Windows 10, From a Linux User's Perspective 321
Phoronix features today a review of Windows 10 that's a little different from most you might read, because it's specifically from the point of view of an admin who uses both Windows and Linux daily, rather than concentrating only on the UI of Windows qua Windows. Reviewer Eric Griffith finds some annoyances (giant start menu even when edited to contain fewer items, complicated process if you want a truly clean install), but also some good things, like improved responsiveness ("feels much more responsive than even my Gnome and KDE installations under Fedora") and an appropriately straightforward implementation of virtual workspaces.
Overall? Windows 10 is largely an evolutionary upgrade over Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, rather than a revolutionary one. Honestly I think the only reason it will be declared as 'so good' is because Windows 8/8.1 were so bad. Sure, Microsoft has made some good changes under the surface-- the animations feel crisper, its relatively light on resources, battery life is good. There is nothing -wrong- with Windows 10 aside from the Privacy Policy.
If you're on Windows Vista, or Windows 8/8.1, then sure, upgrade. The system is refreshing to use, it's perfectly fine and definitely an upgrade. If you're on Windows 7 though? I'm not so sure. ...
Overall, there's really nothing to see here. It's not terrible, it's not even 'bad, it's just... okay. A quiet little upgrade.
My big hope (Score:4, Funny)
With each new version, one must spend several extra minutes figuring out where the Double Secret Super Duper Advanced Don't Try This At Home Brutal Power User Steel Cage Death Match Of Dh00m dialog is located, merely to set the PATH.
Sure, I'll get modded 'Flamebait' for this, but seriously: quit kicking me in the groin, Redmond.
Re:My big hope (Score:5, Informative)
My big hope is that this version's Environment Variable easter egg is buried under a few more layers of indirection.
With each new version, one must spend several extra minutes figuring out where the Double Secret Super Duper Advanced Don't Try This At Home Brutal Power User Steel Cage Death Match Of Dh00m dialog is located, merely to set the PATH.
You're kidding, right?
Hit the Windows key, type the first couple letters of "environment" (on my machine "env" is enough) and hit down arrow a few times to select "Edit the system environment variables" (or "for your account", whichever tickles your fancy). Hit Enter.
This has worked reliably ever since the search feature got built into the Start menu in Windows 7.
If remembering that PATH is under "environment variables" is too hard then searching for "path" will actually work just as well.
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The windows search (the one where you just press Windows key and write in) was _the_ thing that was became great in W8. It was okayish (apart from retarded filesystem search) since Vista, where it showed more into various Control Panel dialogs. MS was dumb to not sell it as the next coming of $deity.
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So, when you opened the "user menus", by which I assume you mean the start menu since that's the only one after you boot up, you didn't notice the search box or the flashing cursor that was placed inside it waiting for your input?
In fact, on Windows 10 the search box is now in the task bar. It's huge, impossible to miss, right next to the start icon. I actually disable it because I'm expecting my apps to be there by default. I'm sure that's why MS put it there, to make it blindingly obvious and impossible t
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Re:My big hope (Score:5, Informative)
Re:My big hope (Score:5, Insightful)
Because that's intuitive.
Settings, even "advanced system settings" should be in the control-panel.
It's like Windows is following the Gnome crowd. "Let's hide configurations, because letting the user adjust the workspace to his work is confusing!"
*spit*
--
BMO
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Re:My big hope (Score:4, Interesting)
It is. Microsoft and Gnome are marketing to companies. And companies want to treat their employees as interchangeable cogs. That means the desktop needs to be non-configurable in any meaningful way, to ensure any user can be dropped in front of any computer and be instantly up to speed without having to learn anything. So as far as Microsoft and Gnome are concerned, personalization is a bad thing.
Re: My big hope (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: My big hope (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure how well known it is but there is "God Mode" for Win 7, 8, and 10. To get God Mode you create a folder on the desktop and rename it as described below:
1. Go to the Desktop
2. Right-click and select New Folder.
3. Right-click on the New Folder and select Rename.
4. Change the name of the folder [just copy & paste the following string]: GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
5. Open the folder and you will find every setting/utility under the sun organized into a sensible menu that you can browse through without knowing what name to type into a search bar.
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It might not be intuitive, but it's been the case for a couple decades now.
Re:My big hope (Score:5, Insightful)
Control/command-x/c/v for cut/copy/paste are discoverable and consistent: if you got to the edit menu of any application (visible by the default on non-braindead UIs and the starting point for finding any command), then you will see the icons next to it telling you what the shortcut is. Now that it's discovered, it's consistent everywhere. Except in terminals if you're using control instead of command, because terminals need control-c for interrupt and so break the good UI, but on a Mac it's the same in every single application including the terminal.
In contrast, most of the Windows-key-plus-modifier combinations can only be discovered by reading the documentation. There's nothing that a user is encouraged by the UI to click on that tells them about what these modifiers are (though I vaguely remember that Windows 98 had a 'show desktop' icon in the start bar that told you about windows-d in the tooltip).
