Hostile ta Vista, Baby 663
Frequent Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton adds his experience to the litany of woes with Microsoft Vista. Unlike most commentators who have a beef with the operating system, Bennett does a bit of surveying to bolster his points. Read his account by clicking on the magic link.
My brand-new-out-of-the-box Windows Vista machine could not access www.facebook.com. A nearby XP machine could, but the Vista machine couldn't. I went back to Circuit City to try out the other Vista demo machines, and they could access other sites but not Facebook, either. And that honeymoon feeling that you get when you buy a new computer and expect it to solve all your problems, was over for me. Having built my latest career on helping people access Facebook where they were blocked from it, by some cosmic joke was Vista now blocking me from getting to Facebook on my own machine?
I know, another article bashing Vista, what could be more banal. (Kids! That word, meaning "trite" or "unoriginal", is pronounced "ba-NAHL". If you say it the wrong way like I did in an interview, it sounds naughty and you sound stupid.) But in my own random survey of 30 Vista users on Amazon's Mechanical Turk service (a handy way to check these things), three quarters (23) said the only reason they were using Vista was that the PC store they went to didn't sell XP machines any more, and about half of all respondents (14) said that they would go back to Windows XP if they could. So I don't want to get a bunch of e-mails with Ron Paul links in the signature saying "Nobody has to use Vista if they don't want to!" (I'm aware that a survey of 30 people is too small to be scientific, but it's enough to get a ballpark figure for about $5 on Mechanical Turk.) Besides, the more people write testimonials to what they found frustrating about Vista, the more likely it is that some future version will keep what is good about the new OS, while providing a less frustrating interface (suggested name: "Vista 98").
It turns out the Facebook issue was not really Microsoft's fault -- www.facebook.com had a broken IPv6 record, and Vista defaults to using IPv6 where XP used IPv4, so that's why the host wasn't working. (In case you run into this with any other Web sites on Vista, I fixed the problem by disabling IPv6 in network settings and rebooting.) But it was one more example of something that used to work pre-Vista and then stopped working, and every case like that adds up to the overall frustration of switching to a new system, regardless of whose fault it is.
I hasten to add that I am not some partisan Microsoft basher. I like XP just fine, never more than when I went back to it after a few days on Vista, and I still think for that matter that Vista would be easier to switch to than Linux. Having been involved for years with free speech activism, I run into a lot of people in the same circles who are strong Linux advocates, apparently because the concept of "freedom of speech" is closely aligned with "making every file search as simple and stress-free as a Hamas hostage negotiation". So every year or two I'll try out the latest version of some Linux distro to see how long it would take to get used to it. In 2005, full of optimism, I cheerfully booted up the latest version of Shrike, then tried to find a directory and discovered I could not right-click on the hard drive root dir and specify the name of a directory I wanted to search for (that only worked for files, not directories). I posted a query to a Linux newsgroup, and a respondent told me that the solution was to open a command prompt and type "man find", which I am aware is a polite way of saying "screw you, newbie", but which I dutifully followed anyway and got an output screen of which the first paragraph was:
find searches the directory tree rooted at each given file name by evaluating the given expression from left to right, according to the rules of precedence (see section OPERATORS), until the outcome is known (the left hand side is false for and operations, true for or), at which point find moves on to the next file name.
and that was all my Linux for that year. Maybe I'm overdue to try it again. (Microsoft gives away their Virtual PC program that makes it easy to try other operating systems; I think it's a ploy to make us appreciate Windows more.) Now, I love the concept of a freely-distributable, freely-modifiable operating system, and I've recommended Linux to people when you need it to do something cool that Windows can't do, like bypassing Windows security by booting a PC from a CD. And it's done a lot of good for organizations like the One Laptop Per Child program, which can keep their costs down by using a free operating system. But to this day I've never heard an answer to one question: Since even Linux advocates admit that it's harder to use, what can you do with Linux that you can't do with Windows, to make it worth switching over to? If I was nervous about Vista because some of the interface had changed and some of my old programs no longer worked, it wasn't helpful to tell me to switch to a system where all of the interface would change and none of my old programs would work.
So, I wanted to like Vista. I knew that eventually everyone would have to upgrade anyway, so, not wanting to be left behind, I wanted to switch to Vista because of the same factor that spammers use to get your attention: "Other guys are improving themselves, why aren't you?" But there were some things I ran into almost immediately:
-
Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer no longer have the "File / Edit / View" menu bars across the top of the window. Was this a big problem under XP? When the menus gave quick, two-click access to most actions that you could take within the application, was there a grassroots movement to have them removed? I did eventually find that you can hit the "Alt" key to bring the menus back, but why put people through that frustration? The most annoying feeling while using a computer is being yanked out of thinking about what you're doing with the computer to having to concentrate on how to use it.
Perhaps the idea was to steer users towards using the buttons on the toolbar, but there aren't enough buttons to cover all the options located under the menus. If the UI designers wanted to steer users gently towards using the buttons, my suggestion would have been: Whenever the user picks something under a menu that corresponds to something accessible from the toolbar, display a dialog box which says for example, "In the future, you can print faster by clicking the printer button on the toolbar", along with a picture (and a "Do not show this message again" checkbox -- important!).
- Windows Explorer also did away with the "Up" button that lets you browse from the current directory to the higher-level directory. Again, probably not in response to a groundswell of users demanding for that button to be removed, when it took up about one square centimeter of screen space. Supposedly Windows Explorer makes up for this by displaying the entire path to the current directory in the address bar, so that if the path is "C:\Financial Records\Chris Pirillo\ Pectoral Real Estate\", you can click on "Chris Pirillo" to go one directory higher. The trouble is that I frequently give my directories extremely long and descriptive names like (this is a real example) "Flash-Player-8.5.0.246-beta2.downloaded-2006-03-20-from-labs.macromedia.com" so that I can keep track of where and when I got each piece of downloaded software, in case I ever need to go back to a previous version that the software maker no longer makes available because they're trying to steer me away from it (ironically, "Vista syndrome"). With a directory that has a long name like that, the higher-level directories aren't visible in the address bar, so I had to locate it manually in the left-hand tree view panel. OK, knock off the violins, the point is that I didn't have to do that in XP.
