http://www.allegro.cc/forums/thread/602671/0

A few years ago I had some friendly discussions about Linux prominence (or lack of) with some of you. I was going to add to the thread above, but it has since been locked. So I started this new thread here in the off topic section. Let's continue!

Since that time there has been a few interesting developments for Linux.

A) Windows 8 (not the same old Windows anymore)
B) Android (linux)
C) Steam coming to Linux (this is really big)
D) The Ubuntu Store (a fresh new opportunity)
E) The Humble Bumble (John Graham : "Despite traditional arguments to the contrary, it is clear to us that there is a serious Linux gaming market out there, and we will continue to support Linux in the future")

Thoughts?

I dunno about A) and B) or D), but for C), Steam might run out of steam like Loki Games (?) did, and for E) Its great that people are enthusiastic about Linux as a gaming platform but there are not many people who are interested in paying for a game and that seems to be the reality.

Until Linux gets some decent video drivers it will be DOA. I tried playing a handful games on my recently rebuilt desktop (I think ati graphics card) on linux but it just wasn't fast enough so I put win7 on the box and now I get a decent frame rate.

I've never had a problem with the proprietary Nvidia drivers in Linux whenever I've had a genuine Nvidea card, Intel drivers for some ancient on-board Intel 740 (?) chipset really sucked big time. At least a few years ago, ATI was widely known for having poor Linux drivers as well. Framerates are comparable with Windows.

ATI drivers aren't as bad anymore, but if you didn't install the proprietary ones then you won't get good framerates on modern games. The open source drivers are good for the basic desktop and some simple games though (much improved in recent years.)

"Steam might run out of steam like Loki Games (?) did,"

. Maybe. But I have more faith in Valve. Besides times are changing. It used to be that people supported Linux more for a sense of ideal. Nowadays it's on it's way to becoming a compelling alternative to Microsoft and Apple.

From the same article you linked to : "Valve gets a huge kudos for the vision they have."

Carmack is an open source advocate big time. But this isn't necessarily just about open source (though he seems to use linux and open source interchangeably in that article). There are emerging markets founded on Linux today that have nothing to do with open source.

A: Definitely a wildcard. Although the impact will be bigger, if Windows 8 is successful. Otherwise it will just be another failure Microsoft crawls back from.
B: Erhhn. It has the name Linux, but it is backed by a commercial corporation. Also it's heavy on the Java... I sincerely hope this won't become the de facto Linux.
D:
C: As said, 3D-drivers for Linux are less optimized than the Windows equivalents.
As I see it, Linux could get a niche in cheap performance. If they don't get optimal graphics drivers, it will be a hard position, though. Never had any problems with proprietary nVidia drivers, but I buy my hardware old.

Sounds exciting. Tell me about it Or are you referring to Steam and the Ubuntu store? That's not really emerging markets, if you ask me. Those are proven (business) models taken from other systems. And I can't imagine what justifies applying those models.

I have a bit to say on #2: Because I host a web show using Blip, Android comes up routinely because Blip's video players are random on Android-run mobile devices. Some of them work, some don't. I remember when Blip started using some new embedding code and I started implementing those on my website, and I immediately got three eMails: Two from people who could no longer view my videos on their Android phones, and one person who couldn't view them before on his phone who suddenly could.

The trouble is that mobile device manufacturers using Android make considerable changes to the OS for each device they make, which means certain hardware considerations are going to be vastly different from phone to phone, and Blip isn't a big enough company to be able to handle the constant influx of new devices and changes to existing devices. (And trust me, this is something they get bothered about on a regular basis. They would LOVE to have solid Android support.)

As for the rest:

1: I can see where Microsoft is going with Windows 8, but at the moment, AFAIK, you have to PAY for any software that goes on the metro tile wall. Until metro-apps can be obtained for free, this will completely turn-away services like Steam and anyone who wants to provide free software.

3: This would be a big thing for Linux users, but of course, you also need a library of games on Steam to take advantage of this. (At least, with any consistency. I'm aware there's stuff to run Windows DirectX apps on Linux.)

