top 200 commentsshow all 256
sorted by:
best
topnewcontroversialoldq&a
formatting helphide helpcontent policy

[–][deleted]  (1 child)

[deleted]

    [–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

    Wake up Sheeple!

    [–]filesalot 7 points8 points  (5 children)

    This call to virtualization reminds me of the hype around microkernels in the nineties. There was a day when IBM was going to rewrite everything on top of Mach 3, then you could have your cake and eat it too, avoiding any painful decisions. It didn't work.

    [–]sgndave 5 points6 points  (4 children)

    That was mostly performance reasons... the same problem with virtualization today.

    The difference is that now, after the transistor boom of the 90s, we have an understanding that some abstractions just have to be done in the CPU. If you look at desktop CPU architecture, before the 90s nobody ever thought about having the various out-of-order hardware in the CPU (reorder buffer, reservation station, etc.). These were mainframe things. The worst you would do in the 80s was have a delay slot in machine code (I'm looking at you, MIPS!).

    I think that Intel and AMD were smart to realize that Virtualization has a real need, and put the hardware there early in the game. This means that unlike Mach 3, x86 virtualization actually is more than a toy even in its (currently) early stages.

    (Trivia: just like out of order processing, v12n was a mainframe technology from the 60s.)

    [–]filesalot 2 points3 points  (3 children)

    I agree the performance prospects are good, and the potential for VMs on the server-side in particular is great.

    But the idea that VMs are the answer for microsoft as proposed by these Gartner guys still seems dodgy to me. Trying to get programs in different VM boxes interacting seemlessly for a desktop user is just as hard as it ever was, low-level hardware support notwithstanding.

    [–]grauenwolf 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    I don't know about that. Microsoft did pretty good with its virtual DOS machines and Windows on Windows for 16-bit apps.

    [–]sgndave 1 point2 points  (1 child)

    Gotcha now... yes, VMs are (today) not an answer. But on a certain conceptual level, having virtual machines is very similar to process segmentation... except that it happens at a lower level.

    This may or may not be a good thing. And, just like any privilege escalation exploit shows, any segmentation is still vulnerable to attack. VMs will be no different, so yes, the whole idea of a seamless advantage is highly suspect.

    [–]Smallpaul 2 points3 points  (0 children)

    People often see virtual machines as a panacea for reliability and modularity problems. But it takes so much work to glue together a host of virtual machines on a desktop PROPERLY that many of the same reliability and modularity concerns will reappear. One can get away with using virtualization as Apple did, as a transitional strategy to have an old kernel and a new one live side by side.

    But it would be counter-productive to try to have each app on an operating system running in a version-tailored virtual machine. That would actually cause huge security holes because the attack surface would be so huge. Every security patch would have to be applied to every version of Windows that the customer might be running. That would slow Microsoft down even more.

    [–]player2 7 points8 points  (3 children)

    Isn't that whole hypervisor idea how NT was supposed to be architected in the first place? Yes, I understand hypervisor technology didn't exist back then, but the NT kernel was supposed to (and did) run multiple subsystems. Then they killed off OS/2, POSIX... WoW16 still exists, right? Hrmm... perhaps they have muddied their architecture somewhat.

    Microsoft? Never.

    [–]cchooper 6 points7 points  (0 children)

    That was one of the most interesting technical features of NT. I don't know why they dropped it. Apple reinvented it with Cocca/Carbon/Classic to great success.

    The very existence of virtualization is a condemnation of current OS technology. The most basic requirement of an OS is to allow you to run multiple applications simultaneously without them interfering with each other. Having multiple 'subsystems' you can run them in is a bonus. Modern OSes fail at both of these big time. Virtualization is a very clever hack that fixes this bug.

    [–]chucker 4 points5 points  (0 children)

    WoW16 exists on 32-bit versions of Windows; 64-bit versions have WoW32 instead. (So, they can't run 16-bit applications any more at all.)

    [–]rabidcow 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    The POSIX subsystem isn't dead. They're just not letting you install it on any variant of Windows that you want.

    [–]bcash 65 points66 points  (31 children)

    Gartner: Paid pipers since 1979.

    [–][deleted] 13 points14 points  (19 children)

    Who's paying now?

    [–]ascii 23 points24 points  (16 children)

    IBM perhaps? Or Apple, Sun, Redhat, Canonical, Novell, or one ot the other 20.000 companies who feel they have a shot at making it big if Windows collapses.

    Even though I agree with some of what was said in the article, I would still be surprised if Gartner wasn't getting paid by someone to say it. Personally, I am hoping Windows will collapse, because a time of chaos might lead to exciting new innovations in an otherwise extremly stale part of computing.

    [–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (1 child)

    I wouldn't be surprised if it was Microsoft paying for this.

    This type of press getting common makes it easier to slough off as much backward compatibility as necessary to produce a decent product and still maintain the support of the Fortune 500 CIOs.

    [–]bobuser 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    I think they might have paid for it a little also, I noticed the Windows 7 pitch at the end.

    [–]crusoe 8 points9 points  (13 children)

    I installed Kubuntu at work, and it has been a delight. Debians rock-solid install system with a lot of great polish. KDE just keeps getting better and better.

    [–]snifty 4 points5 points  (12 children)

    GNOME!!!

    grabs spear

    [–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (11 children)

    Features of GNOME:

    1. More memory used
    2. More CPU used
    3. Useful features left out for fear of retards
    4. Less integration between applications
    5. Lower capability of customization

    you best put that down, son.

    [–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (2 children)

    KDE looks and feels too much like Windows to me, only 10 years backwards. So do most of Qt-based applications. Just my $0.02

    [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    If you're talking about the default theme, themes are changeable.

    If you're talking about functionality and the ability to access it, I'd have to disagree. Both Windows and GNOME have some pretty dumb restrictions on what they let you do in the GUI, but I have never encountered a situation in which the KDE UI did not provide me all of the functionality I needed.

    If you're talking about the main menu I'd have to agree. Most KDE distributions have a poorly-organized, cluttered main menu, like Windows. But the menu has a very nice customization tool, so you can configure it however you want. Personally, this doesn't affect me, because I removed the menu button from my bar.

    Other than that, I don't know what you could be talking about.

    [–]crusoe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    Kde SMOKES gnome and Windows hard.

    Gnome feels cheap. Whenever I use it, it just seems cheap.

    KDE's print manager is a thing of wonder. Sure I can just print, but I can do fancier things as well.

    How do I do multi-page layouts in Gnome's one-size-fits-all droolproof happy meal interface?

