Having been annoyed by Windows 10's bloatware, I've wanted to change OSes for a long time, but it dawned upon me don't really know what I should get. Many people like Linux, but I have enough Windows exclusive software that I'm not interested in switching. The obvious answer then would be Windows 7, but is there any reason for not going back to 64 bit XP if you don't care about say, Windows Aero? The concern seems to stem from Microsoft no longer doing security updates, but I always have everything backed up and use Killdisk if I get a bad virus, which almost never happens anyway, so I'm not concerned. Lack of compatibility with newer programs would probably be a far bigger issue...
Windows 7 will lose security updates in January 2020.
What did you use before Windows, and what did you lose when you switched?
Windows 3.1? Duck
Even if you go back to windows 7, the update will sooner or later finish and the telemetry junk will be installed unless you meticulously select with one to install and block some. So... Even though I do not enjoy much windows 10, we are stuck with it.
If you just want windows, don't mind not connecting to the internet then I would go back to windows XP just for the performance boost but many tools I'm using wouldn't work so I'm stuck. Wouldn't mind 1 isolated xp machine though for basic stuff.
Windows 7 is the answer for now. 8 and 10 are disasters, where 7 was rock solid. Like tepples said, you'll lose security updates in a couple years, so you'll have to reevaluate then or put up some other safeguards.
XP had already stopped getting updates, and it's going to get harder and harder to make sure stuff is still compatible with it
tepples wrote:
Windows 7 will lose security updates in January 2020.
That soon? Windows 7 is still the most widely used PC operating system (if I'm not mistaken), although Microsoft clearly doesn't care about appearing pro-consumer anymore, as evidenced by all of Windows 10's adware.
tepples wrote:
What did you use before Windows, and what did you lose when you switched?
Nothing; I started with an old Windows XP desktop when I was young, then got a budget Windows 7 laptop, then a Windows 10 laptop where the hinge broke, and now I use my grandmother's originally Windows Vista laptop that I replaced the hard drive of and downloaded Windows 10. I just never realized the extent of all the bs.
Banshaku wrote:
Even if you go back to windows 7, the update will sooner or later finish and the telemetry junk will be installed unless you meticulously select with one to install and block some.
What?
I guess what I'm wondering, is what do the security updates do/how to they work? I almost never download anything and only visit a handful of regular websites, so I'm not sure how much I should be concerned.
I successfully beat Windows 8 into a semblance of usability. (Classic Shell was a requirement, as was uninstalling almost everything from PowerShell)
I've heard of people misusing the Windows XP -based Windows Embedded POSready to get very limited security updates for XP machines.
The problem with Windows 10 is not that it's spyware (although it is); it's that they basically blow away any of your customizations they don't like every 6 months.
lidnariq wrote:
The problem with Windows 10 is not that it's spyware (although it is); it's that they basically blow away any of your customizations they don't like every 6 months.
With many of those customizations being: disabling the spyware.
10 is the best version.
XP is really getting nostalgia googles now. we all think XP was "the best" and "great" but you go back and use it now and its "man what was I thinking". However if you want a "modern XP" there is ReactOS which is a free open source reinterpretation of XP and runs most XP stuff fine. Just don't expect any new tools too work for you.
7 is not bad.
8.1 (the .1 is vital ) is better than 7
Oziphantom wrote:
XP is really getting nostalgia googles now. we all think XP was "the best" and "great" but you go back and use it now and its "man what was I thinking".
I still use XP from time to time in virtual machines and recovery CDs, and it's still pretty great. The only reason I stopped using it as my main OS is because it wouldn't run newer software. And the only reason I'm using 10 now is because some stuff wouldn't work on 7. But man, does XP *FLY* on my current PC...! I swear, it feels like programs open even before the mouse button clicks! It really saddens me that we likely won't ever get that kind of performance from a current OS, since the bloat increases at the same rate as the hardware becomes more powerful...
I think windows 10 is great for my productivity on average, but
-i don't rely on my settings to be permanent/reliable, including update settings... ugh. I've lost hours of work that way on at least 3 occasions i can remember.
-settings GUI is a total pain to navigate
-there are things you can't easily disable, such as the relatively recent "people" icon on the taskbar.
-i'm getting really tired of the platitudes accompanying the login screen pictures, and more so since a misclick often results in opening Edge and bing.
edit: in win10, the powershell gui can be turned off in favour of the classic command prompt - this is in the taskbar settings. win+x or right clicking on the windows icon will then launch the command prompt. But i don't mind it. I just type cmd in the search field i've placed on the taskbar if i need it, or the more classic approach win+r: cmd
tokumaru wrote:
Oziphantom wrote:
XP is really getting nostalgia googles now. we all think XP was "the best" and "great" but you go back and use it now and its "man what was I thinking".
I still use XP from time to time in virtual machines and recovery CDs, and it's still pretty great. The only reason I stopped using it as my main OS is because it wouldn't run newer software. And the only reason I'm using 10 now is because some stuff wouldn't work on 7. But man, does XP *FLY* on my current PC...! I swear, it feels like programs open even before the mouse button clicks! It really saddens me that we likely won't ever get that kind of performance from a current OS, since the bloat increases at the same rate as the hardware becomes more powerful...
I have a Win95 VM.. Blink and you miss the boot.. I remember sitting for ages watching it boot on my P133, well actually I did that a couple of months ago...
Yeah OS complexity increases to stop the P4 dilemma mostly. But Win + Left or Right is my instant NOPE can't use this any more moment.. Night screen mode has also been a real savior for me.
FrankenGraphics wrote:
I think windows 10 is great for my productivity on average, but
-i don't rely on my settings to be permanent/reliable, including update settings... ugh. I've lost hours of work that way on at least 3 occasions i can remember.
-settings GUI is a total pain to navigate
-there are things you can't easily disable, such as the relatively recent "people" icon on the taskbar.
-i'm getting really tired of the platitudes accompanying the login screen pictures, and more so since a misclick often results in opening Edge and bing.
edit: in win10, the powershell gui can be turned off in favour of the classic command prompt - this is in the taskbar settings. win+x or right clicking on the windows icon will then launch the command prompt. But i don't mind it. I just type cmd in the search field i've placed on the taskbar if i need it, or the more classic approach win+r: cmd
The splitting of settings is annoying(but I accept it is better for lay people), but you can search the settings, so I just type what I want into the search bar in settings and it finds and opens it for me.
I just use Space bar to sign in, saves any click issues.
That's a good tip. There's the usual problem with localized names for settings. I use the english version precisely for that reason, but if i'm on an installation set to swedish, good luck to me finding anything in the settings, haha. I assume it's the same for other localizations.
One thing that annoys me a lot occasionally with the explorer search is that "view as" settings for each catalog is stored separately for plain view and when in search mode. So if you've set your catalog to "list" or "details", it will load the default value of "large icons" when searching, unless you've changed it manually at some point for that folder while in search mode at the same time. If anything, a search ought to be defaulted to a condensed detailed list so the result is easy to browse and sort. Or just store a unified view mode setting regardless search mode...
There's also some UX annoyances with folders containing over some thresholds' worth of sound files, but i think that's been there for quite long.
Maybe you can get rid of some stuff by programming a separate computer (perhaps with Linux or BSD) to tamper with the data that it transmits/receives by internet. You can filter out Windows Update, Windows Store, etc
You can also dual boot if necessary.
There is also Wine, although you will have to see if the programs you want are compatible. (Sometimes there are also alternative programs that can do similar thing, e.g. LibreOffice.)
The best versions of Windows are of course NT 4.0 and Windows 2000. Sadly they are both obsolete, and it has been downhill since.
tepples wrote:
What did you use before Windows, and what did you lose when you switched?
I know this question wasn't adressing to me, but I used a commodore 64, does this count ? I also think I used IBM OS/2 a little bit.
Windows 2000 indeed. Stability without the crap XP brought. ...what, it doesn't run any of the software you use on Windows 10? No, you don't say
If you think on it a moment, you're playing a losing game. Even if XP or 7 buys you a few years, eventually shit hits the fan and you're again faced with the same choice. Then it might be 10 or the current, top of the line, monthly fee-having spymaster, but I believe that you won't be able to install "just 10" anymore. Start weaning yourself to a Free OS.
I think the general design problem with windows lately is that they've half-forgotten that a computer is and should primarily be for making work and creative processes easier/more effective. Does a feature help the user get a better work/creative hobby experience? If not, don't. Save that for your next phone/tablet update, which is better suited for those ends. An OS UI can't really try to be both and at the same time excel at either.
I'm now using linux everyday at work as a desktop and I'm more than happy with it. The only reason I keep windows at home is for a few programs (getting less and less every years) and some games. For working, not necessary anymore. Maybe one old editor I made in .net, that's it.
A big problem (well, one of many) with 2000 is that there was no 64 but version, was there? It shouldn't take advantage of multiple cores either, so even with Windows XP's extra bloat, it seems like it should be faster overall. I'm much more CPU than hard drive bound, but even my CPU is overkill for either OS.
I used to use Windows XP on my old computer, but since I got a new computer, I use Linux instead, and it is just a much better design than Microsoft Windows.
I should really just bite the bullet and switch to Linux, but there's some software and random stuff like batch files I've made that I know won't be compatible with Linux, but should still work on XP (Rosetta Stone, lol.
)
I know Windows instal sizes are only going to get bigger from here on out though...
Drew Sebastino wrote:
I should really just bite the bullet and switch to Linux, but there's some software and random stuff like batch files I've made that I know won't be compatible with Linux, but should still work on XP (Rosetta Stone, lol.
)
I know Windows instal sizes are only going to get bigger from here on out though...
I bit the bullet and made the switch when Windows 8 came out. Haven't regretted it yet, with Linux Mint things have finally gotten smooth enough that most things work well and it's not too fiddly. I still keep a windows 7 VM via virtualbox for a few things that need windows, but otherwise, WINE does the trick.