- I have an older monitor, so I wanted to turn ClearType off. The IE7 help file describes how to do this in IE, but that didn't work for me no matter how many times I tried, and my eyes were aching by the time I found out that in Vista it's a default system-wide setting that overrides IE's setting until you change the system-wide one. I would have suggested putting one line in the IE7 help file: "Note: if your operating system such as Windows Vista is set to use ClearType system-wide, you must disable this as well to disable ClearType in IE."
- Virtual PC, which worked on all versions of Windows XP, is not supported on Vista Home Premium. I need Virtual PC (for reasons other than Linux-bashing), so this was a deal-breaker.
- Telnet no longer installed by default. Even though I use a different telnet program for regular use, telnet.exe was handy to test whether a remote machine was reachable on a given port. (For example, in a command prompt, type "telnet www.yahoo.com 80" and when the command prompt screen goes blank, that means the machine www.yahoo.com is accepting responses on port 80, the standard port for Web traffic. Try connecting to port 81 instead, and you get no response on that port. This can be useful when diagnosing problems with Web servers and other programs.) Even though it's not hard to get telnet back, why would they go to the trouble of removing it?
-
The aforementioned Facebook problem. This seemed so startling at the time that I almost stopped everything to write an article just about that, musing on Microsoft having so much power that all PC stores were now exclusively stocking computers running an OS that, at the time anyway, couldn't access Facebook. But then I asked another bunch of users on Mechanical Turk, and all respondents using Vista said they could access Facebook after all. Of course, this wasn't a random sample, since users who bought Vista and couldn't access Facebook, probably would have returned their machines a long time ago, but I'm still not sure what caused it to work on some machines and not others -- all I know is that Facebook was inaccessible until I disabled IPv6.
I know Facebook is reading these articles, since in November I wrote about how you could circumvent Facebook's system of verifying that users were real high school students, by doing the following: "(1) create a profile of a non-overweight girl and sign up as a member of a high school network, pending confirmation; (2) search for several boys in that network and send them friend requests; and (3) wait for at least one of them to confirm you back". Shortly afterwards, Facebook changed the verification system, so that now, if you're confirming someone who is a pending member of a high school network but no one else has confirmed them yet, Facebook warns you, "Only check this box if you're absolutely sure that you know this person." So, whichever of Mark Zuckerberg's friends is reading my articles: Clever idea, and, keep the IPv6 records working.
That was as far as I got before I stopped trying to get used to Vista and started taking notes for this article (working title: "Vist Vucked"). From the Mechanical Turk users who responded to my survey, the other most common reported problems were: software compatibility, hardware compatibility, difficulty with the UI, and running too slowly. Presumably the first two problems will improve over time, but the UI will always be hard to switch to as long as users can't find functions that were easy locatable in the old interface, and if it runs slower than XP, that will always be a factor no matter how fast your computer is. (However fast it runs Vista, you'd always be able to make it run even faster with XP instead!)
The best things I've heard about Vista have been that (a) it is the most secure Windows ever (which Dave Barry says is like calling asparagus the "most articulate vegetable ever"), and (b) it features better multimedia integration. To which my responses were: (a) the number of incomprehensible warnings that Vista flashes at a user whenever they look at the computer funny, does not make it more secure, because users will condition themselves to just ignore those warnings, and (b) I hate watching TV on my computer anyway.
Since TV/PC integration is a major selling point for Vista, I thought this last issue was worth looking harder at: Do people really want to use their computers to watch TV? My computer monitor is in an office where I sit up close when I'm working; but TV feels more comfortable to watch from several feet away, and in my office I can't even scoot my chair back that far. (And if I lived with family, I doubt they'd want to crowd into my office to watch a movie.) In fact, I like the psychological separation of the TV set in the living room from the distractions of the computer in the office: I go in there when I'm done with everything in here. The only way I'd regularly download and watch movies would be if I had a way to send them wirelessly to my TV, but a wireless PC-to-TV converter and the corresponding receiver together cost about $200.
Seeking more validation of my opinions from strangers, I did another survey of 30 Mechanical Turk users, asking if they would rather drive to a movie rental store or download a movie online for the same price. Almost half (14) said they'd rather drive to the movie store, citing the comfort of watching the movie on their TV as opposed to on the computer. Another fourth of the respondents (8) said they'd download the movie but only if they could send the content to their TV to watch, and only the last fourth (8) said they'd actually watch it on their computer monitor. So the future of convergence between PC and TV will probably be not in all-in-one systems but in devices that link the PC in your study with the TV in your living room, and since there's no household name yet for PC-to-TV linkage, the field is wide open for some lucky company to make a product that becomes synonymous with the concept, the way "TiVo" is easier to say than "Digital Video Recorder". Maybe that will be a boost for systems like Vista. If that happens at about the same time that a Vista successor is released that makes the interface easier to switch to from XP, I'll bet that will be the tipping point that gets people switching voluntarily. (Of course many people will switch by then just because they need a new computer and they couldn't find one with anything but Vista on it.)
Anyway, I was only trying a new Vista machine because the hard drive on my old computer died, but after all the data had been recovered, I just installed a new drive in the old machine and went back to XP, while my Vista machine was returned to its perch, gargoyle-like, on the shelves at Circuit City, waiting to pounce on the next unsuspecting wretch with dreams of self-improvement through newer computer purchases. The only remnant of Vista that I have left is IE7, which was installed by my Windows XP restore disk and can't be removed, and which is incompatible with some sites and programs that I need, so I've been using Firefox more and getting to like it. That's lucky, since I've already offended the loyal software-logo-wearing constituencies of Vista and Linux, and wouldn't want to deal with the Firefox crowd too. As my friend Anne Mitchell says, "Admitting you hate Firefox is almost as bad as admitting to being Republican." (Except that when Firefox screws with a page, the chat logs don't end up on national television. Ba-dump-bump!)