Intuitive implies that you are meant to use your psychic powers or some innate knowledge to find how the UI works. Good UIs do not work that way, they make it easy for people to learn and then they allow the user to apply the knowledge everywhere. If someone complains about a UI not being intuitive, then it's a good hint that they don't know anything about HCI.
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Win + Break gets you to the link for 'Advanced system settings'. Works in at least win7, 8, 8.1, 10.
Ha! So it does. Thanks.
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Also, Windows+X pops up a menu with some handy shortcuts, including an administrative shell. This only works on Win8 and higher, from what I remember...
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Learn to powershell?:
To read a variable:
Get-ChildItem Env:
or
$env:Varname
and to set
[environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("Var","Value","User/Machine")
evening doing this from cmd.exe isn't all that hard - in fact its just like ms-dos was:
SET variable=string
Then
echo %variable%
Seriously - this hasn't changed in 34-35 years.
Re: My big hope (Score:4, Informative)
Until you reboot and then it disappears smartass. Next you'll be telling us to update autoexec.bat
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You're right, for setting environment variables permanently you use setx instead. http://ss64.com/nt/setx.html [ss64.com]
I learned the DOS command line well in the early nineties, and a surprising amount has stuck with me. I use Windows 10 at work, admin Hyper-V and Linux servers there and run Linux at home 99% of the time. This kind of review looks exactly what I'm looking for but really, since I do much of my work from the command line in both environments, I'm surprised the GUI gets so much focus. It just seems li
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With each new version, one must spend several extra minutes figuring out where the Double Secret Super Duper Advanced Don't Try This At Home Brutal Power User Steel Cage Death Match Of Dh00m dialog is located, merely to set the PATH.
Whaaaat? Could you provide examples of how to set the PATH variable in the different version of Windows. Because honestly, I've only ever done it one way for last 16 some odd years now.
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Type
[Start] e n v
Win 10 responds with
"Edit environment variables for your account"
Type
[Enter]
Still works
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My big hope is that this version's Environment Variable easter egg is buried under a few more layers of indirection.
With each new version, one must spend several extra minutes figuring out where the Double Secret Super Duper Advanced Don't Try This At Home Brutal Power User Steel Cage Death Match Of Dh00m dialog is located, merely to set the PATH.
Since Windows XP (and maybe 2000) up through Windows 7, you could just right click on Computer in Explorer, select Properties..., and click the "Advanced" button, and click "Environment Variables..." button. Yeah, it's perhaps too many steps, but they haven't changed the route to get there significantly in 15 years.
Windows 8/8.1 was bad? (Score:4, Interesting)
Honestly I think the only reason it will be declared as 'so good' is because Windows 8/8.1 were so bad.
I thought the Windows 8/8.1 desktop was no better or no worse than the Windows 7 desktop. Of course, I banished the Metro interface five minutes after installing. Then again, I never bother with the GUI on Linux, as the command line is always excellent.
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https://tmux.github.io/
Of course I use it with X and a window manager so I get decent fonts and can run GUI stuff as well. It does tend to confuse older onlookers when you start firefox or something else graphical from what looks to them like an old gree
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There is a learning curve, but I went through that in the 80s on unix systems before X-Windows came out. I've forgotten a lot of things, though, if I need them, it's not hard for me to google to be reminded. (But even that is only because I've got the sense of it already in my mind. I don't know how easy it would be for a newcomer to find out how to do some of this stuff by googling.)
I admit I actually don't know much about what modern guis and file managers can do, so maybe I'm missing something. Can t
No Privacy Policy (Score:5, Funny)
And apart from that, how did you enjoy the play Mrs. Lincoln!!!!
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"There is nothing -wrong- with Windows 10 aside from the Privacy Policy." And apart from that, how did you enjoy the play Mrs. Lincoln!!!!
Connected with that is the bandwidth sharing.
The bittorrent thing is acceptable in World of Warcraft because they inform you about it on the screen and provide a box to tick to turn it off. MS noticed that Blizzard is sending out patches that way, decided to copy it but decided to remove the things that makes it acceptable.
It's a pretty big deal in places where users have data limits and uploads count to those limits.
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But with these data slurping practices, and their haughty arrogance about it, this is not going to fly in anywhere that matters, ...
Where it really matters is at Joe end user. It's the millions of Joes out there running Windows that gives it its user base and makes it "the standard." Joe mostly doesn't care about the data snooping (he uses Facebook anyway). However, Joe does like the fancy new features: the nice Weather and News icons on the task bar. The way Win 10 integrates with his other devices, etc.
Mostly agree (Score:2)
Finally (Score:5, Interesting)
Cue choir music and white spotlight! This is the way it should be! I've often observed, people use applications not the OS. The OS should make it easy, simple, fast, etc. for people to use their applications in the way that they want. No more, no less. When the OS gets in the way, it is a fail. The best, and best selling, versions of Windows were the ones that moved closer to this principle than their predecessors.
Slashdotted, already. (Score:2)
Looks like that server is already a smoldering pile of silicon...
