Comments on: Cutting Through the Windows 7 Hype

By: NevarMaor

NevarMaor — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 00:46:45 +0000

I personally don’t get the hype. How is press..drag-to-side-edge..release..press..drag-to-other-side-edge..release (which is convoluted as hell to do with the notebook touchpads) easier than click on taskbar..tile-vertically? IT’S NOT!! This is why I think Micro$oft has a major stake in carpal tunnel cures.

By: Greps

Greps — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 03:05:50 +0000

Have to agree with Yoko, it might take 20 years but it seems inevitable that the retail based desktop OS is on borrowed time.

Whats the carrot for Windows 8…..

By: Yokozuki

Yokozuki — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 08:28:34 +0000

I haven’t used Windows 7, and I haven’t worked with Vista to any real extent. I thought the latter was very pretty, but I’ve been using Ubuntu for the last three years so I can’t say much beyond that. If I were to guess their merits as operating systems, I would hazard that they are satisfactory. Maybe better, I dunno.

Ultimately, operating system cock fights are futile. Yes, Windows or Linux may be “better” now, by whatever arbitrary rubric we may assign. Neither will die today. But looking twenty years from now, I’m willing to place money on which will be left standing.

Operating systems are reaching a fundamental barrier of how much you can improve a text editor, an email client, an audio player, a web browser. All the big advances in personal computing are up in a cloud; the basic desktop suite is near complete. As we approach the fundamental barrier, users will adopt the free alternative. That’s how the dice fall.

Barring a paradigm shift over the role of operating systems, Linux or another free alternative has the trophy of victory in hand. I think myself very pragmatic compared to my evangelists peers in the Linux Desktop, but I see this prediction as quite uncontroversial.

Until we reach that inevitable, use whatever works best for you. But the gnu will win out in the end.

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:58:30 +0000

I’m sure Windows 7 will be good. I’ve had a little play myself and performance wise it’s more or less as good as XP.
As an Ubuntu user I can’t see it offering me anymore of a user experience.
As it has always been with the current Windows Vs Linux debate, Linux will fail without support for good commercial games.
It has to be said that a large majority of PCs at home will infact have at least 1 commercial game installed and at least having the option of playing commercial games is appealing.
Linux is superb and I’ve been an avid user for many years now, but until developers start considering Linux as a gaming platform, the success of Linux as a desktop home OS is limited.

By: Tagesgeldkonto

Tagesgeldkonto — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:05:24 +0000

Every year the same hype. And in the end it’s just a new windows, way more complicated, instable and everybody will hate it. Use Linux or die hard..

By: pinguinpat

pinguinpat — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 14:43:37 +0000

- bluescreens don’t happen on official releases?? When I test beta releases of Ubuntu on a VM, I notice bugs yes, but that doesn’t mean my test don’t work.
- I’m used to test a new os as well on my oldest and new hardware. The 98se – xp period where every driver automatically worked is past tense, even for xp and vista.
- I don’t know if you like to make 1000 changes to your system before you can work with it… I know I don’t.
- If you know the security problems of your system: do something about it!!!
- It’s always the same story, add this, add that, and again you are spending time on a machine. Installing drivers, extra tools, tweaking… no thanks, please try Linux, no necessary tweaks, almost never driver installation, software updates that don’t take a half day, …

By: valmorel

valmorel — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:14:23 +0000

Surely its not about performance, stability, or anything similar. Its about bowing to The Man, or living free.

By: Yggdrasil

Yggdrasil — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:57:42 +0000

-Blue screens have two primary causes: Bad hardware or poorly written drivers. Talk is cheap, so it remains to be seen if you even ran the beta at all, but running a beta OS in a VM is asking for trouble.

-It treats “you” like a baby. The rest of us who know how to configure our machines don’t have this problem. Automatic Updates, UAC, and Security Center can ALL be configured to stay out of the way.

-Yes, any machine with an install base as large as Windows will be the target of all forms of malicious software. Here, the best defense is an educated user.

-Multiple desktops have been available on windows for years via a PowerToy add on or other 3rd party add ons. You can even replace “explorer.exe” with another shell if you wish (ie Lightstep). It’s not a useful feature for many, and is nowhere near as useful as multiple displays.

By: Annonymous Coward

Annonymous Coward — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 08:08:01 +0000

meh……..

……….still windows.