The UnOfficial OS War Thread
VonSzarvas
Posts: 3,450
Hello all !
This thread is the place for healthy debate, chatter and de-stressing about your favourite OS !
Please DO start new threads with OS themes, if they have a specific purpose related to Parallax products. Such as "Need help installing SimpleIDE on Debian", or "Found a cool trick with PropellerIDE on Win10". But please please for our sanity, direction and the good of our community, let's keep those threads positive, happy, productive places- on topic and on fashion!!!
This thread is an attempt to keep all other parts of the forum clean from perpetual tumble and diversion into seemingly never-ending OS "debate". Whilst interesting ideas often emerge, and whilst recent multiple threads clearly started with great intentions, the contents seem quickly to become so blatantly non-Parallax, and so similar, that the good content and original good intention becomes lost. So in thinking about "what happened?", one thing seemed clear, that OS chatter was missing it's own home. A perpetual drifter in the Parallax forums!
We want to keep this forum as the great place you all fondly remember, and somewhere that's not too scary to meet new friends and old. So for certain topics that garner such emotional and powerful interest, it probably makes sense at some point to tidy them into one place and keep the overall look and feel of the Parallax forum heading in the right direction.
Rules ?
1. The moderators might choose to remove inappropriate chatter and clutter from other threads, or even move those into here.
2. The moderators might place more rules here from time-to-time!
3. That dastardly MM might step in any time and overrule everything
This is NOT an official Parallax initiative, but I'd guess if we respect each other, we'll be good!
Let the games begin !
Links:
Some existing OS related threads which were closed to make way for this new home:
http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/161805/win10-adopters-yay-or-nay
http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/161806/win10-haters-bash-away
http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/161928/ot-linux-file-system-tagging
This thread is the place for healthy debate, chatter and de-stressing about your favourite OS !
Please DO start new threads with OS themes, if they have a specific purpose related to Parallax products. Such as "Need help installing SimpleIDE on Debian", or "Found a cool trick with PropellerIDE on Win10". But please please for our sanity, direction and the good of our community, let's keep those threads positive, happy, productive places- on topic and on fashion!!!
This thread is an attempt to keep all other parts of the forum clean from perpetual tumble and diversion into seemingly never-ending OS "debate". Whilst interesting ideas often emerge, and whilst recent multiple threads clearly started with great intentions, the contents seem quickly to become so blatantly non-Parallax, and so similar, that the good content and original good intention becomes lost. So in thinking about "what happened?", one thing seemed clear, that OS chatter was missing it's own home. A perpetual drifter in the Parallax forums!
We want to keep this forum as the great place you all fondly remember, and somewhere that's not too scary to meet new friends and old. So for certain topics that garner such emotional and powerful interest, it probably makes sense at some point to tidy them into one place and keep the overall look and feel of the Parallax forum heading in the right direction.
Rules ?
1. The moderators might choose to remove inappropriate chatter and clutter from other threads, or even move those into here.
2. The moderators might place more rules here from time-to-time!
3. That dastardly MM might step in any time and overrule everything
This is NOT an official Parallax initiative, but I'd guess if we respect each other, we'll be good!
Let the games begin !
Links:
Some existing OS related threads which were closed to make way for this new home:
http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/161805/win10-adopters-yay-or-nay
http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/161806/win10-haters-bash-away
http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/161928/ot-linux-file-system-tagging
Comments
Being a person with very limited patience for certain things, I recently gave up halfway through an install of WinX (forget the version, recent though), as it wanted me to register MS accounts, link online logins, do far too many things I didn't want to, and so I quickly downloaded and installed Kubuntu on my workshop PC instead. That process was surprisingly fast. (mind you, that "OS?" had been recommended to me as compatible with DipTrace, so I figured I was already halfway round the block).
Anyway, one thing that stuck out....
With my old trusty XP, it seemed to handle my onboard (intel?) and PCIe GFX (radeon? - certainly non-intel) card, and multi-monitors were fine. With Kubuntu, it seems unable to work with multiple graphics drivers.... Is that as expected?
I solved the issue in my usual impatient way, by just buying a new monitor with a DVI socket, and so plugged both monitors into the PCIe card (and disabled the IGD). But I am still curious if running multi-graphics drivers is generally support with Nix's, or is that rather up to the graphics card company (so if their driver will happen to support both my video cards) ?
anyone had similar experience?
