16 ms·

Installing Windows 8 after 8 years of Linux

64 points by rootdiver 12y ago

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
luxpir 12y ago
Impressed by the writer's dedication to putting spaces both before and after punctuation. Also nice to start to read from Linux natives being confused with Windows. Oh how the worm has turned! I've a foot in both camps, but any serious computing happens on Linux. With the exceptions of Excel and some niche Win-only software I work with.
- bebna 12y ago
  As someone who uses sc[1][2] (basic desc: spreadsheets in console with vi-like controls), I don't understand why someone would use switch to windows (as in reboot), just for Excel. Don't gnumeric and libreoffice fill all your typical spreadsheet needs? [1] http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/10699 http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/10699 [2] https://github.com/dkastner/sc https://github.com/dkastner/sc
  - jkot 12y ago
    Even MS Excel runs just fine on Linux.
  - Macha 12y ago
    I can't speak for everyone obviously, but I have plenty of lecturers that insist on .doc/.docx handups and after an incident where a basic document (as in headings, page breaks and paragraphs as the only formatting) written in Libreoffice ended up in a 5 column layout on Word for no explicable reason, I'd rather just write them in an application that I know will show the same when the lecturer opens the file as when I open it.
    - peatmoss 12y ago
      If your workflow is push-only, exporting to PDF fixes this. I have Office loaded on my iPad only for extreme situations. Also, I have Office 365 through my institution that I've been known to use once in a blue moon. Most of my document creation these days is org-mode -> PDF though.
  - luxpir 12y ago
    That's not quite the situation, but thanks for the sc tip. It looks great, but again it's not really Excel that's keeping me on Windows. Phone has been Linux for 5+ years, at least (n900). I have ended up running Win7 with a few 'Linuxes' in VMs. One main one, really though. #! for those who care... sadly recently discontinued. The main reason I stick with Win7 is a) legacy reasons of my own, I suppose we could call them, and b) translation software. The FOSS alternatives aren't quite there yet (for heavy use), although I'd love to sit down for a few months/years and try to create one. A vi-like CAT tool that produced translation memories and lightning quick concordance... that's the dream. Similar to Macha's POV, sometimes you just need to work with people who have no concept of free computing.
    - Shorel 12y ago
      What's your translation software?
      - luxpir 12y ago
        MemoQ, for the most part! It's .Net software so it should run in theory under Linux. Certainly under a VM, potentially with Mono. I haven't tried either.
        Shorel 12y ago
        Thanks, I have only used Virtaal, and white it works, it feels too basic.
  - Shorel 12y ago
    WPS Office is the solution here.
- sudioStudio64 12y ago
  Yeah, the serious business applications that I have supported for years aren't really serious enough.
colinbartlett 12y ago
With all the positive Redmond news here recently, I really expected this to be a glowing review of how improved Windows is. But I guess some things never change?
- Lancey 12y ago
  Things have changed a lot! (for the worse)
Tepix 12y ago
I had to install Windows 8.1 Pro in order to use the Kinect v2 SDK. Boy is it annoying. The worst part is if you want to use Skype - don't use the version of Skype that comes bundled with Windows! It forces you to change your Windows login into a MSN login and will only run while in the foreground (fullscreen). Total crap! I had to change my login back to a local login and then download a "normal" version of Skype that also works in the background and doesn't force me to use MSN to log into windows. That's just one of the many annoyances I ran into. I'm somewhat looking forward to Windows 10 - it can only get better (oh no, I said it!).
- rikkus 12y ago
  Yes Skype is pretty horrible, but at least they did what they should have done and continue the desktop version.
Lancey 12y ago
I respect the writer's persistence. I got a new Acer laptop with Windows 8.1 on it and decided to give it a shot. I already had a live USB ready to go but decided I'd see how much I could work on Windows before getting frustrated. Not long apparently. Once the setup process started asking me for an e-mail address with no option to skip I gave up and put Linux Mint on it. Keep doing your thing, Micro$oft.
- AlyssaRowan 12y ago
  Check the bottom of the screen (you may have to look carefully). You're looking for something like Sign in without a Microsoft account (not recommended) -> Local account - there's a similar flow when creating a new user. It is there, but it's (obviously deliberately) hidden behind one hell of a UX antipattern. I guess they want people to use Microsoft accounts more than they want people to be able to use Windows. And Microsoft accounts are still stuck using only 16-character passwords (!), and I'm not completely clear on what does and does not get 'synced' - if it's my %AppData%, I don't trust SkyDrive, so that's definitely out.
zenlot 12y ago
Seems that author is confusing Microsoft Windows 8.1 with the Lenovo stuff which it ships along when you buy a laptop with the pre-installed software. And because of this reason I didn't bother reading other parts of the article. Though, I have been using FreeBSD as a base for 10+ years, Linux at work and with the arrival of Windows 8.1 I have switched to base of 8.1+Hyper-V+FreeBSD as a VM. This perfectly works on the Lenovo hardware (which I prefer) and I am amazed how Microsoft improved, since the year of 1992+, when I have discovered their products.
- skorgu 12y ago
  You might want to read a bit further, he does go on to attempt to install vanilla 8.1.
  - topbanana 12y ago
    I'll save you the effort. Shock horror, he has to download a wifi driver.
    - rootdiver 12y ago
      The issue is not about the WiFi driver, i can live with that but when my wp8 phone is getting in my way of downloading the driver, its just wrong, really wrong. Its like it is saying to me "You don't know what you are doing, let me fix this for you".
      - V-2 12y ago
        While I agree it's ridiculous, Apple imposes a limit of 100MB for cellular downloads - http://www.macrumors.com/2013/09/18/apple-increases-over-the-air-app-store-download-limit-to-100mb/ http://www.macrumors.com/2013/09/18/apple-increases-over-the... - so even though it's a more reasonable figure, still a showstopper for obtaining your 230MB wi-fi driver.
        bydo 12y ago
bryanlarsen 12y ago
I had experiences very similar to those of the OP. After almost 20 years with Solaris or Linux as my primary OS (with a brief interlude using OSX), I bought a Lenova Yoga 2 Pro and I thought I'd try using Windows as my primary OS. Two motivators: Windows had at the time better HighDPI support than Linux, and since I use Vagrant for everything anyways, I thought I could get the best of both worlds. That experiment didn't last long. It works both ways. My boss is a Dev that's been developing in Windows for a similar amount of time, and he's being exposed to Linux for the last 3 years due to the project we're both working on, and I can understand his frustration. It's a different mind set, really. Emacs & the CLI are second class citizens on Windows. Big IDE's are second class citizens on Linux. Not too mention 20 years of experience solving problems and knowing where to look for answers....
- rikkus 12y ago
  "Emacs & the CLI are second class citizens on Windows" I haven't used Emacs on Windows, but Powershell is the best shell I've used (I used to use zsh on Linux). There's also console2 and conemu if you want to avoid the built in cmd-derivative, which is rather unpleasant.
  - Shorel 12y ago
    But in Windows if I want to ssh somewhere I have to use another program.
- wsc981 12y ago
  > Emacs & the CLI are second class citizens on Windows. I'm wondering why a dev like Jonathan Blow seems to use mainly emacs for development on his Windows machine. He seems to be a developer with a focus on the Windows platform.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
rikkus 12y ago
