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The End of Windows

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Re: The End of Windows

#561

Post by deno »

Stratoscope wrote: post #524
kuzimoto wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that having higher PPI is great, but are you using scaling to make text larger? I was barely able to use a 28" 4k a 100%, can't imagine doing that at 24"

Yes, I should have mentioned that I'm using Windows 10 with 225% scaling on both the 4K UHD 24" display (187 DPI) and the WQHD 14" (210 DPI). Some people like a bit less scaling, some more, but in general you want a scaling factor that roughly matches your display's pixels per inch. The original Windows "standard display" was assumed to be around 96 DPI. That's the monitor that 100% scaling (i.e. no scaling) is inten…

> A 28" 4K UHD has 157 dpi, so I wouldn't want to try it at 100% scaling - ouch. It ought to be running in the 150-175% scaling range.

That’s not how it works. Lower dpi does not somehow give you more real estate!

You should still be running with ~200% scaling because you are viewing it at a greater distance.

Optimal viewing distance, assuming 16:9 ratio, is 120 cm vs 140 cm for 24" vs 28", respectively[1]. Accounting for the difference gets you ~155 ppd with both monitors[2][3], maintaining 25.0° horizontal viewing angle.

The closer your viewing distance the more ppi you need for the same density. That 28" is not inferior to the 24", when you account for distance, despite the lower ppi, because the greater viewing distance makes the pixels look smaller, thus creating more dense image.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_size

[2] http://phrogz.net/tmp/ScreenDens2In.html#find:density,pxW:38...

[3] http://phrogz.net/tmp/ScreenDens2In.html#find:density,pxW:38...

Re: The End of Windows

#562

Post by hypertextcoffee »

coonery wrote: post #559
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…

4k is overrated. 27" 1440p is good enough, plus current GPUs are able to push 100+ FPS with such resolution (they fail miserably with 4k resolution).

>(they fail miserably with 4k resolution) I use an external GTX 1070 over Thunderbolt 3 on a 2017 Dell XPS 15, and have 2 2160p monitors. 4K gaming is no problem at the refresh rates that 4K offers (usually 60Hz)

Re: The End of Windows

#563

Post by isostatic »

majewsky wrote: post #343
willtim wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

IPtables, block all incoming traffic aside from arps and replys to known traffic?

Re: The End of Windows

#564

Post by giancarlostoro »

macintux wrote: post #509
freehunter wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I don’t know either, but I wouldn’t be surprised to discover Netflix thinks people with Apple laptops are likely to have an iPad or iPhone as well. With the possible exception of my non-Retina iPad mini I’d rather watch Netflix on any of my mobile devices. It never even occurred to me to look for it on my laptop, because the form factor is so ridiculous for movie watching.

Very possible. I've watched movies off my desktop for years, and my network isn't always reliable so being able to predownload shows on my Windows desktop is perfect. It returns me to my experience pre-Netflix / Hulu. I wish the streaming services were not getting so fragmented they're not helping with their greed, they're only drawing people toward piracy further all over again. I'm speaking of course of CW. I'm not paying to stream only one network just to watch Arrow and Co. dang it!

Re: The End of Windows

#565

Post by Svoka »

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…

Sounds like April Fools joke/Onion article BREAKING: Bay Area developer discover that California is surrounded by rest of the World.

Re: The End of Windows

#566

Post by Silhouette »

sjellis wrote: post #550
CamperBob2 wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only question is: cui bono? Who would have a reason to go that route? Someone like Valve, who has a massive investment in Windows software in areas that Microsoft has specifically targeted for "embracing." What Microsoft doesn't seem to understand is that when they screw with Windows and deprioritize the needs of its users, they're also screwing with the rest of us who live, work, and play in their ecosystem. Gab…

"What Microsoft doesn't seem to understand is that when they screw with Windows and deprioritize the needs of its users, they're also screwing with the rest of us who live, work, and play in their ecosystem." That is the part that baffles me. Visual Studio Code is a fantastic advert for the Microsoft brand: every day it shows every developer who uses it that MS can produce genuinely great software. It makes Azure mor…

Visual Studio Code is a fantastic advert for the Microsoft brand ... If people have a bad experience with Windows, why would they be inclined to get other services from MS?