Re:tl,dr (Score:2, Insightful)
Nice read (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's see if consumers decide that the Apple TV (take 2) is the lucky device to connect the internet and TV.
Re:tl,dr (Score:5, Insightful)
Or not.
I suppose one way to get to IPv6 is to have the world's most notorious monopolist promote it.
I'm sure there's a pony in that steaming pile of Vista somewhere...
Circuit City shoppers are the Slashdot standard? (Score:5, Insightful)
Has the slashdot demographic decayed this much?
Re:This just in... (Score:3, Insightful)
Anon because I modded in here already . . .
weakly done (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This just in... (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess MS should have checked every IPv6 site out there and ensured they worked fine, and if they found any that didn't (like facebook, because they are too incompetent to setup IPv6 correctly for their site) then IPv6 should again default to not enabled.
Oh, lets not forget "30 isn't a good scientific sample size, but because I live in my mom's basement and can only spend $5 to get 'statistics, I'll continue to use data I know is not representitive to prove my point. Oh yes, and I understand that such polls regardless of size are worthless, because people happy with Vista won't go out en masse and post praise."
What an ass.
Re:This just in... (Score:5, Insightful)
Summary: (Score:3, Insightful)
Point 1
Facebook (not microsoft) screwed up and as a result, any computer configured to use IPv6 wouldn't be able to access it. If you set up your Mac or Linux box to use IPv6, you wouldn't be able to access facebook.
Somehow, this is evidence of Vista's suckiness.
Point 2
I am proud of myself for knowing the word banal and wish to let you know.
Point 3
Three years ago I found an obscure feature that I happen to like, but since it's obscure my linux distro didn't implement it *exactly* the same way that Microsoft implements it. Mac's don't implement it that way either, but no matter, this is somehow proof of linux's suckiness.
A linux user tried to help me, but he stopped short of driving out to my house and typing the command for me, so I take this as evidence of linux's suckiness.
Snobish Much? (Score:4, Insightful)
And can we skip all the crap about whose fault it is? Yes, Facebook screwed up. But if a leading OS can't access a leading web site, people need to know about it, and don't really care whose fucking fault it is.
I'm sure a lot of people are tired of hearing about How Vista Sucks. But the issue isn't going to go away. It's getting harder and harder to buy new machines that run XP, and Microsoft wants to make it impossible. This is stuff I want to hear about, especially when the writer covers problems I hadn't heard about before, like this guy did. As it happens, these issues are key for me, because I desperately want to get Vista's improved handwriting engine for my tablet; that makes Vista problems of extreme interest to me.
If you don't share that interest, well, nobody's forcing you to read TFA.
Re:weakly done (Score:1, Insightful)
I didn't read past "It turns out the Facebook issue was not really Microsoft's fault -- facebook had a broken IPv6 record, and Vista defaults to using IPv6". perhaps a better title would have been "facebook sucks".
It reads like he wrote an article gloating about how broken Vista is that it can't even access Facebook, then somebody proof-read it and told him what really happened. But rather than delete a third of the article and his best example of how broken it is, he decided to leave it in and find a way of pinning it on Vista anyway.
This is a monumentally bad article. At least in the old days, we were only subjected to Taco's and Katz's ill-informed ramblings, these days any old stupid blog post gets on Slashdot.
Re:tl,dr (Score:5, Insightful)
IPv6 is a standard. IPv4 is also a standard. In this case, if one standard fails, you can gracefully fall back on another standard and try getting the job done.
Re:Circuit City shoppers are the Slashdot standard (Score:2, Insightful)
Sorry to nitpick, but Facebook's website [wikipedia.org] isn't the problem. It's their IPv6 [wikipedia.org] DNS [wikipedia.org] . They are not the same, and I'd hope that most Slashdotters know the difference.
And it certainly is a failing of Vista's, if it does not gracefully fall back to IPv4 when IPv6 fails. You'd think after this long of "not getting the internet", they'd have at least figured out networking. ;)
Circuit City shoppers ARE typical Windows users (Score:3, Insightful)
No, sounds like their DNS was broken. But anyway.....
This guy sounds like a typical above average end user. What is typically referred to as a 'power user' in that he knows the basics and is probably the go to guy for everyone else in his peer group. And all of his complaints about capricious changes in the Vista interface vs XP are valid for bith his group and the induhviduals at the bottom of the user pyramid. Change == bad pretty much sums it up.
Which is why the penguin ain't ever going to capture that set of users through conversions. The only way is through new product niches like the eee pc, handhelds, etc. Get enough penguins out that folks like him slowly become used to linux conventions and thus won't be afraid of them on a desktop anymore.
Oh, and for the guy's complaint about being told to use find... bad advice. That is using a sledgehammer to drive a nail. Locate is what ya need for that. Except because linux distributers (I'm looking at you Fedora/RH) keep wanting to appeal to Windows n00bs who don't want Linux instead of Unix folk who DO.... so they disable locate out of the box requiring new users to become root and edit scary text files to reenable it.
Vista messed up Windows Explorer (Score:5, Insightful)
Minus: They totally botched up the column resizing method on the "details" view of Explorer. In XP, it's very cut & dry. YOu hover your mouse between the bars to resize them. Why is this now such a pain in Vista? I swear you have to go to the right a bit to it. It doesn't seem synced up with the mouse pointer "hot spot" end. It was never something that was broken to begin with, but they decided to "improve it". Even switching back to the classic Windows theme(I always do this to make remote desktop faster) still gives you the problem.
I do wonder if Vista fixed the annoying "searching for items" problem. You go into explorer, and you might have a few network drives. You quickly see a flash of your whole file tree, then it blanks it out for your convienence while it "searches for items". This might take a while.
Did they also fix the irritating "my network places"? It's tricky to remove the months-old entries in there(which pile up after a while), since if you directly click on one of the locations that might not be there anymore, it takes a 2 minute wait to say no. Then it's a bit annoying to delete.
The latest IE took TOO MUCH out of the freakin' gui. Bring back the basic buttons. I don't care if it takes up more real estate. I've gotten too used to the firefox button set.