4: No opinion, know too little about it.

5: These are neat. I've never bought one because I'm really picky about what games I buy due to a lack of funds, but I'm not against having one of my games in such a bundle in the future once my newer projects are completed.

Just a comment; I have used a PC running Windows 8 and there was no problem with applications that weren't downloaded from the market... No big screen telling me that it's insecure or something... So I don't know how Neil Roy was getting that big screen when executing and "external" application.

I thin he was using a RT version or something.

I've seen it quite a few times, but simply clicking more info and then "Run anyway" solves it. It would've been nice if you didn't have to click "More info" first.

I haven't actually tested it installing something, but running different executable files, didn't throw me that message.

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But do they run from the Metro tile interface, or only on the desktop?

See the thing is, from what I understand, Metro and the Desktop are two different things on Windows 8. The danger here is that in the future, the desktop may be removed entirely if they continue to go this route, and since Metro is where you always start, they're trying to encourage using it instead of the desktop and buying apps specifically for it.

If you've got free software that wasn't downloaded from the market showing up as a Metro tile then ignore my complaints.

Desktop isn't going anywhere anytime soon, desktop apps can now be lIsted along side metro ones on the windows store and new guidelines have been put up on msdn related to desktop development nOt to mention API updates for Win32, 64, winsock and D2D and D3D(correct me if wrong?) desktop dev. And yes you can list metro apps as free.

In Microsoft land, "free" usually means "free as in beer", which is not what Kris was talking about.

If you don't like it, you can always go the other way.

@Tobias
Free as in click click your app is installed, no charge, no beer

Sure, you can list them as free apps, but in order to get something on the Windows Store in the first place you need to be signed up as a developer which costs $50 a year, at least for Canadians.

Hmmm... I didn't know... I was running them from the desktop.

Yes, but again, that's not the "free" Kris was talking about.

Meh. I feel like I've derailed the topic.

Ultimately, I'll have to just use Windows 8 for myself at some point to know the specifics of how Metro software works, how developers cope with it and everything else.

I'll probably run Windows 8 in a VM at work at some point (around when the market share for IE-on-Windows-8 hits critical mass), but I think that will be about it.

Anyway, my $0.02 OT:

A) It looks like Microsoft is doing their best to kill the Windows platform, but I doubt they will succeed. They still have a massive momentum going for them, and even if 8 costs them OS market share, most of the losses are most likely going to OS X, not anything Linux-based. Still, if it helps shake up the OS landscape, I'm all for it. Who knows, maybe we'll see serious HaikuOS usage in a few years

B) Android runs on a Linux kernel, but when people say "linux" in a discussion about operating systems, they usually mean "GNU/Linux" or "A Linux-based OS with a UNIX-style userland". So while the fact that Android uses a Linux kernel means a lot for kernel development (because many of the enhancements made by the android team and community flow back into the upstream kernel), I doubt it helps Linux-based operating systems a lot. Other smartphone OSes could benefit from Android in the long run, but until these become usable, I don't see a lot of benefit for myself (except that there is an alternative to iOS with a slightly less fascist marketing strategy).

C) I consider this a symptom rather than a motor; the "serious" gaming market has been a dangerous place for companies for a while now, profit margins are shrinking, production costs explode, while casual gaming, by comparison, has a potential for much higher returns on much smaller investments. This also means that serious gamers have become a relatively unattractive target for a company that makes most of their revenue by selling OS licenses, so naturally Microsoft is abandoning the serious gaming arena and moving towards casual gaming (which is something Windows 8 is probably still a very suitable platform). This, in turn, means that a company like Valve that does target serious gamers, has to go look for other options, and there aren't too many of those - OS X maybe, a handful of popular Linux distros, and that's about it. Additionally, the "serious gamer" population has a large overlap with the computer geek crowd, where most of the Linux users are anyway; I know just too many people who keep a windows partition around for gaming alone, and I doubt many of them will migrate to 8.