Loopy, No. Why would you want to plant the idea that I might have? That analogy was made on that thread, by a Windows user.
Lemmings are cute, hardy, self sufficient, they have a hard life under the ice as reflected by their generally low population. More like Linux users
I do hope we can play in this thread in good humour.
Now corrected in first post !
If there were any others I'd be happy to add them.
Despite the fact that they are increasingly the only viable option there is a lot to complain about.
Not withstanding my love for Victor Meldrew, one would hope there's equal measure of praise with complaint, even if the console of choice is bash, and the OS of choice is Linux "based"
Linux based OSes just may be the lesser evil.
May be or may be not...
I often think and ask others about Linux's world domination. Soon we'll have Linux based OSes in near to every phone, router, set top box, smart-tv, bluetooth enabled toothbrush, talking fridge, ...
Diversity degrades...
Risks are rising in monocultures...
Did we really want this, when we rushed to ftp.funet fi to grab our first bootdisk/rootdisk pair Linus just had announced in comp.os.minix?
Aaaaand I definitely want to bash the 3 major BSDs for not having a nice and friendly package management... often enough I upgraded BSD desktops running Gnome with lots of other desktop stuff... so having thousands of packages installed... it always was a painfull repeat until no error loop...
And hereby I bash ${UNKNOWN}, the next hot OS for the nerd and(!) the everyday user for not having materialised yet...
Can I interpret "favourite" as in "least worst of the options". All operating systems are annoying, as are all programming languages and editors.
Still tenaciously bashing away on Bash here...
yeti was on to something
ultimately, everything is annoying at some time or another. do we fester in a pool of grief? or do we find the path of least resistance and get on with living.
is that "making do", or "finding compromise".... the former concept sure doesn't sound appealing.
If only we could live in parallel- and have such time to create everything our way!
++++++++
But I tend to cleave away from proprietary OSes and proprietary applications. I don't want to be dependent on enterprises that are constantly looking for ways to add more to my expenses without being at all concerned with my quality of life (e.g., trying to insert compulsive, selfish, and reclusive behaviors into home and family life).
And I have learned to distrust proprietary programing from offering a complete and simple solution. Programmers are always worried about creating another update so they can eat. Some programmers are just insidiously greedy and truly enjoy obscuring anything from being a complete, simple, elegant solution.
A. I am here to learn from a hobby, not to create the 'Killer App' that is going to make me rich or need someone to provide me the ultimate in performance for some ambitious enterprise. Proprietary OSes are an unnecessary expense and make learning more difficult merely by adding significant costs to learning.
The simple fact that some of most basic and simple of Unix utilities can be repackaged and sold for $50USD or more to desperate and naive users makes me feel that proprietary OSes for the average consumer have just thrown ethics out the Windows (pun intended) and cowed the public into wasting money by pandering to be the Apple of their eye.
B. I not a big fan of buying from vain greedy people with histories of drug abuse problems and social misalignments. I feel much better spending money with vendors that I trust are trying to do some real good in the world and not add to its problems.
For example, Bill Gates required his wife-to-be to sign a pre-nuptual to allow him to spend one month per year with his former girl friend. And then, there was some video documentary that showed him and Mr. Balmer smoking a joint and stealing some heavy earth-moving equipment for joy riding.
Or, Steve Jobs and his refusal to support his own daughter though required to by child support laws and having far more than adequate income to do so. And of course, his drug abuse and subsequent history of so-called 'rare' pancreatic cancer which happens to be quite common among heavy drug and alcohol abusers.
Neither has demonstrated the kind of humanity that could gain my respect and neither ever attempted to apologize for their past missteps. I am simply not going to be forgiving just because both achieved great wealth.
Both tried to turn the educational institutions into lucrative marketplaces by claiming to offer learning, and never really delivered much more than distraction if forcing teacher to retool and schools to rewire .
There is a lot more to this. I feel Microsoft has conveniently enabled a world-wide pornography industry to flourish because it created more demand for computers and internet use. And this in turn has created a big backlash of contempt by more ignorant conservative cultures in the world.
C. The proprietary software industry is rife with bait-and-switch tactics and a long history of failure to consistently live up to its promises. So why should anybody forgive and expect better treatment in the future?