Re:Circuit City shoppers are the Slashdot standard (Score:3, Insightful)
I grok the general push to IPv6 and all, but you'd think they would have at least tried to follow the (what I thought to be) common 'check first then fail gracefully' behavior...
Re:This just in... (Score:5, Insightful)
Killer app not really needed. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Yes, but other than being useful, usable, reliable, extensible, free, and unencumbered, what does Linux have going for it?" - Hamilcar Barca
No, really, I get it. Linux needs a "killer app" and all that. For me, it's general media munging on the cheap. I can back up DVDs, transcode movies to other formats (like storing some cartoons and such on my Treo to keep kids entertained) and so forth. I can play practically any media format on Earth without having to install little background processes from various companies on my machine (Quicktime, Real, etc.) (Linux also ran most of my Windows games better than Vista did.)
That's not enough to make a bunch of people switch en masse, I totally agree. But the 'barrier to switching' has dropped enormously just in the last couple of years. There are a lot fewer dealbreakers, Linux is getting good at a lot of these little niche areas too, and more and more of the real action is moving to the web anyway. There won't be a "Year of the Linux Destkop" any more than there was a "Year of the Linux Server" - people will just switch over, a few here, a few there, and eventually it'll be a solid and respected option among many on the desktop, the same way it now is on the server. (Linux is effectively immortal, so it's got all the time in the world to wait.)
Vista sucking is a nice short-term bonus for Linux, but the long-term trends are what counts here.
How to really fix one of the problems (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps the idea was to steer users towards using the buttons on the toolbar, but there aren't enough buttons to cover all the options located under the menus. If the UI designers wanted to steer users gently towards using the buttons, my suggestion would have been: Whenever the user picks something under a menu that corresponds to something accessible from the toolbar, display a dialog box which says for example, "In the future, you can print faster by clicking the printer button on the toolbar", along with a picture (and a "Do not show this message again" checkbox -- important!).
How to fix:
1. Read In The Beginning Was The Command Line http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html [cryptonomicon.com]
2. Realize that you once again traded in the crappy station wagon that broke down the day you drove it off the lot for another crappy station wagon, although newer, that broke down as soon as you drove it off the lot - same make, same dealer.
3. Come to the realization that as long as you think it's your job to excuse why your station wagon broke down - after all, everyone seems to drives one and everyone seems to give those excuses and suggestions - then you are doomed to keep buying broken down station wagons and you become part of the encouragement to dealer and maker to just keep up what they do - and some day, you'll be part of the mass of station wagon buyers that influenced someone else to follow this behavior.
4. Once this realization is established, the problem is solved, and it elegantly leaves you two options.
Option A - Rationalize away what you've just realized, and now your problem is solved: this pretty much includes not having any further questions on the subject and whenever you hear someone else complain about the idiocy of driving a broken down station wagon at new car prices, roll your eyes with the knowing, "he's just a Microsoft basher!" explanation.
Option B - Vow to never repeat this mistake. This pretty much includes going across the intersection to another corner, and picking up one of the free tanks - yes, I mean as in big, mean Army tank! - and drive it or the other corner and pay about the same as you did or will over your use-time for a sleeker, fun car that breaks down about as often as the Army tank - ie, virtually never. If you have something that can only be done using a broken down station wagon, you'll find your tank has a thing called WINE that will let you drive parts of the little station wagon around inside your tank or you'll find your sleek car lets you play broken down station wagon inside a couple of videogames called Parallels or VMWare.
Once you have followed this path, you will have magically answered this question, too:
But to this day I've never heard an answer to one question: Since even Linux advocates admit that it's harder to use, what can you do with Linux that you can't do with Windows, to make it worth switching over to?
If you solved your problem by going with Option B, you've realized that the question isn't going to be ever answered. Because you just asked, "Why don't I get a simple answer to one question: Ever since I saw that a tank might be harder to drive, why would I want a free tank that never breaks down when I can keep paying for the privilege of driving a crappy station wagon guaranteed to be broken down by design?"
If you solved your problem by going with Option A, you've realized that broken down station wagon drivers throwing good money after bad are much more clever than free tank drivers or sleek car drivers. (Don't forget to gloat, even if done ever so humbly.)
Hope it's not to late for the author in question - best luck, compadre.
PS - I have never recommended the online version of "In The Beginning..." - ever. I always insist people buy the book. It seems to help those preconditioned to buy what they can get for free to actually get
Re:Nice read (Score:5, Insightful)
I found the article to be written by someone just out of high school and happened to get A's in his English and writing classes. Half of the article just rambles about facebook. Another good chunk just talks about Virtual PC and the author's lack of knowledge about *nix. And as a reader, I can't be bothered to read commentary about the pronunciation "banal." In fact it is insulting to me because it implies that I cannot pick up and use a dictionary.
The only pieces of Vista (bashing) you can find in this article are the following:
The title of the article should literally be renamed to "Vista Can't Access Facebook :( (I'm Unbiased...Really! :)". I'll admit it, I have a facebook account, but I was dragged into it by a good friend of mine and haven't logged in for months. I don't care about your issues with facebook and I even doubt half of facebook care about your issues with facebook because they're probably inactive like me. If people like me don't care, why should people on Slashdot?
The only reason why Slashdot should like this article is because it puts down Vista. But if you read carefully, you will understand that the guy is actually a Microsoft kid that had a bad experience with one of Microsoft products. What geek doesn't or has never used *nix find? What geek actually prefers Virtual PC to the alternatives? I'm running VirtualBox on Vista with Ubuntu installed on VirtualBox just fine. What geek decides to go to Circuit City when his hard drive dies, buys a Vista PC, and later returns it? Perhaps his motives were to exploit Circuit City's return policy, but I'd rather go computer-less for three days than be bothered with anal Circuit City salesmen...err workers for even for 5 minutes. And real geeks use netcat, not telnet.
Something is seriously wrong with Slashdot if meaningless drivel like this gets on the front-page and categorized as "surveying". Oh silly me, this is Slashdot. Bash Vista = +5 informative. In truth I could probably write just as good of a bullshit article and call my "surveying" polling of random anonymous internet forums. (And for all you kiddies out there that's bullshit, you know the word that's commonly simplified to BS when you can't swear in school.)