D) Completely unsure about this one. On the one hand, a "store" might be the thing to have these days because everyone else does, so this might help pull people away from proprietary OSes; but on the other hand, it is a very un-UNIXy thing to do, and it creates a barrier between the way things have been working for over a decade (and successfully so) and the "Ubuntu way". I'd love to see Ubuntu as a "gateway drug" into free software land, but the way they are going lately looks more like they're turning it into yet another proprietary OS (just with a cuddlier name). Apart from that, I kind of oppose the whole selling restrictive software licenses market model; nothing wrong with being paid for making software, but using copyright law as an enforcement technique to get paid feels wrong to me, and an alledgedly "free" OS playing into this hand doesn't really sit comfortable with me.

E) Pretty much the same as C. Symptom more than an opportunity, although the fact that serious games start to appear for Linux-based OSes probably does work catalytically.

On the whole, I think all these are more symptoms of the state of Free Software in general and the Linux kernel in particular: Linux has reached a state of incredible maturity, and Free Software is, in many fields, a real alternative, despite many efforts from the proprietary-software camp to prevent this.

Heh, I found aptitude on my phone. It doesn't work, but an interesting find on an Android phone.

I don't know if anybody mentioned this, but in their effort to port TF2 to GNU/Linux VALVe said that they have been working directly with the GPU vendors (I'm pretty certain both ATI and Nvidia were mentioned, but possibly Intel too) and together have found and fixed a number of bugs and bottlenecks in the Linux drivers. In fact, IIRC, last I heard they said that in Ubuntu Linux running TF2 with OpenGL was actually faster than running TF2 in Windows with both DirectX and OpenGL. IOW, if VALVe continues to drive this the Linux drivers might end up being better than the Windows drivers, and we already know Linux runs faster than Windows.

That is very good news. I never expected Team Fortress to have this much of an impact

I thought it was about Left 4 Dead 2, not TF2.

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/steamd-penguins/

Ah, you may be right. I don't like either one so they're just kind of generically in that category in my mind. Which ever.

They expanded. The beta is getting TF2, L4D and Portal IIRC.

But could a Freetard play a proprietary game without having to kill himself afterwards? What would Holy Messiah Stallman say to such an act of blasphemy? Would he not at least require the sacrifice of a thousand Tux penguins?

One answer, and one answer only:

WHO CARES.

I see you have lost you faith. Sad.

I have never cared all that much about FREETARDS.

I like it when a company supports linux. Even if not in an optimal way to begin with. Almost anything is better than nothing. Once they get their foot in the door, we can push them in the right direction.

If it can be shown that a proprietary program won't hack my computer, I suppose it's OK, but "proprietary" kind of precludes that.

I would be happier to see Linux do better. It does have a lot going for it, but it is still too young, and doesn't have enough resources dedicated to it to fully compete with Windows for me. I recently had the pleasure of working with MacOSX for the first time, and it is a fucking nightmare. Compared to Windows, it's file explorer is a piss poor excuse for system software. There isn't even a folder tree, only links to common folders like the desktop. Resizing windows is cumbersome and slow, and they don't maximize nicely without setting their size first. There's no such thing as maximizing a window on OSX as far as I can see. Icon organization is a total free for all and is hard to automatically reorganize your icons once they get out of place. The row of icons along the bottom isn't very helpful, and would never accomodate all the programs I want to use, but I suppose that is what the App button is for.

In all honesty, Windows is more organized and easier to work with than OSX, although I will say I totally love Lightroom for OSX. Is there something comparable to Photoshop or Lightroom on Linux these days?

Heh, its older than windows 95

It'd help if the hardware manufacturers worked a little harder, and more coders were willing to do the boring stuff instead of the next sexy thing that comes along. That said, I like it better than Windows, although using Windows now is such a pain partly because I'm not used to it anymore. I'd bet a lot of Mac enthusiasts would say the same thing Edgar complained about, in favor of Mac. I've never used OSX, but I did get a headache trying OS 7 a couple times for 10 minutes each.