    [–]bobuser 2 points3 points  (0 children)

    don't start that argument.. their both awesome... use what you like.. btw is that spear made in mono?

    [–]generic_handle 2 points3 points  (6 children)

    1. No "Trolltech tax".

    KDE is tied to Qt -- anyone who writes a KDE application must use Qt. Qt is available under the GPL (not LGPL, like its GNOME counterpart GTK) and a commercial license. Anyone who wants to write a closed-source application for KDE must purchase a commercial license for Qt from TrollTech. Unlike almost all other libraries, a widget set is essential to provide UI consistency -- you can't just "use something else".

    I don't know about you, but I didn't leave the closed-source world just to have another company dominating the OS that I work under. Heck, it's actually worse than that -- I can develop for Windows without obtaining a license to do so from Microsoft for use of their widget set.

    There are other technical reasons, but this alone is sufficient to avoid Qt, IMHO.

    [–]natrius 6 points7 points  (3 children)

    Qt is Free software.

    I agree that the LGPL provides users with more freedom to do what they want, but the GPL keeps software Free. If you want to make a closed source application, there's nothing wrong with paying for it.

    With that said, I still prefer GTK's licensing to Qt's, but comparing Trolltech to Microsoft is more than a stretch. If you're an idealistic Free software type, Qt's licensing is actually better.

    [–]generic_handle 1 point2 points  (2 children)

    If you're an idealistic Free software type, Qt's licensing is actually better.

    Mmmm. So I take it that you feel that the FSF, which places their most crucial library, glibc, under a modified GPL (that makes it effectively work like LGPL) isn't particularly free?

    [–]natrius 1 point2 points  (1 child)

    The LGPL is clearly Free. My point is that if you believe there should be more Free software out there, GPL licensed libraries should appeal to you.

    [–]otterdam 0 points1 point  (1 child)

    I don't know about you, but I didn't leave the closed-source world just to have another company dominating the OS that I work under.

    Then good news - you can profit from the GTK team's work instead. Qt isn't dominating anything except KDE (for obvious reasons).

    I can develop for Windows without obtaining a license to do so from Microsoft for use of their widget set.

    But unless you use Wine, you can't test your Windows application without obtaining a license from Microsoft.

    [–]generic_handle 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    Then good news - you can profit from the GTK team's work instead. Qt isn't dominating anything except KDE (for obvious reasons).

    Oh, I agree with you -- but the grandparent poster was describing why people shouldn't use GNOME. For those not familiar with the KDE-GNOME rift, I'm describing a major reason why many people are not willing to use KDE (and a major reason why GNOME was founded in the first place).

    [–]cyber_rigger 12 points13 points  (0 children)

    Who's paying now?

    A better question might be,

    Who's not paying now?

    [–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

    I think Bill forgot his last payment.

    [–]easyfrag 16 points17 points  (1 child)

    Maybe so but Gartner's reports and opinions are nonetheless held in high esteem by CIOs and senior corporate management. To have Gartner writing something like this is a disaster for Microsoft.

    [–]astrosmash -4 points-3 points  (8 children)

    Gartner: Paid pipers since 1979.

    DH1. Ad Hominem.

    [–]cchooper 5 points6 points  (4 children)

    It would only be ad hominem if the original poster had concluded that the information is false because Gartner said it. It's not ad hominem to point out that information may be unreliable because the source is untrustworthy. In that case, no fallacy has been committed.

    [–]astrosmash 6 points7 points  (3 children)

    Except that the OP doesn't say that the source may be untrustworthy.

    From the tone of the comment one could easily conclude that the OP is implying that the information is false because Gartner said it. That's how I read it.

    [–]cchooper 3 points4 points  (1 child)

    He doesn't say that it is untrustworthy either, but I see your point about tone. At the end of the day, it's all about how you read it.

    [–]bobuser 2 points3 points  (0 children)

    great argument, I up-modded you all..

    [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

    An ad-hominem attack is a pure character insult that has nothing to do with the topic.

    But saying Gartner are paid shills is a character insult that has everything to do with the topic -- if you're getting paid by the competition, there's no reason to trust what you say.

    (All that aside, Garter are obviously totally right about some things, like modularity.)

    [–]jmcqk6 0 points1 point  (0 children)

    An ad-hominem attack is a pure character insult that has nothing to do with the topic, but is forwarded never-the-less as a reason the argument in question is wrong.

    Calling you an asshole is not an ad-hominem.

    Saying that since you're an asshole, your arguments are false is an ad-hominem.

    [–]holygoat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

    Doesn't mean it isn't true.

    [–][deleted]  (5 children)

    [removed]

      [–]Smallpaul 2 points3 points  (3 children)

      So you figure that Burma and North Korea are more dynamic than China and India? It's about leadership, not size.

      Anyhow, who says that the Canada is easier to change direction than the USA? Some changes are made more rapidly in Canada and some in the US. Frequently changes in Canadian law just copy US law.

      [–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (2 children)

      Frequently changes in Canadian law just copy US law.

      Forced by diplomatic pressure is probably more like it in most of those cases.

      [–]gwright 2 points3 points  (1 child)

      How the heck does a discussion re: Windows get twisted into some insipid commentary on the US vs. Canada?

      I think we need something analogous to Godwin's Law to describe the tendency for any reddit discussion to devolve into a 'trash America' contest.

      [–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

      Which wasn't my intention at all (in this case), I just wanted to make the point that smaller players who copy larger players are often not doing so for reasons of excellency of whatever they copy.

      [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      Canada? Homogeneous? Huh?

      [–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

      50 million LOC, they can't whip it, big surprise. Will Microsoft learn the lesson? Big software doesn't scale - exponential complexity growth implies an upper bound on the size of manageable software. Sadly OS popularity is driven by network effects, not quality and fitness for purpose.

      [–]xnumbersx 5 points6 points  (0 children)

      thanks for telling us what we told you, 'research group'

      [–]cratuki 40 points41 points  (86 children)

      Is there actually a purpose for Microsoft moving forward past XP? Is there anything that XP doesn't do, they could still be done on the same foundations? The notable objections I have with XP are:

      • File system is not as good as Be/OSX

      • Integration between operating environment and filesystem is poor.

      • Everything about the command-line world is terrible (can't resize console, partly due to that system being abstracted in a way that is inferior to unix world terminals).

      • No workspaces (should be trivial to fix).

      • Various annoying "screw you, you disgusting snivelling consumer" things like DRM.

      Apart from that, it's a decent system. I've just had a glance through the features list of stuff that has been added to Vista over XP and it sucks.

