Screw this, I'm going back to Windows!

Let the drama begin. Here's a long, serious article and rant on the state of Linux as a viable alternative for the Microsoft Windows monopoly on the desktop. Don't disregard this lightly, do read before hating me.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/going-to-windows.html


Cheers,
Mrk

 

"'C'est la vie', say the old folks, 'it goes to show you never can tell'".

 

Oh boy, worries to the fore again. The points raised in Mrk's article have been a worry to me for some time now.
If distros were cars what would the resale value of the jump-on -the-bandwagon clones be ? Close to zero of course, because they will probably be out of production before you can say ^%$# (unless you uninstalled before that happens due to bug prevalence). Remember the pride of the GDR - the Wartburg (nice name) and his brother the Trabant ?

All I know at this stage is that I will keep Scientific Linux. I would like to try Windows 8 in Vbox but I only have 4GB of Ram so could only really allocate 2GBto Windows 8 (64bit) which is not highly recommended.

Nothing wrong with Xfce, Xubuntu in my case - runs great on a very low spec laptop and no crashes i.e. it's stable as can be.

If this distro nonsense goes on and on, I will be needing Calmettes Night so that I can get some quality shuteye.

 

Actually, it sounds about the same as my read of the situation. I ran various Linux flavors casually for a while and finally just gave up. At the end of the day, it's the applications that drive the use, not the OS, and the current pain free options with some level of support for the masses means OS/X, Windows, iOS, or Android depending upon whether it's mobile or not. At least that's my read and I currently use all four on a daily basis.

Blue

 

it's been on my mind lately.

i will certainly give Ubuntu a try this year after the LTS release in late April.
then Bodhi Linux which has their 2.0 release scheduled for late June/early July.
then Mint 13 whenever it comes out.

if that doesn't work out i'll stick with W7.
i will in most likelyhood skip Windows 8, unless M$ comes to their senses.

 

I don't know about this ^^^. In my short experience, there's not much (or any) distro-specific software that has a unique file type. The disappearance of a distro, while possible, is not a real concern in terms of the user being stuck with unusable files or data.

 

vasa, you took that one too literally. My idea was to convey the concept of any interface breaking, be it a file format, abi, api, any sort of interface that would force the user to change the way they work.
Mrk

 

Fair enough!

 

I get the feeling this is the "article before the article". Next article, "screw Metro, back to Linux."

 

You can try Win8 on Virtual Box with 1 GB of memory allocated for Win8 and the rest for the host. I have only 2 GB and I managed to run it pretty well in VBox with only 1 GB allocated to guest. Don't expect some great performance though, but it's enough to see it and evaluate it.

As for the original article... I also use Windows and Linux together, and I will never give up Windows because of the gaming support. But Mrkvonic, I think you are too concerned about an out of the box desktop Linux experience. In this case, yes, you are mostly right. But for users like me, who really enjoy tweaking things to their liking even though this takes a lot of time and effort (and maybe compiling some sources as well), there will always be distros like Slackware, which can offer all I need. I love Linux for being free, configurable and giving me almost endless choices, so I will have to disagree on the part about the vanishing distros and desktop environments.

 

Thanks for that Nebulus.

 

Agree with everything in the article. I'm currently using openSUSE and I've been happy (or should I say happy enough?) for about three weeks, but I'm never sure how long it lasts. I tried Ubuntu and Unity drove me bonkers - the umpteen steps it takes even just to set the annoying Unity sidebar to "always show" and not auto-hide was enough to make me think this isn't an operating system that normal people are supposed to use.

I tried CentOS which was lovely, but getting lots of stuff to run on it proved more difficult. Linux Mint with the new Cinammon thing was just...slow. Fedora is pretty much a joke - it advertises itself as the operating system that anyone could use - unless you want to listen to MP3s, watch a DVD, go on Youtube that is.

So for now, it's openSUSE. Always preferred GNOME to KDE (GNOME before it all went craaazy) but KDE is serving me surprisingly well at the moment. Although it could ditch its hideous naming conventions which force it to include the letter K in just about everything.

Edited to add: My thoughts on Windows are that it just seems to work. I've been using it since 3.1 (I started messing around with computers when I was 4 and remember Win 3.1 and DOS fondly) and it's served me very well throughout the years. I would still consider Windows my primary OS since I know I can (generally) rely on it. Not so with Linux machines.