I made the move in the same direction some years ago and, yes, there are always problems, but IME a missing or broken driver is common with a fresh install of Linux OR Windows. I've often had to download a network driver (both WiFi and wired Ethernet) separately and get it onto the machine via physical media, bluetooth or IRDA. As for software updates: Yes there's a load of Lenovo crapware and yes it's best to just do a clean install. I'm writing this on a T430s which I did a clean install on. I then installed the Lenovo software I actually use: Power management driver Active protection system (I replaced the DVD drive with a SSHD) Fingerprint recognition thing The OP says they install Ubuntu and all is well, but Ubuntu is going to be wanting software updates just as Windows is - it's just that it doesn't have separate crapware asking for them separately. The lesson when it comes to installing an OS is: Be prepared. Either be somewhere where you can download your NIC (or WiFi NIC) software separately and get it onto the machine (it's too often NIC drivers that are missing, which is pretty much the worst thing to be missing!) or get them downloaded first, after finding out what's in the machine. As for the developer account thing: I don't know why that is, but it annoyed me too. They should really not do things like that. They should also stop the push to get everyone to log into VS using a Microsoft account, as that's plain annoying. Finally: "I start Subleme[sic] Text , download some npm packages and started writing code ." Installing Sublime text, npm (and npm packages) on Windows is just as easy as on Linux. With .NET becoming easier to work with in Linux, I'm now considering a move back to Linux on my laptop, so perhaps I'll write an equivalent article on attempting to move the opposite way.
- Gracana 12y ago
  > but Ubuntu is going to be wanting software updates just as Windows is But Ubuntu comes with drivers for all the network devices it supports, and when it does updates, it does them all in one go with a single reboot required. You install, get online, update, and you're done. A base Windows install often will require external media to get online to get updates, and the process is a painstaking series of rebooting and re-launching/re-starting windows update. > Installing Sublime text, npm (and npm packages) on Windows is just as easy as on Linux. I think the point is that he tried doing it The Microsoft Way, and that it was full of barriers and frustration. Of course you can use other tools, but Microsoft tools on a Microsoft system ought to be easy, right?
kweinber 12y ago
I recently switched from a 15" macbook to a lenovo windows 8.1 laptop after 10 years of mac/linux for my daily driver. I live with Windows as the base install and virtualbox linux (arch + ubuntu). I am so glad to be free of the Mac... My hardware is upgradeable again, the touchscreen is a real innovation, Excel opens instantaneously and when I want Unix, I use the linux vm, I am not tempted to use the strange halfway house that is the mac unix cli/packaging system with ports/homebrew on its back. windows 8.1 is a bifurcated experience, but they tried to do something new... it feels like Apple desktop engineers only really do truly new stuff in desktop hardware (smaller, lighter, glue and solder) ... the software is pretty but way behind Gnome, KDE and Windows... I was the biggest MS hater you could be 10 years ago.... now it is Apple that seems like the bad guy that isn't innovating now...
- gygygy 12y ago
  lenovo... lol
- eddieroger 12y ago
  You do know that the "unix cli/packaging system" thing is actual UNIX, right? Like, bona fide, certified UNIX for a while now. Homebrew is just a different package manager than you're used to, but not so different from things like apt or yum once you get to know your way around it.
  - bydo 12y ago
    Not to mention that you can use straight ports of Debian apt-get[1], FreeBSD pkg-ng[2], or even Arch pacman[3] on OS X if you so desire. 1: http://pdb.finkproject.org/pdb/package.php/apt http://pdb.finkproject.org/pdb/package.php/apt 2: https://github.com/freebsd/pkg https://github.com/freebsd/pkg 3: https://github.com/kladd/pacman-osx https://github.com/kladd/pacman-osx
  - jordigh 12y ago
    I'm sorry, but comparing homebrew to apt or yum just incenses me. Let's begin with the most glaring difference: source distribution vs binary distribution. Installing my GNU Octave takes under a minute with yum or apt but hours or days with homebrew or macports. Let's also proceed with how none of homebrew, macports or fink is native to Mac OS X, but is some tacked-on thing that most Mac OS X users are unfamiliar with (yeah, most Mac OS X users don't even know that a terminal exists or what to do with it). It does not control the entire OS, but only some packages, which are going to be installed in /usr/local or /opt or /opt/local. And woe betide the users, the same Mac OS X users who just learned that their OS has a command line, if they decide to use more than one of these package managers. Conflicting packages strewn all over their filesystem! Great fun trying to figure out which Python distribution is getting run and which Python packages are getting imported. While we're on the topic of Unix unfamiliarity, let's also talk about simplicity. The typical user sees the following when told to install Xcode and run this, run that, set these environment variables, modify their .bashrc: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2015/03/10/10598846.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2015/03/10/10598... Now let's move on to "one day is a long time in brewland!" There is no promise of stability or attempt to make sure that all packages work together with each other. There is no stable distribution. If you're lucky, you might be able to check out specific git tags of each package, but this doesn't work for all packages, and you're expected to be updating your entire set of packages pretty much daily if you want to have "support". The instructions that worked yesterday for getting the software you want may not work today, because all of the packages moved under your feet overnight. Let's finally also see what happens when they upgrade from one Mac OS X release to another: breakage everywhere. Some packages may need to be recompiled, some may no longer compile (hello there, LLVM bugs that prevent compilation of GNU Octave), or hours upon hours of copying or moving homebrew or macports trees around during an operating system upgrade. Homebrew and macports are a parody of what Unix package management should look like, and fink doesn't have the maintainership that a GNU/Linux or BSD distro has.
dhimes 12y ago
I'm in almost the same position as the OP. I bought a toshiba s55 with Win 8.1 as a travel rig because my eeePC just wasn't able to handle the load any more. The Toshiba doesn't fit as well into an airline seat, but it is a very nice setup. I use Linux Mint in VirtualBox (my main work machine- the one I'm on now- is also Mint but as a native install. In short, I'm quite pleased with win 8.1. I like the tile stuff ok. VBox with Mint is fast enough for development work (no usb 3 support yet). But for the first time in years I can confidently print and scan and really get full use out of my hardware. The drawback is crapware. I apparently downloaded something called Pokki which isn't really a virus (some people might have a use for it) but which is pretty hard to get rid of (maybe not for Win types but it took me a while). I don't think they tried to be malicious- everything was in an easily discoverable folder and their website tells you where it is, the just have an auto-start process that you have to delete after starting in 'safe mode.' Other than that it's fine. I follow the same security practices: I have an admin account that I don't use very much but I use for installing 'global,' trusted software like vbox and Office (Libre/MS). I do my work under a non-priviledged account. Etc. Oh, and I did use the Norton virus thingy, just in case. Overall my experience with Win 8.1 has been positive.
fsniper 12y ago
I'm actually fascinated with the lastest comment on that page from klkvsk: "Anyways, blame Intel and N-7265 wifi adapter you have in your laptop, not Microsoft. Windows does have a generic driver that works well most of their adapters, but seems like not all of them. That's a question for Intel, why is it not compatible." This is just Linux guys' (me) scripted answer for people trying linux for the first time who has wifi problems. Things are really inverse now.