Drew Sebastino wrote:
I should really just bite the bullet and switch to Linux, but there's some software and random stuff like batch files I've made that I know won't be compatible with Linux
If you use batch files, you'll
love Bash.
Drew Sebastino wrote:
but should still work on XP (Rosetta Stone, lol.
)
If something still works on Windows XP and doesn't depend on specialized device drivers (like iTunes or Fitbit), Wine is likely to run it.
Drew Sebastino wrote:
I know Windows instal sizes are only going to get bigger from here on out though...
Some users here complain about the
735 MB install size of Wine, but in practice, the install size of Windows has long since surpassed that of Xubuntu + Wine.
Batch files are very limited. That what I was using like, hmm, 28 years ago under dos?
If the batch files are simple they will be easily migrated to a bash script. You can even test it before migrating with the windows subsystem for linux on windows 10, which could be a good starting place for testing your scripts without installing a linux in a vm. I was using batch files at first for my project but now everything is either shell scripts with make files, more convenient.
So I've never been much of a Windows guy. OS X was awesome to me for a long time because it was a more mainstream Unix system. I've always kept a Windows computer (or a VM) around for some random software that I needed to run, but it was always just an expensive extra to me.
I'll use Windows for contract work when it's needed, but bah... Dealing with Win 10 in the last year has easily been the most frustration I've ever gotten out of it. Forced updates in the middle of the day while I'm using my computer, Windows Defender realtime protection kicking in and eating up a whole core every time PS4 clang starts compiling something, etc, etc, etc.
So I bought an extra SSD and put Ubuntu on it and used desktop Linux for the first time after ~15 years of using OS X. It was pretty immediately comfortable. (Obviously) all of the Unix stuff I was already comfortable with. If you squint the default shell (Gnome 3) was basically Windows and/or OS X without any of the crap that nobody asks for (like automatic forced updates, or app store lock-in). WINE worked flawlessly for every Windows tool I needed. Well over half of my Steam library was available. On our next contract project I used Ubuntu exclusively for "real" work for the first month. It was... really nice. SSH worked, mDNS worked, git worked, I didn't have to deal with "wrong" line endings, Unity basically worked, it was fast, it didn't randomly reboot for updates. When I eventually had to start booting into Windows to do game console builds again, LOL. Within one week every single one of those things were right back.
This forum has a rare breed of person that doesn't run screaming when assembly language is discussed. If you are that kind of person, then you can probably learn to use Linux effectively. Maybe you wont like it, but I think it's worth a try. My productivity is marginally better on Linux at best, but I don't constantly feel frustrated by it at least.
Banshaku wrote:
I was using batch files at first for my project but now everything is either shell scripts with make files, more convenient.
I now agree it's more convenient, but the learning curve for makefiles is rather high and they're rather confusing. For the first 5 years or so I had to work with linux systems I hated those.
Linux, while great for a lot of things, still has a lot of inconveniences. For instance I install a french version of the system, and for whathever reason Thunderbird is in english, and cannot be made speaking french. Or when updating the system, you frequently have some warnings or error messages in English only (no matter what language you installed the system in), it's necessary to search for the error messages on internet using a web-searcher, and to find forums or a SE question which are english only to find a solution. Also, for most distros, you need to use the command line and "sudo" even to do simple things that aren't harmful to your system, like to get any extra configuration. This is no major problem for me, but for 99% of the population this is a deal-breaker. This is the kind of things that makes the general population afraid of linux.
Quote:
This forum has a rare breed of person that doesn't run screaming when assembly language is discussed. If you are that kind of person, then you can probably learn to use Linux effectively.
Linux has nothing to do with assembly language. It's more about obscure technical configuration files hidden somewhere on your system and lacking some code in them, or stuff like that.
Its funny, I find Linux to be utterly incompetent. Its like OSX with twice the bugs. Do a search for files in the browser and watch the text box jump to some random spot in the bottom of the window. I install software that has an installer, and it still fails, and I have to dig though the multiple bin folders to find where it is and sudo run it manually. I honestly wonder what people do with it. No Office ( and no Open office, libre office etc are not replacements, they pail in comparison, I've tried them ), No Visual Studio so you are debugging on GDB, No fast and easy to use GUI programming to make quick tools in. No c64 sprite editors, char editors, map editors, most NES tools, SNES tools etc are all windows. I think you have a working Spotify, but no WinAmp as back up? No calc key, no Adobe Suite, Paint Shop Pro, Clip Studio, Corel Suite. Video editing, sewing machine software, steam games ( apart from 20 or so ), slack linux is in beta, no github desktop. no Regenerator or IGA, Netflix? Skype? Proper GPU Drivers, no Coarsair Cue. Can you watch a Blu ray? Burn a Blu Ray? Maths input tool? Cruncyroll? Sites that still need Flash like choosing your set at a concert? Print and Scan, Scan with full duplex and OCR? Snipping tool?
Lunduke has been basically making the same Linux sucks video for 18 years. He has even stopped making them, because he is sick of just repeating himself.
BATCH files are nice, and they usually get the job done. But if you want something more complex to do something harder. VBS and JSS are there, both of which blow bash away, and VBS has been there since Win98.
^^ I have a hard time believing you're being serious, that sounds more than a bit like over-the-top parody.
I prefer Windows XP
Because on Windows XP the Path of Exile, my favorite currency farm game, worked best for me.
Many people ask me sometimes about whether it is worth - I answer - it is worth buying and selling orbs. Thanks to them you can know more about what items should be used and what are the current prices.
Vaal orb is similar in appearance to Exalted, but all of these orbs are essentially different from each other and have a completely different application.
On the other hand, I have never seen anyone confuse the orbs and exalted orbs, probably because it is the main currency and monetary unit in the path of exile. If you are looking for a suitable place to buy exalted orbs and poe currency, you should definitely try Odealo. There are the best prices and the cheapest poe currency.
buy poe currencyThese are just some of the reasons why I use Windows XP, I preferred it when it was updated and had support.
Nope genuine question, how does one do all of those things? Can you even do all of them?
Every time I've taken a swig of the "this is the year of linux, this is the decade of linux" linux is good now, we fixed all the stuff", 20mins later, back on windows, because I can't do A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,X,Y,Z. Or you can do if I spend 4 days reading forums to duct tape something that kind of mostly does it, but with a lot of hassle.
One job I had to develop on linux, I could not find a GIT GUI app that did the most practical of things, and I'm happy with GIT Desktop on Windows, so my bar is low, very very low. Why don't they even make it on Linux.
Then I had to get video working on QT on Ubuntu, turns out not a great idea, some holy war between the devs, I played package bingo for 2 days before they decided it wasn't worth paying for my time to do it anymore.
I use Xilnix Devpack ISE, due to it not working on Windows 10, I decided to give the linux version a go, should be the same right? even has an installer.. dig though the file structure and sudo run something every time I want to run it...
I mean I've written this twice, because I went to the loo and Windows took the opportunity to reboot and install updates, I get the problems with Windows.
How many of the missing "editors" work vs. don't work with Wine?
"NES tools"? The entire build process for all my own NES work as well as my contract work (
Haunted: Halloween '85 and
The Curse of Possum Hollow) runs on Linux, using GIMP, cc65, Python, Pillow (Python Imaging Library), and GNU Make.
What does Paint Shop Pro do that Krita and GIMP fail at? What does Microsoft Office do that LibreOffice fails at, other than run VBA-heavy Excel spreadsheets such as the feed validators that Amazon offers to sellers on its platform?
GitHub Desktop is available for X11/Linux. See
shiftkey/desktop for binaries.
Slack.com works without problem in Chromium on Debian and Firefox on Ubuntu. So does Discordapp.com, with the exception that only Chromium and not Firefox can upload custom emoji to a server.
I guess it depends what you do on linux and what kind of expectation you have. I use it everyday at work for a desktop and it does the job for a developer. The kind of app I will use will be Firefox, Chrome, Skype, git (command line), visual studio code, Intellij, Gimp, Libre Office (I'm not a heavy user of office and the company standardized on it so it's enough for my needs), connect to the office network printer etc and I do not have any major problem.
If you want to use it at home then depending on your need it may be an issue. Video drivers are getting better these days but for bluray this is a good question, it may not work. I don't use media anymore on pc so I wouldn't know. 15~20 years ago it was the norm but now I only used a bluray drive to backup data. For game, yes, it would be an issue since windows is the norm for game.
One of the reason that makes me want to give up windows 10 is telemetry, reboot because the OS decided it was "the right time" to do it even though it wasn't, all kind of new process running at inappropriate time that slow down the machine (on a core 2 duo compare to the i5 8th you kind of feel it quite bad when it decide to do it).
For now at home I use windows since it's installed on that old computer and because for games. At work, don't need anymore since I don't do .net like 10 years ago.
So it depends on your needs. Use the tools (os in that case) based on your needs and not for some idealism or whatever: it's just a waste of time to do it that way
Quote:
Nope genuine question, how does one do all of those things? Can you even do all of them?
Well the main part in why it looks like satire is that some of those things are "why would you even do that", I wouldn't want to do those things even on Windows.
- Office - MS Office became absolutely unusable with the ribbon. Then there was the constant breaking of formats to get you to pay for the latest Office. Libreoffice is just as usable as pre-ribbon MS Office, and it doesn't break its formats.
- Visual Studio - just why? It's a terrible environment, though that's mainly my opinion
- no easy GUI programming - I find FLTK very easy, and there's plenty of options like Tk. Are you comparing to Visual Basic? Qt and Gtk+ are indeed more complex, even with Qt Creator or Glade.
- c64/nes/snes tools, most of those are not very complex. It wouldn't take you long to write your own alternatives for the ones that require Windows
- WinAmp, there's something like a dozen music players that replicate its look, starting from XMMS
- image editors, many artists prefer Krita to the proprietary options you listed. Gimp's UI is indeed bad if you prefer PS-style
- slack client, why would you even use that? It's one of the Electron crapshoots, essentially running an embedded Chrome, taking hundreds of megs and tons of cpu. Just run slack in a browser
- Github desktop, again why.