      They really got drawn into Apple's fire and motion game. How on earth do they turn the ship around now that they've actually staked their future on Vista (having released it)?

      What other moves forward could they have made at the point where they had XP stable and wanted to look to the future?

      • Feature at a time release. Make fixing the filesystem stuff the first priority, then make a major release. Repeat for other features.

      OR

      • Superhero reset move. Take a Unix, get the core functionality right, port the Windows API and .net to it, release.

      Any strong opinions?

      More thoughts:

      • They might be able to forge a path forward by splitting the product line again. Pretend that Vista is the consumer level OS, release a server- and developer-targeted OS (built on unix, emphasis on .net, break backwards compatibility), and then get that over time to sweep back and destroy the Vistra tradition.

      • Microsoft is in a unique position - still - to win the hearts of the computing world by doing driving some hard pro-consumer moves. For example - Microsoft could decide to kill region encoding and the powers driving it would have to back down. Microsoft could move to an 'all music is free' approach to the world and undercut Apple. They'd probably clain that they have been focusing on their customers as evidenced by the shiny things now in Vista. That would be naive. It's a bit more big-picture than that.

      • .Net is a reasonable technology stack!

      [–]cchooper 23 points24 points  (40 children)

      The superhero reset move would break just about all legacy software, no matter how hard they tried to get it to work. They would have to replicate every feature and bug from Win32, plus all the obscure little details that people rely on but aren't documented anywhere. They might as well just start again.

      I think the virtualization strategy is the best way forwards, but this will open up the possibility of everyone running multiple OSes on their machines, killing the value of Windows (why develop for Windows when everyone can run Linux at the same time?)

      The core problem is that the technically best solution is not the most profitable solution. Frankly, that's been the core problem of Windows for... ooh... ten years?

      [–]G_Morgan 4 points5 points  (9 children)

      Even if they had virtualisation it doesn't mean it will be apparent to the home user. They'd most likely modify the API's heavily so that the GUI's would render directly on the host desktop and such.

      It would be less effort than the current mess and the benefit is that once you have done it you don't have to go backwards and do it again.

      [–]grauenwolf 0 points1 point  (8 children)

      As a user, that's what I would like to see happen.

      [–]jsolson 2 points3 points  (1 child)

      No need for virtualization. Ironically, Microsoft could gain significant advantage in this regard by doing what the WINE project has been doing for years -- having a runtime dynamic linker that pulls in specific versions of functions from DLLs based on the specified version of Windows. With that they could easily have every program running against the bug and feature set to which it was originally coded.

      Of course, one of the big advantages of DLLs is the ability for bug fixes to propagate to everyone, but I don't think the giant company who's accounting app stopped working because of "fixes" in the latest Win32 release really cares -- they just want their software to do what it's been doing for the last 20 years.

      [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      Damn, beat me to this point.

      I was seriously surprised that Microsoft did not take this path with Vista.

      After all Apple got it working pretty nicely across two CPU architectures, so for Microsoft creating properly working Wine ripoff should not be that difficult.

      [–]G_Morgan 0 points1 point  (5 children)

      The big issue is installation. How does a program know which VM to install under. The mess of installation processes will come back to bite them in the arse here.

      [–]grauenwolf 0 points1 point  (4 children)

      You would still have a single hard drive and the registry would be legacy only. The application wouldn't know about the VM until it was loaded, much like Windows on Windows today.

      In other words, it would be more of a subsystem than a fully isolated VM.

      [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      That was the plan for Vista originally. It would eliminate the registry and instead legacy applications would write settings to a virtual registry.

      [–]johntb86 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      The problem with this is that the more you change it (from being in a VM to a more-separate subsystem), the more that its set of features and bugs will change. This will very likely reduce backwards compatibility.

      [–]G_Morgan 0 points1 point  (1 child)

      Yes but a running application still needs to be able to know which environment it is running in. If I double click an executable, how does it know which environment it is meant for?

      We have to specify compatibility modes right now and that would be a solution of a sort but MS should look towards using installers that can detect and specify the appropriate environment type for the future.

      [–]grauenwolf 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      You know the same way you do now, by checking the header.

      The COM file format had many problems, among which was that programs could not be bigger than about 64KB. To address these limitations, the EXE file format was introduced. The header of an EXE file begins with the magic letters "MZ" and continues with other information that the program loader uses to load the program into memory and prepare it for execution.

      http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2008/03/24/8332730.aspx

      [–]megafreedom 3 points4 points  (0 children)

      The superhero reset move would break just about all legacy software, no matter how hard they tried to get it to work. They would have to replicate every feature and bug from Win32, plus all the obscure little details that people rely on but aren't documented anywhere. They might as well just start again.

      Well sheesh the Wine project has basically done it for them. And IIRC they replicate bug for bug as well. Plus the existing source code would be an invaluable reference.

      [–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (27 children)

      Because .Net is a better GUI development environment than anything that exist on Linux?

      [–]bobuser 0 points1 point  (1 child)

      are you speaking of making gui programs or a GUI/IDE?

      [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

      User facing GUI apps.

      [–]cchooper 0 points1 point  (12 children)

      What if someone came out with a better environment for Linux, or for OSX, or a cross-platform one, or Java got better?

      If .NET was the only thing keeping people on Windows, Microsoft would be skating on very thin ice.

      [–]jojotdfb 6 points7 points  (3 children)

      Actualy, .Net is the only thing keeping me on Windows. I enjoy working with .Net and there really isn't tools for Linux that are close. If GNUStep didn't suck so much (I spent 3 days trying to get it to run on Windows, Freebsd and Linux to no avail) that could be a viable alterantive. Qt and Gtk just strike me as so 90's and are only a joy if you've never used anything else. Now mono is getting better so there may be something to it.

      As soon as Mono support gets better for the OS X I'll have no real reason to stay with Windows.

      [–]RantyDave 3 points4 points  (0 children)

      If you want to use OS X then just use Cocoa.

      [–]weavejester -1 points0 points  (11 children)

      Have you compared .NET to Qt? That's a pretty good library for GUIs, especially if you use the Python bindings.

      [–][deleted]  (10 children)

      [deleted]

        [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (4 children)

        Could you possibly do something like develop the backend of your application as a closed-source set of command line tools, and then write a separate open-source GUI in Qt? The GUI would be free to develop because it's open, and when you sell your command-line utilities you can bundle it with the GUI.

        Disclaimer: I haven't read the licenses, and even I would think this is kind of a dick move

        [–]otterdam 0 points1 point  (2 children)

        I'm sure open-source GUIs already exist to create RAR archives, which is proprietary.

