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Prediction: Microsoft will eventually ship a Windows-themed Linux distro

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Re: Prediction: Microsoft will eventually ship a Windows-themed Linux distro

#111

Post by firesteelrain »

hougaard wrote: post #26

Because the "UX" of Windows sucks, Microsoft will switch the "Kernel" to Linux? I don't get the argument. There are parts of Windows I don't like, so I have chosen a 3rd-party (often open-source) replacement. The exact same process as I do on Linux. I don't see why I have to switch to Linux to have that freedom. (and to be honest, I don't care where the taskbar is)

Not just that; Active Directory is unmatched.

That being said, Azure is already running a lot of Linux. So for backend, it’s somewhere between Linux and Windows depending on what you need to do

But Azure also heavily runs Hyper V.

Re: Prediction: Microsoft will eventually ship a Windows-themed Linux distro

#112

Post by vbezhenar »

tombert wrote: post #104
hougaard wrote: post #26

Because the "UX" of Windows sucks, Microsoft will switch the "Kernel" to Linux? I don't get the argument. There are parts of Windows I don't like, so I have chosen a 3rd-party (often open-source) replacement. The exact same process as I do on Linux. I don't see why I have to switch to Linux to have that freedom. (and to be honest, I don't care where the taskbar is)

Yeah, I was about to say. The NT kernel isn’t bad at all; it’s arguably better than Linux. It’s just that an OS is more than a kernel, and pretty much all the other crap in Windows is terrible. Honestly, what I would like them to do is make/support a modern Copy on Write filesystem so that System Restore actually works , and so that it’s easy to roll back when Windows Update borks your PC. You don’t need Linux for ei…

Does it really matter if NT kernel is good or not? I don't think so. What matters if it's cheaper to use Linux kernel instead of Windows kernel in terms of expenses.

Just an example. Microsoft developed several browser engines: first Trident, then EdgeHTML. Edge wasn't bad, it was on par with Chrome, may be slightly behind, but nothing that couldn't be fixed with time. But Microsoft decided to abandon it and use Blink, because that was cheaper.

I absolutely could see the same scenario in the future, when they would need to cut expenses. Just get Linux, wine, fix enough bugs to make explorer.exe and OneDrive.exe to run smoothly enough and ship it.

Re: Prediction: Microsoft will eventually ship a Windows-themed Linux distro

#113

Post by okanat »

daviddever23box wrote: post #107
keyle wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good point. The kernel stuff of Windows isn't really the problem. I've been on macOS for eons, but I still hope that some day, someone at microsoft will have the balls to make a Windows Redux. Which is just Windows 7 with a coat of paint; and less stuff, installable separately; geared towards speed and not stuffings.

ReactOS has entered the chat.

Oh man. That would be awesome. However they are already struggling to catch up with Vista-era APIs.

Re: Prediction: Microsoft will eventually ship a Windows-themed Linux distro

#114

Post by Fwirt »

wackget wrote: post #55
bschwindHN wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You "never understand" these posts and then list off a ton of crap I shouldn't have to do to an OS to make it usable. The default experience of using windows is downright user-hostile and it reveals the thinking of the corporation behind it. Yeah, you _can_ do all that to make it somewhat usable, but when alternatives exist that are much less of a pain, I'll be taking those.

My experience of Linux (and Mac OS) has been the opposite; they are extremely painful to make usable. Yes, I have to disable a lot of stuff to get Windows the way I like it. But that's still exponentially easier than having to add, install, or perhaps even buy a lot of stuff to maybe get Linux/Mac to behave kind of how I want it to.

Having been a longtime Windows user, an on/off Linux desktop user, and now primarily a Mac user, I really think it's just what you're used to. Each desktop environment has its own strengths and weaknesses, and trying to bend one to be like the other is going to end in frustration. The userland of each OS is sufficiently different that different desktop metaphors break in different ways when you try to port them. MacOS will never have a taskbar, Windows will never have a functional dock and system menubar, and Linux will never have a cohesive toolkit because it's too fragmented. But each has its strengths and the key to productivity is to work with the desktop as designed rather than against it.

My experience with paid independent Mac desktop apps (e.g. Little Snitch, Al Dente, Daisy Disk, Crossover, anything from Rogue Amoeba etc.) is that they try a lot harder to integrate well with the system than equivalent freeware apps on Windows. MacOS is definitely "missing" some features out of the box (per-app volume control?) but makes up for it with certain things largely being more seamless, especially with regard to drivers (in my experience).

I also miss Linux DEs some days for their extreme customization potential and low resource usage. But it's hard to achieve compatibility between the "best" applications of each DE and GTK and Qt have their own warts.

Just go with the flow, and if Windows jives with you then more power to you. I can't stand it anymore though.