There are many honest rants about Vista that I can accept. But this is not one of them.
Re:This just in... (Score:2, Insightful)
this guy is completely ridiculous (Score:2, Insightful)
Virtual PC runs just fine on Vista Home Premium edition. You just get nag boxes coming up telling you that it's unsupported, but it works just fine.
Re:Killer app not really needed. (Score:5, Insightful)
For a long time Windows user, Linux is just as hard as Windows is for a long time Linux/Unix user.
This has nothing to do with GUI, TUI or whatever. I'm sure most people forgotten, but when "regular/average" users started migrating from DOS to Windows they found it very difficult and confusing.
Doing something different from what you are used to is ALWAYS more difficult. Get over it.
Re:This just in... (Score:3, Insightful)
The responsibility of checking that sites display properly falls with the IE team. The responsibility of ensuring that IE can connect to webservers falls with the networking team. The responsibility of ensuring that your server can be reached by any client wanting to connect to it falls with the admin of the server.
Yes, most home users are checking email and surfing the web. And they do so just fine for websites that are configured correctly.
I shudder to think how much tin-foil some people must have around their heads and homes, to actually believe that microsoft would deliberately single out facebook, and prevent it from loading especially since Slashdot widely reported and speculated upon Microsoft's multi-million dollar investment in facebook last year. I guess in the average slashdotter's mind, it went something like 'Hey Steve, put that chair down and listen for a moment... you know how we just spent a huge pile of cash buying shares in facebook? You know what would be a great idea? If we set vista up so that it can't connect to facebook! Wouldn't that be great for our investment?'
Misguided (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Who gives a fuck about Facebook's DNS problems? Vista is doing the right thing, here, by doing exactly as the DNS server instructs, with a preference toward IPV6 addresses. Any other behavior (including a preference toward IPV4) would be decried as horrifically broken and against progress.
2. News flash: Internet Explorer blows chunks. It's just as atrocious, in somewhat different ways, as any previous version of IE. And it behaves just as badly on XP (which tried mighty hard to get the user updated to version 7). This is is therefore not Vista issue. (Ok, ok. It's deliberately hard to install IE 6 on Vista. But Firefox and Opera seem to work Just Fucking Fine on any modern OS as well as his beloved Facebook, so what's the problem?)
3. News flash: The new Windows Explorer works different from old; lacks "Up" button. Just click on the directory name in the address bar, and you'll go there. For instance, if you're in C:\Windows, the address bar will show "Computer > Local Disc (C:) > Windows". Simply clicking on any portion of this will go up one or more levels in exactly one step. This is different from XP, sure, but it's no worse, and I personally prefer it.
4. Cleartype. I can't imagine how this dude managed to get lost turning off Cleartype. I just opened IE 7, pressed F1 for help, typed Cleartype into the box, and pressed enter. The very first link goes to a help section detailing what Cleartype is, and how to turn it on and off system-wide. (It's been my experience that Vista's help system is actually capable of being useful, in start contrast to previous versions of Windows.)
5. News flash: Virtual PC doesn't run on Vista Home. It also doesn't run on home editions of any other Microsoft OS, including XP Home.
6. Telnet is gone by default. Good. The security folks have been trying to get rid of it for years. Those who need it still have it available, and those who don't know better won't stumble onto it by accident.
I'll ignore the rest of the inane (i-NEYN) diatribe about Facebook, and the irrelevant OS-independent part about watching videos on TV, and just say this: Geez, man. You sure picked some insignificant things to hate. Vista's got some real issues and you've skillfully noticed absolutely none of them.
Prisoner discovers... (Score:2, Insightful)
Slashdotter discovers after years of XP bashing that he in fact is an avid XP supporter.
Prisoner discovers that after years of complaining about lousy prison food, and suddenly finds that now that his food comes with insects and filth added into it, that is former food was actually quite good in comparison.
Linux will NEVER have a killer app (Score:5, Insightful)
It'll never happen. That is, Linux will never have a killer app that is not also available on window$.
Reason: Any killer app produced by the open source crew will be ported to window$ in the blink of an eye after(perhaps even before) said app becomes "killer".
Any closed source killer app that runs on Linux will be poorly supported(compared to FOSS apps) as all are now and the prime source of revenue will be the window$ version which will always be bugfixed and otherwise updated more often/before the Linux version.
Re:Killer app not really needed. (Score:5, Insightful)
useful: In the same way that Esperanto is useful. Yet, almost no one uses that either. Why? Because they would have to learn something new.
usable: For some people in some circumstances. But, what about those people that never want to see a command line? Or have laptops with broadcom wireless? Or want to use an app not available for whatever distribution they are using? Or a Windows program that won't run under WINE?
reliable: Yeah, and so is a properly maintained Windows box.
extensible: Most people don't care about this. The vast majority of people are not going to "extend" their operating system, even the geeks.
free: Windows came with my computer and it would have cost MORE to get the computer without Windows. That makes Windows effectively free to me. My time is valuable. Linux is not free when I have to sink time into getting and installing it.
unencumbered: Most people don't care about this. Most people don't even have a clue as to what you are talking about.
Re:Linux will NEVER have a killer app (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Summary: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you set up your Mac or Linux box to use IPv6, you wouldn't be able to access facebook.
Chances are your Mac is set up to use IPv6 "automatically" and doesn't have this problem (because it falls back to IPv4 as required).
Three years ago I found an obscure feature that I happen to like, but since it's obscure my linux distro didn't implement it *exactly* the same way that Microsoft implements it. Mac's don't implement it that way either, but no matter, this is somehow proof of linux's suckiness.
Yes, but most Linux distros pretend to be Windows (generally an older version of Windows). And Linux-o-philes tend to provide helpful replies like "type man find".
Free software's "killer app" is this: (Score:2, Insightful)
It isn't out to fuck you. Linux does not have a single line of code -- not even one -- that is intended to make the computer harder to use. Not a single driver in the mainline kernel, intentionally degrades video if it's unable to make a HDMI handshake. Not a single multimedia app in the Debian repository, refuses to run if a kernel driver doesn't have a valid signature. Nothing in the kernel refuses to work if it's missing the correct registration code.
