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>When people buy a laoptop they expect the OS will take up a good chunk of the storage space.[sic] Why? My linux install has a full dev environment and office
by jimktrains2 14y ago
>When people buy a laoptop they expect the OS will take up a good chunk of the storage space.[sic]
Why? My linux install has a full dev environment and office suite and doesn't take a ton of room.
- mikeash 14y agoPeople's expectations aren't based on your Linux install.
- jimktrains2 14y agoI just meant there is no reason the OS needs to be so large.
- mikeash 14y agoCertainly, but the OSes that people typically encounter are, so they expect that because it's what they see.
- gcr 14y agoIsn't that a problem that we should address? Users expect their office suites to crash, but that doesn't mean that we as developers shouldn't be constantly trying to improve our code.
- criley 14y agoIn my experience, I only ever get crashes with LibreOffice. I can't honestly remember a MS Office crash for me since the 2003 version. Are people honestly getting regular office suite crashes?
- stcredzero 14y agoAside from Linux, you mean?
- criley 14y agoSorry, yeah I've been using W7 since beta and now W8. I don't know what kind of crashes happen on Linux with office software.
- gcr 14y agoLinux user. LibreOffice on linux....feels like it's been getting better. It doesn't crash "very much" any more, maybe once every two months for me. I don't use MS Office on windows much, so I can't comment on its stability.
- lostlogin 14y agoEver tried getting word docs into Indesign without converting to RTF as an interim step? This may not be a MS problem and may be Adobes fault, but whenever I get a .doc, importing into indesign directly makes my life miserable for too often. Even if it doesn't crash Indesign, it often causes strange behaviour and bizarre formatting issues. Between that and the damn paper clip wizard man of old, my Office suite tolerance is about zero. But LibreOffice, ouch. After this last week, one more 'java update required' popup and I might start crying. I DID IT 1 MINUTE AGO.
- gcr 14y ago(for the record, my point was that if people expect bad software, ....that's a problem)
- InclinedPlane 14y agoThere are plenty of reasons, but the question is whether or not they are good reasons. A Windows install, for example, will have lots of pre-cached drivers, a crap-ton of little utility programs, several pre-installed libraries and frameworks (.net, vb6, etc.), and a VM for running 32-bit apps. All of these things provide valuable features for the OS. Now, on top of that there is certainly plenty of bloat, and in many instances linux has simply approached these same problems differently. For example by installing shared libraries on demand via the internet through a package management system, or by simply having poorer hardware and cross-architecture support (zing!), or by having a vast ecosystem of open source tools available so that it's always possible to install something via a native compilation. Those are good choices for the linux way of doing things but they certainly come with tradeoffs. P.S. Linux should be installable on the Surface Pro, so if the hardware intrigues anyone it might be worthwhile to see how it fares with a different OS.
- monochromatic 14y agoNo reason at all? Microsoft and Apple just do it out of spite, I guess.