of the people on the day side of the planet who are looking at a computer right now are looking at an Excel or Word document. MS Office has 1.2 billion users [0] (and that probably doesn't include unlicensed users). That's pretty important. [0] http://news.microsoft.com/bythenumbers/planet-office

Well, maybe I'm taking a longer view than that. You know what those 1.2B people staring at Word and Excel are USING them for? Ad-hoc content management systems and data query systems, which they, then, store in Windows file systems, and send to everyone and their brother all over the company in email, duplicating the storage. They're using those applications because no one has come along to write a dead-simple web app to automate what they're using them for, and make it much easier to work with and share the data.

Over half of my 25-year career has been involved with making applications to actually address the business need that people were working AROUND with Word and Excel. I can't complain; it's been a pretty good deal. I'm doing 2 side projects to replace Excel sheets with Rails apps right now. But with more and more "apps" on smartphones and web sites, on the low end, and gargantuan cloud apps like Evernote and Google apps, this space is going to continue to shrink.

The thing that probably won't die is friggin' PowerPoint. If I had a nickel for every slide I've had to look at...

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#882

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

unscaled wrote: post #873
TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #792

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft is a very different company than it used to be. Based on what, exactly? That they opened part of .NET, except that it's only the web stack, and not the part everyone wants (WinForms)? That they released a reskinned version of the Atom editor? That they announced the release of a Linux version of SQL Server, except that it will be a simplified version, absent of the enterprise features? That they submitted…

Windows Forms is just a wrapper around the GUI parts of the Windows API. Even if they do open it it won't help anyone port Windows Forms to anything else, since the real display logic is implemented in the huge legacy codebase that is user32.dll, gdi32.dll and so forth. Now, I would be glad if they open source WPF, which is very well designed GUI framework that could be great for cross platform apps, but it seems lik…

Well, I didn't bring up EEE, and I agree that I don't think it's technically feasible to make WinForms available on other platforms. To clarify, I was just addressing the misconception of the announcement.

The year of the Linux desktop is the year that "the desktop" no longer matters. With all the smartphones and tablets, and single-board computers making embedded products, we're juuuust about there. ;-)

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#883

Post by partiallypro »

khattam wrote: post #861
partiallypro wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft is not the same company it was 25 years ago, much less 3 years ago. Microsoft cares about Azure now, and Azure requires GNU/Linux. It just makes sense for Microsoft to do this, and I for one am pretty excited about it.

>and Azure requires GNU/Linux No it doesn't.

It doesn't require you to use it. Microsoft requires it to make their Azure platform viable. Microsoft couldn't just have a Windows based cloud platform, it requires Linux to succeed...which is exactly what I meant.

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#884

Post by alchemism »

tripzilch wrote: post #795
tempestn wrote: post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's odd for me to read this, because the main reason I use Windows for my desktop over OSX is that it offers increased control. Obviously nothing is as customizable as Linux, but Apply software seems much more about taking decisions away from the user than Microsoft. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. It's, "It just works," vs, "You can make it work the way you want." I see Windows as sitting between OSX and L…

> basically all of the information gathering that people complain about with Windows can very easily be turned off. In fact, for the most part the installation wizard actually leads you through how to turn it off. For me that makes it a non-issue, although I understand that some feel differently. It's absolutely not a non-issue when I was helping my mother set up her new Win10 laptop. She doesn't want to be tracked,…

I recommend a tool like this one to quickly disable the various Windows 10 logging and tracking services if you don't want to hunt through menus and settings.

http://www.winprivacy.de/english-home/

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#885

Post by wmccullough »

jupiter2 wrote: post #384
takeda wrote: post #233

Surprised I don't see anyone else mentioning this. This looks to me like typical Microsoft strategy that they utilized a lot 25 years ago. 1. when not leader in given market, make your product fully compatible with competitor 2. start gaining momentum (e.g. why should I use Linux, when on Windows I can run both Linux and Windows applications) 3. once becoming leader break up compatibility 4. rinse and repeat Happened…

Thank you for mentioning this! Really bothered by all the positive comments, especially coming from savvy HN users. Gave this a long look and my main beef is that I couldn't possibly do anything on a Windows Machine in its' current state. Linux isn't just about running apps - there's a philosophy behind the system. Users first! As long as Microsoft continues to disrespect the rights of users in regard to privacy, dat…

The true reality is that Microsoft could do anything, and the anti Microsoft crowd will never be satisfied.