Here's the CORAL link, which as of this writing, isn't working, yet... but in my experience, it usually does start working before the full Slashdot wave subsides.
http://www.phoronix.com.nyud.n... [nyud.net]
Not the end of the world? (Score:2)
If he doesn't want the huge start menu, resize it (Score:2, Informative)
Live tiles are fantastic. I love how people denigrate live tiles while plastering widgets all over the desktop.
I've only encountered one problem with 10 (Score:5, Interesting)
The one problem I encountered with Windows 10 is my Linux box could no longer print to the network printer. Sure enough, sharing had been disabled by the upgrade. But even when I re-enabled sharing of the printer, Linux couldn't print to it. Linux could find it. Linux could connect to it. But it would get stuck trying to spool the document and never show up in the print queue under Windows 10.
I opted for the obvious (and easy) solution of moving the printer to my Linux box, but not everyone can do that, especially with a truly shared printer in an office. Though, to be fair, print servers really should be running Linux in the first place. They're more reliable.
I couldn't believe how much crapware I had to disable with Windows 10, though, especially from the menu. WTF would I want an "XBox" account tile for when I don't own a gaming system of any kind, much less one susceptible to the "red ring of death"?
On the bright side, all of my commercial databases seem to run just fine. Even Cygwin hasn't given me grief yet.
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Well, Windows Print Server/Print Management has been very reliable in my own experience (in a domain environment.) The only time I've ever had an issue with it is when I mistakenly tried to install an HP printer CD instead of just downloading the basic driver from HP's site. Never again...
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"WTF would I want an "XBox" account tile for when I don't own a gaming system of any kind, much less one susceptible to the "red ring of death"? "
That was some releases of the Xbox 360. The current Xbox console is the Xbox One, which has no problems of the sort. The app is so you can interact with your Xbox One account and even connect to the console and stream Xbox One games so you can play them on your Windows 10 box.
That being said, you do know that you can right click on those tiles, uninstall the progr
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a.k.a. disabling and removing crapware
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The printer printed just fine from Windows itself, so I don't believe it's a driver problem. I think they've "tweaked" the SMB protocol again.
File shares mount correctly from Linux, but printer shares don't work for me.
It may well be that they didn't migrate the printer share because the new protocol is incompatible with the old.
Disabling the UI (Score:2)
Why do all these reviews disable the UI? This isn't a review of Windows 10, it's a review of Windows 7.
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To make it usable :(
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Why does everyone assume "usable" is a synonym for "works exactly like the WIndows I am familiar with". The Windows 10 UI is perfectly usable, but not if you disable it before giving it a chance. This guy shut it all off on page one! Why review a new OS when all you're going to do is remove all the new features?
It's like Phoronix trying to review Ubuntu by immediately uninstalling Unity and replacing it with KDE. That might be a fantastic idea for a user, but it's gonna make for a shit review of Ubuntu.
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Because Win8 with hidden offscreen controls may have sounded "fun" to a marketing guy on cocaine but rendered the thing not usable without strenuous workarounds and guesswork.
eg. Get to "Services" by a right click on desktop to being up screen resolution, then click in the "control panel" name in the location bar, then go to "Admin tools" then "Services". That's many times quicker than doing a search (once
I reinstalled a laptop the other day (Score:2)
The disk drive was acting up and it was a very old Win7 installation. So I replaced the disk, installed Debian jessie with KDE and Win7 in a VM. Everything is soo snappy now and I don't have to deal with all the Win8/10 drama. Yay. But I'm not a gamer obviously.
Win10 with Classic Shell (Score:3)
Windows 10 with Classic Shell is an even better Windows 7 than Windows 8.1 with Classic Shell. Both are a better Windows 7 than Windows 7.
I did give the Windows 10 "start menu" a bit more of a try out than the Windows 8 one. A full ten minutes (nine minutes longer!) Then installed Classic Shell and got back to work.
Not very good at Windows, this reviewer (Score:5, Informative)
First, he complained about the download. I anticipated this problem, downloaded the ISO on Windows 7 with Microsoft’s stupid downloading program, and burned a DVD/USB. Problem solved. Also, you can buy Windows 10 OEM media in stores.
Then, he complained about the updater not having a clean install option. It’s not obvious, but there’s an option somewhere in the installer to “Keep nothing.” This does a clean install.
He did not complain about tying the Windows account to a Microsoft account. It’s possible to make a local account not connected to a Live.com, and it’s more obvious how to do so than in Windows 8.
Then, he complained about the hybrid Start menu. That can be resized.
Other than that, I guess the review was okay. I liked the part about the Hi-DPI experience.
Should have dived in VS 2015 (Score:2, Interesting)
Folks one thing WIndows 10 has going for it that is very revolutionary ahead of Linux or close to be being tied are cloud and profile integration and development tools. For example I can sync my IE settings, desktop wallpaper, saved passwords, app purchases, and more from my Surface and vice versa with my desktop. OneNote and Word have the same files since it uses OneDrive by default. Yes, it is bashed here HEY MS I DO NOT WANT A HOTMAIL ACCOUNT!! but man it is nice not to sync. ... actually this functional
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The network is the computer!
