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Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

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Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#151

Post by astine »

hamsapelea wrote: post #138
stiray wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have dumped windows completely after spending some time on windows 8 (fyi: system level developer, but... Well i did my share on aix, hpux, solaris, linux, vms too, but I did love windows... Before the age of manifests, putting com interfaces into kernel32.dll,...) What troubles me THE most on linux is interoperability of applications, there is literally nothing replacing microsoft "office" (not a product Office) s…

Hmm the average joe is already using google drive rather than office et al. Works on linux and mac better than the office stack works on windows.

I'd be very surprised if this were true. My experience is that in actual offices, MS Office is king and it would be very hard to move most workflows away from it without exactly replicating it bug-for-bug.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#152

Post by simion314 »

will4274 wrote: post #57
simion314 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the author refers at the fact you release just a bit of functionality for Linux but if you want the full stack you have to use Windows. Like you make .Net for Linux but only some parts, release other tools but not the admin part etc. I would be convinced when MS and Wine project has an agreement so the Wine devs can access the Windows source code.

> I would be convinced when MS and Wine project has an agreement so the Wine devs can access the Windows source code. This is exactly what I'm saying is absurd. Microsoft isn't EEE-ing by not giving Wine devs access to Windows source. There is a difference between not helping and actively sabotaging. Conflating the two is an unfair attack.

The part about Wine is not related, it was about what would convince me that Microsoft "loves" Linux or at least is not intimidated by it. The WSL seems to me as the first part of the EEE and the competition would be fair if Linux could have it's own project Wine supported by Microsoft, as it is now it feels as an exploit, MS can do WSL but Linux and Mac have to struggle with Wine and the FUD around it.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#153

Post by nocman »

purple-again wrote: post #131
tracker1 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say they'd never do an Office on Linux... If you look at how they've been leveraging web tech and Electron for VS Code and MS Teams, I'd be very surprised if we didn't see an Electron based version of Office in a couple years. Electron has an amazing cross platform appeal for developers and MS has taken advantage of that. Not to mention managing to write applications under Electron that don't suck (though…

I’m 90% teams doesn’t work on Linux and have been using the web app for a long time now. I sorely miss the slack desktop app and would to be corrected if this is possible now.

Well, if the buzz I've heard recently (and the article below) are correct. A native Linux "Microsoft Teams" client is coming (pretty sure I heard mid-December)

https://www.windowscentral.com/its-official-microsoft-teams-...

EDIT: Yup, the link referenced by the article (https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/su...) says:

"We’re pleased to confirm the Teams client for Linux will be available in preview by the end of this calendar year, enabling people who use Linux client at work or in educational institutions to collaborate with others on Teams. Users will be able to install native Linux packages in .deb and .rpm formats."

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#154

Post by ripley12 »

Nullabillity wrote: post #87
Foobar8568 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Microsoft makes some of the best tools for developers. Because sql server is a fantastic product that has basically no real equivalent on the market. And funnily enough, I always feel that .Net core primary platform was Linux and not windows. Same for visual studio code, and I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years, new sql server features won't appear first on the Linux version. And actually it's somewhat t…

> Because Microsoft makes some of the best tools for developers. NuGet constantly fails silently when trying to restore packages. Visual Studio is an editor built primarily around a folder tree, with no competent way to navigate that tree without constantly losing your place. It's also the only IDE that I have used where I just had to give up trying to find the application logs. > Because sql server is a fantastic pr…

> SSMS is an unusable hog.

...huh? SSMS (plus the free Red Gate SQL Search addin) is hands-down the best DB tooling I've ever used. If you're aware of similarly full-featured equivalents for Postgres (or any other RDBMS), I'd love to hear about them.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#155

Post by robenkleene »

hamsapelea wrote: post #138
stiray wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have dumped windows completely after spending some time on windows 8 (fyi: system level developer, but... Well i did my share on aix, hpux, solaris, linux, vms too, but I did love windows... Before the age of manifests, putting com interfaces into kernel32.dll,...) What troubles me THE most on linux is interoperability of applications, there is literally nothing replacing microsoft "office" (not a product Office) s…

Hmm the average joe is already using google drive rather than office et al. Works on linux and mac better than the office stack works on windows.

I was really surprised to learn that according to Okta’s Businesses at Work 2019 report[1] Microsoft Office is still significantly more popular than G Suite, at least in the workplace:

> Office 365 increased its lead and continues to dominate the total pool of apps by number of customers, and it’s growing its active unique users by 55% year over year.

I wrote a bit about the report[2]. Another interesting finding is that people actually prefer using Microsoft Office products:

> Our survey found that 67% of knowledge workers prefer Microsoft Word over Google Docs, while only 15% report the opposite. When it comes to email, 49% prefer Microsoft Outlook over Gmail, while 35% report the opposite.

[1]: https://www.okta.com/businesses-at-work/2019/

[2]: https://blog.robenkleene.com/2019/08/31/office-suite-market-...

