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.NET on Linux – bye, Windows 10

piotrgankiewicz.com

261–270 of 290 posts

Re: .NET on Linux – bye, Windows 10

#261
post #30

The real story here is the forced updates. How do people who are planning demos and presentations handle this? It's my worst nightmare.

> The real story here is the forced updates. How do people who are planning demos and presentations handle this? It's my worst nightmare. Manually run the update check every 2-3 days and run it again two hours before the presentation. Any updates that come out in that two hour window will allow you at least one delay. Come on, folks, this isn't exactly rocket science here. Keep your OS up to date and, surprisingly en…

> Manually run the update check every 2-3 days and run it again two hours before the presentation. Any updates that come out in that two hour window will allow you at least one delay.

OK, it's possible to work around if you take special care. No one should have to pay that much attention to their update schedule.

> Keep your OS up to date and, surprisingly enough, you won't have any problems caused by it being not up to date.

The problem isn't caused by the machine being not up to date. It's caused by Microsoft requiring forced updates. The computer doing something disruptive that I didn't ask it to do is something that I associate with malicious software; it shouldn't be something that I expect from my OS.

> EDIT: May I also remind everyone that your corporate IT security policy almost certainly requires you to keep the OS on your work PCs up to date?

They do. I typically have 2 weeks of warning, and the chance to update anytime within that time period. I am warned repeatedly as the day approaches that the computer will restart on its own. Patch sets are released monthly, so it's not particularly onerous.

Re: .NET on Linux – bye, Windows 10

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally that sounds like heaven. It sounds like heaven to have the capability. It sounds like hell to be forced to use it just because the computer's doing something you didn't ask it to.

The user isn't forced to use it so much as it just works. The feature itself is nice in for many reasons beyond the operating system rebooting after updates. Loss of power, system hangs, and program lockups come to mind as situations where it would be nice. I think about my browser not restoring tabs after crashing and I shudder because that happens at least once a week. Notepad++ has had this saved state functionali…

> The user isn't forced to use it so much as it just works.

In the context of forced updates, one would be forced to use it (or deal with recovery of what they were doing on their own).

> Loss of power, system hangs, and program lockups come to mind as situations where it would be nice.

Absolutely. But in these cases, it's acting as a way from recovering from a system exception. The few times that I've recently had a system unexpectedly restart (pulled plug on a laptop with a dead battery, for instance), things like saved browser sessions were great. I just don't like it as the mitigation of negative effects of a system-enforced reboot.

Re: .NET on Linux – bye, Windows 10

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mom uses Windows. In all fairness, it was pre-installed by HP. I don't know any non-technical consumers who installed Windows themselves in the last 15 years.

I work in IT, exactly 0 of my users could pull off a Windows install and if they could they could they also probably would be able to install Centos or Ubuntu. Both have wizards that make it just as easy as Windows.

I have to disagree on this one. Installing a mainstream Linux distro is really easy these days, far easier than installing Windows. With Windows, you have to go hunting around for device drivers for anything that's not included on the stock Windows install disc, you have to reboot lots of times during the install, it takes a long time, and that's just for the bare-bones OS: installing extra software means running around and downloading stuff (or using install discs--how quaint), running lots of "installers" and rebooting many more times. With Linux, I can have a fully-functional system, complete with lots of software, within 20-30 minutes and just one reboot.

Saying that installing Linux is "just as easy as Windows" is like saying "moving a mountain of dirt with a bulldozer or earthmover is just as easy as doing it by hand with a shovel".

Re: .NET on Linux – bye, Windows 10

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Further, if you are doing a bunch of administrative tasks from the CLI, sudo will keep you authenticated. If you really want, you could even open up a root shell. I think the real problem is that the Right Way(tm) to do things is completely non obvious to a linux novice. Looking back on my times starting out with linux (ubuntu 6.06), I remember a lot of similar frustrations. Really, there is no middle ground, you are…

> Really, there is no middle ground, you are either a novice or an expert, and bridging that gap is super challenging. I think it's easier now. Also, the "expert" level on windows… it's mindbogling complex.

Windows has an intermediate level though. The average consumer never gets past novice.

Re: .NET on Linux – bye, Windows 10

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is indeed the worst. By itself it is enough to make me want to switch. It's not the only thing, though. Win 10 is a decent OS in most ways, but there are too many places where it does things that I don't want and I can't (easily?) change. I use Windows because I do C# development for a living. For now, it's not practical for me to switch, but maybe it will be in a few years. I'm hoping so. Really stupid to drive…

Since when do developers have much say in which OS they use? These things are decided by corporate policy and management in most places. The best you can hope for here is that you can do the bulk of your C# development on a "rogue" Linux machine or VM, and then do some final testing and bug-fixing on Windows, since it's going to be deployed on Windows with customers (internal or external) who use Windows.

> Since when do developers have much say in which OS they use

i predominantly work in java; and while windows is the "official" development environment (more by default than by decree) there weren't any objections or policies against using linux, as nothing in the workflow is tied to a single platform. (hooray!)

Re: .NET on Linux – bye, Windows 10

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://github.com/AvaloniaUI/Avalonia Checkout this project for making WPF cross platform.

To clarify, this is a cross-platform UI library in the style of WPF; it does not actually make WPF cross-platform.

Yes, was typing on my phone so was trying to keep my message short :)

Re: .NET on Linux – bye, Windows 10

#267
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I guess he wouldn't have used gdiplus.dll if he was planning to run the app on Linux, so I'm guessing the conclusions should be: - If you're doing multi-platform software, don't use platform specific libraries. - If you're doing multi-platform software, test on all your target OSes. Use any OS that makes you productive.

Just to clarify, he didn't use gdiplus.dll, he used System.Drawing, which in turn uses gdiplus.dll.

You're right, thanks!

Re: .NET on Linux – bye, Windows 10

#268
So I've spent some time trying to get an existing asp.net 4.5/4.6 application to work on Windows Containers using docker, running under Linux in a VM. It turns out that System.Web only works under microsoft/windowsservercore based container which will only run on a Server Core, Server 2016, or current Windows 10 Professional.

I'm wondering why a Nano Server plus additional libraries could not host a complete asp.net 4.6 runtime, possibly leaving out components that need the GDI.

Re: .NET on Linux – bye, Windows 10

#269
post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MSFT here. Thank you your report. I have escalated your issue to the Windows Update team. Microsoft is committed to your security and the loophole will promptly be closed by another forced update. Resistance is futile.

Know you are joking but still want to mention: A while ago I reported that the pw field in W10 gave away a lot of entropy easily (basically ctrl+arrow keys stopped between every character class so if your password was: newr..!VYIV you could in five seconds conclude that the password contains of 4 chars of something, then 3 chars of something else, then 4 characters of something other than the second group.) Whoever h…

Hmm, combine that with a USB stick-like device and you could probably implement a brute-forcer that doesn't actually attempt most passwords, since key based editing of the original password would probably work.

This of course assumes the entered password is still on the screen.

Re: .NET on Linux – bye, Windows 10

#270
post #3
post #2

I still have to wait for sql server to be ported. But my day job as a c# dev is the only thing keeping me on windows at the moment.

Good point, however, you could always try to run the SQL Server remotely or on VM for the development purposes.

Yeah, I think I'd go the container/VM route so I could also only spin it up when needed (a fraction of the time).
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