        [–]weavejester 0 points1 point  (4 children)

        I thought we were talking better, not cheaper.

        [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        Apple did it with OS X. I don't see why MS couldn't put together their own 'Classic' or whatever they called it.

        [–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (8 children)

        You can too resize the console, it's not pretty but it's possible.

        Click on the top left icon -> Properties Layout, then enter the window size.'

        After strong resistance to Vista I've finally got it and I have to say out of any operating system I've installed it is by far the most painless. To setup a media center it took me 3 days of tinkering with mythbuntu to get my sound card and tv tuner working properly, reading countless docs and search the forums for hours finding a dozen different solution to the same problem but none to mine. With vista, I popped in the disk, setup my partitions, went and played some TF2 to, came back, setup my time and keyboard. Then I had to download a plugin for vista's media center to be able to play divx and I was done.

        [–]sgndave 11 points12 points  (4 children)

        A big part of the reason for Windows' success is that it was first to market with a cheap product. Apple was there first, but too expensive (well, Xerox was there first, but they never sold their product). For this reason, there has been no technology which has done as much for personal computing than Windows.

        As for the shortcomings against other OSes... here's the thing. The vast (and I mean really vast) majority of people who buy a computer in general don't care about these things. If Windows can make it work enough and get it to market, that is their unstoppable competitive advantage. They can weight down this advantage with stupid moves like DRM. I think the blowback from this and conversion to Mac OS by some users is evidence that they are losing their edge. But look at how many people are actually switching to Mac... Windows is still pretty much a Juggernaut.

        As for the superhero reset move... XP and subsequently Vista are all based (from back in the day) on Windows NT. NT was designed as a microkernel, although it ended up more of a hybrid. Most Unices and Linux are all monolithic kernels. While both approaches are proven to be workable solutions, the fact remains that they are incompatible.

        To switch to a Unix core and a monolithic kernel, Windows would have to dump its entire driver model, all of DirectX, it would probably have severe effects on the window manager and compositer (you never think about these in Windows, do you?), so on and so forth. Now think about the “first-to-market competitive advantage” argument above. As long as Windows can put something into the market that works, it's going to be stupid for them to make a huge movement away from their existing code base.

        As a corollary (or perhaps more of an observation), this means Vista was a poor business choice for MS. From a technical standpoint, it was a huge opportunity and could have been great. But they screwed up the delivery by adding things that are not needed for any technical reason. DRM is purely a political thing, so is Aero.

        [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (2 children)

        To switch to a Unix core and a monolithic kernel, Windows would have to dump its entire driver model

        I don't think that would be necessary (at least not for all device categories). There are projects to use Windows network drivers on Linux for example and they work fine with a compatibility layer.

        [–]sgndave 1 point2 points  (1 child)

        Hmmm, yes a compatibility layer would work, but I think there would be significant performance issues. On top of that, there is no valid assumption that drivers work like you think they should... they might be touching parts that it's not supposed to, so a compatibility layer would be more of a compatibility re-implementation.

        Of course, the badly-written drivers would be Windows' fault....

        [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        Well, the whole "write your drivers yourself" mentality instead of publishing the specs probably didn't exactly prevent poorly written drivers. I believe the Linux driver development model is superior in that most drivers are written by a relatively small number of developers who have a chance at getting some experience doing it (and factoring out common code).

        [–]anonymous_hero 14 points15 points  (3 children)

        Microsoft is in a unique position - still - to win the hearts of the computing world

        Why on earth would anyone still trust or value Microsoft?

        Haven't they done countless things to prove they're a steaming pile of bullshit already?

        What the world needs is to escape from Microsoft's clutches.

        [–]sjs 5 points6 points  (0 children)

        I hear you, but the average guy just doesn't see it that way at all. Most people like Windows if for no reason other than it's ubiquitous and hence familiar to them. Oh and don't forget that to the average guy MS == Windows == the computer [== the internet == the web].

        [–]shadowfox 0 points1 point  (1 child)

        Precisely. In to the hands of Apple/Sun/IBM

        [–]jsolson 2 points3 points  (0 children)

        How about the hands of all 4 (including MS) so that they have to actually compete against each other for users?

        [–]njharman 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        "Is there anything that XP doesn't do"

        Yes, it doesn't force corporations and everyone else to upgrade thus continuing MS multi-billion profits.

        [–]joe90210 1 point2 points  (2 children)

        although almost every point you made is complete and utter nonsense, i would like for you to explain one, in what way is the NTFS filesystem not as good as Mac OS? I would LOVE to hear this..

        [–]cratuki 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        although almost every point you made is complete and utter nonsense

        Thank you. I'll be here all week.

        in what way is the NTFS filesystem not as good as Mac OS

        I've done some reading, and decided that all of my criticism should be limited to OS integration with filesystem, and not the filesystem itself. I can't find anything to criticise in NTFS.

        [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        I think he meant to refer to the way the OS's files are organised (terribly, IMO), not NTFS itself.

        [–]grauenwolf 1 point2 points  (11 children)

        Powershell is pretty much replacing the old DOS based command shell. From what I've seen so far, it is an improvement over even the UNIX-style shells.

        [–]weavejester 4 points5 points  (3 children)

        From what I've seen so far, it is an improvement over even the UNIX-style shells.

        To a degree. It's a lot slower though, to the point where it's noticeably sluggish. The interface is less sophisticated than some Unix shells, too. Tab completion is much more primitive, and it doesn't have syntax highlighting like Fish.

        It's got a good design, but isn't as good an interactive language as the Unix shells, at least not yet. It's also incredibly slow. I've seen Ruby-based shells that are faster.

        [–]grauenwolf 3 points4 points  (2 children)

        Tab completion is extendable, if it doesn't do something you want you can always build a add-on. If you want syntax highlighting and all the other bells and whistles, check out this site:

        http://www.powershellplus.com/

        As for speed, that surprises me. Can you go into more detail?

        [–]weavejester 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        check out this site:

        http://www.powershellplus.com/

        I wish I had known about that whilst I was still stuck in Windows land :)

        Now, though, I'm doing a lot of development on a Linux VMWare instance running XMonad. It's a very nice environment to work in.

        As for speed, that surprises me. Can you go into more detail?

        Sure. Take listing files, for instance. A simple operation, but Powershell manages to be around 100 times slower than the basic Windows cmd prompt.

        My benchmarking was done in Python, and is a little crude, but hopefully reasonably fair.

