Windows 10 for Raspberry Pi 2 • Hacker News Board

Re: Windows 10 for Raspberry Pi 2

#51

Post by Tarang » Mon, Feb 02, 2015, 11:27 AM UTC

microtonal wrote: post #37

I am usually not the one to blow the free software horn (being a staunch believer of non-copyleft licenses such as the Apache License) and the geek in me likes this announcement. I also don't hold a grudge against Windows, I think it is a fine system for most people. However, Windows seems very much contrary to the goal of the Raspberry Pi: providing a device for children to tinker with and educate themselves. Althou…

From the perspective of many, including myself, it is easier to develop apps for Windows than for Linux.

While having software that's open source on the Pi would be awesome, what would be even more awesome is tonnes of apps on Github that are easier to write for the Raspberry pi to allow it to do more than it can currently such as Media Streamers & Servers of all sorts with tonnes of forks.

For what its worth, this is giant leaps forward for Microsoft and vastly uncharacteristic of what they're used to. It shows that they're hell bent on driving their platform through developers. The typical R-pi purchaser is a dev after all.

Re: Windows 10 for Raspberry Pi 2

#52

Post by marcosdumay » Mon, Feb 02, 2015, 11:28 AM UTC

nmeofthestate wrote: post #38

microtonal wrote: post #37

I am usually not the one to blow the free software horn (being a staunch believer of non-copyleft licenses such as the Apache License) and the geek in me likes this announcement. I also don't hold a grudge against Windows, I think it is a fine system for most people. However, Windows seems very much contrary to the goal of the Raspberry Pi: providing a device for children to tinker with and educate themselves. Althou…

"Windows seems very much contrary to the goal of the Raspberry Pi: providing a device for children to tinker with and educate themselves" "Windows is closed as ever" Are these kids hacking on the Linux kernel or something? Of course not. They will be using some app/language running on the OS. They don't need access to the OS source to do that. Seems to me Windows is a perfectly open enough OS to act as a platform for…

> Are these kids hacking on the Linux kernel or something?

Why not? Do you hod the opinion that kernel code is something impossible to mess with? If so, why?

Re: Windows 10 for Raspberry Pi 2

#53

Post by nkuttler » Mon, Feb 02, 2015, 11:29 AM UTC

nmeofthestate wrote: post #38

microtonal wrote: post #37

I am usually not the one to blow the free software horn (being a staunch believer of non-copyleft licenses such as the Apache License) and the geek in me likes this announcement. I also don't hold a grudge against Windows, I think it is a fine system for most people. However, Windows seems very much contrary to the goal of the Raspberry Pi: providing a device for children to tinker with and educate themselves. Althou…

"Windows seems very much contrary to the goal of the Raspberry Pi: providing a device for children to tinker with and educate themselves" "Windows is closed as ever" Are these kids hacking on the Linux kernel or something? Of course not. They will be using some app/language running on the OS. They don't need access to the OS source to do that. Seems to me Windows is a perfectly open enough OS to act as a platform for…

> Seems to me Windows is a perfectly open enough OS to act as a platform for tinkering and learning about computers.

Maybe, but Linux just seems more convenient. I mean, can you install gcc, golang, nodejs, python, ruby, ghc, lua (...) on windows with a single command? And all the other tools you might want to use, like editors, databases?

And you will never know if they want to do kernel-level coding if they don't have access to the kernel.

Re: Windows 10 for Raspberry Pi 2

#54

Post by nmeofthestate » Mon, Feb 02, 2015, 11:30 AM UTC

microtonal wrote: post #44

nmeofthestate wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Windows seems very much contrary to the goal of the Raspberry Pi: providing a device for children to tinker with and educate themselves" "Windows is closed as ever" Are these kids hacking on the Linux kernel or something? Of course not. They will be using some app/language running on the OS. They don't need access to the OS source to do that. Seems to me Windows is a perfectly open enough OS to act as a platform for…

Are these kids hacking on the Linux kernel or something? Of course not. They will be using some app/language running on the OS. They don't need access to the OS source to do that. I even mentioned libc. There is more to an operating system than a kernel. In fact, this was an important part of my early computer education: when I was 12 (1994) I bought a copy of Slackware Linux because it had a free compiler (even Turb…

For hardcore nerds like yourself there will still be Linux. I don't see it as an ominous development. And for old stick-in-the-mud people who never got into Linux like me, this could make doing stuff with a RPi much easier. (Edit: btw I'm using "hardcore nerd" as a compliment).

Re: Windows 10 for Raspberry Pi 2

#55

Post by nmeofthestate » Mon, Feb 02, 2015, 11:32 AM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #52

nmeofthestate wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Windows seems very much contrary to the goal of the Raspberry Pi: providing a device for children to tinker with and educate themselves" "Windows is closed as ever" Are these kids hacking on the Linux kernel or something? Of course not. They will be using some app/language running on the OS. They don't need access to the OS source to do that. Seems to me Windows is a perfectly open enough OS to act as a platform for…

> Are these kids hacking on the Linux kernel or something? Why not? Do you hod the opinion that kernel code is something impossible to mess with? If so, why?

When introducing kids to programming in a classroom environment, hacking the Linux kernel is a completely OTT scenario. And Linux will still be available and probably the most popular OS to be installed on RPis, for those kids who are the next Linus Torvalds.