- jmuguy 12y ago
  I'm not sure whats up with Intel wireless in the past couple of years but we (team of IT guys) constantly deal with issues with it on Windows (specifically HP notebooks). For a while our response was to look for driver updates. We finally discovered that rolling the driver back, usually to whatever came with Windows, was the real answer.
  - fsniper 12y ago
    I'm lucky I'm not working in a similar position. I hate driver issues.
realusername 12y ago
I sadly had the same experience as this guy. I guess when you are a standard user browsing the web, everything works fine on windows, but if you are a web developer it's just a nightmare. There is always something to install which is not there, I have to install tons of drivers, Putty, WinCSP, a decent terminal (cmd.exe is just unusable), WAMP, python, various python libraries, perl, node.js (lots of front-end tools needs it now), Cygwin (otherwise it's impossible to do anything with the base programs), wget.exe, 7zip, notepad++ (the built-in notepad does not handle newlines properly), git, setup bash aliases, emacs, Firefox ... (the list can be expanded). So yeah, you can code on Windows, but you are basically fighting with the system all the time to install everything you need.
- sudioStudio64 12y ago
  The thing is...you're trying to make it act like linux. That will be a fight. If you take the time to learn how things are done on windows...or any platform for that matter...it wouldn't be that hard.
  - jevgeni 12y ago
    This is exactly the thing. I have been using xBSD and OS X for the last 10 years, but have been confronted with the need to do some financial modelling on Windows (as a side note, I guess this is not "serious" computing, according to some comments here). Attempt #1: Try the SciPy/Anaconda stack. Mostly OK, but Python's Windows support is an afterthought. Anaconda is especially sweet, but getting any kind of serious Python distribution running in a corporate environment is a pain. Integration being the main source of misery. Attempt #2: Try F#. Sweet mother of god, everything runs, compiles, does what I expect it to do and efficiency is awesome. Visual Studio 2013 is although an IDE, but nowhere near a bloated, monstrous carcass like Eclipse; or in fact not as bloated as some Emacs setups I've seen. Only "downside": the need to buy a couple of books on .Net and F#. The moral of the story: Microsoft has an enormous capacity to create some ground breaking stuff and then f- it up completely by bad commercial decisions. Thankfully it seems, they've started to fix that.
    - 12y ago
egeozcan 12y ago
I got a brand-new laptop with Windows 8 pre-installed from a local manufacturer in Turkey (Actually it says "Grundig" but it's assembled by Arçelik[1]), as a present. It had an i5 and an SSD so I decided to give it a go as a mobile workstation (I'm the kind of developer who likes his large monitors a bit too much). The installation was single-language and I wanted it to be English, so I re-installed from the dedicated partition and there I could choose English. Installation took quite a few restarts and at least an hour. During this time, most of the messages I received were really vague ("Your computer is being reset" with a looping load animation doesn't help me see the progress). After it finished, I went on to update it to Windows 8.1. Here's a summary of my experience: http://imgur.com/a/Qr49N http://imgur.com/a/Qr49N ("Something happened". Wow!) Please note all those pre-installed apps in the background of the last picture, which you can't get rid of unless a) you remove them one-by-one and clean registry manually or b) download a fresh copy of Windows from Microsoft but then you lose some drivers for some reason and need to hunt for them. After tweaking, restarting, deleting stuff, modifying registry and so on, I could finally install the 8.1 update. That's why I'm so excited about .NET going full cross-platform (I've been developing primarily on Windows since nearly 10 years, mind you). [1] http://www.grundig.co.uk/Pg/AboutGrundig http://www.grundig.co.uk/Pg/AboutGrundig
- ryanjshaw 12y ago
  As a Windows developer and somebody who actually likes using Windows, I'm still shocked by how pathetic Windows Update is. I'm often reinstalling because as a developer I want to try out the newer platforms. I gave Windows 8.1 a try recently. Fresh install and Windows Update says there's nothing to update. Knowing that's BS, I force it to refresh -- after a significant wait suddenly there's 1GB of updates. Really? Why did I just download a 3.5GB ISO that is 1GB out of date? I press on and force the downloads to start because a safe system is a priority to me. The downloads take forever to start. When they eventually do start, they randomly stop (no ethernet activity) for random periods of time. All this time I'm twiddling my thumbs wondering if there's some kind of "intelligent" downloader that is slowing down because I'm trying to do something else on the system. Eventually they finish downloading and installing and the system reboots. After the reboot... I have more hundreds of MBs more of updates waiting for me. WTF? I go through this process 2 or 3 more times, and now I'm just left with "optional" updates. Curious, I click on the 'more information' link to hit the Microsoft website (because for some reason the Windows Update UI just shows the most completely useless generic text for each update). Apparently the 'optional' updates are "rollups"... surely that's important?! Who knows, because Windows Update packages are opaque blobs. So I go ahead and install the optional updates. Reboot. Now everything is good, right? Nope, go take a look at the Windows Update History - it turns out a bunch of updates actually failed to install at some point? It looks like they might have successfully installed later... or did they? At this point I don't even care. Compare with the Linux (Ubuntu, but I'm sure others qualify too) experience: apt-get update; apt-get upgrade. If there's an issue I get informed immediately and because the updates are per-package it's clear whether or not I should care -- no opaque blobs here. When it's done, I know it's done and there won't be any more magical updates mysteriously appearing. I know I can run the update/upgrade in the background while I use the machine for other things. I just don't understand why Microsoft can't get the update experience right!
sudioStudio64 12y ago
It doesn't work the way that I thought it would? (Instead of learning how it actually works.)
scrapcode 12y ago
I'll agree with the statement about the advances of Linux in the past 5+ years. I must admit though, I learned almost everything I know in the terminal through wrestling RedHat and Mandrake into shape. It was extremely disheartening as a kid to finally get Linux dual-booted with Windows and then take 3 days to get Broadcom to work. - This isn't quit the same thing, but it's interesting to see how the community has taken shape to a point where Linux is a viable replacement for Windows for almost everyone.
barbs 12y ago
My Dad recently got malware on his Windows desktop computer, and wanted me to fix it for him. He's reasonably tech-savvy but malware can happen to the best of us. I tried searching and removing suspicious looking files, but it kept coming back, so I decided to reformat the computer and reinstall windows. The first part was to get an image to install from. Windows offers .iso downloads on their website[0], but you need to enter the product key for the computer to access it. I used a third-party tool to dig this out of the registry, but attempting to use this key on the website gave a non-descript error-code. After googling around, I found that it wasn't giving me the download because it was an OEM-license (or something), since it came installed on the DELL computer. Luckily my Dad had kept the disc that came with the computer, and I used this to reinstall windows. However, like the OP, I was missing drivers for a handful of things, including the built-in wireless and wired network adapters. Luckily, before reinstalling I'd found a folder on the C drive called "Drivers" which looked important, and had backed this onto a USB drive. The point is, the whole process took much longer than expected due it being...Windows. The DRM and driver issues would likely be totally absent if I were installing linux. And the whole reason I was doing this in the first place was to remove adware, which is barely ever if at all a problem on linux! [0] http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-recovery http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-recovery
