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The End of Windows

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Re: The End of Windows

#321

Post by krylon »

andybak wrote: post #28
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.

I rode a PC wave that nearly completely bypassed IBM/Microsoft: 1. The "home" computer boom: ZX Spectrums, Acorn, Commodore, Atari with maybe an Apple II or a CPM machines for more serious use. 2. The Atari ST or Amiga wave. WIMP and productivity software as well as gaming and content creation 3. At this point I did switch to Windows but I could just have easily switched to Mac. Apple didn't cease to be a force at an…

> In our alternate history there was also room for Next or BeOS. You never know.

Now that you mention it, I kind of wonder what would have happened if Steve Jobs had never left Apple in the first place.

Re: The End of Windows

#322

Post by badprose »

ohazi wrote: post #248

> Smartphones first addressed needs the PC couldn’t, then over time started taking over PC functionality directly I still don't understand how anybody gets any real work done on a smartphone. Has work suddenly gotten so simplistic that most people really don't need a keyboard? They're dragging and tapping and writing IM-like sentence fragments riddled with autocorrect typos? And this is acceptable? Seriously?

I think its lots of jobs that didn't need full-on computers in the first place.

Re: The End of Windows

#323

Post by pjmlp »

badsectoracula wrote: post #304
pjmlp wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That only works if console mode and X escape keys are configured. Which is usually not the case on desktop oriented distributions.

X escape is usually not configured, but personally i haven't seen any desktop distribution to disable virtual terminals. Regardless, even if that is the case, it only takes a single PC restart for you to notice that the terminals are disabled and enabled them back so next time you need them they'll be there.

Yep, now explain that to a regular macOS/Windows user.

Re: The End of Windows

#324

Post by ryandrake »

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 if more developers had to live on 768 line displays, slow CPUs and 4GB RAM, we would have much better performing software.

Re: The End of Windows

#325

Post by PuffinBlue »

enitihas wrote: post #272
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…

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.

None of the other things surprise me, but that screen resolution does a bit.

It's been about 8 years since I last had a laptop without at least 1080p I think.

Re: The End of Windows

#326

Post by willtim »

user5994461 wrote: post #298
willtim wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam on Linux works very well.

The next question would be on which distributions and which versions of which distributions? Linux is a very large family of operating systems, with hundreds of members and variations. It's really a meaningless term. https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1504-QHX...

At least with platforms such as Steam, the problem is one of porting the platform to each distribution, not all its applications.

Re: The End of Windows

#327

Post by 013a »

I think its impossible to understate how much damage Ballmer did to Microsoft. That being said: I think Microsoft is in a fantastic position right now under Satya.

Windows isn't going anywhere, and they're accepting the reality that it might just be a "portal" into web technology in a similar vein to Chromebooks. This is a reality Apple refuses to accept, for better or worse. But, Windows still comes with those massively powerful internals that enable more powerful professional experiences for the users that need them.

This is, really, the only platform in the world that champions both. MacOS obviously has those powerful foundations and can run webapps natively, but its not something christened by Apple. iOS is the same way, but with less powerful foundations. ChromeOS? Android? Linux Desktop? They're not even considerations in this world.

Then you consider the massive success of their Xbox and Azure divisions, and I think anyone who bets against Microsoft right now isn't doing it cogently. They have a lot of legacy and Ballmer's strategic mistakes to get right, but I legitimately think they'll come out of the next 5 years in a better financial position than Google.

Re: The End of Windows

#328

Post by majewsky »

Analemma_ wrote: post #172
ynniv wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Which is why Microsoft has on-prem and hybrid offerings for most of their products. Actually this is one place where they’re way ahead of AWS and GCE.

Same with SAP. They have a cloud offering (Hana Enterprise Cloud) which can connect to existing on-premise SAP deployments. That way, they can up-sell existing customers into the cloud and then slowly migrate them to even more subscriptions.

Disclaimer: I work at SAP, but not in the same division. And not in sales either, so take my word with a grain of salt. ;)

Re: The End of Windows

#329

Post by boomlinde »

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…

My main home PC is a laptop matching those specs. I frequently use it for development and web browsing. You can comfortably fit two terminals in columns with that resolution. The RAM is mainly an issue when browsing, but killing all the ads and defaulting to no Javascript helps. A surprising amount of websites still only use Javascript for "progressive improvements" i.e. they'll use it just for pop-ups, hijacking scrolling, randomly moving menu bars in and out of view, implement some nonsensical partial loading of the main content etc. but will happily show you the full text without a hassle with a consistent user interface once you turn it off. For a while I used Dillo but that became less viable as an option over time. That said, I do waste a lot less time on shitty websites on this setup.

Re: The End of Windows

#330

Post by azemetre »

cornholio wrote: post #249
pmarreck wrote: post #229

Ballmer must be the #1 executive who has gotten the farthest on the least intelligence.

Ballmer had a perfect 800 score on his SAT math section. He kept the company expanding revenue and profits for a decade and a half, which is an eternity in Internet time. His Windows on mobile strategy was a few years late from being a huge success (agreed, that is also an eternity).

Are we seriously equating business intelligence with a high school aptitude test that covers rudimentary mathematics?
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