OSX is quite different from OS7 afaik. I played with OS8 or OS9 a bit, I did not enjoy it. Apparently if you change the network settings, it doesn't apply them till you reboot derp?

All I was trying to do was install some games off the Internet, but I stuffed StuffIt.

OS X is much different than OS 8 and OS 9 too. What doesn't apply network settings until you reboot?

You're asking if there's an OS that can apply network settings without a reboot? Jeez!

If you're a Free Software zealot, you're not running non-free software, ever, and Steam does not change anything about that. I think Stallman's stance would be that commercial games are fine, as long as they don't violate your freedoms, but proprietary ones are not. Why would games be any different from any other kind of software? This means that Steam on Linux would be allowed only if it came with source code and guaranteed you that you could get the sources for anything you download, that anything you download and installed can be shared with anyone you like, legally, and that you can modify and redistribute anything you download, as well as Steam itself, in any way you wish (with the optional limitation that redistributed copies must be published under the same license as the original to prevent non-free redistributions).

Personally, I'm not such a zealot, but I am definitely not going to let this thing come anywhere near my "serious" partition - I trust it about as much as I trust internet porn. Most likely, once the dust settles I'll install Ubuntu on a separate hdd and use that only for gaming, or maybe I'll just stay away from gaming for a while longer.

OS X was a rewrite from scratch and shares practically no code with OS 9, apart from the filesystem (and that too has been heavily revised I think), and the backwards-portability stuff, which is basically OS 9 running in an emulator IIRC.

OS X uses a Mach kernel (based on NeXT code), BSD userland (which makes it a UNIX for all practical considerations), and a whole bunch of proprietary stuff to make it shiny and fluffy and all that.

I was more talking about the UI and workflow differences.

But yes, it's an entirely separate OS.

I kind of feel like Stallman's zealotry makes companies afraid of Linux. It comes with all this elitist, anti proprietary (often confused with commercial) sentiment. Its just a huge bone-r-killer for corporate entities.

I am however liking all the new swag coming out (docks, GUI control panels, and compositors), which debunks the thought that Linux is ugly and difficult to use.

Plus I just bought a printer and a webcam (from goodwill ): they had separate driver CDs for Vista and Windows 7... on Linux I just plugged them in and they worked immediately.

I thought it was because there wasn't anybody to sue when things went wrong?

You can always pay for RedHat and sue them

^ this

I really don't understand that the lawsuit argument though. What if something happens and its Windows fault (I know, that has never happened, but still)? You think your little piss-ant company is gonna sue Microsoft?

Riiiiiiiiight.

You'll blow thousands in the lawsuit, and their lawyers are better than yours. Its less economical to sue Microsoft than it is to just suck it up (which is what you'd do with linux).

Most proprietary vendors also have "ABSOLUTELY NO LIABILITY" "AS IS" clauses in their licenses so to the extent permitted by law most proprietary vendors are also immune to such lawsuits. You have to pay extra for them to take liability in your operations, and in doing so they're likely to send people to set up and keep things running smoothly. I imagine that's talking about 6 or 7 figure contracts.

The real reason people are afraid of open source is because (a) they aren't familiar with it and/or don't know anything about it; and (b) they are usually already cornered by vendor lock-in and think that they're satisfied with what they have.

I mean, fuck, half of the time the SQL Server instances on my development box don't come up by themselves and I have to start them manually. Our administrator assures me that it happens to the production servers too. That's fucking unacceptable.

Don't know about it doing well, just know I like using it because most of my games won't play on it so I can't use them to avoid programming.

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Are you sure that it's not something you guys are doing? We switched from Oracle to MS SQL Server a couple of years ago and have never looked back.

I switched from bloated proprietary bullshit a couple years ago and never looked back.

It would have worked fine on Vista or 7 just plugging it in as well. The CDs are usually useless these days.

You probably just think you're satisfied with Linux.

I was going to say the same thing. SQL Server has been the easiest to set up in my experience. Oracle, by far, has been the absolute worst to set up, configure, use, etc.