- ygra 12y ago
  The easist way to get rid of adware I tend to use on other's PCs is to just use System Restore. Most adware won't break in there so it just takes a few minutes to be reasonably sure that the system is clean again (at the expense of the last thing they installed, of course). As for getting a clean slate back, Windows 8 has a Reset function that restores the system to a fresh install state while keeping data intact. Also much easier than hunting for a recovery DVD or an ISO.
mark_l_watson 12y ago
Pre-installed crapware on Windows machines is a huge problem, and I am surprised Microsoft does not ban this practice because it affects their brand. You can buy signature edition Windows machines directly from Microsoft that are crapware free, which is what I did a few months ago.
- jpobst 12y ago
  They are unable to prohibit OEMs from installing whatever they want as part of the antitrust settlement.
spiralpolitik 12y ago
In my many years of installing both Windows and Linux I've learned the most important lesson is always have a USB Ethernet adaptor to hand as you can be certain you'll have problems getting the WiFi card to work correctly at some point. (Ubuntu is very good on this front. Debian not so much but that's down to politics not technology. Windows is still a hot mess)
grandalf 12y ago
The UX of windows 8 is so incredibly poor (even after 8.1) that I question the methodology used to design it. Whatever test group or user studies are suggesting that MS is going in the right direction are deeply flawed. It's just utterly confusing to figure out how to do nearly anything on the OS. There are all sorts of noisy visual cues that look like they communicate state or flow but don't, as well as many seemingly ill-conceived UX "modes" that bewilder me and that just doesn't happen for me with tech stuff. Want to get to the control panel? There appear to be several different ones and you have to hover your mouse in just the right place on the screen in order to coax a bar to slide in and show you a few options. There are several such bars, each triggered by some kind of mouse hover. Since I'm ranting, even the usability on the modern IE site is horrid. It seems that the idea is to have one environment for tablets and for 'normal' users and another for "pro" users who care about advanced control panels. Even if you accept two entirely different UX metaphors coexisting as reasonable, it still boggles the mind how anyone could expect normal users to figure out those strange mouse hovers. It's just such a bewilderingly odd user experience. 8.1 cleans up a few of the biggest warts but is still (IMHO) a UX disaster and I would actively discourage anyone from deciding to use it. Maybe the best business decision for MS would be to just copy OSX as much as possible and then let the legal department deal with any infringement claims.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - grandalf 12y ago
    I used to think that. Try using Windows 8.1 and see if you can figure out basic things. Try it with two monitors and you'll find that the hover zone for some of the hidden stuff is about 30x30 pixels. It reminds me of trying to find hidden doors on Zelda.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
beyti 12y ago
I think the OP has a lot of confusions about the "vendor", "operating system" and very suprisingly with "linux" and "ubuntu" generalization. I can understand the first two, but can't seem to understand one who has 8 years of xp with linux is able to generalize "ubuntu" with all of the other linux operating systems. Quite the waste of my time to read this, nothing gained for me other than the thought of "hackernews top posts are going bad" sadly.
- theandrewbailey 12y ago
  > The bottom line , the computer was full of crappy Lenovo and other brands software that just gets in my way and i don't want to use. Even worse after about 2 days some of the bundled Lenovo apps started crashing once in a while. I know this issue is not related to microsoft, and i am not blaming them for this. It's pretty clear that he distinguishes Microsoft from Lenovo. There's nothing specific that I can point to, but it seems that he knows the difference between Linux and Ubuntu, also.
  - beyti 12y ago
    I can clearly read that he was devastated about the Lenovo bloatware aorund 3rd day and 1 for Microsoft & No network problem. I assume more of a vendor issue than microsoft caused this tiredness. And Ubuntu is a really distinguished linux distro for its ease of usability and general driver compatibility; not like most of other greatly used linux distros, which care more of power users than everyday users.
    - theandrewbailey 12y ago
      > And Ubuntu is a really distinguished linux distro for its ease of usability and general driver compatibility It's why I've had my parents using Xubuntu for the past 4 years. There haven't been any Big Problems. Calling Xubuntu Ubuntu might be cheating, but it's the same thing minus Unity.
M8 12y ago
"I start Subleme Text , download some npm packages and started writing code." Not really comparable to Visual Studio. One is a notepad while the other is an IDE.
- josteink 12y ago
  Fair enough (and I say this as a Visual Studio user), but we should also note his aim was not to have an IDE. The IDE was not a goal, it was a means to a goal. His goal, what he wanted to try out, was creating Windows Phone apps, and for this the big complex IDE is was a prerequisite, and this prerequisite caused him to fail reaching his goal. Contrast this to other development tasks, like web-development, and the need for these complex tools went away and he could be instantly productive. Does that say anything about developing Windows Phone apps? It's definitely not a direct apples to oranges comparison, but when making Windows Phone apps gets its complexity way beyond web-apps, that is entirely something within Microsoft's control.
gonewest 12y ago
I think it's fair game to point a finger at Microsoft for this, they can't claim lack of involvement or interest in their device ecosystem. They could be putting all vendor drivers in the Windows Update repository, insisting that the drivers themselves be separate from any optional or value-add tools, cracking down on straight up advertising ploys such as installing URL links to websites on the desktop, etc.
teh_klev 12y ago
Sigh. In 2009 I came back to Linux/Unix after a roughly equal amount of time and had my own WTF moments getting things up and running. But I got there, so no big deal and I didn't feel the need to bait the Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu forums with a post like that. Instead I RTFM'd and posted a couple polite questions asking for help with things I didn't understand and got tripped up with (WiFi drivers ;) ) and off I went on my way. This is just /. style flamebait, no idea why it's on the front page of HN.
Shorel 12y ago
I dual boot Windows 8.1 and Linux Ubuntu in a Dell Inspiron 13 2-in-1. It's true Intel network drivers suck. Not only WiFi. I have to transfer the Ethernet network driver for the desktops in the office via USB, as any Windows Install does not have the driver in the disk. And this is for wired networking. Nowadays most network hardware is done by Intel. So it sucks everywhere. In contrast, Ubuntu is totally plug and play. I have an external USB drive that can boot in the desktops and in the Dell laptop. Even with different video cards (AMD vs Intel), it just works. I can change the sound output device with a single click in Ubuntu. The laptop boots in 'secure mode' and Ubuntu is recognized by the UEFI loader. But not everything is perfect in Linux. The accelerometer (or whatever hardware that autodetects the laptop's rotation) only works in Windows. Then, for reading comics, I boot to Windows. The video performance is better in Windows. I always get screen tearing in Ubuntu, while I get perfect playback in Windows (unless I use display mirroring and output to HDMI and the internal display at the same time). If I want good FullHD video, I have to boot into Windows (and output to only one screen).

