The End of Windows • Hacker News Board

Re: The End of Windows

#341

Post by CuriouslyC » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 5:23 PM UTC

Philipp__ wrote: post #39

bigmanwalter wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux on desktop is pretty amazing. Haven't looked back in 3 years.

You gotta be kidding me. Good luck using multiple HiDPI monitors. The only reasonable way to use Linux is tiling wm with as less graphical interface as possible, in my case only xterm and emacs. Which is crazy, since it’s 2018. and I am using modern computer with modern OS like how computers were used before I was even born.

I'm running linux with a 4k monitor and a 2560x1600 monitor, and it's plenty smooth. It is worth noting that I have a GTX 1080, but everything else in the system is 7 years old.

Re: The End of Windows

#342

Post by pmontra » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 5:24 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…

Personally I won't touch anything with less than 32 GB and 1080p, but people that use a PC like a tablet with a keyboard and a larger screen have different needs. They are the vast majority of buyers.

A friend of mine is thinking about buying a new laptop. We were looking together at what's available in the sub 400 Euro range, basically everything is 4 GB and 1366x768. Add some 200/300 Euro and 8 GB and 1080p start to appear in the lists. Guess what people buy most? The cheapest stuff.

By the way, the new laptop must be Windows because anything different will be too difficult to cope with after 30 years of training. He's replacing the old one (only 2 years old) is getting too slow. Probably a malware party but disinfecting that machine it's a hopeless effort. That one and the previous ones were periodically cleaned and/or reinstalled but there is no way to change those ingrained clicking habits. No adblocker because my friend wants to see ads and they could actually be useful in his business. I told him that he'll be back with a slow PC soon and that he's wasting his money, and I've been wasting my time.

Re: The End of Windows

#343

Post by majewsky » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 5:26 PM UTC

willtim wrote: post #270

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.

If I was in the market of workstation software such as CAD, Music DAWs, industrial automation etc. I would much rather have control over the base OS by shipping a customised version of Debian or similar. This would be very compelling for professional users also, who don't want the consumer-oriented cruft and bloat associated with Windows and Mac OS.

How would you deal with customers' corporate IT banning any non-certified OS from the network?

At work, we have a big TV screen showing an alert overview (a Grafana dashboard). A Raspberry Pi with Raspbian and Firefox would be enough to do that, but if we were to connect one to the LAN, its MAC would be blacklisted within less than a hour. (I've heard a report from a contractor plugging his own notebook into Ethernet, who had said cable ripped out by the local admin a few minutes later.) We ended up using an old notebook from one of our colleagues running Windows 7 Enterprise. Every few days, we have to RDP into it to click through app updates or restart the browser or something like that.

Re: The End of Windows

#344

Post by izacus » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 5:27 PM UTC

_lbaq wrote: post #117

Philipp__ wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You gotta be kidding me. Good luck using multiple HiDPI monitors. The only reasonable way to use Linux is tiling wm with as less graphical interface as possible, in my case only xterm and emacs. Which is crazy, since it’s 2018. and I am using modern computer with modern OS like how computers were used before I was even born.

Using Fedora and two HiDPI monitors, one landscape 4k screen and one portrait 2k screen, Gnome works great in this setup.

More common setup of one hidpi screen with another normal dpi screen (laptop + external screen) tends to break horribly in many cases though.

Re: The End of Windows

#345

Post by robotresearcher » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 5:27 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #297

rb808 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Windows 8 may have been a response to iOS popularity, but don't forget that Microsoft had been pushing tablets for a long time by then. They had a huge head start over Apple. If you want to include Windows for Pen Computing, then it was an 18 year lead that they lost overnight.

Apple released their own hardware pen-based handheld computer in 1993.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Newton

Windows for Pen Computing was released in 1992.

Re: The End of Windows

#346

Post by s_kilk » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 5:29 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 know many people economize on memory

Most just don't have a choice. Plenty of laptop models top out at 8GB,with 16GB either being confined to larger form-factor machines, or being so outrageously expensive that no-one in their right mind would bother.

I mean, look at the current line of macbook pros, you simply can't get 16GB without going up to the 15-inch model.

Re: The End of Windows

#347

Post by majewsky » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 5:30 PM UTC

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...

That KB entry is misleading: Steam works on most distros (at least all the ones that I've tried) because it includes its own runtime (glibc etc.) and thus avoids most of the idiosyncrasies of distros.

AppImage/Flatpak/Snap/Docker is mostly the same idea, just executed differently.

Re: The End of Windows

#348

Post by jethro_tell » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 5:32 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+.

Think is 'expected to run for <5 years' since the device has 5 years of software support. I find that to be a bit of a bummer, but it's still better than android's 3

Re: The End of Windows

#349

Post by bayindirh » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

kobrad wrote: post #336

bayindirh wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Most of the tasks in the real world doesn't need multiple 4K displays, including…

It's not about needing 4k, it's about the prices. While it's normal in the usa to get a couple of these monitors for me the expense is impossible. And I really would use a 4k monitor. It's a big world, and most of it is not the usa

Actually, it's not always the price. Serious developers or seasoned computer enthusiasts doesn't change rigs every couple of years. If one's system is performing well enough, and the user gets used to it, system upgrade can be deferred until some technology or computing resource becomes necessary. When something breaks, the broken part is replaced and upgraded in most cases.

Personally, I've just upgraded from 1680x1050 to 1920x1080. My old monitor was 10 years old, and was performing relatively well. I bought a new one, because it started to show its age (mostly backlight age).

Re: The End of Windows

#350

Post by bluGill » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

ynniv wrote: post #283

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…

If that were true, Linux on the desktop would have already won and this decision wouldn't be controversial. I think what's preventing this is that making a productive desktop operating system is more difficult than we think.

No. Linux on the desktop has some specific list of pros/cons. Windows can be better by enough, even if inertia is the only advantage.