Linux was the first OS to be able to burn blurays, but of course I'm speaking data, not movies. On GPU drivers, if you look at the latest benchmarks on Phoronix, AMD's open drivers have been beating their closed drivers on performance since about a year ago. Not to even talk about stability.
edit: Just like tepples, I've completed several NES titles, and I haven't really been hindered by a lack of tools. I've also completed many Genesis titles and one SNES title, same applies for them. You would be correct about the music though, Famitracker and some similar composing tools for the other consoles do not run natively; but since I can't compose anyway, it doesn't matter for me.
Provided your X11/Linux box is x86 or x86-64 (not an ARM device like a Pinebook or Raspberry Pi), FamiTracker works near-flawlessly in Wine 1.8 or later once you crank the buffer length up to 80 ms or so.
Working versions: jsr FamiTracker 0.4.6; 0CC-FamiTracker 0.3.15.1 and later; j0CC-FamiTracker
I have a few laptops running various versions of windows and I like windows 7 the best. I know it inside and out and it doesn't frustrate me.
calima wrote:
- no easy GUI programming - I find FLTK very easy, and there's plenty of options like Tk. Are you comparing to Visual Basic? Qt and Gtk+ are indeed more complex, even with Qt Creator or Glade.
Ozy might like
Lazarus, an open source implementation of Delphi, which was like Visual Basic except Good
Libre office, it came installed on my mums laptop and I have to help her with things like. I changed the size of some text in a table, and it looks fine on the screen, but is the same size it was when I print it. To which she sends it to me, I make the change in Office, send it back and she prints it fine. It probably does everything, but doing everything and doing everything in a simple and fast manor is also important. Re Ribbon interface, I'm with you on it, that it was prompted me to install Open Office in the first place. The "good" thing about the ribbon interface is ALT still brings up the menu, and the underscored letters are still there so you can just use ALT + key, key key etc to select everything as per Word 95.
GIMP vs PSP - to be fair probably about par. Although my gut says the Vector support, animation via Animation Shop and the IFF/ILBM support is better on PSP. Also PSP makes a single window that holds everything not the million little windows all over the place with no container like GIMP. TBF I mostly on use GIMP on the mac, which is probably at it worst.
Upon looking up NES tools on ROMHacking.net I will concede "nothing lost there". On the C64 side I would say it seems to be about 33% work on WINE, the amount seems to be dropping as us Window devs are moving more and more to Win8+/Win10+ dev solutions, the "if it works on XP it works on WINE" is starting to fall off. Although after a while it seems somebody does work out a magic combo to get X mostly working. Or WINE gets an update and then App X can be now run etc.
Github desktop - then why don't they mention it on their site, seeing as they are the Linux fans of Linux fans.. I guess its an "unofficial" "port" of a JS app
Good to know though, thanks.
Why Github Desktop? because it is a horrible piece of crap, but it a less horrible piece of crap than the command line, and as much as source-tree looks good its Atlassian and GIT is painful enough already. GIT Kracken looked really good, but it didn't support my "window manager" not sure on the right term, so I couldn't get it to open. Shared directory to windows and Push/Pull from Windows was just far less hassle.
As for dev I find it far easier to be able to use the same tools the Artists use, so when I need to modify something I can them give them back a modified Charpad 2.x file or Spritepad or Pixcen bitmap etc Especially once we get to the point that we need the extra meta data and things to be in the exact right spot. GoatTracker likewise. Making my own custom tool is fine, but everybody in the team needs to use it, which means it needs a windows version as well as anything else.
Visual Studio is the best code and development tool on the planet. People say its takes 5 mins to load, and to be fair it does. However I open it once, and then 2 edit and continues later I'm ahead. Also nobody should be using Visual Basic(or Delphi for that matter) in this day and age. Not even if you are one of those holdouts who use VB6 rather than VB.net as VB.net is akin to VB as FRED.net is. C# + XAML, is insanely fast to cut code in. The Auto binding is Voodoo, Edit and Continue makes the GUI tweaks happen in rapid fire. The you have the static analyzer to catch bugs. Itellisense, and the refactoring tools always make life smooth, oh and switch on a string is Ambrosia.
FLTK, can you drag in a button, double click it and then write the OnClick code? Can you make a class with member with a name, then tell the control to data bind to that member in the class. Then in your code assign the data binding to an instance and have all the controls on the GUI update their contents of the bound members of said instance, and then when you modify the controls have the instance updated without writing a single line of code to do so? When a button doesn't quite work correctly, can you pause the code, modify the code, run again and test the new code right where you left off? If an exception fires, can you fix the code where it broke, and have it wind back to before the exception fired to allow you to continue and test to see if your changes now handle it correctly?
Slack Client, because I already have 3 windows ( 2 firefox, 1 Edge) and having conversations on the web browser, while trying to look at and reference the other tabs is really inefficient. Especially if I need to reference some other tabs at the same time. Its bad enough that app is made my mac-flunkies who use SDI rather than MDI so I can't have a window and task bar entry per group. Sadly the "new" skype also follows this trend...
You worry about Telemetry in Windows yet you run Chrome?
Better drivers than AMD, for AMD... I will believe that, I don't even need to see the benchmarks
Like I mentioned, you use the os based on your needs. If your company works entirely with windows it's kind of hard to impose another OS unless some apps are multiplaform. In my environment you use the machine you wants with the OS you want so it is based on your need, as long you can work with the rest of the team, which is mostly with linux based server, docker, git, angular, java etc. So linux as no impact per-se. I had no problem on a mac and some people are on windows too. It depends on your needs.
Visual studio, I liked it until the 2008 version but now it's getting quite heavy for my core 2 duo so I only use 2017 when really necessary. I do not make .net code anymore so I rarely touch it. Once I can update my machine it may be worth it to try it again. Testing compile for c++ code with wxWidget is, well, sllllooowwwww ^^;;;
Regarding chrome, I don't use it to browse but exclusively for debugging angular code since there is a plugin with visual studio code. Except for that I'm not using it anymore.
These days I use all 3 os almost once per day so I'm not bound to one, it depends to what I do and when. I like that. But I use less and less windows compared to 10 years ago. I prefer Win7 and before era of windows. UI wise, win2000 is my favorite, clear and simple ui.
If your livelihood depends on graphics tools, there’s an equation you have to balance. Inkscape? A complete crashfest nighmare last time i tried it. GiMP? Usable, but you’re limited in what you can do and my workflow is worse. Those two situations are effectively $/hour dumps, since i get payed per completed contract, not per hour. Then you have to balance if you use adobe CC so much that it is worth the subscriptions. If you just need photoshop you can still buy and forever own Photoshop CS which is about as good. Few feature changes justify subscribing to *just* Photoshop CC. You want to make use of most of the suite.
I also use DAW:s from time to time, but rarely professionally. I think that’s another field where linux is lacking.
On the other hand, i switched to OpenOffice when MSOffice introduced the ribbon. It has a bunch of inconveniences of its own, but the ribbon was a terrible downgrade and now you have to subscribe to it.
Quote:
FLTK, can you drag in a button, double click it and then write the OnClick code?
Yes, you can do exactly this. The data binding magic or restart-from-this-point-with-a-new-binary magic do not exist though.
I don't run Chrome, I run a browser I wrote myself
Surely both FF and Edge have the option to open in a new window instead of a new tab?
Oziphantom wrote:
Also PSP makes a single window that holds everything not the million little windows all over the place with no container like GIMP.
In GIMP, open Windows > Single Window Mode
(It is turned on by default in new installs of 2.10 and later.)
Oziphantom wrote:
Visual Studio is the best code and development tool on the planet.
Have you tried Visual Studio Code, as opposed to "regular" Visual Studio? I concede it's probably missing the "edit, rewind, and continue" stuff.
Oziphantom wrote:
Slack Client, because I already have 3 windows ( 2 firefox, 1 Edge) and having conversations on the web browser, while trying to look at and reference the other tabs is really inefficient.
I'm with calima about this: Why can't you make a new window in the web browser, for a total of 3 in Firefox (one of them being Slack) and 1 Edge? Is it just that it doesn't appear distinct enough in the system taskbar?
On linux, I have 2 slack clients opened in different tab in the first browser and the tabs are pinned so they always stay at the same place. I never make mistake with it. And I have the proper widget for alert so when someone sends a message, I now right away about it even though I'm on a different virtual desktop.
tepples wrote:
Oziphantom wrote:
Visual Studio is the best code and development tool on the planet.
Have you tried Visual Studio Code, as opposed to "regular" Visual Studio? I concede it's probably missing the "edit, rewind, and continue" stuff.
The only thing Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio have in common is the name and the company behind them. One is a source code editor (more akin to Notepad++ or Atom), the other is a full-featured IDE. Visual Studio Code wouldn't be a useful replacement for Visual Studio unless you use almost none of the features that make Visual Studio interesting.
VSCode is not a replacement for visual studio but a nice code editor with many interesting plug-in these days. I'm now using it to edit my nes code on windows, mac and linux. Before I was using notepad++ and had nothing for other platform but vscode with it's quite good intellisense is very useful and I can manage files a lot better.
I'm usually against editor made with electron since they ends up bloated but this one became so good that I have no choice to let this one pass.
The main problem with GIMP for me is the lack of non-destructive editing (i.e. smart layers, filters and effects). It's OK for quick edits, but I can't live without the smart/dynamic stuff when working on something I'll have to modify at a later time. Saving backup layers and creating scripts/macros is NOT a good enough alternative.
And the main problem I have with Inkscape is the lack of a CMYK mode. The few times I tried to send stuff made in Inkscape for printing, the print guys had to contact me because the colors weren't right and I had to resource to hacks in order to fix it (e.g. change color by color manually in other problem, which sometimes would screw up other things in the file).
tokumaru wrote:
The main problem with GIMP for me is the lack of non-destructive editing (i.e. smart layers, filters and effects).