 

i tried almost all distro above said expect slackware ............, kde do bring hope but unity also doing better my hope didn’t die Ubuntu LTS supported 2013 so hope for 1 year till then unity mature enough to use or gnome 3 + cinnamon ...etc


also xfce (Xubuntu) wonder why mrk didn't try it it created new hope in me future of gnome 2 lovers its not perfect gnome 2 but still great also working without crashed

so far i used centos/SL ....etc and second best on stability i say its Xubuntu it created new hopes in me in era of dying gnome 2x series

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxUcYW0b7p0

 

Mrkvonic, you described how I'm feeling. I dread the day I'll have to let Ubuntu 10.04 go. I dislike change for the sake of change, and that's what Gnome 3 and (des)Unity means to me. I want my cascading menus and tons of windows, not pretty buttons with shinny effects.

I'm currently using Xubuntu 11.10 on my netbook. It has a few quirks and needs tweaking, but it's practical and works fine. I might go with XFCE as a Gnome 2 substitute, but nothing is certain yet. That's the problem with desktop Linux: you never know where your favorite distro will be in a few years.

If Windows 8 continues with the Metro nonsense, I fear 7 will be the new XP – I know it'll be for me. Seems MS thinks the same too, since support was extended to 2020.

 

Ofcourse it will be. You can never completely change a system and get it right the first time. The same goes for Unity, it will get better over time, which is why I keep trying Ubuntu (aside from the fact I like trying new things) even though my Xfce Mint Debian does me fine.

 

Metro is a really important first step. It's not some gradual change, it's completely changing everything. Windows 8 is an entirely new OS. That's how technology works and for good reason. Windows 8 will provide users with security beyond Vista and 7 and it will provide both 3rd party devs and Windows devs the chance to really experiment with a completely new UI.

@MRKvonic,

I always enjoy these articles. This one in particular hit on a few points that I agree with entirely.

 

Exactly. Besides which we must not lose sight of the fact that the W8CP is a beta and was released to the public with the purpose of learning-of and evaluating user experiences, preferences and problems.

 

I agree with the security aspect, but I can NOT understand the metro interface. It's just... ugly and what Unity is to Ubuntu. I won't use either. I would rather a functional desktop on my laptop. A tablet Metro works on well (same to unity) but an actual laptop, no thankyou!

That said I hope they allow to fully disable metro once it's out.

 

Good article Mrk... and that's pretty much how I see it too.

 

welcome to the forum tangerine.

well, there still quite a bit of times for M$ to do some 'adjustments' before the RC.

as for Linux, this should be an interesting year.
there are maybe 3 distros i am interested in trying out later this year before i commit to any OS.

 

Imho SD is right-on, and I will reserve judgement until MS' final tuning & tweaks.

 

Let's hope Microsoft gets the idea and on the final release they include a tutorial on what Metro is, and it auto-detects if you are using laptop/desktop vs tablet and choses if Metro is appropriate, and from there you can set it manually in the Control Panel Display and Getting Started/Welcome menus.

We'll just have to wait and see. Don't think Microsoft is too big to take feedback. They were adamant on removing user control of how threats are handled in MSE until I and other users started a bunch of heated protest threads. Now, Default Actions are back.

 

Yes, in the wrong direction.

Actually under the hood it's same as Win7.

A chance that as a developer, I would have passed gladly.

 

I am running Windows 8 CP (in Vbox) and now I know why I prefer Linux (not Unity).
With the distros shown in my sig. I can get work done efficiently and very quickly - they are
'click efficient' . Nothing comes close to the signed repositories - 98% of what you want can be found in the repos. for effortless installation. In Windows I have to go to the websites to install most of what I need, from Ccleaner to anti-virus, to .. you name it.
In other words my distros allow me to save time and be more productive. Today Ubuntu 10,04LTS, Xubuntu 11.10, Kubuntu 11.10 and CentOS/Scientific Linux are easier to use for
so called newbies than Windows, take my wife on Ubuntu 10.04LTS, who merrily goes about her computing sans many questions/problems and no crashes, despite being practically a
technophobe. She won't read this so no worries there.
I will continue playing around with Windows 8 to see whether there is something worthwhile for me, but somehow I doubt it.

 

And Win7 'under the hood' is very similar to, and builds-on, Vista!