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The End of Windows

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Re: The End of Windows

#311

Post by jacquesm »

fsloth wrote: post #252
jacquesm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

General Purpose Computing using PC's is a thing because of Microsoft (and IBM). Without those two there would have never been a PC in the first place. The forces against general purpose computing are to be found on 1 infinite loop and 1600 Amphitheatre parkway.

Uh, I think you need to review history of computing. The market was full of competing platforms in the early 80's. The PC became the dominant platform due to complex network effects, the least not being the IBM brand. DOS was bought from a third party guy in a garage and slapped on top of the x86 platform.

And I think you need to read a whole thread before jumping in hours later and repeating lots of stuff already said.

Re: The End of Windows

#312

Post by majewsky »

bhauer wrote: post #288
dannyw wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to assume a large portion of users are software engineers or tech people. You may consider a 16GB ‘bare minimum’, but not everyone needs that - nor can even afford that (or a laptop more than, say, new or used for $750).

> (or a laptop more than, say, new or used for $750). To me, the hardware report shows technology is quite stagnant on display resolution and memory. 1366x768 is a resolution from 2002 or thereabouts. 4GB was common in desktop computers in 2005. ~15 years have passed and consumers in the $750 price range are still hamstrung with 1366x768 and 4GB of memory? I would expect better from a $750 phone , let alone a compute…

> 1366x768 is a resolution from 2002 or thereabouts.

In 2002, the most common resolutions were 4:3, not 16:9, not only because notebooks were not mainstream yet.

> 4GB [RAM] was common in desktop computers in 2005.

That's the time when notebooks became mainstream iirc. I purchased a gaming notebook in 2006, it had 1 GB RAM. I also bought a midrange notebook in 2009 which also came with 1 GB. (I later upgraded to 2 GB aftermarket.)

Re: The End of Windows

#313

Post by freehunter »

avtar wrote: post #233
simonh wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would have helped if they hadn’t done everything they could possibly imagine to fragment windows as much as possible. Six SKUs of Windows desktop, then on top of those two entire desktop UI environments in desktop and Metro, then Windows on ARM, then shifting from one new development stack to another, then another. Then mandating store apps. This was foot shooting on full automatic, clip after clip. I switched to…

> Six SKUs of Windows desktop Here's hoping they'll rethink that at some point and follow Apple's approach of having just one desktop OS instead of nickel-and-diming the masses for features such as BitLocker.

On the other hand, compare Windows desktop marketshare with that of macOS. When you're tiny, limited choices makes sense. When you're huge, product differentiation makes sense. When you're a premium product, you can charge whatever you want. Windows appeals to people who spend $0 on an OS and also people who can spend $300 on an OS. If they cut that down to one product, they'd be losing money.

Re: The End of Windows

#314

Post by badsectoracula »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #276
badsectoracula wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

AFAIK the only issue that could make AppImage to not work is lack of FUSE support, but any modern distribution should have that enabled.

Beyond that, AppImage is really just a container. It is still up to the developer to bundle the necessary dependencies (libraries, runtimes, VMs, data files, etc), but this is something they'd need to do with Windows too.

What problems do you have with it?

Re: The End of Windows

#315

Post by kijin »

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…

When I bought my father a new laptop a couple of years ago, I specifically looked for a model with 1366x768 resolution because a lot of legacy apps he depends on for his work have terrible HiDPI support. "Upgrading" to 1920x1080 with HiDPI turned off (100% scaling) would have made everything too small for his eyes.

Moreover, even apps that do support HiDPI often look like crap at 125% scaling -- the default setting on Windows 10 for most 1920x1080 laptops these days. And if you go up to 150%, you only get 1280x720 effective pixels. That's even less information density than 1366x768. Most legacy Windows apps expect to be able to use at least 768 vertical pixels.

The search turned out to be more difficult than I expected, because most high-end PC laptops with good build quality had already transitioned to 1920x1080 by early 2016. I finally found the perfect model for my father and told him that he should expect to use it for a long, long time since it's the last laptop that will ever support his apps. Fortunately, it's a well-built Broadwell i5 with a number of upgradable components, so it should last well into the early 2020s.

Re: The End of Windows

#316

Post by freehunter »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #236
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…

One thing I love about Windows 10 which may sound silly. The Netflix app. I can download anything downloadable on Netflix. I can't do this basic thing on my Macbook Air sadly cause they have no desktop app. Small thing that makes me enjoy Windows 10.