How will you get all the adware on your computer without the CD? All the marketroids want to know!

They already know. It typically comes on a hidden partition on the hard-drive so that you can 'restore' the original software.

The hardware that came with the CD wasn't a part of the shovelware on the hidden partition, so it wasn't included.

Problem is that too many companies equate Linux distros to open source and very few even think about releasing source code in any form. One company you can almost bet will never support Linux is Bethesda (look how they are screwing PC and PS3 owners over). Valve realizes the potential for Linux, and honestly I think everyone is wrong about paying for games. I would buy games off steam if I could play them under Linux in a heart beat.

The other thing I think plays into how little Linux is received, is the fact that it is considered a programmer's operating system and not a gamer's OS like Windows. Too many companies get used to a sure thing and staying in their comfort zone rather than pushing what can be done on different platforms. Think about it, in regards to the consoles, if the companies pushed the PS3 to its boundaries instead of bitching about the design curve and actually learn the curve and adapt to it, then the PS3 could very well blow the PC and 360 out of the market. This will never happen because, as many devs have said, they like the ease to develop on the 360 and don't really push the PS3 dev due to complexity. Seems everyone is getting comfortable with how everything is in the world and in the game industry.

It's about time the phrase "Push the boundaries!" actually mean something again everywhere.

What are you talking about? Of course 'the hardware that came with the CD' isn't on a hidden partition. Hardware can't be stored like that. -- Previously asked how the 'marketroids' should put 'adware' on the computer. -- Now I don't know what you're talking about at all. But I'll take a stab at answering anyway:

On Windows, drivers for pretty much everything reside in Windows archives. So when you get some new hardware and plug it in, Windows can install the required drivers from those archives. If the drivers are not found there, Windows can download the drivers from the internet.

I suppose if someone wanted to include some bloatware on the driver CD so that any computer with driver would also have the bloatware, then that's just too bad. That doesn't happen anymore. They'll just have to try to get their bloatware included as part of the OEM software package for new computers.

Oh, nitpick if you want, but the point I'm making is Windows (mainly Vista and XP, but 7 also) does not recognize hardware that I have plugged in. Tablets, cameras, printers...

Somehow, this OS that didn't cost me any money recognizes these things flawlessly. I find that kinda funny...

Who's nitpicking? BAF just pointed out that Windows automatically recognises hardware as well, and Arthur and I were talking about something somewhat unrelated (I think).

In my experience, Win7/Vista have only failed to recognize and get appropriate drivers for hardware once or twice, and that was with obscure hardware that I expected to have to go digging for.

http://dendory.net/blog.php?id=509ec629

They don't have to put up with it, they just need to install a decent OS.

Windows pays the price of popularity: crapware, adware, viruses, botnets. If "normal" (not you and me) people in significant numbers were actually buying computers with Linux preinstalled, the same thing would happen there. The first rule of buying a Windows computer is: format and reinstall before you do anything else.

With Windows 8 there are now two seperate ecosystems in one OS, which means twice the amount of things to complain about. I can't wait to see how this is going to unfold.

The difference with Linux is that you may be able to get a distro that doesn't crap things up because there is a community that is tech savvy enough and anti crap enough to put one together.

Ubuntu is certainly heading down the crap route at lightspeed though...

It is? Really? Wow, it has gotten to the point that Ubuntu is all I use in regards to Linux. I believe me I've tried a lot.

Yeah, but for the average consumer that's not going to help. It's all based on most people not knowing what they need to do. We're still going to be fine.

Heh, and Steam is 'only' coming to Ubuntu. Why the heck didn't they just do general Debian? I wanna play.
Linux has its crud. I sometimes hear people complain that the innards of X are crud. If that's true, I can imagine it to be as much of a monster as Windows' DOS legacy.

Windows NT has nothing to do with DOS. That stuff died with Windows ME (Mega Excrement). Microsoft went to the crapper and took a big dump.

The Linux desktop is still slow compared to Windows, maybe getting rid of X would fix that. Windows still needs a competitor, as Apple has excluded themselves by staying mainly a hardware company.