Ironically, we decided not to try out VS Code specifically because of privacy/security concerns about Microsoft that have been heightened since Windows 10. We checked Microsoft's written policies to see what sort of telemetry data was being uploaded. We were unable to find any detailed information about it, and the general wording appeared to allow for uploading more-or-less anything, up to and including our own code.

Re: The End of Windows

#567

Post by deno »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #341
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.

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.

You don’t need a GTX 1080. Any modern low-end GPU like RX 550, GTX 1030 or the new Ryzen APU would be fine. Even higher-end Intel iGPUs should work[1].

Basically all you need is at least DisplayPort 1.2 (or 1.2a if you want Freesync) for 4K @ 60 Hz.

The RX 550 has 1.3 support, so it should handle up to 2x4K @ 60Hz with MST (daisy-chained or with a splitter) or a single 5K @ 60Hz.

Some 4K monitors can also work with 2×HDMI, but I don’t think you’ll find that on any low-end card. Maybe high-end used.

As for actual performance, there is a huge gap between what you need for gaming and what you need for office work.

A low-level graphics card from few generations ago with 1GB of VRAM would be fine even (like Quadro 2000), except that it will only be able to drive the display at 30 Hz.

The biggest gotcha with a 4K display is actually your host RAM. If you try to run anything like GIMP, Photoshop, or vector editors in particular, it will gobble up much more memory than usual. Your regular web browser will as well, though to a much lesser degree.

Getting something just a little better, like an RX 560, might be a good idea though, this gives you enough GPGPU power to run most expensive video filters and scalers at native 4K[2].

[1] My Apollo Lake netbook with an entry-level iGPU can handle a 3K display easy

[2] Your source material might be 1080p but you end up postprocessing it at 4K. This might surprise some people.

Re: The End of Windows

#568

Post by emptyfile »

RX14 wrote: post #293
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).

My brand new thinkpad with 16gb ram and a 1080p ips display cost only £670. These specs aren't expensive any more. That being said, my parents are perfectly happy using Google chrome on 2gb ram with a core 2 duo. And that's not with only a few tabs.

Not a single person in my office has a laptop that costs over ~400 GBP.

It may come as a shock to you but there exists a world outside of California/London/random-tech-hub

Re: The End of Windows

#569

Post by thanatropism »

flarg wrote: post #486
thanatropism wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not at all; if you want to consume a lot and create a little then your thesis is right, but the desktop is king for creators. There are a slew of very mature Windows only software out there serving many fields of endeavour for which there are no competitors in either FOSS or other OSs.

Eh. Creator software comes in two tiers. Dilettante tier (e.g. lower-end Photoshop) is actively ditching desktop altogether, while higher-end (think of Color, the motion picture colorizing system) either run on Macs or on such dedicated machines that they might run Wintel but are not "desktops" anymore.

(Then there's scientific software -- Stata and Matlab and that stuff. But ten years ago Matlab, like gagh, was best served in higher-end minicomputers and now everything is Python and can be ran on a cheap VPS or on AWS.)

Besides the sheer gobsmacking convenience, there's also the fact that it's way more fun for bean-counters to have higher OPEX in exchange of lower CAPEX. It really kicks the llama's ass.

Re: The End of Windows

#570

Post by jimktrains2 »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #77
jimktrains2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many games that run well in Linux, including a large portion of the Steam library! If you meant a specific game to run, well then you need to weight your pros and cons and stop whining when you make your decision. Alternatively, dual boot.

Or he could ignore people like you and just use Windows. If you're going to have a bunch of headaches you may as well stick to the ones you're familiar with on the system that actually does what you want pretty well.

> Or he could ignore people like you and just use Windows.

GP is the one who said he'd move to linux if there were games. I didn't imply he was wrong for using Windows. I think you (and all other siblings) are reading more into my comment than there actually is.

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