Re: Windows 10 for Raspberry Pi 2

#56

Post by bambax » Mon, Feb 02, 2015, 11:33 AM UTC

Apparently "IoT" means "Internet of Things" ("Windows Developer Program for IoT").

Is this a wildly recognized acronym so that it doesn't even need a footnote? (In a Sans Serif font you can't even tell if the first letter is an i or an l; it's really bad).

Re: Windows 10 for Raspberry Pi 2

#57

Post by bananaoomarang » Mon, Feb 02, 2015, 11:33 AM UTC

nmeofthestate wrote: post #38

microtonal wrote: post #37

I am usually not the one to blow the free software horn (being a staunch believer of non-copyleft licenses such as the Apache License) and the geek in me likes this announcement. I also don't hold a grudge against Windows, I think it is a fine system for most people. However, Windows seems very much contrary to the goal of the Raspberry Pi: providing a device for children to tinker with and educate themselves. Althou…

"Windows seems very much contrary to the goal of the Raspberry Pi: providing a device for children to tinker with and educate themselves" "Windows is closed as ever" Are these kids hacking on the Linux kernel or something? Of course not. They will be using some app/language running on the OS. They don't need access to the OS source to do that. Seems to me Windows is a perfectly open enough OS to act as a platform for…

I am in computing now because someone put Linux on my laptop when I was 11, I don't think I would have ever really thought about it otherwise.

It's not necessarily that I could look at the source of the kernel (I didn't), it's far more the philosophy of the OS as a whole meaning that I could tinker with whatever I wanted, pull apart components and see how it broke, dive as deep as I wanted into any area of the system.

A Linux system is far more openly composed even when you're not at the source level, Windows is comparatively a black box. A value of Linux is teaching people how computer systems are put together and function, it is unequivocally better at this than Windows.

I don't hate Windows either, but I do think that Linux aligns itself far better with the RPi's mission statement.

Re: Windows 10 for Raspberry Pi 2

#58

Post by bohol » Mon, Feb 02, 2015, 11:39 AM UTC

microtonal wrote: post #44

nmeofthestate wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Windows seems very much contrary to the goal of the Raspberry Pi: providing a device for children to tinker with and educate themselves" "Windows is closed as ever" Are these kids hacking on the Linux kernel or something? Of course not. They will be using some app/language running on the OS. They don't need access to the OS source to do that. Seems to me Windows is a perfectly open enough OS to act as a platform for…

Are these kids hacking on the Linux kernel or something? Of course not. They will be using some app/language running on the OS. They don't need access to the OS source to do that. I even mentioned libc. There is more to an operating system than a kernel. In fact, this was an important part of my early computer education: when I was 12 (1994) I bought a copy of Slackware Linux because it had a free compiler (even Turb…

I think you overestimate the need for access to the OS for learning things. The cracking scene, demoscene and games industry was almost exclusively built on Windows. A lot of that was just as, if not more, advanced as what a Linux programmer does.

I do think the trend of iOS, Android and similar Windows environments is troubling. But if they ship Windows 10 on the RPi with something like QBasic and Visual Studio it's probably just as good a learning tool as Linux. Or even a better one considering the rest of the application ecosystem.

Re: Windows 10 for Raspberry Pi 2

#59

Post by nmeofthestate » Mon, Feb 02, 2015, 11:43 AM UTC

beagle3 wrote: post #43

nmeofthestate wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Windows seems very much contrary to the goal of the Raspberry Pi: providing a device for children to tinker with and educate themselves" "Windows is closed as ever" Are these kids hacking on the Linux kernel or something? Of course not. They will be using some app/language running on the OS. They don't need access to the OS source to do that. Seems to me Windows is a perfectly open enough OS to act as a platform for…

There have been quite a few projects that did hack the kernel and drivers directly. The majority of users are actually running XBMC on the Pi, and they don't care if it's linux or windows. But the early adopters do care, and they are all Linux people.

"There have been quite a few projects that did hack the kernel and drivers directly."

Of course there are, but I was taking issue with Windows being unsuitable for a classroom - is it realistic to claim that teachers are getting children to modify and compile the Linux kernel in the classroom? No, that's silly.

Re: Windows 10 for Raspberry Pi 2

#60

Post by watty » Mon, Feb 02, 2015, 11:45 AM UTC

nkuttler wrote: post #53

nmeofthestate wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Windows seems very much contrary to the goal of the Raspberry Pi: providing a device for children to tinker with and educate themselves" "Windows is closed as ever" Are these kids hacking on the Linux kernel or something? Of course not. They will be using some app/language running on the OS. They don't need access to the OS source to do that. Seems to me Windows is a perfectly open enough OS to act as a platform for…

> Seems to me Windows is a perfectly open enough OS to act as a platform for tinkering and learning about computers. Maybe, but Linux just seems more convenient. I mean, can you install gcc, golang, nodejs, python, ruby, ghc, lua (...) on windows with a single command? And all the other tools you might want to use, like editors, databases? And you will never know if they want to do kernel-level coding if they don't h…

I completely disagree. I used Ubuntu for a year and I spent more time fixing things or trying to do things in the OS than I have in all other operating systems combined. My nephew tried to install Ubuntu on his new build and hit brick wall after brick wall trying to install the OS and Minecraft. It simply hasn't gotten easy enough and I'm afraid it's too late now.

I don't see a comeback for linux. http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=linux