The Windows desktop is way slower than GUI environments in GNU/Linux. Everything is slower in Windows. Keep in mind that GNU/Linux users mostly still use Windows (e.g., at work) so we have lots of experience with both systems. You're wasting your "breath".

As for Ubuntu, I'd say it's the least free distro imaginable. They don't care about using non-free software and make it convenient to do so. They also dumb the distro down to make it more accessible to lusers, which has its merits, but ultimately it makes the system vulnerable, compromising many of its usual strengths. Obviously if a luser has full root access then the system is just as vulnerable as any Windows system. At the very least, they should have to work to unlock those capabilities. Ubuntu makes it easy to access the full power of root by default (in fact, they don't even acknowledge the root account by default, instead granting unrestricted sudo access to lusers).

Ubuntu is Debian for dummies, with additional non-free software prompts (i.e., you need some software that is illegal due to software patents and the like, click OK to install it). You have to ask yourself how Canonical, Ltd. gets away with that.

Windows systems at work are usually bogged down with a million background processes, bad antivirus software, etc. Maybe that can explain why Windows seems slow.

Maybe. But that's the default mode for windows. You generally have to work at it to get a clean system, which is something most people won't do.

I j0rb at a small company so there's no stupid IT department with ridiculous rules (even if there is, your software developers had better be exempt from their rule or you have a problem). I maintain my own workstation. I install a clean copy of Windows and all my developer tools. I install my own anti-virus software and make sure that only the programs and services that I want running automatically do. Windows is still slow. I also run Windows at home for PC gaming (though I hope Valve negates the need to in the coming years).

Killing Floor coming to the Steam Linux beta

I had to change from Debian to Ubuntu because Debian didn't seem to support any of my hardware. Not tried any other *nix distros to see if they supported them now. I'm sure they support it now, but don't see the point of changing OSes since I only code under it for the most part.

Killing Floor? Great, that is one I played on Steam, sucked at it, but not really easy to be good or bad at it.

Just plugged a USB printer into my laptop with Windows 7, and it didn't provide any sort of feedback... what's worse is that the printer's website says that Windows 7 auto-detection is the only way to get drivers for this printer, there is no downloadable driver for it! I'll have to try some workabouts sometime later, but meh... when I plugged that printer into the same laptop running Linux, everything worked automatically .

Also, when I installed Win7 onto that laptop I had to spend at least an hour getting random drivers for stuff like USB3, built in audio, wifi, etc etc. My Linux installation on the same laptop probably took 3x time less.

Win 7 still has auto-run, doesn't it? You've disabled it, haven't you?

He's not talking about a disk auto-running anything, but the OS noticing that a USB device was connected, looking up its USB Device IDs, and searching for a driver. Apparently that's not working.

Thanks for the info! Obviously Windows is nothing but a endless stream of hassles in terms of setting things up, whereas this miscellaneous Linux distro is trivially easy to use.

...

The truth is I don't really know why you're telling me that stuff. If you want to complain about your printer not working on Windows, maybe you should tell Microsoft, or the producer of the printer.

I myself have never had any problems with hardware detection in Windows. Phones, usb drives, portable HHDs, cameras, printers, portable music players, - have all worked for me... so I think it's fair to say that Windows does support automatic hardware detection. But I'm not surprised that people are able to find examples of particular computers in which that autodection is disabled or broken in some way, or particular pieces of hardware that are not recognised. I'd expect the same to be true for Linux.

It's a bit weird that Windows 'didn't provide any sort of feedback' when you plugged in your printer. In previous versions of Windows I've seen it identify things as "unknown USB device" or something like that, but never ignore the device completely. Perhaps you didn't have the printer turned on.(?)

Besides; I'm not even the one who pointed out that Windows does that autodection anyway. All I said was that BAF said it.