In case you've never heard that, it was a Sun slogan relating to *nix networking in the 1990s.
To be more up to date there is current stuff like "owncloud", which effectively lets you run your own "dropbox" style thing without having to deal with third parties unless you want to.
Minor upgrade if you only look skin deep. (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't recall, however, Windows 7 having native NIC teaming built in, including on dissimilar connection types (i.e. natively team wifi and NIC). I don't recall Windows 7 having a very powerful Hypervisor built in, natively. I don't recall Windows 7 having SMB3. I don't recall Windows 7 having native support for software defined storag
Gnome and KDE were doing so well (Score:4, Interesting)
I was so chuffed when Gnome and KDE beat Windows at its own game. For years they had been lagging behind Microsoft, mostly mimicking the look and feel of Windows. KDE 4.0 gave us a hint of what was to come - it was a mess. With Gnome 3 we had clearly pulled ahead of Microsoft, producing a complete clusterfuck of an interface in long before Microsoft got their own clusterfuck to the market with Windows 8. Finally, we were setting the pace and Microsoft was following!
But things move quickly, and open source is falling behind again. Right now we are in the "ouch! that hurt phase" and fixing the mess created by the last fad. Microsoft has pared down the Vista "wow, we virtualised the 3D pipeline so everyone wants to watch ponies dancing on a spinning Icosahedron while their windows open" to something that almost always runs faster than Gnome and KDE in Windows 10. In the mean time people who preferred to use Gnome to get shit done rather than watch ponies retreated to Gnome flashback, or whatever it is called today. But, sigh, in a flash of recent inspiration Gnome made flashback depend on the 3D graphics as well, meaning you can no longer debug someones desktop using a frame buffer protocol like VNC, effectively ensuring that in some cases it isn't possible to get any work done with it, at all. Just fucking wonderful Gnome.
Unlike poor Windows users, Linux is all about choice, and so putting up with a window manager that removed features with with each iteration while managing to run slower at the same time (awesome effort, boys!) is some ways my own fault. But the reality is the choosing the right thing from the many choices Linux offers you is hard work, hard work that Windows users are spared. I tend to compensate by sticking like deranged limpet to what I used yesterday. Kudo's to Gnome I guess, for finding a way to force me off my rock.
Now I have a new rock: LXDE. While it may be true Microsoft has moved faster than KDE and Gnome to produce something todays GUI fashion Nazi's just love, if paired down, fast, and just get out of my fucking way is the benchmark, LXDE entered that race long before Microsoft knew even existed, and they now beat Microsoft at it hands down. Saying Windows 10 beats Gnome and KDE in speed as this review does is just plain dumb. Gnome and KDE haven't yet twigged they event that think they are competing in was abandoned last year, at the latest. Microsoft, to their credit did twig, and now they have Windows 10.
Another Linux User's Perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been a linux user since 1997, except for a couple of years when I ran OS X (10.5-10.6). I started out on Redhat (a couple of weeks with slackware before that, but too short a time to count), then went to OpenSuse after the second Fedora release and migrated to Linux Mint 17.1 because I found too many annoying bugs in the most recent release of OpenSuse. I'm strictly a desktop user and was waiting for the rise of the Linux desktop like everyone else, but always kept a version of Windows on dual boot because A. It usually came with the machine and B. "just in case".
Yesterday, I installed Grub Customizer and switched my default boot to Windows 10. It is, to me, the best version of Windows they've managed to come out with. I happen to love the start menu. I did away with all my icons I normally put on the desktop and, instead, they reside in the start menu. The privacy issues seem to be no better nor worse than you get from Apple, but the OS seems to finally be as good as what you'd get from Apple.
I have to say... I've gotten sick, over the years, of Linux being treated like the red-headed stepchild when it comes to drivers, software and websites. But, just as importantly, I've grown sick of the bugs that continually creep up in the desktop experience. Dilbert stops showing up on the KDE comic applet....search all around...no fixes seem to work....gotta live with it. Can't find an mp3 player that really seems to work, catalog my library, manage the playlists and mp3s on my samsung s3 etc. without hanging or outright crashing... It's the bugs like that which seem to really be in your face on a near daily basis....and they don't seem to be fixed. It's much more exciting to add features than hunt down bugs. I understand that. Some will say that, if I don't like the bugs, then fix them myself. But, I don't want an OS I have to learn to code and help out projects just to make something I can use.... I'm a single parent raising a 7 year old. I just want something I can use and that fits my needs....
Linux Mint has been, by far, the most polished and professional desktop experience I've had in a while. That could be because they've stayed with the same release of Ubuntu underlying it for the last couple of releases. Whatever the reason, I've still found a more pleasing desktop experience in Windows 10.
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I've had a somewhat similar experience.
Linux was my full-time OS starting in 2002 (Gentoo for about 8 years, then bouncing between Fedora, Mint and Crunchbang). About four months ago I switched my main PC to Windows 7. I actually like it, enough to keep using it. When my laptop finally needed replacing, I went with an SP3 which has been quite nice (Windows 8's interface actually makes sense on a tablet whereas I hate it on desktops/laptops).