Re: Prediction: Microsoft will eventually ship a Windows-themed Linux distro

#115

Post by firesteelrain »

Alupis wrote: post #20
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a sysadmin and Group Policy is the entire moat Microsoft has. Linux has nothing like it, and it probably can't because it requires a level of top down authority over a platform's design and implementation that would be hard in the Linux space. Maybe something like systemd could do something similar which defined policy over all the components they've taken over, but a distro doing it would be pointless, we're no…

Nothing in the linux world would forbid something like Group Policy. A commercial distro that targets large-scale enterprise customers could implement something exactly like Active Directory + friends. Ansible, FreeIPA, and more can be used individually or together to achieve what AD provides. There are large enterprises that are non-windows...

Ansible and FreeIPA can’t hold a candle to Active Directory

Ansible has a defined purpose and it is good at what it does

Re: Prediction: Microsoft will eventually ship a Windows-themed Linux distro

#116

Post by Alupis »

p_ing wrote: post #28
Alupis wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the software and services you mentioned require Windows though - they could be made to run on Linux, and some already do. As more and more revenue shifts from desktop/servers to cloud and services, it doesn't seem too far-fetched for Microsoft to decide maintaining the entire OS stack themselves makes less and less sense. A Microsoft Windows linux distro would free up resources to focus on what makes Windows…

Exchange is very dependent on Win32 and .NET Framework. As is ODSP and Dynamics. Azure under the hood is Hyper-V with most services built upon that dependency. Yes, millions of man hours, monkies, and typewriters you could transform this to Linux. The economics aren't there when Azure/M365 keeps pulling in money running on it's current platform hand over fist.

Over 60% of customer workloads running on Azure are Linux. And that statistic is skewed by those using things like AzureAD (basically workgroups).

At some point it will become a burden to develop new technologies on Windows instead of Linux. If that hasn't already happened.

Desktop already is a dwindling revenue stream for Microsoft. Microsoft is already pushing for companies, from small garage startups to mega enterprises, to migrate to online services where the underlying OS doesn't matter.

Windows has inertia, a lot of it. But all things in motion eventually come to rest.

Re: Prediction: Microsoft will eventually ship a Windows-themed Linux distro

#118

Post by selcuka »

vbezhenar wrote: post #112
tombert wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I was about to say. The NT kernel isn’t bad at all; it’s arguably better than Linux. It’s just that an OS is more than a kernel, and pretty much all the other crap in Windows is terrible. Honestly, what I would like them to do is make/support a modern Copy on Write filesystem so that System Restore actually works , and so that it’s easy to roll back when Windows Update borks your PC. You don’t need Linux for ei…

Does it really matter if NT kernel is good or not? I don't think so. What matters if it's cheaper to use Linux kernel instead of Windows kernel in terms of expenses. Just an example. Microsoft developed several browser engines: first Trident, then EdgeHTML. Edge wasn't bad, it was on par with Chrome, may be slightly behind, but nothing that couldn't be fixed with time. But Microsoft decided to abandon it and use Blin…

> But Microsoft decided to abandon it and use Blink, because that was cheaper.

True, but you don't generally need backward compatibility with HTML rendering engines. You definitely do with OS kernels.

Re: Prediction: Microsoft will eventually ship a Windows-themed Linux distro

#119

Post by justsomehnguy »

Alupis wrote: post #20
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a sysadmin and Group Policy is the entire moat Microsoft has. Linux has nothing like it, and it probably can't because it requires a level of top down authority over a platform's design and implementation that would be hard in the Linux space. Maybe something like systemd could do something similar which defined policy over all the components they've taken over, but a distro doing it would be pointless, we're no…

Nothing in the linux world would forbid something like Group Policy. A commercial distro that targets large-scale enterprise customers could implement something exactly like Active Directory + friends. Ansible, FreeIPA, and more can be used individually or together to achieve what AD provides. There are large enterprises that are non-windows...

> Nothing in the linux world would forbid something like Group Policy

Except 100 and 1 method of configuring of anything. But not a binary tree because three zealots depend on greping a config into perl2 scripts for some automation.

Re: Prediction: Microsoft will eventually ship a Windows-themed Linux distro

#120

Post by nubinetwork »

asdff wrote: post #38
stackskipton wrote: post #31

Checks the bio Ahh, Zero Sysadmin experience so does not know about amount of legacy garbage being run at many companies and Enterprises. Amount of software running on .Net Framework is mind boggling. If there is not 100% compatibility with .Net Framework on Windows running on Linux, forget it. I know of a company still using Visual FoxPro in 2020 and it was still being maintained. Just like COBOL, across insane amou…

You can run .net over wine no?

It's complicated... there's Windows .net apps (which run in wine through mono), there's Linux .net apps (that get run with dotnet), and there's apps that have to be run through mono directly.
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