Offtopic: What font is used on that webpage? It's very comfortable to the eye.
Firefox Dev tools say Freight Sans Pro
The End of Windows
361–370 of 617 posts
Re: The End of Windows
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yeah, it speaks volumes that the best way to ensure applications work on your platform is for the dev to bundle their own version of the platform in a container with the application.
Re: The End of Windows
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
> (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…
> In 2002, the most common resolutions were 4:3, not 16:9, not only because notebooks were not mainstream yet.
Sure. I didn't really intend to get into fine-grained technical details, but yes, back then 4:3 was the predominant aspect ratio. In fact, some of the 17" LCD displays from the time were that awkward 5:4 resolution of 1280x1024.
But putting specifics aside, the broader point is that computing technology—at least with respect to the most popular display resolution and amount of memory—is stagnant. In this thread there are people arguing for technology asceticism and making the point that 4GB and 1366x768 are good enough. And maybe they are for some people. I am surprised there are so many who are satisfied with this particular flavor of "good enough." (Though I would like to see how well that correlates with mobile device technology asceticism.)
I want the hardware industry to do better, and I thought things had started improving a few years ago when 4K displays emerged and the shackles of "High Definition" (1920x1080) were cast aside. But this data shows adoption of 4K displays for computing is so low it's not even measured as such. That disappointed me, but it's unsurprising. What surprised me was realizing 1920x1080 isn't the top dog I thought it was—in fact, the situation is worse than I thought.
And to my mind, all of this feeds into the subject at hand: an operating system vendor getting stuck. The embrace of "good enough" is suffocating.
Re: The End of Windows
#364Earlier 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.
The desktop matters less and less.
The only computer I own at home (other than ipad/iphone) is a Chromebook. But I lease a cheap VPS that lets me do "computer stuff" otherwise.
Re: The End of Windows
#365Earlier quoted context omitted.
If that's true, yes, Windows Server has been irrelevant for some time. It wouldn't explain the remapping of Office, though.
> Windows Server has been irrelevant for some time. Most definitely not. There are a ton of Microsoft Certified Somethings that will refuse to administrate Linux servers unless their life depends on it. Source: I work at SAP's internal cloud unit. We have to support Windows VMs (begrudgingly, if I may say), even for payloads that could run on Linux.
Inflexible workers will be separated from their jobs eventually, its just a matter of time.
Re: The End of Windows
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Isn't that my argument?
Re: The End of Windows
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a nice laptop, with a 3k display. I plug it to a normal screen, with a 1080p display. What happens? Well, it works but it looks like ass. Wanna fix it? Sure, just google around for 2 hours until you find a complicated xrandr command that you have to run every time on startup (but the OS will break every time you unplug the screen). Also, high DPI support is still garbage, which means that half the apps will ha…
It still is an edge case when the case is rare and people with high dpi Linux laptops (or monitors in general) combining them with regular dpi monitors is rare. Hell, high dpi monitors by themselves are still rare.
It's as rare as high dpi laptops, which are less and less rare nowadays. If you have a laptop, you're gonna plug it to an external screen at some point, and regular dpi screens are very not rare. This shortcoming is indefensible and should've been fixed years ago
Re: The End of Windows
#368Earlier 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.
>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 cl…
I suppose time will tell... Many companies will never do this.
Re: The End of Windows
#369Earlier 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…
> 4K doesn't even get listed, presumably lumped into the "Other" category.
Could the chart be reporting CSS pixels rather than hardware pixels? Macs are only 7% of total Firefox users but the majority of Mac hardware has a "Retina" display with a higher resolution than these.
BTW, 2560x1440 is listed with about ~1% but it's not visible because the line and text is black on a black background.
Re: The End of Windows
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a nice laptop, with a 3k display. I plug it to a normal screen, with a 1080p display. What happens? Well, it works but it looks like ass. Wanna fix it? Sure, just google around for 2 hours until you find a complicated xrandr command that you have to run every time on startup (but the OS will break every time you unplug the screen). Also, high DPI support is still garbage, which means that half the apps will ha…
It still is an edge case when the case is rare and people with high dpi Linux laptops (or monitors in general) combining them with regular dpi monitors is rare. Hell, high dpi monitors by themselves are still rare.
Pretty much any MacBook connected to an external monitor falls in this "edge case". Or any modern MacBook-class laptop. They might not be the majority, but they are still a group of people counted in millions.
It's only an edge case on Linux because anyone trying to use such a laptop on Linux is met with pretty much unacceptable breakage and has to move away to Windows or macOS.