D. Unix and its derivatives seem to outperform OSes that are based originally on CPM.
E. Open-source software seems to manage security threats more completely and in a more pro-active manner. They also tend to be less attractive to attacks as the users are better informed and the challenge of breaking into a black box is non-existent.
F. Linux simply out-performs Windows products when it comes to man-hours of being available for productive mundane office work versus man-hours required to maintain the system's security and integrity.
You get into your work quicker, are less interrupted while working, and can move through multi-tasking in a more fluid manner.
G. Since the advent of LiveCD installations processes, LInux is easy to install and user friendly. The days when you got a box of 15 CDs provide to manage your Linux system are long gone. Repositories are on-line, not in a pile of CDs that can be easily damaged.
H. Updating proprietary Windows is tedious and problematic.
I. Proprietary OSes partner with proprietary hardware to drive up the cost of both.
Wow!
You are really making use of this opportunity.
Time to embrace the Gimp!!
(This isn't really off topic if we look at an OS as a distribution of tools to perform a task)
I used to be an avid photographer but for the past several years have done very little plus this Mac happens to have been relegated to a more serverly role so the App software was not up to date. I did find Photo which is a more cloud targeted photo editing experience.....BLECH!
As for the Adobe subscription software, while good products, I really don't want to pay monthly for my photo editing subscription. Some things I really do want to own (as much as a license allows) and not rent. Oops, sorry, off topic - NOT an OS gripe!
Back in the 1960s there was much disdain of 'planned obsolesce' in any product, but it seems the whole of technology is putting us on a forced march to buy something new and the proprietary OSes whole-heartedly participate in a hidden agenda.
FYI, it the past US presidential elections, I was completely shut out of commenting on the candidates just because I refused to open a Facebook or Twitter account. It wasn't enough to have a Yahoo or Google account to be allowed to add your 2 cents. Something is going on with Facebook and Twitter to narrow down verifying exactly who you are.
When I think back to George Orwell's rather dismal and jaded "1984", I am deeply amused that the book was so paranoid with only typewriters, telephones and lots of video cameras. Today, we are light years beyond that scenario. Just about any computer gleans tons of data that might be used to embarrass or persecute an individual. And it all starts with one's choice or lack of choice of an OS.
========
Sadly, we live in a world where the USA has pretty much gotten every government thinking the way to manage an economy is to have about 2% GNP growth every year while allowing employers to cut more and more employees from their ranks.
So software abandons perfectly useful applications and hardware for the sake of persistent growth in the GNP.
I thought recycling was a good thing and would save the environment. Now I see that it has put repairmen out of a job by pulling repairable devices out of use, and forcing us to replace rather than repair.
G2 cell phone are going to cease being supported in the USA in 2016 and I am not sure that the claims that this is a necessary upgrade to G4 (which needs to take over the tower space that the G2 occupies) are any more realistic that Y2K threat or many other such fiascoes.
Being past 65, I just seem to remember so many bright rationales for change that haven't delivered the prosperity and progress they were suppose to.
Google claims 'Don't be evil' and yet I found myself forced to fill out a two page marketing questionnaire in order to remove Chrome from my Windows Vista. I don't see why I should be force to fill out any marketing questionnaire.
Clever pitfalls everywhere....
But the open-source OS people do tend to try allow you to say "No" to any feature you don't want. Removal isn't challenged or left unsupported for purposed of tracking you.
Apparently all the good proprietary graphic editing has shifted over to a monthly subscription and want to ease you out of hanging on to that legacy item that worked just fine.
I am still livid with Seagate for marketing a 160Gbyte USB hard disk in Taiwan that they try to tell you --- after you run open the box -- that it is only being licensed to you. You don't own it, you have no right to remove any of the proprietary software that only supports Apple or Micorsoft, and "No" you can't reformat it and use Linux.
So I did reformat, installed a Debian 64bit boot, and I am waiting for Seagate's lawyers to come and take it away. I never would have paid money for it if the outside of the box clearly explained in was NOT for purchase, but a licensed hardware limited to Microsoft and Apple OSes.
++++++++++
It is no easy to prevent your personal life being data mined from every angle.
You mean that you don't desire to be blindly loyal? That you desire to weigh the pros and cons?