The same can't be said about Vista.
Good luck with that DVI monitor "just working" on Vista.
It sounds like you've never met a Windows user. Most of them don't rebel when the platform fails.
Re:Killer app not really needed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Linux is useful: To most users, no more so than a computer with any other operating system installed; and often less so because the programs that they rely on to get their daily work done are not available.
Linux is usable: Did you read the part of the article where searching for a directory is mentioned? There are a large number of things that could be done to increase the usability of Linux - but these are not tasks which programmers find "interesting", so they don't get done.
Linux is reliable: No operating system can be any more reliable than the hardware it runs on. Linux will crash just as often as Windows on shitty hardware; Windows can have multi-week uptimes on quality hardware. And let's face it: Most people buy cheap computers, which implies shitty hardware. (I know there are Linux systems with uptimes of months, even years. Only nerds care. Most people turn their computers off when not using them.) What is not reliable on Linux, but is on Windows, is how to configure things - different distributions (which are being developed concurrently) have different configuration systems; Windows only has one configuration system and effectively only one system in development at any time.
Linux is extensible: Every operating system is extensible - that's what computer programs do, they extend the capabilities of your computer by giving it new sets of instructions. And if you think Windows is not extensible, check out a program called Oscar's Multi-Monitor Taskbar - it beats the hell out of x2x.
Linux is free: No argument there. But it's not worth paying for, either.
Linux is unencumbered: Sure - but given all of the above, who cares?
What Linux needs is NOT a "killer app". What it needs is a standard that is required to use "Linux" or "Linux compatible" on a product, so that every app and distribution have configuration options in the same place, cut/copy/paste works everywhere, and installing a new app never EVER requires compiling.
Re:Killer app not really needed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Lets say I want to switch over to Linux because its more secure. Now lets also say I work with Photoshop and other professional digital art packages. Now your saying that my switch will be more difficult cause switching is always difficult. To get software that is not officially supported on Linux to work is a "bitch" to do and Photoshop is one of those programs, and don't say use GIMP cause it has a serious handicap of not supporting CMYK.
The thing is that we can get everything working on Linux you can on Windows most of the time or you can find a equivalent open source software package. The problem is that it takes a ton of time to get Linux setup, running, and working perfectly. I would rather spend two hours securing Windows then several hours working on my Linux "Rube Goldberg" project that might or might not suite my needs.
Re:This just in... (Score:3, Insightful)
First off, dual monitors.. what a PITA it isn't funny... okay, it really wasn't that bad.. enable the nvidia restricted driver... reboot, open a command prompt, type sudo nvidia-settings (WTF!?! Command Prompt, already lost about 1/2 of any potential users there)... Enable the second display, twinview, position right-of
Second, I'm using 4gb of ram, so x64, or lose a bunch of usable memory, same for windows though... This is only noteworthy because of all the packages that aren't installable in x64, even if the x32 binaries would run... WTF? The real PITA was getting flashplayer to work.. which is pretty much essential even to those who only need a web browser... won't even get into media plugins.
Third, my printer was a total PITA to setup.. I also share it with other computers... after the pita of forcing the 32bit drivers to install, I was able to enable RAW support (application/octet-stream) for windows users... because getting the "internet printing" mode was far easier than even looking at SAMBA funny trying to get the printer shared through it... Also, is there something totally wrong with simply having SAMBA use the same user accounts and passwords that the OS uses? But I digress...
Fourth media formats.. even after installing everything available in terms of codecs in Ubuntu 7.10 x64, I still needed the Medibuntu repositories to get the rest... another good deal of potential users would be lost here as well... *sigh*
In the end, I have a usable desktop, and am able to play my media files, and print... I use VMWare for my work, and have for a while, so my host OS is of less importance than just being able to work... However, I do expect the basics to work well.. and to be honest, Ubuntu is maybe 80% there... if there's a pro setting up the PC for the user, they can jump through the hoops for said user... however, it isn't something a default install can handle, and will have most users running away.... And the same irksome issues exist in SuSE and Fedora, let alone other distros... it's a matter of what extent.
I like Linux, I like Ubuntu, and Gnome Desktop... however just because I can make it through the hoops, and pits, doesn't mean your average user can...
Re:Linux will NEVER have a killer app (Score:5, Insightful)
Ask the OS/2 guys how well that worked out [wikipedia.org]. Nobody developed for OS/2, since they could just write a Windows app and have it work on OS/2. But without native OS/2 apps, there was no real reason to adopt OS/2...
Linux wins by being easier and cheaper to develop for. Fortunately, there are good cross-platform libraries these days, which make porting a lot simpler. And the spread of such cross-platform apps for the key user needs (e.g. Firefox & Thunderbird) makes switching to Linux much less of a learning experience.
Re:Killer app not really needed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, and as for Windows crashing while running games using the latest drivers: Sometimes the latest drivers are crap. As an example, the latest XP drivers for my mom's HP PhotoSmart printer won't even install on her computer - but the drivers on the CD included with the printer still work just fine.
Yes, there are many cases where some flavor of Linux is as good (or better) than Windows - I will not deny this - but there are also cases where Windows comes out on top, and there are only a few cases where there is a compelling reason to switch to Linux.
Re:Killer app not really needed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Never heard that question answered? (Score:5, Insightful)
Mostly, of course, the question isn't "can" vs. "can't". It's all about efficiency. It took me at least half an hour to learn to use find, and I found it just as confusing as you did. That first time. Back in 1989 or so.
Since then, I have performed thousands upon thousands of searches, and I can search twenty gigabytes of disk before the helpful little search puppy is done asking you if you'd like to search for a file. I can perform searches which are simply impossible using the standard Windows search tool, and I can perform them fast. Return on investment? Hundreds to one, easily.