Linux-the-OS is still mostly nice. Linux-the-userland reached its z
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"my USB headset doesn't work properly,"
Who the fuck wastes a USB port on a headset? You never head of headphone and mic jacks?
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> I did away with all my icons I normally put on the desktop and, instead, they reside in the start menu.
Wow. I've been doing this since Windows XP.
Also, once you arrange XP's menu in a keyboard-friendly fashion, it acts much like Windows 7's search box on the Start menu... except faster, since you only need to hit the first key of each menu item.
I usually have "Quick" menu, at the top level of Start, with common programs in it, like Photoshop. Whereas, in Windows 7, I have to type "pho" or something, an
Re:Another Linux User's Perspective (Score:4, Interesting)
Ok... Without even delving into the dll issue, I want to point something out:
"I finally decided to try Windows 10 this weekend. I downloaded the ISO with their tool first, and then decided to try the "upgrade" route. Of course, none of my games work any more."
I'd be willing to bet none of those games work in linux, either. That leaves us with two take-aways:
1. You're already a considerable user of Windows, because you've amassed a game library
2. You don't hold it against Linux, as an OS, that it can't play your games.
So, that leaves a double standard where you lower your expectations for Linux, but can't use it as your only OS because it does not fulfill your needs.If you were to look at both, without bias, It seems Linux is the one you'd be railing against.
As far as the privacy issues, there have been many articles that walk through what those privacy settings mean and how to turn them off. Treat it just like you would when you have to hunt down things about Linux online and figure out what to do.
From a OSX Users Perspective in Academia (Score:4, Interesting)
At work or Academia, I had used all there is to use. DOS, Windows, Solaris, HP-UX, Sinix, VMS, Linux, FreeBSD...
At home, it was DOS (3.2, 3.3, 5.0, 6.22) Windows (WFW 3.11, 95, 98, NT4, 2000, XP, Vista) all the way (with a brief innuendo with Warp), until Early 2009, when I declared my switchover to MAC Successful.
Now, Apple forced my hand by not releasing Win7 Drivers for the 2015 13"Air... So, between having a ragtag fleet of machines on Win732, Win764 and Win8.1 64, I'll go 10 all the way.
The fact that I can get Windows 10 Working on a Toshiba Satellite A123 ** (My last windows machine), with an Xpress200m Chipset whose graphics part is based on a chip (R300) released in Aug. 2002, and a processor whose architecture (Yonah T2080) was released on 2006 speaks volumes at the effort microsoft has put in preserving compatibility AND make the OS perform better.
On the same resources, Win 8 will perform better than 7 and Win 10 will outperform them both. It has actually breathed new life into the old machine.
What really interest me is the new powers under the hood. Better performance (as said before), Edge, better included antivirus and security tools, DX12, etc, etc, etc.
Maybe things moved around a lot from what I remember, but is in no way as bad as windows 8, were I had to rip of the virtual machine due to the hotcorners, and wanted to pull my hair everytime I had to use a Win8 machine from a friend without a shell replacement. Besides, if one does not like the interface, one can change it (as they said in the TFA, Classic Shell works like a charm, and I am sure there will be other customization apps in no time), if they removed mediaplayer, there is MithTV or VLC, the app store is empty, so what, is not like I forgot how to download an exe or a msi file...
But then again, I use this only for some games (currently Batman Arkam Origins, and anything that strikes my fancy that Steam has not ported to Apple yet) on bootcamp, and via VirtualBox on raw partition for Visio and Project.
The fact that the upgrade is free sweetens and seals the deal (if I had to pay for it, or had to go through the hoops of the university to get the license key, well....). Yes, there are privacy concerns, and I will deal with them, the same way I dealt with iCloud and all of Apple's privacy invasions, I have the knowledge to do so, and I can relay on my fellow techies when my knowledge fails me.
For me is a welcome upgrade, one that will bring homogeneity to my fleet, along with better performance accross the board, and I am recommending all non-techie friends to upgrade (after updating FW, maxing RAM and putting an SSD, of course), especially from Windows XP. Besides, I already issued them a stern Warning. After march 2016, I'll only answer questions about Win10 or "El Capitan". That will drastically cut the amount of free tech support I must do... ;-)
Welcome Windows 10, you may not warrant a rolling stones theme song, but your low-key entry will make many lives easier...
Suerte a todos y feliz dia.
** Yes, after firmware updates, maxed RAM to 2GB, and put a SATA3 64GB SSD on the puny SATA1 interface of the Xpress200M
PS: For what is worth, I have CrunchBang++ for basic Linux demos to my students in the Toshiba (the machine I carry around in mass transport to class, because, if they mug me, I'll not miss it), and have A few CentOS and Oracle Linux machines for, you know, stuff...
My upgrade experiences (Score:4, Interesting)
The laptop appeared to upgrade ok but upon rebooting was excrutiatingly slow and unresponsive. It kept asking for permission to run an activesync exchange app or somesuch and neither Windows Update or Edge could connect to the internet even though Firefox could. I suspect that the machine had family safety turned on in 8.1 and it fucked up on the upgrade. In the end I reverted to 8.1. I might turn off family safety and try again.