Adjustment layers have been in Photoshop for decades, but GIMP fanboys on Slashdot seem to be unaware of them, and I have to explain what they are in full every time I mention them. Krita has adjustment layers, but then Krita doesn't do indexed mode.
FWIW non-destructive editing is on GIMP's
roadmap. I'm sure it will
eventually happen, but I wouldn't bet that it will happen in the next 5 years.
Myself I haven't used Photshop often enough to be efficient/effective with adjustment layers anyway. I've seen how they're used and why they're effective, but I can
generally do what I want within GIMP anyway. I would say that I am quite used to duplicating layers, and using groups, etc. to accomplish tasks similar to what these features are for. FrankenGraphics refers to a $/hour tradeoff, but TBH it's hard to make real comparisons like this. How much of that tradeoff is really inherent in a feature like adjustment layers, and how much of it is just in using Photoshop daily and GIMP rarely? Not saying that right now the tradeoff isn't a real and possibly measurable effect, but it's definitely a moving target. (...and like FG said, if you don't use it enough it's not worth the trade anyway.)
Like GDB was mentioned. If I have to use GDB right now, it is very much a slower debugger for me, being used to Visual Studio or other similar IDEs. However, a few times in my life I had to use GDB regularly, and after a day or two I got pretty effective with it. What might take me 50x as long today might only be 2x as long tomorrow. Similarly as a daily GIMP user, if I bought Photoshop today I'm sure it would take me a while to be comfortable enough with it to get any time advantage with it. I'm pretty sure after some practice it
would be faster, but the crticial question is how much, and how much that's worth.
So... for the most part I try to keep using free / open source stuff very often, both because it's free and legal, and also too keep up my skill/practice/comfort with it. If I'm doing a lot of work with something and a commercial tool seems a reasonable value I don't really hesitate to purchase it, though.
Operating systems for me just need to run the software I want to run. That's about it. They're all generally pretty capable at the basic stuff. I have minor opinions about UI, but none of them are dealbreakers to me. Stuff I want to run consistently being unavailable or broken is a problem though. I regularly use Android, Linux, and Mac OSX in various forms, but Windows is still my main. All versions of Windows have been "fine", in my view, at least in the long run, because at the end of the day, they
run the software, and the rest is minor details. There's stuff I
hate about every OS I've ever used, but I can't think of anything that's ever been critical to me except software support.
If I wasn't so interested in modern games, I'd most likely be using Linux mainly. Though... even the last few years my interest in big budget games has declined, and with a huge rise in Unity and GameMaker, etc. there's been a ton of good games on Linux through Steam anyway, so I think that gap has been closing slowly. Still not quite there, but it's closer than ever to being a viable main for me. (The problems with drivers and stuff that has traditionally plagued Linux has been getting progressively better over time, IMO.)
rainwarrior wrote:
FWIW non-destructive editing is on GIMP's
roadmap. I'm sure it will
eventually happen, but I wouldn't bet that it will happen in the next 5 years.
In theory, the implementation sounds simple enough... just save the original and cache the transformations, when the transformations change, rebuild the cache. If the original changes, same thing. OK, maybe I'm oversimplifying things... I'm not considering previewing, for example, but even without that, just the basic implementation would help a lot.
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Myself I haven't used Photshop often enough to be efficient/effective with adjustment layers anyway. I've seen how they're used and why they're effective, but I can generally do what I want within GIMP anyway.
Like I said, if you just want to get something done and forget about it, GIMP is fine, but when you work in an advertisement agency (like I have) and you reuse previous work a lot, and there's a lot of back and forth between the designers and the clients where all kinds of little adjustments are necessary, GIMP doesn't cut it. Designers often have layers and layers of effects applied on top of each other, and any of them can change at any time, and it's not practical at all to constantly redo the whole chain of transformations every time you need to tweak a little detail in the middle.
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How much of that tradeoff is really inherent in a feature like adjustment layers, and how much of it is just in using Photoshop daily and GIMP rarely?
I used GIMP almost exclusively before working at that agency, but once I finally understood what the other designers were doing in Photoshop, that greatly increased my productivity. Not only you have less layers and groups to manage due to not having to make manual backups, but the software will automatically rebuild everything for you every time a parameter changes. It's a HUGE time saver. Maybe it's the kind of thing that before you use you don't see what the big deal is, because you can achieve the same results without it, but once you get used to it you just can't live without. I still use GIMP for quick edits that I'll never touch again, but if it's something for a client that will need to be tweaked and reused to hell, I wouldn't consider anything but Photoshop.
Think about effects applied on text, for example... you can just edit heavily stylized text normally, and see the results instantaneously, so you can play with font sizes, character spacing, etc. and immediately see what works best with the effects. Can you imagine trying dozens of variations of text formatting and manually applying effects to transform it every time until you find the ideal combination?
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Operating systems for me just need to run the software I want to run.
That and be reliable. I'm not too picky about UI stuff either, I can adapt.
Yeah, that's definitely a good use case for Photoshop. I mean, if I worked for an ad agency I'd assume they'd be paying for the license anyway, though if I was a freelancer doing that kind of stuff I'm sure I'd already have it myself.
Like the perspective I look at it from is using GIMP daily for pixel art stuff, and frequent minor image editing. I do occasionally use it for more complicated design layout or other drawing, but by far my primary application for it is pixel art, and it's really not deficient for that need. I'm sure there are some uses for adjustment layers there, but I have a hard time imagining how much. Like I think the kinds of things I'd want to use them for just aren't frequent needs. (And a lot of the things I think I
would use them for are operations that I can
almost do efficiently in GIMP anyway. I would love to be surprised though, if anyone's got any cool Photoshop pixel-art adjustment layer tricks to share.)
That's sort of why I have a hard time when people want to make huge value differences between these two things, it's only more valuable if you can actually make use of those features. It's not better until you have a situation they apply to,
and you're trained enough to use them. (Same like the idea that FCEUX is "inaccurate"... it's very accurate for a lot of purposes, and some of its tools have serious advantages for the right situation.)
In a specific thing like tweaking a series of font transformations, yeah doing that efficiently in GIMP is not easy. Either a lot of manually redoing steps, or you learn how to work with scripts (which has a huge learning curve, but for my needs it's definitely paid off to learn). ...and yeah, also terrible for transferring to other people to work with (and useless for collaborating with people that use Photoshop already), but that's never been my job or need. Having something that makes editing something for a fussy client way faster doesn't help me if I don't have any fussy clients.
FWIW knowing GIMP has been useful to me in many professional and non-professional situations, where there has been some immediate need to do some image editing. I can download it, use it, do the job quickly, no worry about licensing / dongles / pirating / cracking / viruses, and its portable version is only about 100MB these days. ...but if I hadn't already been ready to use it, it would have pretty much been worthless because of its stupidly obtuse learning curve.
I would definitely say that a lot of the things you can do with adjustment layer type things are way more intuitive to figure out than anything equivalent in GIMP. (I avoided it for many years, but I regret that because learning it has been great to me. It's way more capable than every other
free image editor I've ever used, except for doing animation, but I go to Aseprite for that.)
Though who knows, maybe if I constantly had Photoshop on my computer ready to play with I'd be tempted to do tasks that it's suited for more often.
I might have developed different hobbies, ha ha.
The tool I liked the most when I was actively drawing was deluxe paint animation but these days I do not think you can really use it. Maybe still for nes based thing inside dosBox ^^;;;
rainwarrior wrote:
Like the perspective I look at it from is using GIMP daily for pixel art stuff, and frequent minor image editing.
Yeah, for that kind of work, GIMP is great. Photoshop's non-destructive editing doesn't help much with pixel art, really... when working with a limited number of colors, there are hardly any transformations you can do. There's one thing that might help though: smart objects. A smart object is a layer that doesn't contain an actual bitmap, only a reference to a separate graphics document (bitmap or vector). Any changes you do to it won't modify the original graphic. What's interesting for pixel art though is that there can be multiple references to the same smart object, so if you do change the original graphic, all instances will be updated. This could be useful if you were designing a tile map, or even a level, seeing as you could have each tile or metatile be its own smart object. You can't edit smart objects in place though, so that limits the usefulness of the technique. Maybe if you wanted to reuse animation frames in multiple animations you could edit the individual frames in a single place, I don't know. I never did any of that, I basically use 3 tools when doing pixel art: pen, eraser, drag. And layers, mostly for animation.
Quote:
FWIW knowing GIMP has been useful to me in many professional and non-professional situations, where there has been some immediate need to do some image editing. I can download it, use it, do the job quickly, no worry about licensing / dongles / pirating / cracking / viruses, and its portable version is only about 100MB these days.
Yeah, I've used GIMP like that too. I still do, occasionally.
re Slack in a browser window.
Having its own icon that won't get grouped, and will show notifications on it that there is new stuff. It shows toasts, integrates with the notification panel and follows the rules of "focus" mode. I don't think the browser version would so as well.
To be clear, I have a Ryzen 5 1600 that has 8 cores unlocked so 16T with 16GB of RAM. So I run 3~4 instances of VS 2017 + VS Code + Slack + Skype + relaunched + 1 or 2 Regenerators + other editors + Photoshop and/or Illustrator + emulators all at once and don't notice the slightest issues with CPU power.
Oh and if you build C++ bringing up the Task Manager hit F5 and watch all 16 go to 100%, the power you feel
Another aspect for Photoshop, all Adobe stuff. I can pay $15 get a really good training video series on Udemy, Lynda et all, with a bunch of teachers or focuses to learn from and I can learn how to use them quickly. More websites cover tips and tricks, youtube videos etc, If I need to do 'a thing' its a lot easier to see a quick video that will show me 'the thing'. Support around a tool is also important.