64 points by rootdiver 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

Impressed by the writer's dedication to putting spaces both before and after punctuation. Also nice to start to read from Linux natives being confused with Windows. Oh how the worm has turned! I've a foot in both camps, but any serious computing happens on Linux. With the exceptions of Excel and some niche Win-only software I work with.

bebna 12y ago
As someone who uses sc[1][2] (basic desc: spreadsheets in console with vi-like controls), I don't understand why someone would use switch to windows (as in reboot), just for Excel. Don't gnumeric and libreoffice fill all your typical spreadsheet needs? [1] http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/10699 http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/10699 [2] https://github.com/dkastner/sc https://github.com/dkastner/sc
- jkot 12y ago
  Even MS Excel runs just fine on Linux.
- Macha 12y ago
  I can't speak for everyone obviously, but I have plenty of lecturers that insist on .doc/.docx handups and after an incident where a basic document (as in headings, page breaks and paragraphs as the only formatting) written in Libreoffice ended up in a 5 column layout on Word for no explicable reason, I'd rather just write them in an application that I know will show the same when the lecturer opens the file as when I open it.
  - peatmoss 12y ago
    If your workflow is push-only, exporting to PDF fixes this. I have Office loaded on my iPad only for extreme situations. Also, I have Office 365 through my institution that I've been known to use once in a blue moon. Most of my document creation these days is org-mode -> PDF though.
- luxpir 12y ago
  That's not quite the situation, but thanks for the sc tip. It looks great, but again it's not really Excel that's keeping me on Windows. Phone has been Linux for 5+ years, at least (n900). I have ended up running Win7 with a few 'Linuxes' in VMs. One main one, really though. #! for those who care... sadly recently discontinued. The main reason I stick with Win7 is a) legacy reasons of my own, I suppose we could call them, and b) translation software. The FOSS alternatives aren't quite there yet (for heavy use), although I'd love to sit down for a few months/years and try to create one. A vi-like CAT tool that produced translation memories and lightning quick concordance... that's the dream. Similar to Macha's POV, sometimes you just need to work with people who have no concept of free computing.
  - Shorel 12y ago
    What's your translation software?
    - luxpir 12y ago
      MemoQ, for the most part! It's .Net software so it should run in theory under Linux. Certainly under a VM, potentially with Mono. I haven't tried either.
      - Shorel 12y ago
        Thanks, I have only used Virtaal, and white it works, it feels too basic.
- Shorel 12y ago
  WPS Office is the solution here.
sudioStudio64 12y ago
Yeah, the serious business applications that I have supported for years aren't really serious enough.

colinbartlett 12y ago

With all the positive Redmond news here recently, I really expected this to be a glowing review of how improved Windows is. But I guess some things never change?

Lancey 12y ago
Things have changed a lot! (for the worse)

Tepix 12y ago

I had to install Windows 8.1 Pro in order to use the Kinect v2 SDK. Boy is it annoying. The worst part is if you want to use Skype - don't use the version of Skype that comes bundled with Windows! It forces you to change your Windows login into a MSN login and will only run while in the foreground (fullscreen). Total crap! I had to change my login back to a local login and then download a "normal" version of Skype that also works in the background and doesn't force me to use MSN to log into windows. That's just one of the many annoyances I ran into. I'm somewhat looking forward to Windows 10 - it can only get better (oh no, I said it!).

rikkus 12y ago
Yes Skype is pretty horrible, but at least they did what they should have done and continue the desktop version.

Lancey 12y ago

I respect the writer's persistence. I got a new Acer laptop with Windows 8.1 on it and decided to give it a shot. I already had a live USB ready to go but decided I'd see how much I could work on Windows before getting frustrated. Not long apparently. Once the setup process started asking me for an e-mail address with no option to skip I gave up and put Linux Mint on it. Keep doing your thing, Micro$oft.