I know you're being sarcastic, but frankly that's the way I would characterize it and it has been so for me for the last couple of years. I don't mind reinstalling Linux from scratch every couple of months because it's at most an investment of a few hours... everything works automatically. I dread whenever I have to reinstall Windows... the driver issue is just unacceptable. I'm not even talking about issues with MinGW and git or anything that I bring about onto myself... just getting all the hardware associated with the computer (laptop usually) recognized and working fully takes forever. Heck, on that laptop the USB3 ports gave me errors on Windows from time to time too even after I installed drivers for them... the issue seemed to go away, but it just left a very poor taste in my mouth.

The manufacturer of the printer did, in my case.

EDIT: To make this clear, I manually download drivers for my laptop. HP provides a nice list of all the drivers in a single place, so there's relatively little hunting going on. Maybe the supposed automatic driver detection thing would work better? Each manual driver install asked me to restart (I said no). Would the automatic one force a restart?

Manual driver downloading issue kills a day, but then you forget about it if all went well. Windows update is a gift that keeps giving... nothing like booting Windows to do some work, except then having to wait minutes for the updates to configure themselves. Windows update is by far the worst feature of Windows (since it's so intrusive).

Technology sucks.

Specter, I'd still recommend Debian. I'd go for Debian "experimental" then. (If I got the name correctly.)
Ubuntu is based on Debian "unstable" IIRC, and that distro has the disadvantage that some bugs remain unfixed for long periods (which is one of the main disadvantages of Ubuntu).
The Debian distributions are like this:

• Stable: Has tiny bugs that shouldn't bother normal use, and has old features and drivers.

• Unstable: Occasionally has big bugs, and gets fixed occasionally.

• Experimental: Often has big bugs, and gets fixed often.

I'd prefer often fixes.

Bugs don't linger in debian unstable too long. But they do in ubuntu because ubuntu decides to split off of debian unstable at weird times where debian unstable could be a bit more unstable than usual, which leaves ubuntu as a complete mess for 6 months.

I think you have the debian names wrong though:

• Stable: Rock solid, few bugs, gets regular bug/security fixes, no new features. Can be a long time in between new distro releases.

• Testing: Solid, some bugs, gets updates more often

• Unstable: Can be solid, but often has periods where its thrown into chaos for a few weeks. Can be bugs, but they should be fixed in short order.

• Experimental: not a complete distro, it is purely an addon repo for unstable which has even newer packages. There may be more bugs here. YMMV.

I by no means advocate universal adoption of Linux as a desktop. It works with little enough hassle that the public is appeased, and good for them. They can go download shareware, turn off automatic updates, and use IE 6 for all I care (I don't do client side very much, so its not my concern).

I like Linux because depending on how much you are willing to learn, you can conceivably change the entire system. I happen to hate KDE, so I use GNOME. I hate the GNOME bars, so I use AVN. I hate skipping when I'm recording a bunch of tracks, so I compile a "real time" Kernel.

Now, some may say that there are Explorer replacements, et al, and so that doesn't make a case for Linux. I beg to differ. Any explorer replacements or enhancements are hacks to get around the default behavior. Whereas on Linux, everything is designed with a KISS mindset. GNOME is no more "Linuxy" than KDE; Its just my shell of choice.

Well, isn't win 8 designed the way it is for beginners? Think "Microsoft Bob" all over again, but now it's the default, not the add-on. And in a couple of months, the poor saps won't be beginners anymore, and will pirate win 7 to death.

[EDIT]

Except Microsoft Bob didn't have ads!

What makes you say that? I've hardly looked at Windows 8 myself, but some of the stuff I've read suggests that although they've tried to make things as intuitive as possible; they actually assume a slightly higher level of computer adeptness than W7 in that many things are no longer explicitly shown.

This article is a bit out-of-date now, but I like how it gives a few examples of how each new version of Windows assumes a greater level of knowledge from its users.

.. So.. anyway, what have you got in mind when you say that W8 is designed for beginners?

This sarcastic page of what not to do seems to describe windows 8 pretty well.

The idea is that most users aren't going to do those things so they've hidden them to avoid confusing them. Unfortunately, that means it takes something like 4 obscure clicks to shutdown Windows 8.