Banshaku wrote:
The tool I liked the most when I was actively drawing was deluxe paint animation but these days I do not think you can really use it. Maybe still for nes based thing inside dosBox ^^;;;
PC DP II are you mad? WinUAE and DP V don't muck around with the lame PC version
However if you are doing pixel art, I don't recommend GIMP or Photoshop. If you want free open source GrafX2 - its basically DP IV remade to work on something other than an Amiga
Linux supported as well I believe. However on Windows, wait for a Steam sale and get Pro Motion NG
My first computer was a commodore 64 then we got an Ibm ps1 (286) so I almost had dos only based pc and never had the chance to have access to an amiga so I don't know how much better it was unfortunately. For non professional use, I really enjoyed it and it was better than windows 3.1 paint (I think there was one?) or anything else under dos, which I do not remember.
It will try the one you mentioned. thanks!
Oziphantom wrote:
Having its own icon that won't get grouped, and will show notifications on it that there is new stuff. It shows toasts, integrates with the notification panel and follows the rules of "focus" mode. I don't think the browser version would so as well.
I don't know what "focus" mode you're talking about, but Slack (web) integrates with the
Notifications API to show these "toasts".
Man, I used to love Paintbrush in Windows 3.1! Paint in Windows XP is probably the best version, though. I still use it for pixel art every once in a while.
I don't think it will ever be "year of the Linux desktop", and I don't really care honestly. :p 10-15 years ago I was sort of frustrated with Linux in that I liked a lot of things about it, but there were a lot of really frustrating things (I'm sure people can imagine a list, lol). My recent experience in the last few months with Ubuntu 17 and 18 has been relatively flawless though. No driver issues, system configuration in Gnome 3 is massively better/simpler, though I did need to edit config files for mouse button remapping. I knew where to look, but it would be annoying for a beginner probably.
As for the "what about"-isms against Linux... I dunno, the last time I used Office was 15 years ago (can't say I miss it really). I don't really have a favorite music player, and I'm pretty happy with the basic one that comes pre-installed (there are a dozen more if I bothered to try them). GIMP is... fine, but certainly not Photoshop (which I've paid thousands of dollars for over the years). I don't use the Slack or Discord clients (simply having them open halves my laptop's battery life). I dunno, sort of rambling here, but I guess my point is that Linux in 2018 has fit me surprisingly well, maybe it will work well for somebody else too. I only have "what about"-isms of my own to quote for Windows though. :p
I remember linux from that time too... I tried Fedora 9 because we had a pc at work that was old and though it would be a good idea to have one, for testing purposes. It was never working properly, you started apps, the busy mouse icon changed then the app died without telling you why it happened etc. It was awful.
Things are a lot better today. Still some issues here and there but better.
tepples wrote:
Oziphantom wrote:
Having its own icon that won't get grouped, and will show notifications on it that there is new stuff. It shows toasts, integrates with the notification panel and follows the rules of "focus" mode. I don't think the browser version would so as well.
I don't know what "focus" mode you're talking about, but Slack (web) integrates with the
Notifications API to show these "toasts".
Focus mode - when you watch a movie or play a game. You can also manually invoke it. Windows will stop all sounds, popups, msgs etc. Then when you leave focus mode it will give you a "this is what you missed" summary.
So Linux is the best version of Windows? 'k.
"It said Windows XP or better, so I installed Linux"
Or, more rigorously:
Wine on X11/Linux is probably the best environment for running Windows applications once Windows 7 sunsets, particularly on desktop or laptop hardware that Linux supports and FreeBSD does not.
koitsu wrote:
So Linux is the best version of Windows? 'k.
Not even close
tepples wrote:
Or, more rigorously:
Wine on X11/Linux is probably the best environment for running Windows applications once Windows 7 sunsets, particularly on desktop or laptop hardware that Linux supports and FreeBSD does not.
Reminds me of the OS/2 warp days, its a better Windows 3.1
koitsu wrote:
So Linux is the best version of Windows? 'k.
LOL, the these sorts of threads. I don't care which version of Windows is the best one if it's not the latest one since there's no point in trying to keep old versions running when MS
really doesn't want you to. I had a bad enough experience with Windows 10 that I installed Linux again and found it to be pleasant and usable experience over a 4 month experience. (This was full time use during work hours, and split with OS X at home) Then again I've always considered the best version of Windows to be
not Windows, so take from that what you will.
A friend used to say: "The best Windows version is the one wich have a penguin as mascot." lol!
I had a nice experience with win9x back in the day. It started to fail when I finally could get an internet connection. It really pushed the OS hard!
XP was nice, but once I had kids I just became tired of restoring/reinstalling every week or so.
Then I tried Linux. It was hard at the beginning, but now it's nice and smooth!
The PC in question is used for trivial things only like websurf, video watching, etc. No specialised things like video or picture editing.
I used to do small programming on it when I was at university, but after that just some shell scripting wich is a great upgrade to who used to use .bat files!
Just to be the second person to mention ReactOS
, the latest alpha version that was released late last month is now capable of hosting it's own build environment. ReactOS can now build ReactOS...
Apparently it could in the past, but that was when the kernel was full of hacks to make things work. After the removal of those hacks it's taken until now for development to have progressed to the point where ReactOS's workings are sufficient to run their build software.
I think ReactOS is one of those strange projects where it probably started off with people saying "good luck to ya!" to the devs trying to get the project off the ground. It flounders for a while with little real development until it gets to the point where enough 'stuff' is working that more people start to get interested, users
and devs.
Now ReactOS has the starlings of a emulated DOS VM from which parts will hopefully develop into a compatibility layer for 16bit applications... hopefully on 64bit. Even though the majority of the kernel is targeting XP/Server 2003, there are already compatibility shims in place that allow some Vista/7/8.1 software to run.
Until support is over, for now the best version is Windows 7. The only issue is when you need to reinstall it and windows update take days to update it (remember doing that once). I would return to 7 but this is one step I want to avoid for now. 10 is working, when the telemetry service and super fetch doesn't decide to grind my hd for laugh or something.
Banshaku wrote:
windows update take days to update it
When I worked at a computer repair shop, we used
WSUS Offline Update.This allowed the PCs to be delivered with most, if not all updates installed in a couple of hours instead of days.
There may be other/better solutions, but that's what I know and it was pretty good back on the day.
Hojo_Norem wrote:
Just to be the second person to mention ReactOS
, the latest alpha version that was released late last month is now capable of hosting it's own build environment. ReactOS can now build ReactOS...
Looks promising ! However I really don't care if it can build itself, that's really the last of my concern. I'm more concerned as if it is actually usable, and if it is in the same state as earlier Linuxes.... we will have to wait quite a lot of time before it gets fully usuable. By then 128-bit programs are going to be obsolete, and any electronic machine is going to turn into a spying machine that uses AI to try to manipulate people's feelings and taste to sell them as much shit as possible.
Fisher wrote:
There may be other/better solutions, but that's what I know and it was pretty good back on the day.
dism.exe combined with
Microsoft Update Catalog to download the KBs. Both are official Microsoft tools/things, thus no third-party reliance. This is how I've maintained my own Windows 7 installation for several years now (for XP, I used the third-party tool
nLite, which was wonderful -- the W7+ compatible nLite is completely awful). I have a single script I maintain (not taken from the Internet),
slipstream.bat, that applies all the updates in a particular order (the order does matter). This also includes adding several drivers (good examples are USB 3.0 drivers, AHCI/SATA drivers, chipset INFs/drivers, and NIC drivers).
This methodology "might" work for Windows 10 (
documentation implies it), but the fact remains Microsoft really doesn't give a sh** what anyone thinks any more, end-users or businesses:
*
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3 ... ating.html*
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3 ... ponds.html*
https://www.askwoody.com/2018/patch-lady-my-response/If you care about this sort of thing, i.e. aren't sure whether or not to apply a KB,
askwoody.com (and his Twitter account
@woodyleonhard) is the best there is. In general, my patching methodology involves waiting up to 1-2 months before actually applying KBs due to Microsoft's recent-ish track record of adding telemetry or outright breaking things. It just so happens that's the same model that Woody tends to advocate.
I can't believe I'm saying this (esp. because I've met the guy twice -- did not particularly impress me, while Gates was actually super nice and highly technical), but I actually pine for the days of Steve Ballmer running the place. There was at least, under his rule (and Gates' rule), a semblance of understanding that for businesses alone, sane/proper updating and stable updates were important. With Nadella, I believe the motto is "we'll do whatever we want, you're our guinea pigs", even to businesses. It's the wild west with Nadella.
Anyway...
Apparently my double-entendre joke ("So Linux is the best version of Windows? 'k") flew over the heads of everyone. It was tongue-in-cheek, meaning it was half truth, half jest: I guess I'm the only one
aware of this (this is not for desktop, but it's their proposed OS for IoT-esque devices, and almost certainly going to be used in upcoming XBox products). Scared yet?
But really, the problem with Windows isn't the kernel (that seems to be getting better all the time), it's everything else that makes up Windows on the software side that makes it a Sad Panda. The part that's hard for all of us to stomach is that it doesn't have to be this way -- and we know that from 25 years of historical experience with Windows versions.
ReactOS has historically been a complete joke, but in the past year or two, has *massively* undergone positive changes and is becoming an actual, real contender. I follow it on occasion -- and don't tell anyone, but I secretly have my fingers crossed that it continues down this avenue because it just might be what I end up running someday.
Banshaku wrote:
The only issue is when you need to reinstall it and windows update take days to update it
You can download updated ISOs with the updates integrated, so you don't have to go through this. These are obviously unofficial, but they work perfectly fine. You can make your own ISO using free tools, if you're suspicious.
koitsu wrote:
ReactOS has historically been a complete joke, but in the past year or two, has *massively* undergone positive changes and is becoming an actual, real contender. I follow it on occasion -- and don't tell anyone, but I secretly have my fingers crossed that it continues down this avenue because it just might be what I end up running someday.
