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Windows needs a change in priorities

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Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#781

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

digisign wrote: post #759
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Application installation is broken. If software isn't hand-curated in the distro's repository and kept up to date by someone, then get ready to set up a dev environment and compile from source. Hopefully you will not break your entire system trying to cater to whims of whatever insane build environment it uses. This includes new versions that no one has got around to packaging yet. AppImage and Flatpak are making inr…

This reads like a comment from Slashdot, circa '97. If you have a "toxic" relationship with inept/malicious application software, break ties with it now just as you should from Microsoft. Even under your rare worst-case scenario, recovery has never been easier with "live" flash drives. No need to live in fear of breaking something.

> This reads like a comment from Slashdot, circa '97

Sadly, while some parts of the Linux Desktop have come a long way since the 90s, many others have not.

> If you have a "toxic" relationship with inept/malicious application software, break ties with it now just as you should from Microsoft.

Presumably people use software to do something, and many times there simply isn't alternative software that does what you want to do and you're stuck with it even though it is toxic.

> Even under your rare worst-case scenario, recovery has never been easier with "live" flash drives. No need to live in fear of breaking something.

Here's something else you might have read on Slashdot in 97 that's still applicable today: "Linux is free only if your time isn't worth anything". My fear isn't losing data or being unable to get back to the working state, it's the time I lose having to go through the effort of doing that when the simple case of just installing a goddamned application shouldn't be such a pain in the first place.

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#782

Post by Silhouette »

ReaLNero wrote: post #707
Silhouette wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beginner friendly distos seem to have solved the package management problem, and there are adequate desktop environments, office suites, browsers, gaming, and everything else. But for professional use "adequate" doesn't cut it. Professionals need "good" and judge that by the standards of what is available on other platforms. 95% compatibility with the industry standard doesn't cut it. 80% of the features working at l…

> But for professional use "adequate" doesn't cut it. However bad Linux is at package management, Windows is even worse. So I'm not sure how your argument convinces people that Windows package managers are superior?

I didn't say anything about package managers. What counts is the software that is available. The best package manager in the world isn't worth anything if it doesn't have the packages that you need.

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#783

Post by Dylan16807 »

bastardoperator wrote: post #719
banana_giraffe wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even stuff like WSL is loosing it's shine now for me. I've personally hit a bug on multiple computers that I can reliably repo a blue screen if I attempt to update a specific package. The github bug for this issue last had activity from MS 4 months ago. Kinda makes it hard to take it seriously if such a major blocker is treated with such low priority.

Try doing anything I/O intensive in WSL and it all falls apart. I have a 32 core machine with 128GB using nvme disks and it's getting murdered performance wise by an 8 core AWS instance with 16GB of ram on gp2 disks.

1 or 2, and doing the I/O inside the virtual disk or not?

WSL2 inside the virtual disk should be very fast.

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#784

Post by pjettter »

grumpyprole wrote: post #416
artificialLimbs wrote: post #190

I stopped playing Minecraft recently again. I first quit a few years ago, but wanted to show it to my young son. Trying to go back and EVEN JUST INSTALL it now is filled with Microsoft-ian circles of login catastrophe and "upgrade your account" nightmares. The installation process was so difficult, I will never play again.

I tried to play Minecraft with my kids yesterday. It forced us to migrate accounts, but after clicking lots of buttons, the presumably final Microsoft account creation part just hung and wouldn't finish. My kids were like "By why can't we just play? We paid for it!". They couldn't understand why "Microsoft accounts" were even needed for local network play. Neither can I.

I still don't understand what a "Microsoft Account" IS. Is it Hotmail? I know what an Apple Id is! And it just works!

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#785

Post by ComputerGuru »

anarazel wrote: post #26
worewood wrote: post #10

If they shipped a version of Windows sporting the Windows-11 kernel, so running all the recent software, but with Windows 2000 UI for a thousand dollars I would buy it immediately.

Server isn't too far off...

Server 2012 (or was it 2008?) was absolutely terrible in that was absolutely Windows 8-ified with a forced full-screen metro start menu "experience," but that was fortunately rectified in the next release (Server 2016, I'm pretty sure).