AlyssaRowan 12y ago
Check the bottom of the screen (you may have to look carefully). You're looking for something like Sign in without a Microsoft account (not recommended) -> Local account - there's a similar flow when creating a new user. It is there, but it's (obviously deliberately) hidden behind one hell of a UX antipattern. I guess they want people to use Microsoft accounts more than they want people to be able to use Windows. And Microsoft accounts are still stuck using only 16-character passwords (!), and I'm not completely clear on what does and does not get 'synced' - if it's my %AppData%, I don't trust SkyDrive, so that's definitely out.

zenlot 12y ago

Seems that author is confusing Microsoft Windows 8.1 with the Lenovo stuff which it ships along when you buy a laptop with the pre-installed software. And because of this reason I didn't bother reading other parts of the article. Though, I have been using FreeBSD as a base for 10+ years, Linux at work and with the arrival of Windows 8.1 I have switched to base of 8.1+Hyper-V+FreeBSD as a VM. This perfectly works on the Lenovo hardware (which I prefer) and I am amazed how Microsoft improved, since the year of 1992+, when I have discovered their products.

skorgu 12y ago
You might want to read a bit further, he does go on to attempt to install vanilla 8.1.
- topbanana 12y ago
  I'll save you the effort. Shock horror, he has to download a wifi driver.
  - rootdiver 12y ago
    The issue is not about the WiFi driver, i can live with that but when my wp8 phone is getting in my way of downloading the driver, its just wrong, really wrong. Its like it is saying to me "You don't know what you are doing, let me fix this for you".
    - V-2 12y ago
      While I agree it's ridiculous, Apple imposes a limit of 100MB for cellular downloads - http://www.macrumors.com/2013/09/18/apple-increases-over-the-air-app-store-download-limit-to-100mb/ http://www.macrumors.com/2013/09/18/apple-increases-over-the... - so even though it's a more reasonable figure, still a showstopper for obtaining your 230MB wi-fi driver.
      - bydo 12y ago

bryanlarsen 12y ago

I had experiences very similar to those of the OP. After almost 20 years with Solaris or Linux as my primary OS (with a brief interlude using OSX), I bought a Lenova Yoga 2 Pro and I thought I'd try using Windows as my primary OS. Two motivators: Windows had at the time better HighDPI support than Linux, and since I use Vagrant for everything anyways, I thought I could get the best of both worlds. That experiment didn't last long. It works both ways. My boss is a Dev that's been developing in Windows for a similar amount of time, and he's being exposed to Linux for the last 3 years due to the project we're both working on, and I can understand his frustration. It's a different mind set, really. Emacs & the CLI are second class citizens on Windows. Big IDE's are second class citizens on Linux. Not too mention 20 years of experience solving problems and knowing where to look for answers....

rikkus 12y ago
"Emacs & the CLI are second class citizens on Windows" I haven't used Emacs on Windows, but Powershell is the best shell I've used (I used to use zsh on Linux). There's also console2 and conemu if you want to avoid the built in cmd-derivative, which is rather unpleasant.
- Shorel 12y ago
  But in Windows if I want to ssh somewhere I have to use another program.
wsc981 12y ago
> Emacs & the CLI are second class citizens on Windows. I'm wondering why a dev like Jonathan Blow seems to use mainly emacs for development on his Windows machine. He seems to be a developer with a focus on the Windows platform.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

rikkus 12y ago

I made the move in the same direction some years ago and, yes, there are always problems, but IME a missing or broken driver is common with a fresh install of Linux OR Windows. I've often had to download a network driver (both WiFi and wired Ethernet) separately and get it onto the machine via physical media, bluetooth or IRDA. As for software updates: Yes there's a load of Lenovo crapware and yes it's best to just do a clean install. I'm writing this on a T430s which I did a clean install on. I then installed the Lenovo software I actually use: Power management driver Active protection system (I replaced the DVD drive with a SSHD) Fingerprint recognition thing The OP says they install Ubuntu and all is well, but Ubuntu is going to be wanting software updates just as Windows is - it's just that it doesn't have separate crapware asking for them separately. The lesson when it comes to installing an OS is: Be prepared. Either be somewhere where you can download your NIC (or WiFi NIC) software separately and get it onto the machine (it's too often NIC drivers that are missing, which is pretty much the worst thing to be missing!) or get them downloaded first, after finding out what's in the machine. As for the developer account thing: I don't know why that is, but it annoyed me too. They should really not do things like that. They should also stop the push to get everyone to log into VS using a Microsoft account, as that's plain annoying. Finally: "I start Subleme[sic] Text , download some npm packages and started writing code ." Installing Sublime text, npm (and npm packages) on Windows is just as easy as on Linux. With .NET becoming easier to work with in Linux, I'm now considering a move back to Linux on my laptop, so perhaps I'll write an equivalent article on attempting to move the opposite way.

Gracana 12y ago
> but Ubuntu is going to be wanting software updates just as Windows is But Ubuntu comes with drivers for all the network devices it supports, and when it does updates, it does them all in one go with a single reboot required. You install, get online, update, and you're done. A base Windows install often will require external media to get online to get updates, and the process is a painstaking series of rebooting and re-launching/re-starting windows update. > Installing Sublime text, npm (and npm packages) on Windows is just as easy as on Linux. I think the point is that he tried doing it The Microsoft Way, and that it was full of barriers and frustration. Of course you can use other tools, but Microsoft tools on a Microsoft system ought to be easy, right?

kweinber 12y ago

I recently switched from a 15" macbook to a lenovo windows 8.1 laptop after 10 years of mac/linux for my daily driver. I live with Windows as the base install and virtualbox linux (arch + ubuntu). I am so glad to be free of the Mac... My hardware is upgradeable again, the touchscreen is a real innovation, Excel opens instantaneously and when I want Unix, I use the linux vm, I am not tempted to use the strange halfway house that is the mac unix cli/packaging system with ports/homebrew on its back. windows 8.1 is a bifurcated experience, but they tried to do something new... it feels like Apple desktop engineers only really do truly new stuff in desktop hardware (smaller, lighter, glue and solder) ... the software is pretty but way behind Gnome, KDE and Windows... I was the biggest MS hater you could be 10 years ago.... now it is Apple that seems like the bad guy that isn't innovating now...