I think this comes down to the dispute about the respective merits of bumper cars and more conventional gasoline engines. Yes, bumper cars are much easier to use, they're much faster to learn, and they're much safer. And really, there's nothing a gasoline engine car can do that a bumper car can't; I mean, they both go forwards and backwards, and they both turn. So pretty much they're the same thing, right?
People do not like Unix because it is easy to start with, but because, if you're willing to invest time in learning how to use a computer effectively, you end up being able to get your work done much faster. I don't know why the concept of investing time to learn to do something well seems so odious when it comes to computers, even though we're used to it in every other field of human endeavor. And no, you can't just "make it easier". The way you make it easier is to remove options, and replace fast interfaces with slower ones.
Bennett, when you write, do you touch-type at all? Do you type words, using an elaborate array of probably a hundred labeled "keys", or do you use a brilliantly simple interface which simply presents you with a pop-up menu of words? Wouldn't it be easier to use a pop-up menu, instead of memorizing literally tens of thousands of words, learning to spell them all, and then training yourself to type?
Imagine, if you will, that all of us Unix users are people who view computer processes, such as finding files, or manipulating their contents, as being just as important to our work as emitting sequences of English words is to yours. And imagine that we, like you, have been willing to put in serious time -- not ten or twenty minutes, but days or months or years -- to learn to do this faster, more efficiently, and with less wasted effort.
And you'll note that we're pretty much all using Unix. Maybe I use more NetBSD and OS X, and someone else here mostly uses desktop Linux, but we've all found that, compared to XP or Vista, the Unix systems offer us dramatically better efficiency and power, if we are willing to put in the time to learn to use it.
Just a thought.
Re:Killer app not really needed. (Score:5, Insightful)
The flaw in your thinking is that you are only trying to find Linux versions of Windows softwares. But you will also have difficult finding Windows versions of many Linux/Unix softwares. Yes, I know about Cygwin and others, but that is just like telling people to use Wine.
One more point you make is about the time needed to get a Linux workstation up and running. I agree that is true for many of the favorite Linux distributions here on slashdot, but not always true. I have a few clients that use RedHat Enterprise, and the time it takes for them to get a RHEL computer up and running is about the same they take to get a Windows computer up and running.
You do have a point that for the applications (usually pirated) that Joe Sixpack uses are not always so easy to get on Linux (Corel and Photoshop). But them I have to ask what a person that works with Corel and Photoshop all the time want for a Linux computer. They already picked the software, so their options is not limited by the security, capabilities or easy to use of a given OS. They are limited by the OSs supported by the software itself.
This all falls a little off the "easy to use" discussion, like comparing apples and oranges. Lets take a comparative scenario. A Windows and a Linux workstation, both running OpenOffice. Which will be easier to use ? For me, Linux. For most people, Windows, because that is what they are used to.
Re:Linux sucks as a desktop (Score:2, Insightful)
Or because the machine you're using is technology from 1999 (with the exception of hard drives) and the only Windows install you have is an upgrade version of 98, with an upgrade version of '95, with a Windows For Workgroups 3.11 starting OS to upgrade from, that requires MS-DOS 6.22 (which I still do have all the floppies for, even if they are numbered wrong by Redmond).
I figured, rather than spend a weekend installing '98 with my current disks, that I'd give this Ubuntu thing a shot. The only thing I haven't been able to do is to get my Voodoo 2 3D daughter card to work, and that's because I'm choosing not to use the on-board 3-D. If I were to upgrade to any graphics card with 3D built in, I'm sure that would be solved.
From what I can tell you can do almost anything in Linux/Unix that you can do in Windows with the exception of specific apps, (but that's the nature of living in a reality where there's more than one OS). The only other exception I can think of is for niche areas. I've heard people complain that there's no video editing software, or maybe nothing of any practicality. However, I've met maybe one or two people in the last few years that had any desire to do video editing; it's not currently a mainstream desire.
Now, just because I stated that you can do nearly all the same stuff as in Windows doesn't mean it's going to be easy. This is my last complaint about Linux. There are still too many things that require a geek hat, or access to a geek. When the answer to changing some fairly trivial settings in Linux is no longer "open a shell and type 'sudo -txpaois -ASD }{|}*^%$ ', see it's easy!"... then Linux will have made a quantum leap.
Compiling several utilities to compile an app because it's not in apt-get can be lame when there's an error during
INNOVATION is the killer app (Score:5, Insightful)
No, this is exactly what Linux doesn't need, at least not if you want it to be successful on the desktop.
STOP TRYING TO MAKE LINUX BE WINDOWS!!! People already have Windows, they don't need a replacement. That's why they don't switch. The "replacement Windows" idea was already tried: it was called OS/2 Warp for Windows, and we know what happened there. (Never heard of it? Bingo.)
Look at where Linux's successes are: Servers and mobile devices - places where Linux doesn't try to emulate Windows. Places where developers actually innovated instead of just copying. The robustness, versatility, and stability of a Linux server - that's the killer app for servers. The portability and the ability to do unique interfaces like those on the XO or the Eee - that's the killer app for devices.
It doesn't just work for Linux. Apple too sees the most success where it has tried to take the lead: the iPod, iPhone, MacBook, etc. In this case it's the simplicity and/or distinct function-meets-form interfaces that provide the edge. If they made the iPod be like every other MP3 player, and the MacBook like every other laptop, Apple might not even exist now.
Don't try to beat Microsoft at its own game. You can't. The way to beat them is to change the game entirely. I've been saying this for years, but sadly developers still waste tons of time and effort trying to make Linux be Windows. If only they instead put this into making the next big breakthrough in user interface or computer design using Linux as the platform. Something that 15 years for now will make us say "I can't believe we used to use a desktop window interface" in much the same way we now talk about dumb terminals and typewriters. It's gonna happen anyhow, so why not do it on Linux?
I don't know what this something is yet but I do know nobody's going to find it if all they are looking at is Windows.
Re:This just in... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's absolutely correct. But it's not like Windows just works. In point of fact I've spent Waaayyyyy too many hours of my life pursuing weird problems in Windows, clearing malware off windows PCs, waiting for the stupid thing to boot, or shut down, or trying to persuade it to please -- god damn it -- correctly install some piece of software that purports to be Windows friendly/compatible/tolerant and installs just fine on the supposedly identical machine in the next room.