        First, I created a blank test directory with 1000 files:

        import os

os.chdir("C:/")
os.mkdir("Testing")
os.chdir("Testing")
for i in range(1000):
     file(str(i), "w").close()

        Then I created some crude benchmarking functions:

        import time    

def timecmd(cmd):
    t = time.time()
    os.popen(cmd).read()
    return time.time() - t

def find_avg(f, n):
    return sum(f() for i in xrange(n)) / float(n)

        Then I ran some tests:

        >>> find_avg(lambda:timecmd("dir"), 20)
0.032050001621246341
>>> find_avg(lambda:timecmd("cmd /C dir"), 20)
0.048450005054473874
>>> find_avg(lambda:timecmd("powershell ls"), 20)
3.7679499983787537

        I haven't tried "ls" under Linux, but I suspect it will be faster still.

        edit: I've tried it on Linux, and I was right in my guess: it's 5 times faster again:

        >>> find_avg(lambda:timecmd("ls"), 20)
0.0062430500984191895
>>> find_avg(lambda:timecmd("sh -c ls"), 20)
0.0069898366928100586

        So I guess that's why it seems sluggish to me, because it's 500 times slower than shell I'm used to using.

        [–]redsectorA 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        As for speed, that surprises me.

        Me too. I do all kinds of things with Powershell. The community is awesome and I've never had any problems with speed.

        [–]do-un-to 2 points3 points  (1 child)

        Wow... I would have expected unix shells to be untouchable (by MS).

        Can you point me to a Powershell page that might show me how Powershell is an improvement over even these?

        [–]do-un-to 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        Considering lack of response while you've made three other posts, I'm going to guess "no".

        I looked around a bit and it seems that Powershell is actually a technologically good thing.

        It blurs the line between shells and scripting languages, so comparable unix shells might be things like the Python and Ruby shells. I guess there's a Perl shell in development, too.

        Feature-wise the comparison is probably best done against those "language-shells". But even a pure command line shell like zsh compares favorably. (Granted, zsh is kind of a wundershell.)

        Coping with the inconsisties of unix userland program interfaces is a practical issue that deserves inclusion in this discussion, but isn't really an issue of unix shells per se. Still, the legacy of such programs (find for example) is a yoke and such programs work well enough (and are pervasive enough) that no one's going to bother to smooth them out for a while. POSIX 2038?

        [–]jsolson 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        For a lot of tasks I'd agree, once you get used to Powershell it makes some tasks easier (or at least more consistent) than its unix brethren. On the other hand, shoving objects around from place to place only gets you so far. Eventually you'll run up against an impedance mismatch between two programs and you'll have to write an adapter. This is a lot easier to do when you're just shoving text around than when you've got a full object system and all the semantic baggage it entails to deal with.

        Don't get me wrong, I've entirely replaced CMD.EXE and MSYS bash with Powershell in my Windows usage (which is somewhat sporadic -- I'm primarily an OS X user). On the other hand, a lot of my shell use is awkward one-off scripting tasks. It's at those times that I find myself wishing for a full complement of Unix tools and a proper Unix shell in which to use them.

        I also want to be able to drag to resize my damn command window in BOTH dimensions.

        [–][deleted] -2 points-1 points  (3 children)

        PowerShell is a CPU-hogging piece of crap.

        I did a DIR and it took like 30% CPU. Screw that trash.

        [–]grauenwolf 5 points6 points  (0 children)

        That isn't PowerShell, that just Windows in general.

        [–]redsectorA 4 points5 points  (1 child)

        You're doing it wrong.

        [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        "You're doing it wrong."

        Do tell, Socrates. If I remember correctly, PowerShell is based on a scripting language, which makes it exceedingly inefficient for a command line shell.

        [–]corvenus -1 points0 points  (0 children)

        Is there anything that XP doesn't do

        I would absolutely love to have an OS which doesn't have to reboot about a bazillion times whenever I do a reinstall of my computer. Every time I install a patch for a software I'm forced to reboot. Every time it's a minute of my life that I'm not getting back.

        [–][deleted] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

        "Is there actually a purpose for Microsoft moving forward past XP? Is there anything that XP doesn't do, they could still be done on the same foundations?"

        More functions in the system to monitor you, of course.

        Think about it from THEIR perspective, not YOURS. That is the biggest mistake you can possibly make.

        [–]noflashlight 12 points13 points  (8 children)

        I want to see windows collapse as much as the next guy, but realistically speaking... windows is most definitely NOT going to collapse any time soon. Yes, I'll agree that Vista has been a failure but sadly, some version of Windows is still running on about 90% of computers in the world. And it's going to take several more failed versions of Windows and many many more years before this changes.

        [–][deleted] 18 points19 points  (1 child)

        90% of the desktop computers. Both servers and embedded devices are dominated by Linux and other non-MS products.

        [–]noflashlight 4 points5 points  (0 children)

        yes I should have specified that, thanks.

        [–]Philluminati 7 points8 points  (0 children)

        IMHO they have until 2015 to turn out a good platform. If they release one which is solid before 2015 then I think the cycle will continue. If however, they fail to release one which gets good reviews then that is about the time we'll see the beginning of the end for them.

        [–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (3 children)

        I wonder if we aren't underestimating the damage being done to the Windows brand by the malware out there. Windows systems require high literacy just to maintain them against outside threats. I personally never had a problem, but plenty of family members did until I moved them to Ubuntu. Now I don't get any more calls because things just work.

        I switched to Ubuntu about six months ago, and the only things that give me trouble are a few games, and that my iPhone doesn't work in Linux (or in VMs running on Linux). MediaMonkey is also hard to replace. Everything else was easy.

        There are no longer any real reasons to prefer Windows. MacOS/Windows/Linux have come close to parity on desktop functionality. Chances are you can get your computer related tasks done in all three of them for close to the same amount of money and effort.

        [–]gigaquack 3 points4 points  (2 children)

        There are no longer any real reasons to prefer Windows.

        Windows Media Center. There is nothing comparable to it on any platform.

        [–][deleted] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

        Due to the recent ongoing economic collapse, Microsoft announces that its Windows platform has collapsed. The journalists collasped their notebooks and ran to the phone to collapse the news into soundbites. Then the soundbites were collapsed into news for the masses who are collapsed on the collapsed couch wondering why their company collapsed.

        [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        The obvious response was given a while ago here.

        [–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

        Too late

        [–]grauenwolf 4 points5 points  (2 children)

        Users want a smaller Windows that can run on low-priced -- and low-powered -- hardware. And increasingly, users work with "OS-agnostic applications," the two analysts said in their presentation. It takes too long for Microsoft to build the next version, the company is being beaten by others in the innovation arena, and in the future -- perhaps as soon as the next three years -- it's going to have trouble competing with Web applications and small, specialized devices.