gygygy 12y ago
lenovo... lol
eddieroger 12y ago
You do know that the "unix cli/packaging system" thing is actual UNIX, right? Like, bona fide, certified UNIX for a while now. Homebrew is just a different package manager than you're used to, but not so different from things like apt or yum once you get to know your way around it.
- bydo 12y ago
  Not to mention that you can use straight ports of Debian apt-get[1], FreeBSD pkg-ng[2], or even Arch pacman[3] on OS X if you so desire. 1: http://pdb.finkproject.org/pdb/package.php/apt http://pdb.finkproject.org/pdb/package.php/apt 2: https://github.com/freebsd/pkg https://github.com/freebsd/pkg 3: https://github.com/kladd/pacman-osx https://github.com/kladd/pacman-osx
- jordigh 12y ago
  I'm sorry, but comparing homebrew to apt or yum just incenses me. Let's begin with the most glaring difference: source distribution vs binary distribution. Installing my GNU Octave takes under a minute with yum or apt but hours or days with homebrew or macports. Let's also proceed with how none of homebrew, macports or fink is native to Mac OS X, but is some tacked-on thing that most Mac OS X users are unfamiliar with (yeah, most Mac OS X users don't even know that a terminal exists or what to do with it). It does not control the entire OS, but only some packages, which are going to be installed in /usr/local or /opt or /opt/local. And woe betide the users, the same Mac OS X users who just learned that their OS has a command line, if they decide to use more than one of these package managers. Conflicting packages strewn all over their filesystem! Great fun trying to figure out which Python distribution is getting run and which Python packages are getting imported. While we're on the topic of Unix unfamiliarity, let's also talk about simplicity. The typical user sees the following when told to install Xcode and run this, run that, set these environment variables, modify their .bashrc: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2015/03/10/10598846.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2015/03/10/10598... Now let's move on to "one day is a long time in brewland!" There is no promise of stability or attempt to make sure that all packages work together with each other. There is no stable distribution. If you're lucky, you might be able to check out specific git tags of each package, but this doesn't work for all packages, and you're expected to be updating your entire set of packages pretty much daily if you want to have "support". The instructions that worked yesterday for getting the software you want may not work today, because all of the packages moved under your feet overnight. Let's finally also see what happens when they upgrade from one Mac OS X release to another: breakage everywhere. Some packages may need to be recompiled, some may no longer compile (hello there, LLVM bugs that prevent compilation of GNU Octave), or hours upon hours of copying or moving homebrew or macports trees around during an operating system upgrade. Homebrew and macports are a parody of what Unix package management should look like, and fink doesn't have the maintainership that a GNU/Linux or BSD distro has.

dhimes 12y ago

I'm in almost the same position as the OP. I bought a toshiba s55 with Win 8.1 as a travel rig because my eeePC just wasn't able to handle the load any more. The Toshiba doesn't fit as well into an airline seat, but it is a very nice setup. I use Linux Mint in VirtualBox (my main work machine- the one I'm on now- is also Mint but as a native install. In short, I'm quite pleased with win 8.1. I like the tile stuff ok. VBox with Mint is fast enough for development work (no usb 3 support yet). But for the first time in years I can confidently print and scan and really get full use out of my hardware. The drawback is crapware. I apparently downloaded something called Pokki which isn't really a virus (some people might have a use for it) but which is pretty hard to get rid of (maybe not for Win types but it took me a while). I don't think they tried to be malicious- everything was in an easily discoverable folder and their website tells you where it is, the just have an auto-start process that you have to delete after starting in 'safe mode.' Other than that it's fine. I follow the same security practices: I have an admin account that I don't use very much but I use for installing 'global,' trusted software like vbox and Office (Libre/MS). I do my work under a non-priviledged account. Etc. Oh, and I did use the Norton virus thingy, just in case. Overall my experience with Win 8.1 has been positive.

fsniper 12y ago

I'm actually fascinated with the lastest comment on that page from klkvsk: "Anyways, blame Intel and N-7265 wifi adapter you have in your laptop, not Microsoft. Windows does have a generic driver that works well most of their adapters, but seems like not all of them. That's a question for Intel, why is it not compatible." This is just Linux guys' (me) scripted answer for people trying linux for the first time who has wifi problems. Things are really inverse now.

jmuguy 12y ago
I'm not sure whats up with Intel wireless in the past couple of years but we (team of IT guys) constantly deal with issues with it on Windows (specifically HP notebooks). For a while our response was to look for driver updates. We finally discovered that rolling the driver back, usually to whatever came with Windows, was the real answer.
- fsniper 12y ago
  I'm lucky I'm not working in a similar position. I hate driver issues.

realusername 12y ago

I sadly had the same experience as this guy. I guess when you are a standard user browsing the web, everything works fine on windows, but if you are a web developer it's just a nightmare. There is always something to install which is not there, I have to install tons of drivers, Putty, WinCSP, a decent terminal (cmd.exe is just unusable), WAMP, python, various python libraries, perl, node.js (lots of front-end tools needs it now), Cygwin (otherwise it's impossible to do anything with the base programs), wget.exe, 7zip, notepad++ (the built-in notepad does not handle newlines properly), git, setup bash aliases, emacs, Firefox ... (the list can be expanded). So yeah, you can code on Windows, but you are basically fighting with the system all the time to install everything you need.

sudioStudio64 12y ago
The thing is...you're trying to make it act like linux. That will be a fight. If you take the time to learn how things are done on windows...or any platform for that matter...it wouldn't be that hard.
- jevgeni 12y ago
  This is exactly the thing. I have been using xBSD and OS X for the last 10 years, but have been confronted with the need to do some financial modelling on Windows (as a side note, I guess this is not "serious" computing, according to some comments here). Attempt #1: Try the SciPy/Anaconda stack. Mostly OK, but Python's Windows support is an afterthought. Anaconda is especially sweet, but getting any kind of serious Python distribution running in a corporate environment is a pain. Integration being the main source of misery. Attempt #2: Try F#. Sweet mother of god, everything runs, compiles, does what I expect it to do and efficiency is awesome. Visual Studio 2013 is although an IDE, but nowhere near a bloated, monstrous carcass like Eclipse; or in fact not as bloated as some Emacs setups I've seen. Only "downside": the need to buy a couple of books on .Net and F#. The moral of the story: Microsoft has an enormous capacity to create some ground breaking stuff and then f- it up completely by bad commercial decisions. Thankfully it seems, they've started to fix that.
  - 12y ago