I honestly don't know the answer to this, but is that a Microsoft/Apple problem, or is it a Netflix problem? Apple has an app store for macOS, and there are tons of unofficial Netflix apps in there. Netflix has an app for iOS. So why hasn't Netflix made an app for macOS?

Re: The End of Windows

#317

Post by discreditable »

Multicomp wrote: post #292
bluGill wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with Windows is operating systems are a commodity. You shouldn't care about it. You are about opening your documents on your desktop and phone - you don't even care what program opens the documents. Mac OSX, Linux+desktop (any of several), IOS, and Android are all operating systems that can do everything you need of an OS, except MAYBE run windows programs. Which is to say Windows as a separate company pr…

Are you kidding? I'd be ecstatic to go purchase a new boxed copy of Windows 11 Pro 2018, so long as it was basically Windows 7 shell with Windows 10 kernel and security updates, no UWP/Cortana/store/telemetry addons, and settings that stay set. I'd even buy the Windows 12 Pro 2021 version when the time came for fundamental internals shifting like wider WSL access.

You might but no one else would. Most people use the OS that came with their computer until it dies.

Re: The End of Windows

#318

Post by cptskippy »

saiya-jin wrote: post #282
cptskippy wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. With Windows 8 they tried to do too much too quickly and not well, however their motivations and intention were spot on in my opinion. Security has always been a pain po…

that's... not what most users want. even as a dev myself, I understand most people want just freedom and no hassle, OS to be there in the background, not creating narrow allowed alley for its own users. will keep my Win7 for as long as hardware and software keeps running. don-t expect much more from OS honestly

> that's... not what most users want. even as a dev myself, I understand most people want just freedom and no hassle, OS to be there in the background, not creating narrow allowed alley for its own users.

Android and iOS have demonstrably shown that most users don't value freedom as long as the OS works for their needs. Most users are security nightmares as IT Admins and relatives supporting family members can attest to. The Store is Microsoft's attempt to introduce that stability and safety to the wider Windows audience.

That's not to say that there isn't a significant subset of power users who want the ability to do what they will with their machine however they are the exception.

Microsoft is struggling with how to cater to both markets simultaneously.

Re: The End of Windows

#319

Post by pjmlp »

willtim wrote: post #235
pjmlp wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why bother to try to sell desktop software to users that want everything for free, and with source code available? Usually the only ones willing to pay for Linux software are enterprise shops.

Linux users expect not to be locked-in and controlled. Perhaps if vendors tried different revenue models, such as sponsoring new features or charging for support/bug fixes. Over the last few years I have spent several hundred dollars in donations to free (libre) software. We are not all cheapskates :)

Hardly anyone can live from donations or bounties.

Try to get a mortage, pay a monthly rent, pay the kids school,.... just with donations.

One needs a regular source of income.

Desktop users are usually not keen to pay for consulting, trainigs or documentation. Rather just paying once.

Vendors that have pushed for web solutions get a constant revenue, but that solution makes the desktop irrelevant thus regular users see no benefit in running e.g. Chrome in other OS that wasn't already installed on the hardware that they bought.

Additionally such hardware is as proprietary as it ever was, even if built with a FOSS stack, as no one gets the sauce running on the server.

Re: The End of Windows

#320

Post by freehunter »

ynniv wrote: post #121
SonicSoul wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> macOS isn't business-level stable amazing how many people here are missing the point. this is not about Windows vs MacOS. Client OS has become a commodity with prices approaching 0 (MacOS no longer charges for upgrades, neither does iOS or Android) and users care less about how they get to Facebook. Think about server/mobile space. if MS tried to hang on to their dominance simply via desktop lock-in (because it wor…

Established businesses aren't going to put their data in someone else's datacenter. Small to medium businesses perhaps, but all it takes is one downturn that tightens the purse strings, or one critical event that reveals their absolute dependence on a third party. SAAS solutions are fair weather, and while we've had a lot of good weather I don't expect them to be used for critical business functions in the long term.

>Established businesses aren't going to put their data in someone else's datacenter

You are incredibly unbelievably wrong here. I work for a vendor known for incredibly high prices and have knowledge of basically the entire infrastructure of every one of my clients, and nearly all of them have a massive cloud strategy that's in-place right now. I even have clients shipping their security and compliance logs to the cloud, or sending them from cloud to cloud.

Actually the more medium-sized businesses are the ones most hesitant to move to the cloud, because of the lack of cloud expertise on their teams. But even then... it's still a huge strategy. They're all consolidating physical datacenters and using Amazon or Azure or Google.

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