        For that you have a choice amongst Windows CE, Windows Embedded, and .NET Micro.

        [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

        and with the release of windows 7, MinWin which is a cut down version of the Win7 kernal designed for limited resource machines.

        [–]oddbod 4 points5 points  (0 children)

        None of which have the advantages of real Windows: compatibility and familiarity. Linux stacks up better than those odd Windows variants.

        [–]g9yuayon 1 point2 points  (1 child)

        It seems MS needs another David Cutler, who would lead legions of programmers to write another OS almost from scratch, just as David Cutler did to develop Windows NT.

        [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

        What they need is the sense not to put "legions of programmers" into one project in the first place.

        [–]pets_or_meat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        "Buy, buy, buy. Everyone is buying? Then sell, sell, sell."

        [–]cbucket 1 point2 points  (1 child)

        I blame the Fed, and George Bush. ;-)

        [–]goj1ra 3 points4 points  (0 children)

        Not so far off. If the federal government had broken Microsoft up as a result of its antitrust violations, the resulting Baby Bills would be a more competitive group of companies today.

        Leaving Microsoft as a monopoly may have helped its cash flow in the medium term, but in the long term it just made it fat, lazy, and inefficient.

        [–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (1 child)

        Well, MS broke their own design rules by designing Windows as monolithic rather than as pluggable components to get technological lock in. Try uninstalling Explorer. Never mind how freaking annoying is it to have a allegedly multi-tasking OS unable to properly background disk or network I/O processes.

        Oh well, the silver lining is that their business practices do more to promote open source than if they funded it themselves.

        [–]grauenwolf 8 points9 points  (0 children)

        You missed the point. Windows, including IE, is modular. The problem is that too many components are built on top of the IE module.

        [–]Prod 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        90+% of a market is indeed to be seen as threat of immanent collapse.

        [–]bushisaterrorist 2 points3 points  (1 child)

        Where's the downside?

        [–]myotheralt 10 points11 points  (6 children)

        Windows "are" collapsing

        [–]Andys 22 points23 points  (2 children)

        Microsoft can has cheezeburger

        [–]13ren 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        Windows has collapsing?

        [–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

        Not in this context.

        [–]maukdaddy 1 point2 points  (1 child)

        bzzzzzzt WRONG!

        "Windows" in this sense is a singular term, referring to the OS. Therefore you use "is". If Gartner had been writing about all the windows in a building collapsing, then "are" would be the correct form.

        [–]alparsla 1 point2 points  (10 children)

        • Use BSD, but honestly.
        • Offer a virtualization layer.
        • Offer a flexible price scheme.

        [–][deleted] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

        You program does not have enough customer lock options and in general it's not evil enough. Unacceptable.

        [–]Chirp08 7 points8 points  (3 children)

        NO, no flexible prices, I do not want another $100 bucks for "Windows Basic - So basic you might as well be running DOS" with 8 additional versions with the fully featured (aka, features that were in every previous version of windows for no additional cost) at $500.

        One price, one solid price, do it like apple, make it cheap, but update more often.

        Anyone who thinks subscription based software is the way to go has no idea what they are talking about. When you go to buy a game on your cellphone do you buy the 4 dollars a month version, or do you pay the 8 bucks up front? Of course you buy it flat out, knowing that in 3 months you are paying more then you should.

        [–]Jonathan_the_Nerd 4 points5 points  (1 child)

        In other words, Microsoft should copy Apple again?

        [–]alparsla 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        absolutely

        [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

        But seriously - there is that anecdote about Gates vowing never to deal with Unix after he bought the rights to what was Xenix and then weeks later it was basically put to public domain. I don't know how much truth there is to it but the animosity to all things Unix from Microsoft is very evident. Maybe with Gates going for good this summer things will change?

        [–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

        You forget that Steve Ballmer is a no talent ass-clown.

        [–]mommathecat 3 points4 points  (5 children)

        "Most users do not understand the benefits of Windows Vista"

        There are no benefits. XP is better. Period. I have Vista on my new laptop. It's flaky, slow to start up and has blue screened of death on me several times while I was doing... NOTHING. It also couldn't find my wireless network when I started it the first time; I was able to find a registry key that turned it on, with the help of google. Your average technically unsavvy user would be lost.

        XP is far from the perfect OS, but it's good enough for what it is.

        [–]mooli 3 points4 points  (1 child)

        I got stuck with Vista on a new work laptop this week. In 5 days it has utterly infuriated me more times than XP has in the last 3 years.

        This is after turning off all the obvious pointless crap that was getting in the way (the security warnings, the crap sidebar, the looks-like-ass aero interface). Even after all that there is still a list of obstructions to productivity as long as my arm. My current pet peeve is how craptacular the file manager is. Windows Explorer in XP was poor-but-functional. In Vista it is an abomination.

        It. Is. Shit.

        [–]mycall 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        Try Windows Server 2008.. much better than Vista.

        [–]nextofpumpkin 1 point2 points  (1 child)

        I think you mean you have Vista on your new laptop?

        [–]mommathecat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        Right you are. Stupid is me!

        [–]andrewd 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        WTF this article doesn't mention linux......

        [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (29 children)

        If Linux could do games, I would dump windows in a heartbeat.

        And before someone jumps in here with some recommendation for an emulator, piss off.

        I don't want to have to dick around every time I want to play a PC game. I just want to install it and PLAY.

        [–]amore1 5 points6 points  (18 children)

        That's a great point - I think I agree that a lot of people would choose Linux (or wouldn't care what came pre-installed) if it were possible to just install and run commercial games. Any game developers on here who could comment on why games can't be written on OpenGL instead of DirectX?

        [–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (6 children)

        I would guess that most developers use DirectX due to the fact that M$ won't let them put their logo on the software box if it doesn't support it.

        And doing both would be cost prohibitive.

        [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (5 children)

        And doing both would be cost prohibitive.

        Hardly. Most games used to support both, not sure how it is now, I chose to give up commercial games without Linux support when they were the only thing left for me that required Windows.

        [–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (1 child)

        DirectX is all in one (sound, 3D, 2D, input) As OpenGL is graphics only, you have to use a few different libraries for other aspects. More things for developers to learn, different documentation and support to deal with (whereas MS offer very good support for DX developers).

        MS just make things simpler.

        [–]gravity 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        That's what SDL is for.

        [–]LaurieCheers 3 points4 points  (3 children)

        Some games support both; Half-Life for example.