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#786

Post by pjettter »

This focuses on some aesthetic "features" and it doesn't even touch a large portion of all other problems. I won't even attempt but I'll mention one thing.

The part about Windows that bothers me most is that I have no control regarding how windows behave. I am typing and suddenly I am typing in another window! And there is no way to know what just happened. I could be pressing the ESC key while a window for another application just came in focus. Gone! The window and my text. WTF? Or it could be a window with a default button and I just pressed ENTER. Gone! What just happened? Impossible to know. DO NOT INTERFERE WITH MY FOCUS! If I am typing in a window, DO NOT EVER DISTURB ME. I am operating in a context. MY CONTEXT. Not Cortana. Not some app that wants to do something on a schedule because of some enterprise policy. I am working!

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#787

Post by Nextgrid »

Silhouette wrote: post #780
Nextgrid wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you understand that the potential fines for violations under some of the recent laws (notably the GDPR) have a few extra zeroes on that? That's been the case for 4 years now, none of these fines have occurred. The total amount of fines across all companies over those 4 years is barely above 1Bn. > The limiting factor at the moment seems to be a lack of resources for the regulators that are responsible for enforc…

That's been the case for 4 years now, none of these fines have occurred. The largest fines so far have been approaching 9 figures, far more than the "couple of million" in the comment I replied to above. That's not pocket change even for a multinational and of course there has to be reasonable due process before handing out that kind of penalty. If anything I'd say the fact that several eight-figure penalties have al…

I don't have first-hand experience with other DPAs so I can't comment on those, though the fact that Facebook and Google are still around and still have business presences in most EU countries suggest they aren't much better.

I have multiple experiences dealing with the UK one, spending unreasonable amounts of time raising complaints for obvious breaches of the GDPR with no outcome. I've summarized my experience here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30662905

Not to mention, this high-profile incident which they are themselves proud enough to announce on their own website: https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-bl... - so you've got a company whose entire business is to manage people's personal data and is large enough to have the resources to understand & comply with the regulation, and you caught them red-handed misusing data that people outright had no choice in giving up (I don't know any bank that allows opting out of CRA reporting even if you never actually intend to take out credit) for a purpose that's definitely not in the data subjects' best interests, and the outcome is a letter?

What message do you think the above sends? To me it sends that breaching the GDPR absolutely does pay and you should absolutely do it at least once because even getting caught brazenly breaching it (considering the size & resources of said companies, number of people impacted and the fact people had literally no choice) will lead to just politely being asked to stop with no monetary penalty nor having to compensate the affected users.

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#788

Post by garaetjjte »

derac wrote: post #570
apatheticonion wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

omg thank you for this. The amount of people trying to tell me WSL2 is groundbreaking - meanwhile I have been rocking Fedora in virtualbox for years. WSL1 was really interesting, but ultimately Microsoft needed a flagship product to demonstrate the capabilities of Hyper-V and WSL was the perfect project.

To be clear, wsl 2 lets you interact with the Windows filesystem. I believe you can launch exes in wsl1, but not 2. However, I've never needed to do that. It's definitely not groundbreaking, but it is convenient. Using it with the new terminal app is nice. It will load and unload the ram for the instance immediately whenever you pop open a linux shell. IMO opening and closing virtualbox/hyper-v takes longer and is cl…

WSL2 filesystem access is just ordinary 9p mount.

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#789

Post by 29athrowaway »

ahmedalsudani wrote: post #408
leshenka wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike Meta/Alphabet, Microsoft actually has something that’s not shameful

You don't think any of those are "not shameful"? - Google search - Google maps - YouTube - FB Messenger/WhatsApp - Instagram - Oculus - FB Marketplace

Where do you think they got the motivation to form monopolies in their respective areas?

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#790

Post by 29athrowaway »

michaelmrose wrote: post #498
ahmedalsudani wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think any of those are "not shameful"? - Google search - Google maps - YouTube - FB Messenger/WhatsApp - Instagram - Oculus - FB Marketplace

Facebook marketplace is full of stolen goods boosted by meth heads that they won't do anything about.

And Facebook groups are full of posts advertising impersonation services aimed to bypass background checks at jobs, notably delivery and ridesharing services, for people with criminal background and people that do not pass e-verify.

I have reported them but Facebook won't do anything about them.

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