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Windows for Linux Nerds

blog.jessfraz.com

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Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#161

Post by mythrwy »

santoshalper wrote: post #6
bactrian wrote: post #2

This post was interesting in a morbid way but you can count the Linux nerds that want leave the open world of Linux for Microsoft very easily. They all work at Microsoft. Microsoft is losing on mobile, desktop, servers, and IoT. Their entire ecosystem is a technological deadend. If you're a Linux Nerd, you should probably keep using Linux if you care about having a good career going forward.

Linux still sucks shit on the Desktop. I try it every year, and every year it sucks very slightly less. It goes beyond drivers and application compatibility, Linux distros are ugly and the people making them have no taste. The Desktop/Laptop market is not nearly as important as it used to be, but within that space, Microsoft's dominance is about as strong as ever. Apple might have been able to take a dent out of it i…

I disagree. Just my personal bias but I don't care for Windows on the desktop at all. It's just... annoying. The slashes face the wrong way, can't resize a terminal. Weird file system. WTF is this registry thing? What's wrong with config files? Too much junk in the interface. It's just not... clean. I like clean.

I suppose it comes down to what one knows and is used to, but for my part I don't see myself ever working regularly with Windows again I dis-enjoy using it that much. So all this talk about how bad Linux desktop is nonsense from my perspective. I like KDE. I like Mate. I like i3. I like Gnome. Doesn't really matter, a terminal and web browser and a small handful of tools is most of what I need. Especially if I can set it up as I'm used to. Which if windows were kept simple would probably be ok as long as Bash or like is around somewhere. But no. It has to be all gooped up and just... controlled. Not what I'm looking for in computing at all and not what I enjoy.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#162

Post by cma »

jcastro wrote: post #89
mixedCase wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Responding snark with snark: Then don't use them. Most wireless cards out there work just fine. When I had to use a laptop with a Broadcom chip for uni I used my Android phone as tethering (charging it as a bonus) and the guy sitting next to me just used a dongle smaller than his thumb.

Most people (even developers) aren't willing to open up their laptop to replace their laptop wifi cards or to have to use dongles to get on their wireless or to play endless hardware roulette.

OSX doesn't work on all windows-only hardware either. You have to buy something with Linux support.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#163

Post by watwut »

seiferteric wrote: post #80
52-6F-62 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a generally valid concern, but I don't think I can see that ever really happening. It's really just a compatibility space, no? There is a bit of a contrarian culture here, lately. Some skepticism is healthy, but too much is toxic. As a general optimist and hopeful, I like to try and find good where I can without being suckered by hocus or sly marketing. Moving forward and growing outward should be a good thing…

I know what you mean, but you will never see MS contributing to Wine will you? Will we ever see office for linux? Why can't we get a proper POSIX layer for windows (like they used to offer)?

Given that Microsoft is one of largest contributor to linux, I would not blame them for not contributing also where Linux directly competes with them. They would absolutely deserve criticism if they restart ugly fud campaigns again. But as of now, the two seem to be at peace.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#164

Post by dis-sys »

Microsoft never made any change to its core strategy. There is no alternative platform to run Windows applications with official Microsoft support (you can name a couple exceptions, they are exceptions, e.g. SQL Server), there is no way for average developers to read Windows/Office source code. That is the best proof.

Windows for Linux Nerds? I run 5 Linux machines in my study room, Microsoft would be charging me thousands of $ for Windows Server licenses, I read source code of the software I am using on daily basis, Microsoft wouldn't let me do that. Every code of weeks, I hack the software I use and share the changes with others, Microsoft lawyers are not going to be happy if I choose to do that on Microsoft software.

Windows for Linux Nerds? Microsoft is not ready for that, Microsoft never had the intention to do.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#165

Post by onikolas »

flukus wrote: post #108
seiferteric wrote: post #7

> Imagine a Linux setup where you can launch PowerPoint without a VM Wine?

If your the sort of person that's going to use bash on windows then Latex+beamer is a much better option than powerpoint.

Imagine: your presentations stored in plain text, in a human readable format that you can edit in your favorite editor, manipulate with a rich library of text editing tools and even version control. Powerpoint would be a silly proposition if that existed!

Funsies aside, Latex+beamer has a learning curve and so it is not suitable for the everyday user and thus Powerpoint has its market. But for the average HN reader it doesn't make sense. Take 20 minutes to learn Latex basics and thank me later.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#166

Post by dis-sys »

Arnavion wrote: post #152
blunte wrote: post #116

Want to _really_ impress us, Microsoft? Give us a Windows Subsystem for Linux. I chose a maxxed out Dell XPS15 laptop with Windows 10 to replace my 3 year old rMBP with the (foolish) expectation that it could replace my Mac. Apple had lost sight of what mattered to developers, and I was angry. But now, 2 months later, here I continue developing and existing on my old rMBP. Bash in Windows is incredibly slow on some a…

>Give us a Windows Subsystem for Linux. Not completely what you want, but relevant: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2016...

again - a closed system with no public access to its full tech details. its completeness can not be reviewed by the community, its security model is unknown to the general public, its reliability is a big question marks.

what is worse - it charges you an arm and leg for running that joke on modern hardware. Rather than providing people with more tech details so the so called products can be better used in real life, it has a 30+ pages Licensing Guide telling people how Microsoft is going to screw them financially in different ways.

it is not "for Linux", every single aspect of the "software" described in that link against the fundamental values of Linux.

SQL Server for Linux is nothing else but a joke, those working on that projects in Microsoft should feel sad for the fact that they work in such an socially isolated team/company.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#167

Post by badminton1 »

It's hard for Windows to realistically compete with Linux as a developer environment.

GNU/Linux and userland software is made by developers for developers, and a lot of it is open source. If you are a developer, on Linux sky is the limit. Everything can be played with. On Windows that's not the case. Many areas are off-limits and you don't get to see how they work, and you cannot change them if you need to.

Then, Microsoft can sunset a project at any time, and that's final. In the open source world an orphaned project can always be forked or picked up by someone else.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#168

Post by donquichotte »

WSL is nice and I would use it more often if USB devices were transparently mapped into it. I want to use it for embedded development on my Windows machine, and without USB support this is just not possible.

Edit: apparently they added it in May [1], but I have no access to the newest update.

[1] https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2017/05/10/bash...

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#169

Post by yanni79 »

I remember "Lindows" from the good ol' days - I think it ended up being called Linspire, but alas it died back in 2007. It would've been great to give to my grandparents right about now.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#170

Post by watwut »

JoshMnem wrote: post #146
santoshalper wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux still sucks shit on the Desktop. I try it every year, and every year it sucks very slightly less. It goes beyond drivers and application compatibility, Linux distros are ugly and the people making them have no taste. The Desktop/Laptop market is not nearly as important as it used to be, but within that space, Microsoft's dominance is about as strong as ever. Apple might have been able to take a dent out of it i…

> Linux still sucks shit on the Desktop... Linux distros are ugly and the people making them have no taste. Linux is hard to beat for a fully customizable programming environment. You can easily customize the look of a Linux desktop, but can't with Windows or Mac. Windows and Mac have both taken UI ideas that have been around on Linux for far longer.

Yeah, but that is the thing ... I never wanted to customize the look and have zero willingness to spend more then a second on it. I want it to look acceptable out of box, but dont care about details. I suspect most people are like that. I thought I dont care how things look until I installed linux distro at home years ago and seen how it looks without tweaking. And I was unable to make it nicer, not because configuration would be hard, but because I am not artist and dont know how to make nice.

It does matter how the whole looks to the user and linux was never really good at.

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