The docking tablet upgraded fine but the drivers for the keyboard and touch pad are botched. I can't type certain keys on the keyboard and after a while it goes completely haywire. I'll probably live with it for a week to give Lenovo a change to produce a new driver and if they don't I'll revert to 8.1 there too.
The only one which worked relatively well was the Windows 7 desktop which migrated and booted back up in a good state. But even here there are glitches - some of my tiles look like they've been cut in half and shifted over. All my software works and the desktop experience is good even though the start menu still has a lot of room for improvement. I also discovered that Win 10 has a setting (enabled by default) that allows Microsoft to stuff promotional tiles into your start menu which is annoying.
Overall I'm not impressed at all with Windows 10. It was released prematurely as far as I'm concerned. From an administration point of view, it's also more of a burden because now there isn't just a control panel but also now a settings and clicking a button in one often leads to the other. It's a mess for configuration. None of the administrator tools seem to have gotten any attention either so they're not high-dpi aware for example which means they look blurred on a high density screen.
There will never again be a revolutionary OS.... (Score:3)
...Not unless there is some revolutionary paradigm shift in Computer Science.
OS since Windows XP (or OSX) have pretty much hit their "peak" in terms of balance, usability and stability.
Since Windows XP (or OSX) the user experience has not changed much (although there have been significant changes under the hood).
I remember the days when a new OS required new hardware to run all the new goodies that where added (Think Win3.1=> Win95, Win95=>Win 98SE, or from Win98=>WinXP upgrade).
Since WinXP, all we have really seen is incremental, evolutionary changes that get implemented not only with major OS releases but with patches and service packs (and whatever the OS maker refuses to implement gets covered rather quickly by 3rd party software makers).
I expect this trend to continue for the foreseeable future.
bull shit (Score:3)
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Joke. (Score:2)
Re:Honestly? (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of actual Windows users thought that the UI in Windows 8 SUCKED. It's not just Linux users. Win8 was like Vista. The fact that there is even a Win 8.1 is an artifact of how badly genuine Windows users reacted to Win8.
Pretending that this is just the complaints of Linux users is extremely disingenuous.
Re:Honestly? (Score:5, Interesting)
The UI is truly awful with the random flat, single mono-colored tiles and windows. As mentioned in the article, there really is no benefit to upgrading from Windows 7. If games start to make good use of Direct X 12 there might be a reason to switch, but it really isn't an upgrade in most respects.
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If game devs were smart they'd start using OpenGL more heavily so their success of their game was not tied to Microsoft's ability to not screw up a OS release.
Wanting to play a game isn't really a great reason to upgrade your operating system, especially if the downsides are fairly crippling (thinking about 7 -> 8).
It is however a smart move by Microsoft to artificially refuse to backport DirectX to previous versions.
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Would an older system even run the newer DirectX? I thought the underlying system architecture had changed enough that it simply couldn't be backported, especially after Win8?
(I am aware that DirectX 11.1 was partially backported to Win7 but not 11.2)
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Yes it's very similar to Internet Explorer which also cannot be backported.
That's the official line from Microsoft anyway. Why a web browser is tied to a OS version is beyond me.
DX to be fair has some interaction with graphics drivers so its slightly more involved, but not much. Graphics drivers work just fine on XP for example, so could the new DX with some work.
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I see little difference in GPU's over the last few years, but prior to that it seemed like new hardware got hugely better every few months. My two year old R9 270x is fully compatible with DirectX12, but my previous GPU would not of been. So maybe it's more of a hardware issue than OS issue.
I know, I'm not a tech and I have no idea what I'm really talking about.....so thanks for a polite res
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The Direct3D thing is more silly, as OpenGL drivers on Windows XP expose all of the functionality from the hardware that Direct3D does on newer systems.
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Everyone put your hand up if you want the Windows 10 kernel with the XP Interface?
It would sell like hotcakes!
Re:Honestly? (Score:5, Informative)
From win7 to win 8? /a/s in a command prompt
1. loss of custom window metric adjustments, font sizes, and colors
2. loss of classic desktop (eg win2k/xp)
3. forced color schemes (2:1 brightness ratio prevented darker configurations)
4. fullscreen start menu was distracting and irritating to use compared to a simple menu.
5. dwm locked window updates to 60hz (win8.0, was fixed later)
6. dwm broke a ton of easily fixed backward compatibility with programs that used ddraw to change modes etc.
7. metro apps were (and still are) useless on the desktop. ugly and clunky too
8. unified search was compromised, forcing users to go back to dir filename
9. This is a big one for me: removed technical information in stop errors. If stop errors prevent the system from booting, it makes diagnosis a lot harder.
10. two control panels. with windows 10, it's worse because some needed options for the desktop are in one while others are in the 'classic' vista era panel.
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That's a good list of what was awful about Windows 8, and absolutely none of that was needed, or wanted by users.