I am really hoping by the time XP is no longer usable, ReactOS has become something really nice, I don't really want to go to the world of linux and likenesses lol.
My personal favorite will be Windows 8.1.
Something really creepy just happened to me on Windows 10... The Microsoft Store and several apps (Calculator, Photos, etc.) refuse to open. They start to load, but before they display anything they just close. I can't find any fix for it, and apparently it's an issue that goes way back to 2014 judging by online searches. No thread about this problem reached a consensus on what the solution is. I tried a few things and nothing worked.
This was after an update, and this is what I have the most about modern software... Everything is fine, but an update comes along and breaks stuff. It happened to me on Linux before, and now on Windows 10. Is a reliable OS too much to ask for?
tokumaru wrote:
Is a reliable OS too much to ask for?
Yes, assuming the maintainers or software developers of the OS and/or its applications are a) young, b) inexperienced (read: do not know why it's a Bad Idea to do Thing X due to lack of history), c) doing "bare minimum" work (i.e. "ship it" mentality), or a combination of any of these. Doesn't matter if the OS is free or commercial -- we're seeing a pretty distinct downfall in the quality of both OSes as well as software applications in general. But answering honestly and personally: no, it's not too much to ask for (and this is why I tend to stick to "older" OSes, "older" programs, "older" things).
I think partially it can be blamed on the huge influx of programmers introduced in the last ~20 years, and partially on the fact that we've lowered the bar by making technology (and programming) "so easy" that nobody bothers to learn things at a lower level nor care to ask "is this a bad idea?" (instead the driving force is "code it/release it, worry about the effects of that later" -- bad mentality). Ask a 20-something programmer if they know anything about Xerox PARC and what was actually going on there in the 70s/80s. Hell, ask them if they know what Doug Engelbart was most famously known for (
answer if you don't know). I've been seeing a lot of people "re-discovering" things we already knew or did in the 80s/90s, and when asked "you mean like {thing} from 30 years ago?" they go "huh?" or "that's OLD" and then become defensive. The goal is no longer "understand technology and improve it gradually, really thinking deeply about things, and involve people who have more knowledge and historical experience or at least ask them along the way", the goal is "I LIKE TO DO THINGS WITH COMPUTERS" (yes, somehow the statement is the goal), to which I always say "right". It also explains why we have a huge influx of awful programming languages in the past 20 years -- they're less about introducing real improvements, but more about trying to reinvent the wheel because they didn't like how {other PL} did something, all while pushing wasteful things like excess abstraction (often being "make all the things objects!"). Get guys like Luca Cardelli involved, not Rob Pike or Guido van Rossum. Anyway...
When it comes to Windows, it's sad, because the kernel itself continues to get better every OS release. It's all the "other crap" that makes Windows what it that's getting worse. Windows would run just fine without the "Microsoft Store" or some kind of weird apps. Some Linux distros (ex. Ubuntu) are beginning to do the same thing, shoving more and more "junk" into the system by default rather than just keeping the OS (and the GUI) bare/simple and letting people essentially own/use what is designed.
Is all comes back to Apple.
the modern push to update every year, comes from them. They use their marketing skills( the only real skills they have) To convince people that the yearly updates make them more innovative, better, smarter etc. The problem is Apple can't actually maintain their yearly updates, iOS updates are getting to be a joke, macOS also. But Windows has been lagging with everybody jumping aboard the "innovation train" so they have needed to follow suit. However MS has mostly been able to keep up, just a 0.00001% flaw when you have 200,000,000 = 2,000 people see it.
I trust you have done a sfc repair?
tokumaru wrote:
This was after an update, and this is what I have the most about modern software... Everything is fine, but an update comes along and breaks stuff. It happened to me on Linux before, and now on Windows 10. Is a reliable OS too much to ask for?
Just this week, my windows 10 updated itself, and now I can't get any sound out of my laptop speakers (I have to plug in headphones or external speakers). Windows 10 is where linux was a few years ago, where stuff just randomly breaks ALL THE TIME.
Oziphantom wrote:
I trust you have done a sfc repair?
I did, but there was nothing to fix ("Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.")... I tried almost everything I could find online, except for the more convoluted processes that several people said made things even worse. I guess the next step is reinstalling Windows fresh, even though some people reported the problem coming back a few days after doing a fresh install.
You may have to "upgrade" to windows 7
I know you can't because of some issues with VS (if my memory is good) and understand that a re-install of an OS just to see if it works is not always an option. I'm in the same situation for my mac where I cannot find the why wine doesn't work properly and remove everything by hand and still doesn't work. A reinstall means hours lost so for now I just "let it be". So for now I just use mesen on windows instead and rarely use the mac, even though the compile performance is a lot better.
I'm hating windows more and more. loved win2000/xp era, even Win98 when the internet was not on the radar and virus was still not such an issue.
There's basically only one thing I've seen that I think is a real upgrade in Windows 10 and it's the better support of USB 3.
(e.g. Elgato capture cards don't even try to support Windows 7 anymore, kind of because of this, though
I don't recommend that brand anyway.)
Banshaku wrote:
A reinstall means hours lost so for now I just "let it be".
I'll probably let it be for now too, since I don't want to waste a whole day backing up stuff, reinstalling and re-configuring Windows. I may just download replacements for the programs that don't work anymore that I actually use (only Calculator and Photos, which I wasn't a big fan of anyway) and keep going like that.
Quote:
loved win2000/xp era, even Win98 when the internet was not on the radar and virus was still not such an issue.
I used to keep windows updates always off until Windows 7, but 10 came along and made this impossible. I did periodically download ISOs with all updates applied whenever I needed/wanted to reinstall, so if something went wrong I at least wouldn't be caught by surprise, I'd already be doing maintenance stuff. Can't do that anymore.
What I hate is they changed some of the tools that were not necessary to be done. For example, the image viewer. It was very fast until Windows 8~10. Before, I could see the result right way. Now, it needs to load I don't know what and I need to wait almost 30 seconds to see the picture. That's not acceptable. I need to find a different image viewer again, reminds me of the days with ACDSee. I feel old!
Depending, you may be able to copy the program from a previous version of Windows.
I've copied Windows XP's desk.cpl onto both Windows 8 and Windows 10 systems ... because for no good reason, there are adjustments it can make that newer versions of Windows honor but there's no built-in way to adjust!
I've been using IrfanView to view images since the 90s. One of those pieces of software that always did the job really well for me and I've never even thought about alternatives.
https://www.irfanview.com/
I remember a procedure like that a long time ago to use the XP one on Windows 7 because one some issue that I can't remember. I will try to find the file and try it. Thanks for the tip!
rainwarrior wrote:
https://www.irfanview.com/
Looks hideous by today's standards, but the deal breaker for me was having to press CTRL to zoom. I'll proably switch to
ImageGlass for now. Just have to find a new calculator now.
tokumaru wrote:
Looks hideous by today's standards
It's literally an window with an image in it. What part of this is hideous? I guess there's a tiny row of icons at the top, though you can hide/customize that toolbar as well, BTW.
tokumaru wrote:
having to press CTRL to zoom
Hmm... zoom seems to be on -/+ keys in the version I have? Though there are settings for automatically zooming to fit the screen, and a fullscreen mode if you hit enter (there are options for how/when this resizes too), that kind of reduce my need to try to zoom images very often. (My own setting is 1:1 in the window, fit to screen in fullscreen, but I don't know what the default is.)
Though, I've been using this thing for 20 years now, so for me it's like a subconscious function using this program, ha ha, I don't know how it looks "new".
rainwarrior wrote:
It's literally an window with an image in it. What part of this is hideous? I guess there's a tiny row of icons at the top, though you can hide/customize that toolbar as well, BTW.
Yeah, the default toolbar is hideous, but I see now that there are other styles available. The "about" window screams "Windows 95", but at least that's not something you'll be looking at.
Quote:
Hmm... zoom seems to be on -/+ keys in the version I have?
I guess that works too, but I'm used to zooming with the mouse wheel, which by default navigates through the files (does anyone really like "rolling" through the images like that?), so you have to use CTRL+wheel for zooming. I personally prefer to use either the mouse or the keyboard, not both at the same time if at all possible. That's just a personal preference of mine, the program isn't necessarily bad just because it does something differently than I'm used too (although an option for defining the behavior of the mouse wheel could go a long way).
Another thing that bothered me is that whenever there's a plugin missing for certain file types (e.g. PDF, SVG) the image browsing is interrupted by an error message which I have to "OK". It would be much better if the error message was displayed in the area reserved for the picture and didn't interrupt the navigation, or if the file was silently skipped.
I know I said I'd just replace the programs and delay the reinstall, but my OCD is making it really hard for me to actually do that, hahaha. The thought that "something is broken" really messes with my head. I'll try to stay strong and wait at least a couple more days before formatting the hard drive, maybe I'll feel less annoyed with time.
Banshaku wrote:
What I hate is they changed some of the tools that were not necessary to be done. For example, the image viewer. It was very fast until Windows 8~10. Before, I could see the result right way. Now, it needs to load I don't know what and I need to wait almost 30 seconds to see the picture. That's not acceptable. I need to find a different image viewer again, reminds me of the days with ACDSee. I feel old!
Yes, the image viewer in 10 is horrible. Not only does it take longer to load, but it's not nearly as useful as the image viewer from 7. But I have some great news for you! The picture viewer from 7 is actually included in 10, it's just disabled. A simple registry entry can re-enable it.
edit:
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-get- ... indows-10/
Is that so? Great! I will be more than happy to change it once I know how. I will be waiting for the link then. thanks!
Slashdot user Lonewolf666 is among those
planning to switch to GNU/Linux upon Windows 7 end of support.
