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Could Microsoft release a desktop Linux?

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Re: Could Microsoft release a desktop Linux?

#141

Post by mrweasel »

kerng wrote: post #93
oaiey wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just that a database server is a very specific thing. Own memory handling, own file system handling, own scheduling, ... . The core of these systems give a shit about the operating system.

It's even more so true. The complexity of kernel calls is much higher when custom memory and scheduler involved I'd say. Getting Office running is probably rather simple in comparison.

MSSQL is basically a small OS, it uses very few system calls, around 50 if I remember the Microsoft presentation correctly. That’s not to say that porting was easy, but rely very little on the underlaying OS. Porting Office is most likely much more work, just to get the GUI working.

Re: Could Microsoft release a desktop Linux?

#142

Post by Ari_Ugwu »

suby wrote: post #135
Ari_Ugwu wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should buy elementary OS. System_76 borrowed heavily from elementary OS to create Pop_Os which is a dream. Now that I'm saying it I hope they just swallow a little pride and become a major contributor to Pop_Os. Every devops and net admin I know would wiggle with joy to be issued a Dell XPS 15 + Pop_Os tuned with PowerShell and other MS tool chains fully supported.

Pop os is just Ubuntu (gnome 3) with a different theme.

People say this but I've tried many times to add themes, make tweaks etc. Can we give some 'distro' makers a little credit? I couldn't make Pop_Os if you gave me 10 years....I know cause I've been trying for 15.

Re: Could Microsoft release a desktop Linux?

#143

Post by Zardoz84 »

zapzupnz wrote: post #111
curiousgal wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and it will probably take a big company to actually do it The lack of a company controlling Linux is exactly why it's Linux. I am surprised that someone who is mid-career, has money, and little time doesn't know that.

I always saw Canonical as trying to do this, considering what pains they used to go through to not use the term 'Linux' in their marketing. They were playing things as though Ubuntu was their own platform (and in many ways, given the different ways that Ubuntu used to break compatibility with plain Debian, it was) — their own software centre, their own desktop, their own services. Many of those seem to have gone by t…

you know that everything that unity was doing, can be donde indica KDE if you take 20 minutes to configure it? Try to not call it "amateur"

Re: Could Microsoft release a desktop Linux?

#144

Post by [deleted] »

crispinb wrote: post #133
whyonearth wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a bit contradictory to choose an insecure OS because a more secure one doesn't support a nice-to-have piece of security hardware. That aside, I'd be interested in the specifics of the "too many problems" that you anticipate on supported hardware (which includes most configurations of the XPS and Precision).

> I think it's a bit contradictory to choose an insecure OS because a more secure one doesn't support a nice-to-have piece of security hardware. Maybe. But that has nothing to do with what I wrote. > I'd be interested in the specifics Would you? Or would you like to gather factoids in pursuit of your belief that everyone must make the choices you make? > that you anticipate on supported hardware Not "anticipate". Exp…

[deleted]

Re: Could Microsoft release a desktop Linux?

#145

Post by Zardoz84 »

justinclift wrote: post #57
Endy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would have been the end of me using computers, right then and there. An operating system that updates or upgrades more than about once per decade is moving entirely too fast. 5 years about the fastest possible rate that even approaches being reasonable. The fact that Windows has always bent over backwards to provide backward compatibility would be totally invalidated by shifting toward Linux. I run a bunch of DO…

> ... the practices of Linux/Unix devs who have little or no respect for the past Maybe some Linux devs, but many Unix devs have been around a long time and are pretty insistent on backwards compatibility too. ;)

shit... There are some Unix software from 80's that runs unmodified on modern Linux. You only need to recompile it.

Re: Could Microsoft release a desktop Linux?

#146

Post by zozbot123 »

gingerbread-man wrote: post #34

Here's a dopey idea: What if Microsoft open-sourced the Windows NT kernel? (While retaining some proprietary drivers, etc..) If handled well, a community would blossom around "NT," with multiple "unofficial" distros (maybe one with full POSIX compatibility), and lots and lots of happy developers. If things went really well, they might even achieve the resources necessary to create Windows Phone 2.0. Microsoft could s…

> What if Microsoft open-sourced the Windows NT kernel? (While retaining some proprietary drivers, etc..)

ReactOS exists today, and how many people care about it? Does NT even matter, except as a basic layer for the Win32 and UWP platforms?

Re: Could Microsoft release a desktop Linux?

#148

Post by zozbot123 »

sho wrote: post #76
didibus wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give openSuse Tumbleweed a try, with KDE Plasma. I've been running it on a 10 year old XPS 13, smooth as butter. Or KDE Neon if you'd rather have an Ubuntu core. I heard good things about it but didn't try.

Sigh. No offense but it's comments like this that remind me why no, I haven't tried desktop linux recently. No, I am not going to mess around trying KDE Plasma or SomethingElse Tumbleweed or OpenWuffe SnufflePuss XL or any other of the billion permutations of half-baked shit which might or might not work. I am mid-career, I have money, I have little time and even less interest in fucking around with any of that just…

> It's sort of ironic to me that one of the main reasons I like linux on the server - which I use exclusively - is because I perceive it as "just working" in a way that MS servers never do. The situation is entirely inverted on the desktop

If "just works" is what you're going for, then install a rock-solid distro on the desktop - Debian GNU/Linux, CentOS and OpenSUSE Leap are the ones which are really in the running, IME; Ubuntu LTS is a distant possibility if commercial support or third-party applications are a priority for you - and, just as importantly, accept its limitations. No, it's not going to support the office, music or image-processing apps that you're used to. But there's plenty that it can do, that many, many users will be absolutely fine with. (The fact that so many people are fine with something as incredibly basic as ChromeOS is proof positive of this. A Linux desktop gives you plenty more than that, and you can easily get it to run on extremely cheap hardware that would not manage to run any other modern OS.)

Re: Could Microsoft release a desktop Linux?

#149

Post by Zardoz84 »

cwyers wrote: post #25

The Windows NT kernel has better hardware support and Microsoft is showing that they can run a full Linux userland on top of it. What do they gain from shipping Linux for the desktop?

WSL is a slow joke compared against native GNU/Linux. Also, you missed that WSL don't support GUI apps. However the inverse, Wine, works very well and sometimes it's faster that native Windows

Re: Could Microsoft release a desktop Linux?

#150

Post by aasasd »

gingerbread-man wrote: post #34

Here's a dopey idea: What if Microsoft open-sourced the Windows NT kernel? (While retaining some proprietary drivers, etc..) If handled well, a community would blossom around "NT," with multiple "unofficial" distros (maybe one with full POSIX compatibility), and lots and lots of happy developers. If things went really well, they might even achieve the resources necessary to create Windows Phone 2.0. Microsoft could s…

You mean the same way how a community, distros and developers blossomed around Darwin and OpenStep?
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