In point of fact, modern Linux distributions have a fair chance of coming up and running Open Office, a web browser, and an e-mail program without tinkering. They may well play CDs and MP3s. If, OTOH, you want to run GoogleEarth, you're likely in for a long afternoon.
At least with Linux, I don't have that ongoing "I really paid money for this piece of excrement?" feeling that I've had with every Windows since 95.
I will be a happy man if I never have to run Regedit again.
Re:INNOVATION is the killer app (Score:5, Insightful)
Until the companies that make the applications I use start releasing Linux versions, I can't make Linux my only operating system, no matter how much I would like to.
I'm doing my best, as a music and video producer, to use the apps that work in Ubuntu Studio. They are getting better all the time, but they're just not there yet. I've got to get my work done. I've got a development system with Ubuntu Studio and I use it for lots of tasks (especially rendering and management of my clips and samples) and it's effective, but I've got an investment in virtual instruments and effects (audio and video), midi and video gear, and they just won't work there. But every year it gets better and I keep trying.
Of course, the best thing that could happen is to have a strong third party create a professional operating system that works on my hardware. I'd use OSX in a second if it ran on my system, but I'm just not seeing enough difference between Apple and Microsoft to justify the huge commitment required for me to give up my Windows apps and preferred hardware for a Mac, and I've got a basic opposition to any OS that requires proprietary hardware.
Finally, I'd say that OS/2's failure wasn't because it didn't work or wasn't as good as Windows. But that's an old issue and I hope it doesn't permanently discourage those that would develop a new commercial desktop OS.
Re:Killer app not really needed. (Score:2, Insightful)
I used to think that way too. Except add OS X to the discussion. Then things change.
There is always a "hump" associated with changing from one operating system to another, however people who cross the hump on Windows or OS X can live there and become productive. There is no getting over the hump on Linux. Why? Because both Windows and OS X have a set of rules regarding what applications should look like, how their menus should be laid out, what keys should be used for which short cuts, etc. So the more you use them and get used to them the less you have to think about how the infrastructure is going to work and the more productive you can be. That isn't true of Linux, each application might have a different windows toolkit, some wiener thought having "File" be the first menu was stoopid and it should be "Edit", someone else decides since preferences are really options and they are editing the config file they should be called "edit config" under the File menu not called Preferences under the Edit menu.
As silly and as banal as that sounds, it makes a world of difference for people who use computers to get things done, rather than simply enjoy the act of using a computer.
--ChuckRe:Vista moved my cheese /are there any real reaso (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Killer app not really needed. (Score:4, Insightful)
That's right. The new and improved system wide Clippy.
Don't give them ideas. Some asshole will read this and go to work at Microsoft on Monday and people are going to talk about actually doing this. Clippy is a smug little bastard, and he should die.
Re:weakly done (Score:3, Insightful)
I think this particular vista bashing bashing is very poorly done. Not reading TFA is standard for /., but admitting that one has only read the less impressive part of TFA while bashing lacks class.
Not to mention that no other OS seemed to have problems with Facebook. Vista was the only one that insisted in IPv6, and wouldn't fall back on IPv4. With the current situation, that's dumb. (Nor do I have any sympathy whatsoever with a claim by Microsoft about somebody else not following standards.)
Re:Linux will NEVER have a killer app (Score:1, Insightful)
However, Linux will eventually become the "killer environment" on which to run apps.
Here's how:
As time goes on, the DRM in Windows will get more and more intrusive.
For example, some day, there will be a background process on Windows that continually scans for attempts to circumvent DRM. It will be considered a "critical system process", and attempts to disable it will cause many things to break.
Some day, attempts to use an unsigned codec on Windows will fail, and the user will be greeted with a message box that says "Windows has prevented an unsafe program from violating the security of this computer".
Some day, Windows will refuse to install multimedia drivers that haven't been "verified as safe by Microsoft".
Linux will remain free of this poison. This is how Linux will ultimately win.
Re:This just in... (Score:3, Insightful)
So I took the DVD down and popped it into my wife's XP machine. Up comes a screen that informs that this DVD has enhanced features, do I want to use them? Sure. After answering a few inane questions, I find myself confronted with a blank blue screen -- not a BSOD, just a blank blue screen. The PC is still alive. Num Lock works. But nothing else does -- including ctrl-alt-del. Ate dinner. Still no video. Waiting is not the answer apparently. Current machine state is certainly restful and soothing, but I really wanted to watch a movie. Turned the machine off with the power switch, rebooted, mutter "FY Bill Gates and all thy works" at the usual warning that I must shut the machine down properly (idiotic design for a consumer product ... grumble ...) and get it back up. Try Windows Media Player. It's the latest version for XP, I just installed it last week. It won't even play the previews.
Back upstairs, shut down Slackware and reboot to Windows Media Center XP. Takes forever to boot compared to Slackware-xfce. For some weird reason, the mouse freezes while all the nagware that I haven't turned off (yes it really did used to be even worse) bombards me with questions that no one could possibly deal with intelligently. Finally, everything calms down and the mouse comes to life. Kill the nagware. Pop the DVD in. Decline the offer to enhance my dvd viewing experience. Skip through the previews. Been there, done that. Finally the menu pops up. Tell it to Play the Movie. It ignores me. Try some other things. A few work. Most don't. Tell it to Play the Movie. It takes me off to some inappropriate submenu. Return. Tell it Play the Movie. It ignores me. Try a few more submenus. Observe that it seems to be a bit confused at times about what I have clicked. Return to main menu. Click Play the Movie about fifteen times. Movie Plays.
So. Linux never did play the actual DVD although the third thing I tried did very nicely with the previews. Windows XP on one machine didn't do that well. Windows XP on another did play the DVD but clearly wasn't working properly and was not in my judgment actually usable by normal human beings.
My conclusion. Linux is not really ready for prime time. ... and neither is Windows.
Re:This just in... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't disagree, but I would add that neither are PCs.