It seems to me most of the changes in Windows these days are solely to serve Microsoft's purposes and completely ignore the benefits or disadvantages for users. I'm not talking about improvements or whatever under the covers, if performance or robustness is improved, but changes in functionality, and especially UI. None of it seems gears towards making Windows better or easier to use.
Re:Honestly? (Score:5, Informative)
You missed a few biggies. ... menu, when it was one of the most used features. Some apps have preferences in the up swipe app menu, others have them in the right swipe system menu.
11. Requiring mouse users to use invisible gestures to accomplish some tasks, and ignoring inherent usability differences between tablet users and desktop users.
12. The schizophrenic split between Metro and the desktop extended far beyond the two control panels. Every app remained different.
13. Whatever human interface guidelines were used for Metro were 'fail'. Metro apps still have no consistency in how you access settings or access other features. Mail hides the "sync" button behind a three
And 10 is no picnic of usability, either. They've tried to unify Metro and Windows, but it's still awkward feeling. Some Metro apps are hard coded to expect the whole screen, not some reduced drawing area shortened by a task bar. The Metro division bar is capricious and untrustworthy. The start menu still covers the entire screen with a handful of tiles; the giant flat list of apps is still hiding and is still lacking folders, and search only helps if you remember the name of an app, not just the task it does. (Example: searching for 'home' does not identify "Grasshopper", a home automation app.) 10 may be more usable than 8, but it's still a whole shit-ton worse than Windows 7.
The problem is that while Metro may have been a good idea on its own, it was not a good idea to mix it with Windows. And Microsoft knew they wouldn't sell 10 copies of a Metro-only platform (but they tried anyway, unfortunately for the 8 people who bought RT) all because some idiot Monkey-Boy deluded himself into believing millions of people were just waiting for Microsoft to save the day with Windows Phone so they could throw away their awful iPhones.
Re:Honestly? (Score:5, Informative)
11. Much of the UI became non-discoverable. I'm not sure if the default hiding of menu bars came with 8 or 7, but it meant that unless you knew that the alt button was magic you were unable to access the menus. Similarly, there was no discoverable way of exiting the Metro apps that would occasionally pop up when you accidentally hit one of the magic key combinations - alt-F4 works, but unless you know that that's a way to quit Windows apps, you're stuck.
I didn't realise how truly bad the UI was until my mother bought a new machine that came with Windows 8 just before I visited the Christmas before last. She's been using Windows since 3.1 and, though she's not exactly an expert, she's got more than a passing familiarity with the OS. Lots of things just left her completely stuck. I've no idea where MS found the people that they put in their usability testing lab, but they don't seem representative of users. When my girlfriend bought a new laptop, I persuaded her to buy one that came with a Windows 7 downgrade. It took her about two weeks before deciding that it was worth using, and she was someone who had managed to tolerate Vista for years. She seems pretty happy with 7 (though some parts of the UI suck: anyone know how to set up an ad-hoc WiFi network with Windows Vista, 7, or 8? The network config UIs are completely different in all three and I couldn't figure it out in any of them).
Re:Honestly? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course I can't ensure anything of this is true but sounds believable to me.
I agree with other comments that say that most changes to Win 8 and 10 were exclusively to the benefit of Microsoft
Re:Honestly? (Score:4, Informative)
In addition to his, you now have to "enable safe mode" on a running system before you can use it (http://www.7tutorials.com/5-ways-boot-safe-mode-windows-8-windows-81).
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If the OpenGL team were on the ball
That's a pretty big "if".
This is the team that actively fought against being able to use OpenGL ES on desktop machines.
(facepalm)
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Yep. OpenGL is pretty shit, specially on OS X.
There's nothing wrong with OpenGL. If it's shit on OS then look to the drivers.
OpenGL ES was the one chance they had to make a clean start and save OpenGL (IMHO). The original OpenGL had become a maze of extensions and add-on functions.
They blew it. They actually didn't want people to use OpenGL ES on desktops, they wanted us to use one API for desktops and another, different one for mobile devices. Wasn't the whole point of OpenGL to be cross-platform?
PS: And how exactly were we supposed to develop for Ope
Re: Honestly? (Score:4, Informative)
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OpenGL 4.1 was the first version with full support for OpenGL ES 2.0.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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As mentioned in the article, there really is no benefit to upgrading from Windows 7.
Sure there is. They're only going to be doing security maintenance on Windows 7 from now on, unless stuff is easy to bring there. There may not be performance ramifications yet, but there will be.
On the other hand, it is probably too early for it to be a good idea...
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As mentioned in the article, there really is no benefit to upgrading from Windows 7.
Sure there is. They're only going to be doing security maintenance on Windows 7 from now on
Perfect! That means they won't be able to fsck it up any more with "features" and "enhancements" ("I know, let's send all your private data to Microsoft!"), you'll just get the standard Windows that works as it should and be left in peace to run the apps you need in the way you want them.
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In other words....it's stable. That's actually a great reason to stay with 7. As with almost any OS it's best to wait a while to upgrade because it's almost always going to be screwy at first. The exception being Vista which sucked so hard almost anything would be better.
