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Windows 8 OEM specs may block Linux booting

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Re: Windows 8 OEM specs may block Linux booting

#81

Post by wedesoft »

It certainly won't get easier to install a Linux dual-boot. It is already difficult enough as it is:

* Windows PCs without installation medium

* Windows installation with a full partitition table (four primary partitions)

* (intentionally?) corrupted partition tables

I.e. installing GNU/Linux requires you to resize partitions with a potentially corrupted NTFS file system and/or delete backup partitions. Alternatively the user uses a Windows image file as Linux file system (Wubi) which is slower and a more fragile solution.

Re: Windows 8 OEM specs may block Linux booting

#82

Post by lootabooga »

estel wrote: post #79
kamaal wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every dummy can administrate a Windows machine....not so a Linux machine! That fact forced the Ops team to get rid of the Linux machines as quick as the could. So you choose a inferior mediocre alternative just because you can hire mediocre folks to handle it(you mentioned 'dummy'). Ultimately having sufficient technical debt to make your miserable for the next decade. Linux command line isn't very upfront friendly f…

What do you think makes it inferior and mediocre?

" Windows was never originally designed to work as a Server side operating system at the first place."

Linux wasn't designed to work as a Server side operating system "at the first place". It was a toy project by a Finnish student.

Heck, UNIX itself wasn't designed to work as a server side operating system "at the first place". It was initially to be used for text processing / typesetting, IIRC.

Of course, things changed a lot on the way.

Now, Windows "at the first place" was a silly DOS add-on. Things changed here too. I assure you that Windows Server was designed to work as a server side operating system.

Re: Windows 8 OEM specs may block Linux booting

#83

Post by jrockway »

wmf wrote: post #25
dpark wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point of the article isn't that the machines will be Windows-only, but that dual booting may no longer be possible. It makes a point of emphasizing that secure booting will likely be easy for the user to disable, although that will disable Windows 8 as well. Never going to happen. Win8 will install on machines built for Win7. Win 8 is not going to refuse to boot on machines that have boot signing disabled.

That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the Windows 8 Logo Program , which is basically that sticker on a new PC that says it is certified to run Windows 8.

Am I the only person that would pay extra for a computer without all those fucking stickers on it?

Re: Windows 8 OEM specs may block Linux booting

#84

Post by lootabooga »

kamaal wrote: post #73
jrockway wrote: post #8

I doubt any major vendor will do this. First off, they don't want to be locked into selling Microsoft-only machines. If they can't pretend Linux is an option, Microsoft can charge them $1000 for a Windows license and there's nothing they can do about it. If they have Linux hanging over Microsoft's head, though, they'll get better pricing on Windows. (Think this won't happen? It already did with XP on netbooks. When M…

Here in India, Microsoft is famous only because the pirated version is freely available from anywhere, thorough anyone at anytime.That's the only reason why everybody uses it all the time. Take away the free option, and the non industry consumers will just dump their OS. What is stopping Linux from ruling the Desktop market is a awesome UI. Now, I decide to buy a netbook for browsing and light development. I can save…

"""Here in India, Microsoft is famous only because the pirated version is freely available from anywhere, thorough anyone at anytime. That's the only reason why everybody uses it all the time."""

Flawed logic.

Sure, if people had to pay for Windows, maybe they would not use them.

But Linux is equally "available from anywhere, through anyone at anytime". You don't even have to pirate it.

So, if "everybody [in India] uses Windows all the time" it surely is not because it is easily available to them for free.

It's because they choose to use it over the equally available and free(er) Linux.

That could be for many reasons (they don't know any better, they are used to it, it is more polished, less hassle to use it for a variety of scenarios, etc).

Re: Windows 8 OEM specs may block Linux booting

#86

Post by Hyena »

jrockway wrote: post #83
wmf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the Windows 8 Logo Program , which is basically that sticker on a new PC that says it is certified to run Windows 8.

Am I the only person that would pay extra for a computer without all those fucking stickers on it?

Perhaps we should consider this part of Apple's price premium.

