Operating Systems (Split)

[Baker]

Who could have predicted back in the day that a more robust design would have been needed?

I personally thought it was obvious even as long ago as 1998.

Internet Explorer was so poorly designed along with ActiveX that you could write simple very evil web pages.

And you could both connect to Windows 98 machines and view people's files with full access and "nuke" Windows 98 to cause it to crash remotely.

And Microsoft Outlook was an easy virus spreader.

Windows is simultaneously the greatest and worst operating system ever. Personally I really like OS X but it has a few usability weaknesses and weirdnesses (the keys, bizarre ideas about cut and paste and cursor navigation, etc).

I think that in some ways Windows is on the fast track to being obsolete, but some other operating system would have to decide it wants to "win" to displace it. It isn't going to be Linux -- at least not as a desktop operating system (but maybe for devices, like portable tablets, because OEM's can customize Linux to be the operating system very quickly for any device they manufacture and avoid the Microsoft tax).

[MH]

Fair enough, 1998 was inexcusable, but we're really talking about design decisions that go back to 1993 or even earlier. Windows 95 was originally supposed to be shipped in 1994 after all, so the original specs would predate that by quite a bit. Most real viruses back then came from people swapping floppy disks, were generally boot sector, and the fault could be just as reasonably assigned to the BIOS manufacturer. The first macro virus didn't appear until 1995, worms didn't become widespread until 1999, and we gotta wait until this century before Trojans really became a serious problem.

[Dreadlorde]

It isn't going to be Linux -- at least not as a desktop operating system

The problem with this argument is the no one ever gives a reason why Linux can't be used as a desktop operating system, and if they do give a reason it's usually 'my crappy, unportable software run'. Boo-hoo, you should have thought of that before you bought AutoCRAP for over $9000.

[MH]

The problem with this argument is the no one ever gives a reason why Linux can't be used as a desktop operating system, and if they do give a reason it's usually 'my crappy, unportable software run'. Boo-hoo, you should have thought of that before you bought AutoCRAP for over $9000.

Well how about this and this? A few years old admittedly, but they illustrate the point.

What it boils down to is that Linux is essentially a Unix-clone, which is an OS designed by programmers in the 1970s for use by programmers in the 1970s. Back when the only people using computers were propeller-heads, and intended to be useful to and meeting the requirements of said same propeller-heads (freely admitted here).

Linux (or at least certain flavours of Linux) may be far ahead of those times in terms of general usability, but it still has a long long way to go. The culture of manually editing config files in vi and rolling your own code and scripts is just far too deeply embedded. Hell, even look at the first page of the General Help section in the Ubuntu Jaunty support forums - it's a nightmare of scripts, command-lines, driver config problems and so on. Until the Linux community sheds this attitude, Linux will never be suitable for real-world general-purpose home use and office productivity.

It may all be fine for us, but it's not fine for Aunt Gladys, it's not fine for Little Tommy, it's not fine for the receptionist you'd like to shag, and it's not fine for Real People who see an OS as a means to an end rather than an end in itself. At the end of the day Real People just want to use applications, most of them aren't even aware of what an OS is, and arcane crap that gets in their way is most definitely not welcome. Even if "sudo cp -fg /usr/* . -tDx" may be technically superior to the alternative, they do not want it.

I say: spend 6 months working on a Helpdesk and you sure learn a lot.

[Baker]

The problem with this argument is the no one ever gives a reason why Linux can't be used as a desktop operating system, and if they do give a reason it's usually 'my crappy, unportable software run'. Boo-hoo, you should have thought of that before you bought AutoCRAP for over $9000.

Well, you have had trouble getting various Linux Quake binaries to work.

And you are comfortable with Linux!

Think about the implications of that statement for a moment.

[MH]

I'm just loving this statement from one of those links I gave above:

In order for the nice, user-friendly autoconfiguration stuff to work, you have to first edit an /etc file. On a different machine than the one you're trying to set up. You have to read the comments in (the) configuration file to know that you need to do this in the first place.

[Dreadlorde]

Well, you have had trouble getting various Linux Quake binaries to work.

And you are comfortable with Linux!

Think about the implications of that statement for a moment.

I didn't get proquake working, which you have said needed some work, and the linux quake binary from id is linked against versions of X libraries and libc that half as old as I am.

[R00k]

Well how about this and this? A few years old admittedly, but they illustrate the point.

What it boils down to is that Linux is essentially a Unix-clone, which is an OS designed by programmers in the 1970s for use by programmers in the 1970s. Back when the only people using computers were propeller-heads, and intended to be useful to and meeting the requirements of said same propeller-heads (freely admitted here).

Linux (or at least certain flavours of Linux) may be far ahead of those times in terms of general usability, but it still has a long long way to go. The culture of manually editing config files in vi and rolling your own code and scripts is just far too deeply embedded. Hell, even look at the first page of the General Help section in the Ubuntu Jaunty support forums - it's a nightmare of scripts, command-lines, driver config problems and so on. Until the Linux community sheds this attitude, Linux will never be suitable for real-world general-purpose home use and office productivity.

It may all be fine for us, but it's not fine for Aunt Gladys, it's not fine for Little Tommy, it's not fine for the receptionist you'd like to shag, and it's not fine for Real People who see an OS as a means to an end rather than an end in itself. At the end of the day Real People just want to use applications, most of them aren't even aware of what an OS is, and arcane crap that gets in their way is most definitely not welcome. Even if "sudo cp -fg /usr/* . -tDx" may be technically superior to the alternative, they do not want it.