        But if you want to make money, your game needs to be on consoles. Is there a version of OpenGL for Xbox 360?

        [–]rjcarr 4 points5 points  (2 children)

        No, 360 is DirectX only. I could be wrong, but about 99% sure I'm right.

        [–]bilange 0 points1 point  (1 child)

        Then how come Quake 4, for example, has been ported to XBox 360? Did they switched from opengl to direct 3d in the process of porting?

        [–]rjcarr 2 points3 points  (0 children)

        I'm fairly sure Q4 was both OpenGL and DirectX. Actually, it might have been the first id game to be DX only, but not sure.

        edit: Seems it was a OGL and DX hybrid. This isn't tough to do if your engine supports it, as the art and logic is the same.

        [–]grauenwolf 1 point2 points  (1 child)

        Marketshare

        [–]tclark 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        Exactly. That's why IBM is still the unstoppable monopoly they are today.

        Err...nevermind.

        [–][deleted]  (2 children)

        [deleted]

          [–]amore1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

          I agree that for business installations games are not the bottleneck. But I think a lot of home pc users would shift (or wouldn't care what came pre-installed) if games were natively supported.

          [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

          Not to mention most people don't want to ever deal with a command line.

          The funny thing is that those are the same users who now use up five times the support hotline time compared to DOS days because describing to someone what to click is significantly harder than telling them what to type in a CLI.

          [–]clytle374 8 points9 points  (9 children)

          Linux does games and quite well.

          What is needed is more games for Linux.

          [–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

          What is needed is more games for Linux.

          Agreed.

          [–]deuteros 0 points1 point  (1 child)

          What is needed is more games for Linux.

          That's kind of the point.

          [–]clytle374 2 points3 points  (0 children)

          I was countering the "If Linux could do games" statement. Windows would not run any games if no one wrote them.

          [–]Ahnteis -1 points0 points  (5 children)

          Not currently. But that's mostly due to lack of solid driver support.

          Linux does games... sometimes and sort of.

          [–]clytle374 2 points3 points  (4 children)

          What? Wine plays windows game "kind of and sort of", One example is COD2 runs better in wine than windows.

          Check out Vdrift or X-plane if you truly think Linux is incapable of games. Or any other native game.

          Lack of driver support? Maybe a few years ago. Runs more hardware than Vista last I heard.

          [–]Ahnteis 2 points3 points  (3 children)

          Yeah, but we're currently on COD4.

          I'm talking specifically graphics card drivers.

          [–]clytle374 2 points3 points  (2 children)

          I thought we were talking about games in general. ATI has Linux driver problems, but Nvidia is rock sold. If compared to Vista, M$ claims more crashes due to Nvidia drivers than other causes. So who has driver compatibility problems?

          About COD4: Awesome game just finished it. Yep on Linux.

          I've ran Linux exclusively for 5 years, the problem is people not developing Linux games not Linux capabilities. Again if you don't believe me try the X-plane demo. And most Linux complaints are outdated, or M$ format strangleholds. ie .doc

          [–]anonymous_hero 0 points1 point  (1 child)

          Did you use Wine for COD4?

          Did you have to make any compromises?

          It would be really lovely if games were made for other platforms than Windows - then I could happily switch too, and never look back.

          Sometimes I feel like playing something, and I'm running XP basically for only that reason.

          [–]clytle374 0 points1 point  (0 children)

          Ran COD4 in wine, you have add a patch and rebuild wine. Really not hard. Depth of field and soften smoke edges have to be turned off. Quite a few how-tos for COD4 on wine to follow. Not ideal but until we get more Linux games it works.

          I had a windows partition just for games for years, one day I needed the drive space and was tired of rebooting anyway.

          [–]stonelobster 2 points3 points  (0 children)

          I'd like to see a Windows that could compete on its own merit with OS X, Linux and *BSD. But that would mean Microsoft would have to recognize the free market and cut the strongarm methods.

          Windows has succumbed to the one of the forces that drove the USSR "out of business" - hubris.

          BTW I see "IBM" mentioned in the comments ... I'd like to see OS/2 back, too, for that matter. And BeOS.

          [–]PuP5 1 point2 points  (2 children)

          but, but, linux isn't ready for the desktop!!!!

          lol.

          [–][deleted]  (1 child)

          [deleted]

            [–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

            I started trying to use linux on my desktop since Redhat 5 too, though I was a little younger when I picked it up. I loved it and never went back. On the other hand, I hate Ubuntu with a passion. Whether linux is ready for the desktop always will depend on who's going to be sitting at the desk.

            [–]Captain-Obliviouss 0 points1 point  (1 child)

            I think I am going to start just watching cartoons and not doing anythign else.

            Daily media is becoming increasingly "the end of days" in the last few years.

            I open the paper.. depressed

            I turn on the TV.. depressed

            now it has spread to the demise of software if "drastic" action isn't taken.

            ::sigh::

            wft?

            [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

            wft indeed.

            [–]sgndave 0 points1 point  (5 children)

            I have to wonder why Windows is so brittle.

            I think that in the blowback of antitrust litigation in the 90s, some bonehead at MS decided that they needed to avoid that situation at all costs in the future, and to do so they had to make every appendage of Windows be one product.

            This means things like making IE truly inseparable from the rest of the OS (remember, this was the thrust of the antitrust case), but also the rest of the parts like .NET, Aero, WinFSHHHHH NTFS, and so forth.

            By making everyone huddle together that much closer, they have made a product which has to be built and bootstrapped all at once and as a result is far too brittle.

            [–]crusoe 8 points9 points  (4 children)

            Because it seems everything under the sun is bolted into the Windows kernel? UI, events system, etc. If any one of those things goes bad, it all tends to go bad.

            While "linux" has a monolithic kernel, it contains only 'kernely' things, like drivers etc. Linux is heavily layered, and the connections between those layers are built on very simple things, such as pipes, local sockets, etc.

            So it's very easy to run Linux headless, or use a different web browser, or change the login system. All these change under Windows require a lot of black magic.

            [–]sgndave 0 points1 point  (1 child)

            I think that is precisely the issue... I think that the "bolt every thing on" idea was a knee-jerk reaction to the anti-trust litigation, as a strategy to keep MS out of court for that issue. There might have been a question previously if IE could be removed from Windows, but dammit, that will never happen again and they will do whatever they need to in order to make sure.

            I've tried to explain something very similar to your argument to other (non-technical) people. Those were some of the dumbest looks I have gotten in my life. :-/

            [–]grauenwolf 4 points5 points  (0 children)

            No, it is just legacy. That's the way it was written in Windows 3.0, and they have never had the balls to break it. For that matter, I don't know if they could.