Re: Windows 8 OEM specs may block Linux booting

#87

Post by irahul »

FireBeyond wrote: post #65
irahul wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never used Windows servers, and I am curious how do you do things which are obvious on Linux on a windows server? 1. Can SQL server deployment be automated? I remember reading somewhere it is mostly GUI administration, though things might have changed with WMI. 2. How do you manage IIS? Say you need to restart IIS on 200+ servers? 3. What is the remote model? Windows doesn't have a decent command line, so ssh…

Two words: Power Shell. Well, one word. PS is a "decent command line" for Windows, that can handle most of the things you discuss pretty well.

PS is just a piece of the puzzle. In fact, if I were to automate things on Windows, I would pick perl/python/ruby(on linux, I use shell scripts only for jobs which are less than 50 lines).

The major question is does the objects which are to be automated lend themselves to automation?

Here is one of the results I found while looking for 'sql server automate'

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187061.aspx

If I were talking about MySQL/PostgreSQL, they lend themselves very well to automating. The shell script just calls the relevant programs.

Likewise, if I am automating nginx, shell is just the glue. nginx provides the nut and bolts, and scripting is the wrench.

Unless IIS, SQl server et al. provide similar facilities, powershell isn't going to help.

I haven't used SQL server in a long, long time. My doubts were from some articles I have read:

http://hal2020.com/2011/07/27/porting-microsoft-sql-server-t...

nix DBA’s used shell scripts as their primary management tool, but the SQL Server of that day was not scriptable. Would those DBA’s accept the use of GUI tools?

So it looks like it used to be the case that it wasn't scriptable, but it is now.

Re: Windows 8 OEM specs may block Linux booting

#88

Post by Hyena »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #23
ghshephard wrote: post #12

The first paragraph is just silly: "After years of trying to cut off Linux growth as a desktop platform on x86 and x64 PCs, Microsoft may have actually figured out a way to stop Linux deployments on client PCs dead in their tracks." I'm quite certain Microsoft has (A) not put any significant effort into cutting off growth as a desktop platform, and (B) If they had, they were almost completely successful, and characte…

Shhh, not so loud! Such thoughts would destabilize Slashdot if they got out! Seriously, this seems especially short-sighted, as the perception is that MS is getting thrashed by Apple in the consumer market. I think its more about preventing malware from getting ahold of the boot process, side effects be damned.

I don't see this. Apple sells hardware; incidentally, it comes with its own OS. I haven't met many people who bought a Mac for MacOS since Windows XP.

Re: Windows 8 OEM specs may block Linux booting

#89

Post by Hyena »

mjg59 wrote: post #3
daeken wrote: post #2

This could block Linux from booting, but realistically speaking, does anyone believe that will happen? It seems very, very unlikely to me that you won't be able to disable signing restrictions at the firmware level.

I'm told that at least one vendor will be providing some systems that don't allow you to disable the requirement.

But what product will they be putting the lock-in on? It may not matter, as we've seen with mobile OSes which, from the perspective of the median buyer, are locked in.

Re: Windows 8 OEM specs may block Linux booting

#90

Post by rodh257 »

jrockway wrote: post #8

I doubt any major vendor will do this. First off, they don't want to be locked into selling Microsoft-only machines. If they can't pretend Linux is an option, Microsoft can charge them $1000 for a Windows license and there's nothing they can do about it. If they have Linux hanging over Microsoft's head, though, they'll get better pricing on Windows. (Think this won't happen? It already did with XP on netbooks. When M…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Windows_and_Linux... http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/behind-the-idc-data-wind... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_system... http://microsoft-news.com/idc-windows-server-dominates-serve...

Estimates of between 40-75% of all servers are Windows based. While Linux is ahead in Web servers (71% market share), they aren't the only type of server going around...

These stats are hard to measure as they can't really account for people who just install free linux distros, but in terms of sold Linux based licenses, Microsoft is ahead. At the very least it shows the that the assertion "no one uses Windows as a server OS" is far from the truth. 5-6 billion dollars revenue a quarter is hardly 'no one'.

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