The joke was that every other
Star Trek film was good: just
skip the odd ones and watch
The Wrath of Khan (II),
The Voyage Home (IV), and
The Undiscovered Country (VI). Likewise with Windows, there was once a pattern of the odd-numbered versions being usable: 2000 and XP (5.0/5.1), skip Vista (6), use 7, skip 8. The problem is that Microsoft used "But Java would confuse Windows 9 with Windows 98" as an excuse not to release Windows 9 and instead made a second consecutive even numbered version to skip.
Sounds like a bs excuse on Microsoft's part; I'd think software would look at the number Windows uses internally. I assumed they went to 10 to put extra distance between 8.
Internally, Windows Vista is NT 6.0, Windows 7 is NT 6.1, Windows 8 is NT 6.2, and Windows 8.1 is NT 6.3, because all four use the NT 6 driver ABI. Windows 10 is NT 10.0.
(
Star Wars has a different law: the pre-Disney movies make the most sense in the order
IV, V, II, III, VI. How can that be tied into operating systems?)
Drew Sebastino wrote:
Sounds like a bs excuse on Microsoft's part; I'd think software would look at the number Windows uses internally. I assumed they went to 10 to put extra distance between 8. :lol:
Maybe they did, just not in the way you'd expect:
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/com ... 0/ckwq83x/
There's also the aspect of marketing. Half sociology and psychology, half internal market team occultism/gut feeling. If a figure sounds too made up/evened out to be true even if they are (like the height of a mountain or the cost estimate coming for a contractor), they may uneven it to appear more real. Statistics that end on an even digit are thought to be more persuasive than ones that end on an even. Likewise, some numbers in product/service/model names may be avoided because they're percieved as 'weak' in regards to its market. If it sounds irrational, it is because marketing is all about dealing with the irrationality of consumers/customers, as opposed to what modernist thought once assumed.
koitsu wrote:
tokumaru wrote:
Is a reliable OS too much to ask for?
Yes, assuming the maintainers or software developers of the OS and/or its applications are a) young, b) inexperienced (read: do not know why it's a Bad Idea to do Thing X due to lack of history), c) doing "bare minimum" work (i.e. "ship it" mentality), or a combination of any of these. Doesn't matter if the OS is free or commercial -- we're seeing a pretty distinct downfall in the quality of both OSes as well as software applications in general. But answering honestly and personally: no, it's not too much to ask for (and this is why I tend to stick to "older" OSes, "older" programs, "older" things).
I think partially it can be blamed on the huge influx of programmers introduced in the last ~20 years, and partially on the fact that we've lowered the bar by making technology (and programming) "so easy" that nobody bothers to learn things at a lower level nor care to ask "is this a bad idea?" (instead the driving force is "code it/release it, worry about the effects of that later" -- bad mentality). Ask a 20-something programmer if they know anything about Xerox PARC and what was actually going on there in the 70s/80s. Hell, ask them if they know what Doug Engelbart was most famously known for (
answer if you don't know). I've been seeing a lot of people "re-discovering" things we already knew or did in the 80s/90s, and when asked "you mean like {thing} from 30 years ago?" they go "huh?" or "that's OLD" and then become defensive. The goal is no longer "understand technology and improve it gradually, really thinking deeply about things, and involve people who have more knowledge and historical experience or at least ask them along the way", the goal is "I LIKE TO DO THINGS WITH COMPUTERS" (yes, somehow the statement is the goal), to which I always say "right". It also explains why we have a huge influx of awful programming languages in the past 20 years -- they're less about introducing real improvements, but more about trying to reinvent the wheel because they didn't like how {other PL} did something, all while pushing wasteful things like excess abstraction (often being "make all the things objects!"). Get guys like Luca Cardelli involved, not Rob Pike or Guido van Rossum. Anyway...
When it comes to Windows, it's sad, because the kernel itself continues to get better every OS release. It's all the "other crap" that makes Windows what it that's getting worse. Windows would run just fine without the "Microsoft Store" or some kind of weird apps. Some Linux distros (ex. Ubuntu) are beginning to do the same thing, shoving more and more "junk" into the system by default rather than just keeping the OS (and the GUI) bare/simple and letting people essentially own/use what is designed.
I totally understand this. Like, how do you expect those "I LIKE TO DO THINGS WITH COMPUTERS" kind of people to be able to code stuff when learning C is so hard? The first hello world program seems very hard because if you have scanf("%d",&mynumber);, many people will not type that "&" and the program will crash without them knowing what happened. Then you gotta learn pointers and dynamic memory allocation and all that crap. By the time you learn C++ till the end with all those operators and constructors and libraries and everything and how scoping works, you've already lost all the inspiration of doing creative things! Which is what happened with me. I loved QBASIC4.5 so much, but when I was faced with C/C++, I had a bad time. Luckily, I learned C so good that it takes me very little time to recall important things before I go and code. But C++ is really hard! I mean, having to remember the execution order of stream operators and when an object is allocated and when it's deallocated, urgh... But then there's this C# and Java and other crap with this stupidest invention in programming ever: garbage collection. I mean seriously! Why don't you let ME deallocate an object when I'm not using it? Or if this garbage collection is so smart, then why doesn't it do garbage collection upon every single reference nullifying? So then when I see how all this is messed up, I get completely into thinking about building a computer from pneumatic/hydraulic circuits with my own CPU architecture, programming language, etc. and starting the whole IT infrastructure from scratch!
But anyways, now that there's so many updates for everything, I kinda feel sad. There's no longer that good feeling where you know where something is because everything keeps changing with every update. The updates intrude your computer, break things, steal your private information, etc.. I mean, why can't things be so good like when it was Windows XP? Some zealous Linux guy says XP is a crap OS because everyone was abusing the kernel's security holes and that Vista was actually awesome but spitted on because it patched all security holes which made all programs stop working. I mean, why complain about that!? Windows XP worked! What it promised, it fulfilled! You couldn't ask for more. And if you were smart enough, you could have workarounds to make something work like how you want. But today, the very things that are promised to us like just watching a video or seeing a picture or opening a stupid document is already so hard! Word keeps doing some autocorrection stuff that I cannot turn off because all of the instructions on how to do that are outdated and the checkbox I'm looking for isn't shown in MY version of Word. The Windows 10 Photo app takes so long to load! Look at Windows XP! It loaded instantly! And what was so wrong with sndrec32.exe? It recorded stuff well! I mean, yeah, you could only record 60 seconds, but then Audacity came to fix it. What did Windows 7/10 do? They have a minimalistic program where you just hit record and stop. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? I know. They weren't thinking! They didn't have anything to think with!
The main reason I loved computers as a kid is that they were so predictable. You press a button and it does what the button says. Today, nothing is predictable! How are our children going to know how awesome computers are when everything is breaking? Of course, unless they have some super expensive computers and if they sign the EULA to have all their privacy taken until one day this happens:
Someone: *knocks on the door* we came for the kidney.
We: What kidney?
Someone: The one you promised to us when you clicked Next, Next and I agree.
Seriously! When will politics and economy get the fuck out of computers!? I've had enough of politics in real life so I'm using computers AND NOW THEY'RE INVADING COMPUTERS! I seriously don't know what to do at this point. Maybe make some FPGA computer with its own CPU architecture and operating system that has a working C compiler and that it's self-sustainable and able to flash itself onto new FPGA chips.
8bitMicroGuy wrote:
But then there's this C# and Java and other crap with this stupidest invention in programming ever: garbage collection. I mean seriously! Why don't you let ME deallocate an object when I'm not using it? Or if this garbage collection is so smart, then why doesn't it do garbage collection upon every single reference nullifying?
CPython, the reference interpretation of the Python programming language, does exactly that using reference counting. But it can slow things down because of all the locking involved when multiple threads create and nullify references to objects. (This is why CPython has a global interpreter lock, preferring processes over threads for use of multiple cores.) And because Python implementations on top of JVM and CLR don't use reference counting, it's still good style to use
finally or
with to deallocate things as one would in Java and C#.
std::shared_ptr in C++ also uses reference counting.
Banshaku wrote:
Is that so? Great! I will be more than happy to change it once I know how. I will be waiting for the link then. thanks!
Here it is:
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-get- ... indows-10/
8bitMicroGuy wrote:
I loved QBASIC4.5 so much, but when I was faced with C/C++, I had a bad time. ...snip.. But then there's this C# and Java and other crap with this stupidest invention in programming ever: garbage collection. I mean seriously! Why don't you let ME deallocate an object when I'm not using it? Or if this garbage collection is so smart, then why doesn't it do garbage collection upon every single reference nullifying?
You do realise BASIC and QBASIC have Garbage Collection in them right?
8bitMicroGuy wrote:
Seriously! When will politics and economy get the fuck out of computers!? I've had enough of politics in real life so I'm using computers AND NOW THEY'RE INVADING COMPUTERS! I seriously don't know what to do at this point. Maybe make some FPGA computer with its own CPU architecture and operating system that has a working C compiler and that it's self-sustainable and able to flash itself onto new FPGA chips.
Good news, the RISC-V is now coming back and you will be able to build you own computer with everything opensource from the ground up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8jqGOgCy5M
Reference counting is not garbage collection?
8bitMicroGuy wrote:
But then there's this C# and Java and other crap with this stupidest invention in programming ever: garbage collection.
Garbage collection was a phenomenal idea and I feel almost a little personally offended by how you're trashing the work of the hoards of very, very smart people who invented and have spent countless hours developing and refining garbage collectors, which are often beautiful pieces of software.
8bitMicroGuy wrote:
I mean seriously! Why don't you let ME deallocate an object when I'm not using it? Or if this garbage collection is so smart, then why doesn't it do garbage collection upon every single reference nullifying?
Why not make the programmer responsible for deallocating objects? Because they'll forget to and leak memory, or because they'll deallocate the object and then accidentally use it again, or because code that manually manages memory is just busywork that often obfuscates the logic of the program itself, or because constantly malloc()'ing and free()'ing memory often introduces heap fragmentation and performance issues as compared to a smart garbage collector (e.g. a GC'd language can allocate just by bumping a pointer in many schemes, whereas malloc()'ing requires searching and maintaining a free list), or because contriving your program to ensure that you can easily determine when an object is no longer in use makes code less readable or maintainable or performant due to over-copying and is error-prone or just involves an ad-hoc reimplementation of reference counting/GC or...the issues with manual memory management and the impact it's had on software quality over the years is well-documented and undeniable.