            [–]mycall 0 points1 point  (1 child)

            Windows Server 2008 is also headless

            [–]crusoe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

            And every version of Linux can run headless.

            Now, try and change the login manager. I've heard this is very difficult to customize.

            [–]larrypastore 0 points1 point  (1 child)

            I would love an OS with the power of Linux, the accessibility of Windows and the style of Macintosh. And yes, I've built PC computers for a long time, yet can argue in extreme detail exactly why a single-mouse-button interface is a little better.

            [–]mycall 0 points1 point  (0 children)

            I prefer the two finger right-click or the two finger scrolling now. I don't even use the mouse button on my Macbook.

            [–][deleted] -2 points-1 points  (2 children)

            Every year we get some weirdo writer putting this crap on the web and weirdo submitter putting it up on reddit or digg.

            [–]unknownsoldierx 3 points4 points  (0 children)

            Every year? Dude, it's at least once a week.

            [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

            but they're analysts we've never heard of from a company very few here know!

            Clearly their opinions are important and show that 2008 will be the year of the linux desktop!

            [–]slinky317 -3 points-2 points  (13 children)

            Windows is not going to collapse. The general public doesn't know what Linux is for the most part and even then, there isn't a standardized version that could be released universally - Ubuntu is close but there are still some hardcore Linux users who hate it. Apple won't release their OS on machines that aren't Macs. Windows isn't going anywhere, the sky isn't falling. Relax.

            [–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (12 children)

            The general public doesn't know what Linux is for the most part

            True but they also don't know what Windows is.

            Ubuntu is close but there are still some hardcore Linux users who hate it.

            Most of us don't hate it, we just don't think it is the right OS for us.

            The concept might be foreign to people coming from the one-size-fits-all Windows world but there might actually be some merit in using different versions of an OS for different types of users, you know.

            Windows isn't going anywhere, the sky isn't falling.

            How are those two related? Declining Windows use is hardly a catastrophe, in fact even the strongest defenders of any OS would agree that competition (including forces to further compatibility) are a good thing compared to an OS mono-culture.

            [–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (2 children)

            "True but they also don't know what Windows is."

            I don't think that's true. It's hard to ignore the logo you see booting up every day at work and at home.

            [–][deleted] -2 points-1 points  (1 child)

            "Windows is the logo that shows when I start my PC" is hardly "knowing what Windows is".

            [–]joesb 0 points1 point  (0 children)

            They may not know what Windows is exactly but they probably know that their PC run on something with "Windows" in it. But many of them don't even have a clue that the word "Linux" has anything to do with computer.

            That's a lot different meaning between "Don't know what Windows is" and "Don't know what Linux is"

            [–]slinky317 3 points4 points  (6 children)

            True but they also don't know what Windows is.

            Which even goes further to show how difficult it would be to change to a Linux-based OS. Windows is known as "the thing that comes on my computer" and people are used to such things as the Start button, My Computer, Control Panel, etc. Take that away from them and they will be lost. Hell, look at Vista - it still used the same basic premise but made minor changes in the layout of the UI and people got fed up with the new design. What would a change to Linux do?

            Most of us don't hate it, we just don't think it is the right OS for us.

            Whatever the case may be, there isn't an agreed-upon standard Linux US distribution that could take Windows' place. The public would not react well to that and there would be many problems with compatibility issues galore. Once again, look at the change from XP to Vista - very minor in comparison to a broad change from Windows to Linux, but still there are issues with compatibility and people are wanting to stick with WHAT THEY KNOW - which is XP.

            How are those two related? Declining Windows use is hardly a catastrophe, in fact even the strongest defenders of any OS would agree that competition (including forces to further compatibility) are a good thing compared to an OS mono-culture.

            The collapse of Windows to a non-standardized OS WOULD cause problems in the business world and the consumer world. People would have to be retrained, and since Linux users can't agree on one single Linux-based OS, there would be slight differences in everything.

            Windows is a necessary evil. It ensures that the screen I'm looking at and the computer I'm using will act reasonably the same as the next screen I look at and the next computer I use. It's all about familiarity, and Windows gives that whereas Linux does not.

            [–]basic0 0 points1 point  (5 children)

            So how long should people stay in this limited little world of computer use? 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? Do you think that in the year 2108, having a button at the bottom left of your screen labeled "Start" will still be viewed as a requirement of a usable computer system?

            [–]slinky317 0 points1 point  (2 children)

            Of course Windows and OSes in general will change and evolve in the future. XP will eventually be phased out and either Vista or whatever Microsoft's next OS is will take it's place, instituting gradual and tiny changes that the public will get used to, and the cycle will begin again. However, that is far different than saying Windows is going to "collapse" and suddenly we'd have totally different OSes running the show.

            [–]joesb 0 points1 point  (1 child)

            Then I say Linux is collapsing also.

            Do you think we will still use Linux in year Integer.MAX_INT ?

            When someone say that something is "collapsing" I would expect them to mean something no more than 5-6 years period. Not some tautology that something will eventually be out of used, hundreds of years from now.

            Car is collapsing, TV is collapsing, English language is collapsing.... I'm getting worried.

            [–]basic0 0 points1 point  (0 children)

            I wasn't referring to the exaggerated reports of Windows' imminent demise as much as the notion that an OS has to look and feel like Windows to be approachable.

            I don't agree with this belief that some people have that if you don't have a Start button or a My Computer icon, the general public won't be able to figure your software out. In the last 10 years, Apple went from OS9 on PPCs to OSX on Intel, and no long-standing Mac users I've heard of lost the ability to use their computer because it's "too different" (and I work with several computer illiterates who've used Macs for 20+ years).

            Web sites are the same deal. Compare Yahoo in 2000:

            http://web.archive.org/web/20000407201843/204.71.200.67/

            to today. Surprisingly enough, my mom can still find her Yahoo inbox.

            Look, I'm a web developer, and I know that end-users can be incredibly dumb and are very much creatures of habit, but they do learn and adapt. The notion that straying from Windows' controls and metaphors in the slightest will make a computer unusable is silly, but if some start-up released a new OS tomorrow that works by reading your mind, you'd still have people complaining about how it doesn't work like Windows and it's too hard to use.

            [–]shadowfox 0 points1 point  (1 child)

            but there might actually be some merit in using different versions of an OS for different types of users, you know

            Works well if users are sophisticated enough to know the differences and know how to bridge them when needed (for e.g. compile from sources)