I didn't bother to read through the whole thing, but I read most of the first page. I think the author is wrong. He says that Windows 8 has more implicit interactions that need to be learned, whereas Windows 7 gave more feedback. I don't think that's the case. I think we're all just so used to the implicit meaning of double-click, drag and drop, click and drag, etc., that we know what they mean. That knowledge is mostly learned through practice and observing others. The touch interfaces are much simpler to do, even though they may end up being more work (especially on non-touch devices). Such is a GUI though.

If you don't have a touch screen, Windows 8 is not nice to use. This coming from someone who uses GUI all the time too.

I thought the touch screen came about because the little phones were too small to have a decent keyboard, let alone a mouse?

Microsoft didn't think of that it seems. The start screen is confusing to use with a mouse as well. Don't think that touch actions are emulated with a mouse. They're not.

Correct. And now that everyone has gotten used to touch screens, Microsoft figured that people are suddenly too stupid for keyboards and mice, and also stupid enough to dish out for an OS and the required hardware to support it, and that they won't figure out how a touch screen is actually an inferior input device because it has no tactile feedback and operating the input device inevitably obscures the visuals. The sad part is that they might even be right about this one. People will buy this crap, and then Microsoft will pull the plug on the older Windowses, and in a few years, people will have forgotten about mice completely and just assume touch screens are the only way one can possibly operate a computer in a meaningful way.

I'm just waiting for the medical studies to roll in, where they show the devastating results of using touch screens for 40 hours per week straight...

Yeah, but the fun part is, there is absolutely no reason to. The last time I reinstalled was because I wanted full-disk crypto, and reinstalling was easier than manually configuring an LVM setup and then copying my system partition back into place. Other than that, I have seamlessly migrated through three debian releases on three different hardware platforms without so much as a hickup, and all those computers perform just as well as they did on day one.

Unless you're talking about Linux From Scratch (LFS); with that, I can see how a regular reinstall can be the easier solution.

I find that upgrading distributions (I use Kubuntu) tends to take just as long as reinstalling it from scratch. Maybe I'll try upgrading it to see how it goes, I suppose, but I don't necessarily see the point of doing that.

I've been using Windows 8 for a week or two now, and from my point of view, the "made for touchscreen" idea is overplayed. My workflow is exactly the same as on Windows 7 pretty much. The only thing that's "touchscreeny" is the Metro kick-off page, which I see exactly once when I first start the computer. I still have my desktop just the same as before. Also, the "can't run untrusted software" is overplayed too. I've seen that maybe 2-3 times and I've installed and run dozens of third party apps, even ones without installers run without warning (the 2-3 times I saw it were in the first couple days of running the system so maybe I clicked an option somewhere, I don't remember though.)

Oh, God Windows 8 seems to be everything I DON'T want. How the F are they planning on selling that?! Knowing that it's Microsoft gives me the irrational fear that someone would actually want it for some reason. And that is some scary $#!T.
I can see how they'd make money off of it, if somebody'd buy it. Are they just trolling conning companies who think they need the latest Windows or something?

weapon_s, what in particular are you referring to?

If you know what you're doing, you can even do it in a phased way, at least with debian proper - start out with the old distro, then add the new one to the repos, but use pinning to prefer the old one; then install packages from the new distro as needed; at some point, most of your system will have migrated, at which point you can decide to undo (or swap) the pinning and do a full-upgrade. I actually have a squeeze/wheezy hybrid install in a VM somewhere, and it works fine - squeeze base system, haskell toolchain from wheezy (interestingly, this also pulled in libc from wheezy, but everything still works flawlessly). I wouldn't recommend it with Ubuntu though.

This wasn't linked directly apparently.

Why not do a full upgrade to begin with if I'm going to have to do it eventually anyway? I don't see what you gain with this hodge-podge rolling release idea aside from abandoning the guarantee (however small it is with Ubuntu) of stability. Hardly seeing any time savings either, which is the primary concern anyway.