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#886

Post by Pwngea »

NateDad wrote: post #823
Pwngea wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which one do you have? How is it specs-wise?

I have one that is now 2.5 years old. Specs-wise, it was basically top of the line. Quad Core i7, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD, 3200x1800 touchscreen, GeForce 750m GPU (which was one of the best mobile GPUs back then). It has a lot of nice touches that lower end models don't have, like 2 or 3 USB3 ports, with 2 or 3 USB ports that have power even when the laptop is off (super handy for charging a phone on an airplane while yo…

Wow, sounds awesome. Was thinking about getting a macbook but probably won't anymore.

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#888

Post by baobrien »

ajdlinux wrote: post #719
badminton1 wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That same phenomenon sort of happens with WINE. Many software just suggests you: run it under WINE, so they just focus on Windows. Not that I am against WINE. I think it allows me to just ditch Windows entirely. I run StarCraft II on WINE 1.9 at a higher framerate than what Windows provides. That was probably the only reason I would use Windows for.

I doubt any game developer decides not to release a Linux version purely because "oh, Wine exists".

It's not a game, but LTSpice from Linear doesn't have a Linux release because it runs on wine; though, they do try to make sure it works on wine.

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#889

Post by e12e »

hughw wrote: post #190

Coincidentally I've spent the past week re-learing how to develop on windows. I wanted to avoid cygwin if possible, but the experience has been painful. I had some hope for Chocalatey, and it seemed encouraging that MS had ported OpenSSH over, but my first ssh to a Byobu session on Ubuntu was disastrous... I'm sure there is some TERM parameter I can fiddle, but I don't know what or where in 5 minutes of searching. I…

You might enjoy scoop (http://scoop.sh):

  ~ $ scoop search grep
  main bucket:
    busybox (1.24.0-TIG-1778) --> includes 'egrep'
    gow (0.8.0) --> includes 'egrep.exe'
    grep (2.5.4)
    nim (0.11.2) --> includes 'nimgrep.exe'
    pcregrep (10.20)
    rktools2k3 (1.0) --> includes 'qgrep.exe'
  ~ $ scoop install grep
  installing grep (2.5.4)
  loading http:(...)grep-2.5.4-bin.zip from cache...
  checking hash...ok
  extracting...done
  loading (...)grep-2.5.4-dep.zip from cache...
  checking hash...ok
  extracting...done
  creating shim for grep
  grep (2.5.4) was installed successfully!
  ~ $ grep --version
  GNU grep 2.5.4

  Copyright (C) 2009 Free Software Foundation (...)
Getting colors to work is a bit of work, as windows conhost doesn't quite come with vt100 support out-of-the box yet:

http://www.nivot.org/blog/post/2016/02/04/Windows-10-TH2-(v1...

But that's just a:

  ~ $ scoop install conemu
  installing conemu (150813g)
  downloading (...)
Note that conemu is in the "extras" "bucket" for scoop:

  scoop bucket add extras

Re: Ubuntu on Windows

#890

Post by richardthered »

gumby wrote: post #820

I'm not being deliberately obtuse: I don't really understand how this helps anyone particularly much. (OK, I assume there's a small number of developers who develop, or at least debug, for both systems and prefer windows as a development environment, but I assume that number is small, at least on Microsoft's scale). If you're developing to deploy on Linux but are more of a Windows dev, this helps you, but that doesn'…

It will help me.

I work for a big consulting company - 70k employees. Corporate standard is a Windows laptop for everyone. But, most software development is done for Linux environments.

I hate windows scripting / powershell, so I use cygwin a lot. I don't love cygwin, but it's my "least worst" option. Local linux VMs are too heavy.

So, I'm excited about the option to have a 'real' linux locally, with a working package manager.

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