Category: Rant

In reply to Why Windows is not yet ready for the Desktop

The fundamental argument about Windows vs. Linux will always remain, what I find amazing are the replies to Why Windows is not yet ready for the Desktop

The fundamental argument about Windows vs. Linux will always remain, what I find amazing is the stance taken by non-Linux users in the replies to your “tongue in cheek” post. This is sad, yet not surprising, as Windows is designed for idiots, by extremely intelligent people that make a lot of money from those idiots. So they have the right to be as rude as they can be, after all they paid for the privilege.

More to the point, I think as a both Windows and Linux (Kubuntu 10.04 presently) user, I am able to put a couple of things into perspective of the whole debate, regrettably I am not a Mac user, but I heard that it’s quite good in its own right, (now why would I want to say that MacOS is rubbish by not knowing about it? well, I am not an idiot I suppose).

Yes Windows is friendly and does work well for most of the planet population, there is a driving market behind it called capitalism and B. Gates has always been quite clear about his business model: Why would you want to give your software for free? Although it makes sense if you want to garnish your bottom line, it throws a lot of other ugly things into the picture, I shall no go there.

Yes Linux is friendly and does work pretty well for a minority of the people of this planet, there is a driving market called freedom of choice which does not generate as much money, rather, it brings a different kind of capitalism geared towards “services” and “support”, this is a model which is not really geared to cope with millions of potential idiots that cannot be bothered getting help to a perfectly valid problem (usually generated by themselves), “hit re-install instead”, that solves it.

Historically MS Windows was designed to be open (to clarify: open as “friendly” not open as “hackable”), work on a single PC with a printer connected to it, “Put a PC on every desktop in every home” (Bill Gates sometimes in the 80’s).

For that, Windows was good(ish).

Then the Internet came to the masses, seen as a “fad” by the very same B. Gates. That’s where it went wrong: Windows, by it’s very open nature is extremely bad for the web and thus, changing the engraved habits of millions of users that grew used to this freedom of movement, failed miserably and put Windows in the situation it is today: big, bloated and goodish(ish), think of the (failed) attempts of Internet Explorer to “acquire the web” with it’s non-standard compliant Browser engine, but I digress.

On the other hand, Linux, or Unix, from the very start, had always been designed to “network” and be a closed system that needed to be opened, which makes it a pretty good system to work on the Web as a matter of course, it is not as friendly as Windows and a bit less “idiot proof”, you needed to have a couple of brain cells interacting with each other to work with it, also, reading a lot of manuals were de rigueur, something hard to do and digest for most people.

I like Windows to do non-web stuff and things I cannot do with Linux; I like Linux and it is my OS of choice to do all the rest. Besides Linux is getting better and better; take a mid range piece of kit these days and you’ll find that pretty much everything’s detected and working straight from an install. Windows (7) does that also. Where Windows falls flat is, again, with networking. For example: I have an HP printer located on another Windows XP machine, Win 7 is able to see it but yet cannot seem to be able to install the driver for some weird and (not so) wonderful reasons, whereas (k)Ubuntu not only sees the said printer but installs and readies it without a fuss.

And what is this new attempt to redefine the wheel with Windows 7 new “network sharing”? What’s it called again?

Things I don’t like when I work on Windows:

• Lack of default middle mouse button paste (my personal pet hate, Yes! I am sure I can customise…)
• Independent windowing (e.g. does not need to close every subsequent child windows to see the parent)
• Post install reboots
• Drivers hell
• Lack of advanced command Line Interface (however there’s a power shell, but it’s not “true” CLI)
• Having to install an anti-virus
• Windows update, (by this I mean I don’t know what Windows’ up to), OK for idiots, not for me, sorry.

Things I don’t like when I work on Linux:

• Sometimes you need to compile some software sources (dependencies hell), and then it fails miserably which is a big waste of time.
• Lack of good Games, although I am not a “Gamer”.
• Vast choices of seemingly identical applications, some of them, frankly a waste of time

Windows Likes:

• You know if a program will work or not, if you can’t install it, then you cannot use it.
• Windows 7 seems to be fast and works well (emphasising “seem”)
• Good Games and lots of them

Linux Likes:

• No need to worry about dodgy websites.
• No need to worry about dodgy email attachments
• Most hardware works nowadays, without “drivers”
• Plenty of help on-line
• Safety
• Need a server? Got old hardware? No budget? Need to keep it legit? Use Linux OS!
• No DRM

To end this rather long comment, I would say that there is no “good” neither is there any “bad” OS, there’s a choice of OS’es and I wished that the Morons constantly slating one another just got on and the world would be a happier place, although I can understand if some of them are frustrated, after all they’re working on a OS designed for idiots.

