The End of Windows • Hacker News Board

Re: The End of Windows

#271

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 4:14 PM UTC

bhauer wrote: post #243

cpeterso wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can see a nice graph showing (Firefox) users steadily upgrading from Windows 7 to 10 from Mozilla's Firefox telemetry: https://hardware.metrics.mozilla.com/#goto-os-and-architectu...

That hardware report is surprising to me in many ways. * In 2018, the most popular resolution for users of Firefox is still 1366x768. And only 1920x1080 is making any headway against the dominance of 1366x768. As much as I am surrounded by the culture of multiple 4K+ displays, apparently this is not at all commonplace. 4K doesn't even get listed, presumably lumped into the "Other" category. * In 2018, the most popula…

[deleted]

Re: The End of Windows

#272

Post by enitihas » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 4:14 PM UTC

bhauer wrote: post #243

cpeterso wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can see a nice graph showing (Firefox) users steadily upgrading from Windows 7 to 10 from Mozilla's Firefox telemetry: https://hardware.metrics.mozilla.com/#goto-os-and-architectu...

That hardware report is surprising to me in many ways. * In 2018, the most popular resolution for users of Firefox is still 1366x768. And only 1920x1080 is making any headway against the dominance of 1366x768. As much as I am surrounded by the culture of multiple 4K+ displays, apparently this is not at all commonplace. 4K doesn't even get listed, presumably lumped into the "Other" category. * In 2018, the most popula…

I think your experience may be an outlier. Being in an University for the past 4 years, I observed that 90% of the laptops used by the students were 1366*768, and majority were 4GB, followed by 8GB.

I don't remember anyone having any problems running the latest chrome or Firefox. I think people even managed to run things like SolidWorks or Matlab perfectly fine on those machines.

Re: The End of Windows

#273

Post by jen20 » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 4:16 PM UTC

mediocrejoker wrote: post #86

What I don't understand is, with Apple and Microsoft moving to "services" business-models, who do they see as providing the hardware for this future they envision? I don't think we are near the point where either laptops or phones are a commodity. If nobody want to make hardware their first priority, how is anyone going to ensure the best experience for the customers using their serviceS?

Is there any evidence that Apple are moving to a services model? More than anyone else, they have succeeded at making services add-ons for their own hardware.

(edited to fix a typo)

Re: The End of Windows

#274

Post by bhauer » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 4:16 PM UTC

rb808 wrote: post #268

bhauer wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That hardware report is surprising to me in many ways. * In 2018, the most popular resolution for users of Firefox is still 1366x768. And only 1920x1080 is making any headway against the dominance of 1366x768. As much as I am surrounded by the culture of multiple 4K+ displays, apparently this is not at all commonplace. 4K doesn't even get listed, presumably lumped into the "Other" category. * In 2018, the most popula…

If you look at Chromebooks, most are 4GB, often 2GB. These are the mainstream new laptops that people will expect to run for 5 years+.

Yeah, but that link is a Firefox hardware report. How many Firefox users are on Chromebooks?

Re: The End of Windows

#275

Post by rb808 » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 4:16 PM UTC

asveikau wrote: post #33

I still can't wrap my head around everything that was wrongheaded about Windows 8, and I was working there for most of its dev cycle. One wonders what would have happened if they just sort of let Windows be Windows. I.e. if they had continued iterating on core stuff but left UI and general philosophy resembling Win7's trajectory and not tried to force people into WinRT/UWP/store. Even though Win10 attempted correctiv…

Remember at that time Windows 8 was the MS solution for tablets and MS was getting killed in the tablet space as iOS took off. Windows 8 wasn't officially out until a year after the first iPad. They had to get it out asap.

Re: The End of Windows

#276

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 4:17 PM UTC

badsectoracula wrote: post #267

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly, or maybe that's an excuse the community uses because they're unwilling to see how openly hostile they are to proprietary software on their platform. Let me ask you a quick question: How can I distribute an application in a way that will work on all Linux Desktops?

A way to do that in a cross-distro way with (almost) no dependencies is via AppImage[1]. This creates a single executable that contains your application and all the necessary libraries and data files. There is also work towards a more modular approach with Flatpak and Snaps, but those require support from the distro side. AppImage doesn't need any specific distro support. [1] https://appimage.org/

And even AppImage, a solution I frequently praise mind you, doesn't always work right.

It's 2018 and the Linux Desktop still doesn't have a consistent way to... well do anything now that I think about it, but that you can't even reliably distribute an application is pretty insane.

Flatpak and Snaps are a typical Linux Desktop solution: Over-engineer the shit out of it.

Re: The End of Windows

#277

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 4:17 PM UTC

Robotbeat wrote: post #250

p0nce wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even as an desktop developer, often Linux is 2% of the user base, very vocal, used to software being free, and with infinite OS variations. That's not very compelling.

Infinite variations is the bane of free/open software. It is the primary reason it hasn't taken over everything, IMHO.

[deleted]

Re: The End of Windows

#278

Post by gaius » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 4:20 PM UTC

The end of Windows is the year of the Linux desktop

Re: The End of Windows

#279

Post by jpalomaki » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 4:20 PM UTC

mediocrejoker wrote: post #86

What I don't understand is, with Apple and Microsoft moving to "services" business-models, who do they see as providing the hardware for this future they envision? I don't think we are near the point where either laptops or phones are a commodity. If nobody want to make hardware their first priority, how is anyone going to ensure the best experience for the customers using their serviceS?

Apple is not moving to services, they are very much a hardware company. Services are for them more like a thing to make the hardware more attractive.

Microsoft has not really been in hardware space before (except consoles, otherwise it was mostly accessories). I believe they jumped to laptops, tablets and desktops to have full control of the user experience.

Re: The End of Windows

#280

Post by willtim » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 4:22 PM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #259

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly, or maybe that's an excuse the community uses because they're unwilling to see how openly hostile they are to proprietary software on their platform. Let me ask you a quick question: How can I distribute an application in a way that will work on all Linux Desktops?

>>> Let me ask you a quick question: How can I distribute an application in a way that will work on all Linux Desktops? It's a trick question without a clear answer. Many people tried, noone has ever succeeded.

Steam on Linux works very well.