8bitMicroGuy wrote:
Or if this garbage collection is so smart, then why doesn't it do garbage collection upon every single reference nullifying?
Well you could mean a couple of things here; either you're advocating running GC every time a reference is lost (which would be unnecessarily slow) or are suggesting something like a reference counter, which is viable and used often but does have well-known disadvantages (can't handle reference cycles, wastes space, slow). If you have a better solution for automatic memory management, both research and industry would love to hear about it.
Garbage collection isn't suitable for all use cases, but I absolutely can't imagine you've worked on any serious software and could still claim that it's "the stupidest invention in programming ever", even as hyperbole. It's seriously one of the
smartest inventions in programming ever.
Alright. I've probably overlooked garbage collectors. It's because the stuff I was making was using manual memory management and I was good at it. When I had a college project where I had to make a text-to-speech translator where I'd write something in Croatian and it would rewrite it to sound like English in the way how Microsoft Sam could understand, I was using C# or C++ with garbage collector because CLR nonsense. I had a hard time figuring out how to delete unused resources. Usually I'd just say delete(something);, but here it didn't work. I had such a hard time with that. But I guess maybe it was because I didn't know how to use it well. I'm sorry about that. Also, my opinion of garbage collectors was influenced by people who didn't know how to use it (AND WHO CRASHED MY PC BY DOING SO!) and by my mentor who I looked upon because he was my only source of knowledge about C/C++.
8bitMicroGuy wrote:
Alright. I've probably overlooked garbage collectors. It's because the stuff I was making was using manual memory management and I was good at it. When I had a college project where I had to make a text-to-speech translator where I'd write something in Croatian and it would rewrite it to sound like English in the way how Microsoft Sam could understand, I was using C# or C++ with garbage collector because CLR nonsense. I had a hard time figuring out how to delete unused resources. Usually I'd just say delete(something);, but here it didn't work. I had such a hard time with that. But I guess maybe it was because I didn't know how to use it well. I'm sorry about that. Also, my opinion of garbage collectors was influenced by people who didn't know how to use it (AND WHO CRASHED MY PC BY DOING SO!) and by my mentor who I looked upon because he was my only source of knowledge about C/C++.
For what it's worth, I have similar views as you when it comes to garbage collection and other "automated-by-the-PL" features. My viewpoint is limited in scope, however -- that is to say, I don't program professionally (it's part of my job but it isn't my sole job), and software I have written/do write is fairly "linear" (read: do not need things like threading) and in a limited number of PLs (mainly C and Perl, but things like PHP). And like most folks here, I also work on classic archs in lower-level PLs (i.e. 65xxx assembly).
I feel because of "what" I write/do, and the platforms I work on, my viewpoint is fairly skewed towards the classic model of memory management you describe:
free() what you
malloc/calloc(), else allocate on the heap (and be wise/smart about when to do this). Thus, today, it's hard for me to really judge GC-centric languages because I myself have an already limited view given what my needs are/what I do. It means I'm biased
against a thing because
I have no immediate need for the thing... but just because I don't need something doesn't mean it doesn't have a good purpose; It doesn't mean that GC/refcounting is bad, it just means when I hear of it being this amazing incredible all-encompassing magic smoke, I understandably roll my eyes. I'm absolutely certain there are folks with the exact opposite view and I think they're effectively just as right as I am. I hope that makes sense to readers.
That said, one of the problems that does continue to plague software today -- specifically newer/younger PLs (ex. Go, Rust, maybe Python) -- is that their GC and ref-counting implementations aren't as solid as, say, what C++, C#, or even Java has. This is further amplified by the fact a lot of developers don't have any idea how to even begin tracking down performance problems that stem from the GC kicking in heavily (i.e. happening without their knowledge/control/consent). This in turn causes trade-offs being made in design/whatever (by the programmer of the application) to try and work around whatever the problem is, and these trade-offs are often perverse or bizarre.
So yes, while I am of the "old guard" mentality of "why bother with GC, free what you allocate", it doesn't mean this approach works for everyone or every situation. I try not to impose that on others too much, but I still have my opinion -- while simultaneously (in somewhat of a juxtaposition) keeping an open mind.
koitsu wrote:
That said, one of the problems that does continue to plague software today -- specifically newer/younger PLs (ex. Go, Rust, maybe Python) -- is that their GC and ref-counting implementations aren't as solid as, say, what C++, C#, or even Java has.
Just to avoid any misunderstanding, Rust does not use garbage collection; its memory safety comes from static analysis at compile-time. As for ref-counting, I don't know how Rust's
Rc<T> type compares against other languages, but when it frees the data is predictable (when the last
Rc<T> pointing to the data goes out of scope).
@Ziggy587
Thanks for the link! I will check how to set it up tonight.
On topic. I was given this today:
http://blog.zorinaq.com/i-contribute-to ... ther-oper/Do not let the URL title mislead you. The content is not fairly short and easy to read. Three quotes that resonate with me (emphasis on one line mine):
Quote:
Another reason for the quality gap is that that we've been having trouble keeping talented people. Google and other large Seattle-area companies keep poaching our best, most experienced developers, and we hire youths straight from college to replace them. You find SDEs and SDE IIs maintaining hugely import systems. These developers mean well and are usually adequately intelligent, but they don't understand why certain decisions were made, don't have a thorough understanding of the intricate details of how their systems work, and most importantly, don't want to change anything that already works.
...
The NT kernel is still much better than Linux in some ways --- you guys be trippin' with your overcommit-by-default MM nonsense[1] ...
...
No matter what you think of the Windows 8 UI, the system underneath is rock-solid, as was Windows 7, and I'm proud of having been a small part of this entire process.
The thing about the first quote that resonates with me is that this is a universal problem with technology (particularly software) right now, at least in the United States. The same comparison can be made towards programming languages (often toted by younger, less-experienced folks that don't understand or are unaware of the historic design choices made of something -- i.e. were not part of the "well we could consider Y, but X offers better results in terms of speed and size" conversation during creation of a thing). Like the quote says, the people mean well, but lack the understanding of the intricate details to really be able to make good decisions.
The overall post also resonates with me because it overall supports the theory I've held for some years now: that the Windows kernel itself is actually quite stable (considering how much backwards compatibility it must retain!), and it's all the rest of the "junk" (incl. parts of UI) that users, understandably and justifiably, associate with Windows that give it the bad reputation it has today.
There's similar in the *IX world: generic end-users try a Linux distro that uses (for example) GNOME and find all sorts of wonky quirky bugs with it, then say "Ubuntu sucks balls" or "Linux sucks balls" while in reality it's GNOME that's sucking. Replace GNOME with KDE, or fvwm95, or E, or whatever other UI/window manager you want, or any other "thing" that's common-use, and the same proves true.
Anyway, I thought I'd share that URL/post because I found it a bit enlightening and reassuring... says me, the guy who ran XP until 2015, and still runs Windows 7 Ultimate on present-day hardware thanks to
stuff like this.
[1]:
Reference for those unfamiliar with the horror that is overcommit. Comparatively, FreeBSD offers this same feature (
vm.overcommit) but defaults to disabled.
koitsu wrote:
it overall supports the theory I've held for some years now: that the Windows kernel itself is actually quite stable
That I can't argue with. Like the driver architecture is pretty nice when it prevents the GPU driver from taking the system down. Since Win 7, I haven't had a BSOD that I wasn't pretty sure was hardware related. (Though I could say the same of OS X and Linux which I use more *shrug*) It even seems to handle DoS attacks in drivers pretty well. Like a bad ShaderToy can't hang the system indefinitely, eventually it resets the GPU driver even though it hasn't crashed. Sometimes OS X will get stuck indefinitely, and I don't think that's possible at all on Linux.
On the other hand, I have a really hard time forgiving Windows for all of it's other faults that plague it's daily usage. The only time you even remember the kernel exists is when something goes wrong, which is not very often on any OS in 2018.
(Off topic: I don't get what the big deal with overcommit is. It's a reasonable default for most uses, and it's easy to change.)
slembcke wrote:
I don't get what the big deal with overcommit is. It's a reasonable default for most uses, and it's easy to change.
Its only advantage is that you can allocate more memory than you intend to use without it failing. (It also encourages this paradigm, which also tends to go along with an attitude of never checking malloc for failure.)
It's disadvantage is that it takes away your ability to check for a memory failure and handle it. Your app will just crash when you try to use that bad allocation.
I wouldn't say it's a reasonable default for "most uses", except for the fact that most uses don't actually allocate enough memory to cause the problem, or maybe otherwise don't mind just crashing if out of memory (for some purposes that's an acceptable way to handle it). This lets you prevent actual "out of memory" a little bit longer, by hiding new allocations in that "unused" space, but to be able to do this it has to make it impossible for apps to know if they're going to just crash when an actual OOM is caused by
any process, not just themselves.
gauauu wrote:
tokumaru wrote:
This was after an update, and this is what I have the most
how to use phenq without side effects about modern software... Everything is fine, but an update comes along and breaks stuff. It happened to me on Linux before, and now on Windows 10. Is a reliable OS too much to ask for?
Just this week, my windows 10 updated itself, and now I can't get any sound out of my laptop speakers (I have to plug in headphones or external speakers). Windows 10 is where linux was a few years ago, where stuff just randomly breaks ALL THE TIME.
You're correct! Win 10 is causing a lot of problems for me too. And I never installed Win 10, I was having (and happy with) Win 7, when suddenly, without my permission, it got upgraded(?) to WIn 10. Thinking seriously to downgrade to Win 7 as it is the best OS after XP (SP2) and NT.