Re:Honestly? (Score:4, Interesting)
One major advantage over 7 (although 8.1 had it - but who wanted 8.1)
Multiple magnification settings
Win7 allowed ONE windows magnification setting for all screens (100%, 125%, 150%). Win10 allows you to set it per screen. Useful if you have one High DPI screen (my laptop) and one standard DPI - the second monitor in my case.
Other than that? No huge difference. Some things are faster (just as they were in 8.x). The first machine I upgraded was on 8.x, and couldn't wait to get rid of that pig. Then I upgraded the laptop that has the high DPI screen, but right now, my main boxes are still on Win7...
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All our boxes at work are still on 7 and we're hoping they stay there. The big upgrade to Vista years back drove the IT people to their knees. They struggled endlessly to keep boxes that had been stable and working smooth before the upgrade to stay up and running for more than a few mere hours without locking up. When 7 became available it put everything right but we still remember how bad it was. At one time my shop had 13 machines and if 5 of them were working it was a good day.
Re: (Score:3)
All our boxes at work are still on 7 and we're hoping they stay there. The big upgrade to Vista years back drove the IT people to their knees. They struggled endlessly to keep boxes that had been stable and working smooth before the upgrade to stay up and running for more than a few mere hours without locking up. When 7 became available it put everything right but we still remember how bad it was. At one time my shop had 13 machines and if 5 of them were working it was a good day.
The problem wasn't Vista. I get that to most users the problem was the OS, but that just wasn't the case. The problem was that Microsoft changed the driver model and device vendors just weren't ready with device drivers for Vista. They didn't believe Microsoft when they stated the release date for Vista and then actually met it. So, older drivers that worked with NT were not so happy with Vista. And even when vendors started releasing drivers for older hardware, they tended to be buggy. On top of that
Re: (Score:3)
Sounds good, multi-monitor even on win7 sucks in many ways so an effort to improve it in MS Windows is good to see. It's sad that the Matrox add-on for Win2k was so much better for multi-screen support than Win7 and Win8 has built in so many years later. Having a window vanish because it wants to go on a monitor that is not present is annoying as hell. Having monitors present but not in use after a reboot is the same.
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Re:Honestly? (Score:5, Interesting)
I do most of my work on Linux, but have to use windows occasionally. Last year I upgraded my computer for the first time in like 10 years, and decided to skip 7 and go to 8.1 for the Windows booting. So, OK, I don't use it a lot - but after installing classic shell and having it boot straight to the desktop, I don't see what all the whining is about. Every time I upgrade or install Linux, I have to customize it to my liking, too, so it's a bit annoying when I hear that as a complaint from Linux users about windows. I'm glad I get to mostly use Linux, but I didn't see what all the fuss was about - plus it had better support for my ssd and, yes, it seems to run better/be more responsive than Windows 7 or XP.
I've heard a couple of legitimate complaints from power users, but by and large what I see is a bunch of people essentially complaining it's not exactly like it was before.
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Re:Honestly? (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA:
Windows 8 era Start Menu replacement apps like ClassicShell and Start8 seem to retained perfect compatibility with Windows 10
With all this need to install third-party addons to undo the crap that the vendor has put in, it's almost like using Firefox.
You are not a REAL Linux user either (Score:3, Insightful)
Linux isn't about choice any longer. (Score:2, Interesting)
As a former long time Linux user, lately I've felt that I've had much less choice than ever before.
I primarily used Debian. When installing Debian 8, I didn't really have a choice about which init system I wanted to use. I got saddled with systemd. After experiencing some problems with it, I wanted to switch back to sysvinit. Sysvinit isn't perfect, but at least it worked for me in the past. But after reading how to do this, it sounded like a very bad idea to me. Most likely I would have ended up with a bro
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Dillo and some of the other Gecko- or WebKit-wrapping browsers are way too limited for real use. In practice, I don't have much choice at all!
Define real use? I use a mixture of Dillo and Firefox. If it works on Dillo I use it, if it doesn't, I paste the URL into firefox. Slasahdot works perfectly on Dillo, but the way. Hell, nevermind beta, I skipped the whole slashdot 2.0 thing and am still happily using the incredibly snappy "classic".
I actually use Dillo a lot for work. It turns out most tech and docume
Re: (Score:2)
The main "problem" solved is to bring init and a HUGE pile of other things under the control of a small group, with a spotty pedigree (pulse-fucking-audio, NetworkManager etc) instead of being separate projects. It would be better if it was a small project with a simple goal of faster boot times like "upstart" was instead of a major project to being all of linux userspa
Re:So, in other words, stick to Linux (Score:5, Funny)
That's so true. That's also why I use a Mac, because Apple is not at all like Micros- Posted from a Mac mini. Get your own Mac mini today! -oft and will always leave me in control of my device.
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I can tell you right now WIndows 10 most certainly is NOT great! I went back to Windows 8.1 because it works ... yes with a start menu replacement it is ok. YIKES Vista was not this bad
Developer learning curve + ageism (Score:3)
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Current enlightenment, fluxbox, blackbox, XFCE etc are very snappy on just about any desktop less than a decade old - so long as you don't try to start