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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

#81

Post by bhj »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #50
delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #14

As a Windows system and user-mode dev, I absolutely never understand these sorts of drive-by posts with nearly zero technical depth. If there is one thing about Windows that is really good, it is its kernel and driver architecture, and absolute plethora of user-mode libraries that come with the OS , that can be programmed against with a variety of languages from ancient to brand-new, all maintained by the vendor. Doi…

>Windows is the only OS that does scaling properly. macOS just pretends non-'retina' displays don't exist Not true. I use a high-DPI (~250) MacBook with a non-high-DPI (~100) external monitor [0] and the transition between the two is seamless. Windows are identically sized when dragging from one screen to another. The same holds true when I use the laptop with a mid-DPI (~150) monitor. I could not say the same was tr…

They might be referring to when Apple removed subpixel antialiasing around ~2018. It caused some consternation at the time because there were still plenty of non-retina Macbook Airs in service. While it technically works, macOS really is not meant for non-high DPI displays.

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

#82

Post by nomdep »

I think he might be right

The massive amount of legacy .NET and older software still running in many enterprises isn’t a problem, but a huge business opportunity.

My prediction is that Microsoft will push hard their “Azure Virtual Desktop” product: remote, virtualized Windows instances hosted on their own servers to these enterprises.

In this model, the operating system running on the client devices will becomes largely irrelevant.

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

#84

Post by dbcurtis »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #54
dbcurtis wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If there is one thing about Windows that is really good, it is its kernel and driver architecture, Woah, back up a bit. In the article, it looks like the blue screen is a 0x0 (iopr) exception, likely a wild jump into the weeds. But back in the day, the majority of blue screens were 0xE exceptions -- page fault in the kernel. Why? Buggy driver that didn't wire down a page and it got swapped out from under the driver…

> WinNT drivers are not things of beauty. The dev experience is cranky, and validation is a nightmare I think one could say the same for any platform; in general, developing drivers is just difficult, full stop. That driver quality for peripherals can be bad is not the fault of the platform. I'm sure I could find dodgy drivers in the Linux tree that were merged in only because ' shrug it makes PineappleCorp's device…

Well, these days it seems Linux drivers get enough eye-balls on them that anything meaningful is going to get looked at. Sure, I expect there are some low usage drivers in the repo that just haven't had enough mileage. At least with Linux I can see the driver code. (The second day at my current job, somebody pointed me at a bug with an obscure symptom. A quick check of a log file showed a 0xE exception. A couple hours later I posted a link to the bug in source. Somehow, the universe decided to give me a bug I had seen many times before to get my reputation off to a good start -- it's better to be lucky than smart.)

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

#85

Post by p_ing »

patmorgan23 wrote: post #67
ggm wrote: post #17

I would never predict this, but I think it's an idea which has occurred to many people over the years. the name WSL always hinted to me at a group inside MS who wanted Windows to BE the subsystem. I think people who have run UNIX over non-traditional FS get this vibe too. We're used to thinking it has to be some linear progression from FS to VFS to UFS to "all the other FS" and the idea "nah, I can run on NTFS just f…

I mean it's not totally crazy, Microsoft did rip out Window's original networking stack and replace it with BSDs (which has probably been heavily modified/evolved since then)

No.

The original NT TCP/IP stack was purchased from Spider Systems, which may have been based on BSD.

The Spider Systems stack was completely ripped out for NT 3.5 and replaced with a Microsoft-developed stack that has no basis on the BSD stack.

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

#87

Post by wincy »

keyle wrote: post #68
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)

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.

It’ll be like WoW classic servers or old school RuneScape, only for your OS.

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

#88

Post by stock_toaster »

Spooky23 wrote: post #7
malkamius wrote: post #2

The "Microsoft Tax" is often cheaper than the "Linux Engineering Salary." While Linux alternatives exist, they require "assembly"—integrating LDAP, Kerberos, DNS, and config management (Ansible/Salt) to do what AD does out of the box. Most businesses don't want to be in the business of maintaining their own identity infrastructure. They want a utility. Between Group Policy’s granular control over the endpoint and the…

You’re thinking apples and oranges. Remember that every K-12 student for the last decade is getting it done on the cheapest low bid Chromebook possible. They are true pieces of shit, too-down managed by barely qualified people and yet the kids persevere. That’s the baseline. Windows is an evolution of 1999, slowly shifting to the shitty cloud based model. It is the worst of both worlds. It’s like Peoplesoft in comput…

> Remember that every K-12 student for the last decade is getting it done on the cheapest low bid Chromebook possible.

> They are true pieces of shit, too-down managed by barely qualified people…

I feel like this is even underselling how bad it often ends up being.

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

#89

Post by pdpi »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #14

As a Windows system and user-mode dev, I absolutely never understand these sorts of drive-by posts with nearly zero technical depth. If there is one thing about Windows that is really good, it is its kernel and driver architecture, and absolute plethora of user-mode libraries that come with the OS , that can be programmed against with a variety of languages from ancient to brand-new, all maintained by the vendor. Doi…

> Speaking of high pixel density, Windows is the only OS that does scaling properly.

Haven't tried Windows 11, but a bunch of Microsoft applications in Windows 10 render text using sub-pixel rendering in 2x high dpi mode, resulting in every character having a two-pixel coloured border around it. That's about as far from "scaling properly" as it gets.

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

#90

Post by pdpi »

bschwindHN wrote: post #53
delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #14

As a Windows system and user-mode dev, I absolutely never understand these sorts of drive-by posts with nearly zero technical depth. If there is one thing about Windows that is really good, it is its kernel and driver architecture, and absolute plethora of user-mode libraries that come with the OS , that can be programmed against with a variety of languages from ancient to brand-new, all maintained by the vendor. Doi…

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.

By way of example — I can (and did) remove the ads from the Start Menu on Windows 10 Professional. But there's literally no reason they should've been there to begin with.
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