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#156

Post by dlivingston »

excursionist wrote: post #117
Someone1234 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't use Linux Desktop because it is bad. Constantly looking for others to blame (Microsoft, DRM, Google, Valve, Apple, etc) doesn't change that fact. The fact that Google has been able to take the Linux kernel twice and produce a better and more popular desktop experience (with Android and then Chromebook) should be a good indication of that. Linux Desktop is exclusively designed for Linux developers, it is…

> People don't use Linux Desktop because it is bad. People do you Linux Desktop because it is great. I do. > The fact that Google has been able to take the Linux kernel twice and produce a better and more popular desktop experience (with Android and then Chromebook) should be a good indication of that. In what way is Android or Chromebook better than, say, Debian or Ubuntu on desktop? > Linux Desktop is exclusively d…

Your response is little more than, "no, you're wrong, and I'm right." I tend to agree with parent that the general Linux UI/UX experience (even the flagship Linux OS, Ubuntu) is subpar compared to commercial operating systems.

You only make a serious argument in the last bullet:

> First of all, it is perfectly practical, especially given the fact that you can find step-by-step instruction to do just about anything in a matter of seconds. Second, you rarely have to do these things and graphical overlays are often available and/or come pre-installed on distros such as Ubuntu. Third, you sometimes have to do similar things on Windows, whether it be editing the hosts file or changing obscure registry settings - the difference is that the Linux versions of these things have much better documentation, and much more info and community support online.

The vast majority of Windows and macOS users are not technical people, and that is fine. The vast majority of Windows users do not need to edit registry settings, just as the vast majority of macOS users don't need to edit `defaults write com.apple.[star]`. More importantly, they don't want to.

My grandma is deathly afraid that any wrong action she takes will brick her PC. You're telling me that she'll be fine running sudo in a terminal, even if there's step by step directions?

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#157

Post by ripley12 »

excursionist wrote: post #83
Foobar8568 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Microsoft makes some of the best tools for developers. Because sql server is a fantastic product that has basically no real equivalent on the market. And funnily enough, I always feel that .Net core primary platform was Linux and not windows. Same for visual studio code, and I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years, new sql server features won't appear first on the Linux version. And actually it's somewhat t…

> Because Microsoft makes some of the best tools for developers. What are some of these tools besides VSCode, and what makes them 'the best'? > Because sql server is a fantastic product that has basically no real equivalent on the market. What makes SQL Server so much better than, say, PostgreSQL or MariaDB? > And funnily enough, I always feel that .Net core primary platform was Linux and not windows. Why?

> What makes SQL Server so much better than, say, PostgreSQL or MariaDB?

Tooling and speed. I can vouch for the quality of SQL Server's tooling – SSMS is very nicely integrated with SQL Server.

If you watch the CMU DB Group's lectures on YouTube, they mention that the commercial RDBMSs have put a lot more time+research into query optimization than the open source ones (and apparently SQL Server has the best optimizer).

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#158

Post by hamsapelea »

astine wrote: post #151
hamsapelea wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm the average joe is already using google drive rather than office et al. Works on linux and mac better than the office stack works on windows.

I'd be very surprised if this were true. My experience is that in actual offices, MS Office is king and it would be very hard to move most workflows away from it without exactly replicating it bug-for-bug.

To be honest i never worked in such a backwards office where people still use ms office

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#159

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

stiray wrote: post #130
juliangoldsmith wrote: post #17

Microsoft loves Linux because it makes them money. I'm not sure why anyone would expect differently. They won't release products like Office for Linux (though a web interface is possible), and they won't move away from Windows-only APIs. Neither of those actions would have any tangible benefit for the primary users of those produts (Windows users and Windows developers, respectively). Active Directory is so deeply in…

I have dumped windows completely after spending some time on windows 8 (fyi: system level developer, but... Well i did my share on aix, hpux, solaris, linux, vms too, but I did love windows... Before the age of manifests, putting com interfaces into kernel32.dll,...) What troubles me THE most on linux is interoperability of applications, there is literally nothing replacing microsoft "office" (not a product Office) s…

Yeah, that's the problem. Linux Desktop evangelists think they can slap a new coat of paint on this cobbled-together kludge of disparately developed software and that'll be "good enough for everyone". They don't seem to understand the way desktop software fits into workflows that aren't their own.

Re: Microsoft's “Love” of Linux

#160

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

astine wrote: post #151
hamsapelea wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm the average joe is already using google drive rather than office et al. Works on linux and mac better than the office stack works on windows.

I'd be very surprised if this were true. My experience is that in actual offices, MS Office is king and it would be very hard to move most workflows away from it without exactly replicating it bug-for-bug.

Bug-for-bug? Nah. Just come up with something even remotely as productivity-enhancing as Excel is and you might have a shot. Fact is, people who think this already exists underestimate that powerhouse of productivity. It is possibly the most used programming environment on earth.
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