I say: spend 6 months working on a Helpdesk and you sure learn a lot.

i think it would be cool to have a Quake console mimic the old unix days. realtime quakeC programming maybe?
/edit client.qc
.
/compile ./mymod
]execute ./mymod/progs.dat

[Baker]

Backtracking after further thought:

Yes, Linux could be a player in the desktop operating system for laptop and notebook computers.

Really, most of the problems with Linux are that people are installing it fresh and setting it up with a billion different pieces of hardware (video, audio, wireless, hard drives, CPUs, printers, etc.).

What is easily overlooked is that Dell/HP/Acer/Apple/Lenovo ship computers with all the drivers and setup already done.

And there is no reason this couldn't be achieved for a laptop since you can't upgrade anything.

And most users just want a web browser, chat and a few other basic applications and Office.

So, for the same reason grandma isn't installing her own harddrive is the same reason that grandma would be perfectly happy with a Linux laptop if it came with everything she needed off the bat.

I mean, using FireFox on Windows or Linux or OS X is the exact same experience.

Sometimes I tend to forget that although my experience with Linux has been both fun but frustrating (and had I not broke my Linux machine on accident ProQuake would be far more current and I would have made a Linux Qrack), I was installing everything myself.

But a computer off the shelf with Linux pre-installed with all the drivers would NOT be the same experience. And ... sometimes with OS X you do have to open the "Terminal" -- OS X being largely FreeBSD with a great GUI on top of it.

Really, like with Ubuntu the ability to detect and work with so many different types of hardware so reliably is amazing. But the frustration I did have was related to things that an OEM would have already taken care of.

i think it would be cool to have a Quake console mimic the old unix days. realtime quakeC programming maybe?
/edit client.qc
.
/compile ./mymod
]execute ./mymod/progs.dat

That would be very nice. I've said before, I think just-in-time compilation is really how all QuakeC should work (jam FTEQCC into the engines. No more lost source code; the source code IS the mod.)

[Spirit]

What's that? People are different? Hm, might be true.

Shut up guys, there is no need for another "my OS is better than yours, here are 5 links I found googling 'your OS sucks'". At least not in this thread.

[spooker]

Shut up guys, there is no need for another "my OS is better than yours, here are 5 links I found googling 'your OS sucks'". At least not in this thread.

spirit, this is one of the most intelligent discussions on these forums for a while. it doesn't take much fortitude to pass over something which one doesn't want to read...

Baker, laptops are upgradeable. I bought a wireless pcmcia network card for a laptop back when wireless internet was spreading, and it kept the machine going another 2 years. Linux's inability to work with wireless network cards (at least at the time) was incidentally the reason I jettisoned that OS. I've also had laptops where you could replace the ram and hard drive (though that wouldn't create any system incompatibility issues).

I could see linux working on netbooks, but not on regular laptops, because laptop people still want the ability to use a wide range of software.

[MH]

So far it's civil, and it seems to be more reasoned arguments than a contest to see how far we can piss up a wall. I would vote for splitting it out though as it's gone way off topic.

[lxndr]

i think it would be cool to have a Quake console mimic the old unix days. realtime quakeC programming maybe?
/edit client.qc
.
/compile ./mymod
]execute ./mymod/progs.dat

I thought of launching a shell from the Quake console, not very useful for windows users, but on unix boxes, Quake would soon become the default desktop.

[Baker]

spirit, this is one of the most intelligent discussions on these forums for a while. it doesn't take much fortitude to pass over something which one doesn't want to read...

Exactly.

Baker, laptops are upgradeable. I bought a wireless pcmcia network card for a laptop back when wireless internet was spreading, and it kept the machine going another 2 years. Linux's inability to work with wireless network cards (at least at the time) was incidentally the reason I jettisoned that OS. I've also had laptops where you could replace the ram and hard drive (though that wouldn't create any system incompatibility issues).

Yeah but USB is a universal standard so most devices are default compatible with Linux and there are several things that someone with a Linux laptop aren't going to be upgrading ... like video or sound.

I could see linux working on netbooks, but not on regular laptops, because laptop people still want the ability to use a wide range of software.

Less and less software that people actually use is your traditional application. Web-based applications are becoming far more prevalent.

There are relatively (<--- I said relatively!) few remaining non-game desktop applications that are "essential" these days and even fewer that are OS specific.

Me personally the physical applications I use: a text editor called TextPad, various image editing software including the occasional use of Gimp which I think isn't good for simple 2D editing. I actually haven't used anything Office-wise except Excel in years. This is aside from programming environment stuff or Quake editing tools and obviously games.

I saw a Fortune 500 company that had Open Office installed on their countless machines as presumably a cost cutting measure (and they don't need to worry about the BSA).

Since most things are done via email, only maybe a few dozen more multiplatform applications and the overwhelming percent of average users could equally use any operating system.

Part of the reason this is happening is the dramatic impact of iPhone and the idea of portable applications ... which has resulted in all the phone makers making their phones fancy to compete. And Windows isn't running on any of these phones ... it's OS X, Google Android and Palm OS.

Some people ... believe it or not ... actually use their cellphone as their computer for the purpose of internet access and I even know some people using, of all things, the Playstation 3 for their internet access which I guess comes with a web browser.

[Dreadlorde]

The driver issue for wireless and other things which came up in a couple of previous posts isn't really a fault of linux, it has to do with hardware companies keeping the information on how the device works under a lock and key. Reverse engineering drivers can be really hard and that's why no one wants to take the mass amount of time to do it. The nouveau project is one of the only projects I know of that's reverse engineering graphics drivers and getting somewhere.

The atheros wireless drivers work quite well though. They're open source drivers for wireless dongles and the like.