How refreshing.........
The rest all look like the latest work of clowns. Well, not Apple. Great work on OS X.
Live video conferencing, real time 3D multi user gaming, 500 CPU systems, built in Web sharing and social tools, scalable icon drag n drop desktop, advanced software package management, etc... all going on in the early 90's while the babies were still figuring out how to leave the crib.
Best computing experience I ever had. If MIPS had been able to keep up, I would still be running it.
Oh, and every machine shipped with a nice, basic comp-Sci style set of docs that included all you need to know to go from a single CPU to a multi cpu monster. I did that with my first, and only file system. Neat.
What kind of Smile were you running in 95? Heck, compared to where IRIX ended up over 10 years ahead of its time, what Smile might you be running today? Many have compared the IRIX experience to the Amiga one in terms of features and timelines. Well ahead.
I didn't get a comparable experience on anything, until darn near 2010. Even then, it was all still crappy. I could get more and better work done at 400Mhz even then. And did too. CAD contracts on SGI IRIX paid for the best in crappy PC machines and their crappy OS easily and consistently. Machines that could barely handle the models too.
Today, Win 7, 64 bit is good. Mac OS is better and a lot like the IRIX experience.
Linux? Meh
Linux is awesome because it is open. But it is far from the pinnacles of usability I've experienced.
Flame on kids. I'm ready
I refer you to the third post in this thread:
I do agree about economists. Although I'm not sure that is limited to the USA. Their answer to just about anything relies on exponential growth. That 2% per year thing. That has been working since the start of the industrial revolution and the birth of capitalism. But clearly this is not sustainable. As a teenager in the 1970's I calculated it would all come to a cataclysmic end around about...now.
Ultra scary. Pennywise the clown drove much of the fear and drama in that book. Stephen King at some of his finest. IT is a very strange and compelling book that will put real fear right into the core of your soul.
Annoying you amuses me, perhaps? You did assert that users of some OSes were lemmings, didn't you? Okay, apparently not and you are a Nordic lemming lover. How bizzare.
And then, Potatohead disparages clowns. (Steven King is a pervert. I can't use his material to teach English as it upsets Taiwanese very deeply.)
++++++++
I would love to publish a complete English Dictionary of the Derogatory. It is such a rich and neglected lexicon that is difficult to explain to second language learners. A new learner might wonder why we are discussing lemmings or clowns at all.
PCs were boring but cheap and configurable and not too bad once Windows XP came out although up till then I persisted with Macs mostly. Windows 8 and 10? Yuck, I avoid it like the plague which I only ever deal with when helping a friend after which I need to use my Linux systems to wipe the disdain off my face and from my thoughts.
Nowadays it is practically all Linux mostly in Mint flavor or even OpenSuse which I run mainly on my entertainment system.
For some reason, I have never, ever thought highly of clowns. Something about them sets me off and it has always. I do remember the first clown I ever saw as a kid and was disturbed right then, with that memory burned in my mind as if it were yesterday.
A dictionary of that kind would be awesome loopy! If you ever start, I'll send you my write up on profanity as a specific and important part of speech. (it is too, try me somewhere we are allowed to have that discussion)
I just upgraded my iPhone to the latest and greatest - gone is the iPod app, replaced with the Music app. It seems a harmless change, I mean who doesn't want a music player that is more tightly coupled to the cloud in general and Apple's new Radio offering and also of course better integration to the Apple store?
It seemed to still play all the music I have on my phone, so I was OK with things.....don't use what you don't want.
I haven't had this happen more than the one time but I swear while I was listening contently to MY music on MY iPhone, the Music app decided to play a commercial. All of a sudden, I was listening to a song I didn't recognize. When I looked at the screen, it was offering to let me buy it for only $.99!! It hasn't done it again but if it does, it is time to ditch my iPhone for a ......????????
================================================
Potatohead, 100% agree on "It" - a classic chiller. I read through it one November weekend when I was holed up between classes in a mostly (completely?) empty apartment complex in rural New Jersey.
Yeah, that book is a can't stop, even when you might lose your job, kind of book. My experience was similar. Picked it up, and the intro, just page one sucked me in like no other. Amazing.