There, I said it, I have no life.

I don’t know why but even though I am quite open to new technologies, when they’re useful that is, I feel that the web is turning into a very strange hurly whirly of virtual “I need to be online all the time with everyone I know and let them know what I do every seconds of my life” thingy, stuff etc..

Now I find that very intrusive and pardon if I might be “Gay” (I am not, but my son use this all the time) but I cannot begin to understand the buzz (and I’ll come to this later) behind this.

I must be getting too old for this stuff (I am 44)

Back in the days, about 15 years ago, the Web was great, things were simple; you didn’t get (much) spam, most things were free and the information was more or less useful.

Today the web is turning into an ugly beast, [much too] full of useless stuff drowning the useful stuff. The useful stuff is usually no longer free though, this can be a good thing, but it tends to become a little silly most times.

In 1996 I watched a TV program about the web, and there was an interview of an artist from around L.A. I think, and he said (roughly):

“The creativity that is allowed to be broadcast to the world via the web will soon be locked down and that will be the death of the Web; the commercial world will take over and that will be it! Snap! All will no longer be free, that will be it, the web will be dead, and the good times will be gone forever”

This, I think, happened more than 5 years ago.

Today the web can be and still is very useful, but it’s getting harder to sort the weed from the chaff.

I have problems with this and I am a veteran, so imagine what it does to people who’ve never been on the web until today, like 3-4-5 years old kids or even people in their 60-70’s who can barely understand a Computer to start with, and could potentially find themselves in front of a page that says “Your computer is infected”* on their first hour of web browsing.

What kind of message is that giving out? The web is crap… and don’t trust it, but then it’s usually too late, I am afraid to say, the poor sod is reduced to pay criminals.

That frightens/worries me slightly.

I do have kids, 3 boys and they are, fortunately, in their teens now and quite frankly very nice chaps; they were given unrestricted and, god forbid, unsupervised access to the Web since they were about that age. But I am glad it was 10 years ago! Now I would not be so sure. All they were interested about was, and still is, gaming.

To come back to the Buzz, about all this, and the reason that prompted me to write this, is the arrival of Google “Buzz” in my Gmail, which I promptly hid.

You see a couple of months ago, I signed up to Facebook and other Plaxo “social websites”, the latter to reconnect with long lost friend in my country of origin (Switzerland) and the former just to see what all the fuss was about.

Plaxo was useful to initiate contact, and Facebook, Well, I stuck a couple of photos on, talked about my hobby (Motor biking) and lost interest pretty much after 3 weeks, I since disabled it. I find it an utter waste of time and, as I previously said, having no life does not help, sorry, my wife uses it for business and she’s got more of a life than me.

I also opened a Twitter account, this also has been falling in the way side, after the only thing I was writing on it is “Typing this on this site” (Well it asks you what you’re doing RIGHT NOW isn’t it?). It became quite boring after a short while, so apart from posting some links explaining what I think of Twitter/Facebook/Bebo etc. I don’t bother.

Maybe one day when I have a life and more friends I will use these again, but at present I don’t find them at all interesting, but that’s just me.

I have no life, remember?

What I do find still a little useful are Discussion Forums, so I guess I am finding myself being part of a forgotten generation that died many, many Web Moons ago.

I don’t know if it’s just me that believe all this? Surely not! There must be people that have better things to do out there than Tweeting and Book their face? Maybe it’s a fad?

Yes, it’s a fad.

It’s got to be…

On to the next thing, I might start “Blogging” more, something I really never though much about… You never know.

Boot note:

Please Google don’t mess up the Web, it’s still a great place to be on.

Will it still be in 10 years time? I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

Maybe I’ll get that lost life back as well.

* You know the bogus website tricking you to think you’re really infected, when you’re not… This is actually quite comical when I discover that my Linux machine has got 100’s of infected “dll” and “exe” files! (I have been using Linux as my OS of choice since 2003)