**Actually, the opening scene in the book, "IT" is a sort of test. Some people read it and aren't impacted much. They won't be King fans. Some will feel compelled, and they definitely are King fans. A few read it and stop. Too scary. They might be King fans, but will need a kiddie pool type experience to get going and maybe return to tackle, "IT"
My wife had that experience, and never could read the book, though she did enjoy the mini-series. (which is nothing compared to the actual book) For me, the result was amazing. Suddenly, I was just *there*, and I absolutely had to continue reading. And she is a King fan, reading one right now actually. New one. It will be my turn soon.
In his book, "On Writing" King describes this as telepathy, and actually includes a very potent example near the end. Anyone interested in the art of writing, or on how King actually sees the art play out, would do well to read "On Writing" --also highly recommended.
King is one of the people who can invoke that "reading without experiencing the act of reading itself" experience. It's the place where you are *there* somehow, and it's all playing out vividly. Some time passes, and you realize you have read a third of the book while not really having the memory of turning pages. Notable.
As far as iOS goes, I simply won't use it. Ever. Too closed. I've even turned down free stuff. Really don't care how sexy it is, iOS just isn't an option.
Reading Kafka does the same thing.
Teaching English with Stephen King causes a big portion of the class to sudden get upset and bolt for the door never to return.... quite dramatic.
===============
Is it just me or are the 'Free' apps in Android getting more sly about advertising.
I downloaded a free version of Merriam-Webster's English Dictionary to use with students and after a week or two, an advertising banner appeared at the bottom of it.
It seems that the app actually delayed presenting advertising until it figured out I really was going to use it regular.
___________
Maybe we need another thread --- "Programmers on the Dark Side"
I'm OK with the AD model now that we have devices that offer enough of a display for it to all make sense. My Note 4 phone is a very capable little computer. When I use a bluetooth keyboard / mouse, or share the one on whatever laptop I'm using, I find I can do a lot on it. Samsung has a lot to do with that. They tend to polish Android up and the user experience is notably better for it too. IMHO, they are very stiff competition for Apple and iOS.
Having used the 8 core Note 4, it seems to me like a similar SoC could be used to make great little ARM computers. There is almost enough app support for that to make sense too.
Samsung sees it, and has been working on various windowing ideas, most of which make sense, but need some polish still. Android, with just a bit better windowing system, could make for a very lean, nice OS IMHO. I'm a fan.
And that's my default too. I really won't get an app, if I can just browse. No need.
You need to send King a note on that. I think he would find it very interesting.
As to why? It's King! Of course they ran. Learning English is one thing. Experiencing what people can actually do with it is quite another.
Think about what I am doing, I refuse to pay $40 USD per month for G4 service. So I got a G3 ZenFone at clearance prices and pay $5 USD for G2 service. When I am near a free Wifi hotspot, I use that. And I am using a free APP until I really decide I need to buy better.
I am very very adverse to cable TV and telephone companies that try to lock me into excessive automatic monthly billings.
My main reason for the cell phone is about one call per month from a student to change class time, and the Pleco Dictionary, and excellent English-Chinese Dictionary application that keeps me engaged in improving my Chinese.
So I am saving $35/month by not being an up-to-date G4 user and mooching wifi.
The Pleco Dictionary V2.0 was a free migration from my Palm PDA. I paid maybe $200/USD for that app with extra features about a decade ago, but it has been well worth it.
For me, it's simple. I'll pay for data. There have been times I've paid a few hundred dollars for data in a single month, but what I did with the data paid me a lot more than that data cost me. If you ask me, the charges are higher than they need to be while the service capacity is much less than it really could and should be.
Seoul Korea has done this right. Amazing. That's the future, IMHO.
If I were using a dictionary off line a lot, an app would be good.
What I tend to do is accumulate data on the phone local. Reference materials, music, text, etc... If I'm going offline, I make sure I've got those things.
In Scandinavia you can pay 10 Euro a month for a 10MBit up and down connection to home. Not Earth shattering speed but good enough for everything I want to do and nobody is counting bytes used. Similarly get a phone and a SIM, not necessarily from the same place, and you have 3G for about the same price, and no byte counting.
Recently I have had a lot of calls from guys trying to sell me 4G connectivity. I ask them "Does it work here in the forest, 500Km from civilization and almost on the Russian boarder?", "No, OK, call me back when it does."