egeozcan 12y ago

I got a brand-new laptop with Windows 8 pre-installed from a local manufacturer in Turkey (Actually it says "Grundig" but it's assembled by Arçelik[1]), as a present. It had an i5 and an SSD so I decided to give it a go as a mobile workstation (I'm the kind of developer who likes his large monitors a bit too much). The installation was single-language and I wanted it to be English, so I re-installed from the dedicated partition and there I could choose English. Installation took quite a few restarts and at least an hour. During this time, most of the messages I received were really vague ("Your computer is being reset" with a looping load animation doesn't help me see the progress). After it finished, I went on to update it to Windows 8.1. Here's a summary of my experience: http://imgur.com/a/Qr49N http://imgur.com/a/Qr49N ("Something happened". Wow!) Please note all those pre-installed apps in the background of the last picture, which you can't get rid of unless a) you remove them one-by-one and clean registry manually or b) download a fresh copy of Windows from Microsoft but then you lose some drivers for some reason and need to hunt for them. After tweaking, restarting, deleting stuff, modifying registry and so on, I could finally install the 8.1 update. That's why I'm so excited about .NET going full cross-platform (I've been developing primarily on Windows since nearly 10 years, mind you). [1] http://www.grundig.co.uk/Pg/AboutGrundig http://www.grundig.co.uk/Pg/AboutGrundig

ryanjshaw 12y ago
As a Windows developer and somebody who actually likes using Windows, I'm still shocked by how pathetic Windows Update is. I'm often reinstalling because as a developer I want to try out the newer platforms. I gave Windows 8.1 a try recently. Fresh install and Windows Update says there's nothing to update. Knowing that's BS, I force it to refresh -- after a significant wait suddenly there's 1GB of updates. Really? Why did I just download a 3.5GB ISO that is 1GB out of date? I press on and force the downloads to start because a safe system is a priority to me. The downloads take forever to start. When they eventually do start, they randomly stop (no ethernet activity) for random periods of time. All this time I'm twiddling my thumbs wondering if there's some kind of "intelligent" downloader that is slowing down because I'm trying to do something else on the system. Eventually they finish downloading and installing and the system reboots. After the reboot... I have more hundreds of MBs more of updates waiting for me. WTF? I go through this process 2 or 3 more times, and now I'm just left with "optional" updates. Curious, I click on the 'more information' link to hit the Microsoft website (because for some reason the Windows Update UI just shows the most completely useless generic text for each update). Apparently the 'optional' updates are "rollups"... surely that's important?! Who knows, because Windows Update packages are opaque blobs. So I go ahead and install the optional updates. Reboot. Now everything is good, right? Nope, go take a look at the Windows Update History - it turns out a bunch of updates actually failed to install at some point? It looks like they might have successfully installed later... or did they? At this point I don't even care. Compare with the Linux (Ubuntu, but I'm sure others qualify too) experience: apt-get update; apt-get upgrade. If there's an issue I get informed immediately and because the updates are per-package it's clear whether or not I should care -- no opaque blobs here. When it's done, I know it's done and there won't be any more magical updates mysteriously appearing. I know I can run the update/upgrade in the background while I use the machine for other things. I just don't understand why Microsoft can't get the update experience right!

sudioStudio64 12y ago

It doesn't work the way that I thought it would? (Instead of learning how it actually works.)

scrapcode 12y ago

I'll agree with the statement about the advances of Linux in the past 5+ years. I must admit though, I learned almost everything I know in the terminal through wrestling RedHat and Mandrake into shape. It was extremely disheartening as a kid to finally get Linux dual-booted with Windows and then take 3 days to get Broadcom to work. - This isn't quit the same thing, but it's interesting to see how the community has taken shape to a point where Linux is a viable replacement for Windows for almost everyone.

barbs 12y ago

My Dad recently got malware on his Windows desktop computer, and wanted me to fix it for him. He's reasonably tech-savvy but malware can happen to the best of us. I tried searching and removing suspicious looking files, but it kept coming back, so I decided to reformat the computer and reinstall windows. The first part was to get an image to install from. Windows offers .iso downloads on their website[0], but you need to enter the product key for the computer to access it. I used a third-party tool to dig this out of the registry, but attempting to use this key on the website gave a non-descript error-code. After googling around, I found that it wasn't giving me the download because it was an OEM-license (or something), since it came installed on the DELL computer. Luckily my Dad had kept the disc that came with the computer, and I used this to reinstall windows. However, like the OP, I was missing drivers for a handful of things, including the built-in wireless and wired network adapters. Luckily, before reinstalling I'd found a folder on the C drive called "Drivers" which looked important, and had backed this onto a USB drive. The point is, the whole process took much longer than expected due it being...Windows. The DRM and driver issues would likely be totally absent if I were installing linux. And the whole reason I was doing this in the first place was to remove adware, which is barely ever if at all a problem on linux! [0] http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-recovery http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-recovery

ygra 12y ago
The easist way to get rid of adware I tend to use on other's PCs is to just use System Restore. Most adware won't break in there so it just takes a few minutes to be reasonably sure that the system is clean again (at the expense of the last thing they installed, of course). As for getting a clean slate back, Windows 8 has a Reset function that restores the system to a fresh install state while keeping data intact. Also much easier than hunting for a recovery DVD or an ISO.

mark_l_watson 12y ago

Pre-installed crapware on Windows machines is a huge problem, and I am surprised Microsoft does not ban this practice because it affects their brand. You can buy signature edition Windows machines directly from Microsoft that are crapware free, which is what I did a few months ago.

jpobst 12y ago
They are unable to prohibit OEMs from installing whatever they want as part of the antitrust settlement.

spiralpolitik 12y ago

In my many years of installing both Windows and Linux I've learned the most important lesson is always have a USB Ethernet adaptor to hand as you can be certain you'll have problems getting the WiFi card to work correctly at some point. (Ubuntu is very good on this front. Debian not so much but that's down to politics not technology. Windows is still a hot mess)

grandalf 12y ago

The UX of windows 8 is so incredibly poor (even after 8.1) that I question the methodology used to design it. Whatever test group or user studies are suggesting that MS is going in the right direction are deeply flawed. It's just utterly confusing to figure out how to do nearly anything on the OS. There are all sorts of noisy visual cues that look like they communicate state or flow but don't, as well as many seemingly ill-conceived UX "modes" that bewilder me and that just doesn't happen for me with tech stuff. Want to get to the control panel? There appear to be several different ones and you have to hover your mouse in just the right place on the screen in order to coax a bar to slide in and show you a few options. There are several such bars, each triggered by some kind of mouse hover. Since I'm ranting, even the usability on the modern IE site is horrid. It seems that the idea is to have one environment for tablets and for 'normal' users and another for "pro" users who care about advanced control panels. Even if you accept two entirely different UX metaphors coexisting as reasonable, it still boggles the mind how anyone could expect normal users to figure out those strange mouse hovers. It's just such a bewilderingly odd user experience. 8.1 cleans up a few of the biggest warts but is still (IMHO) a UX disaster and I would actively discourage anyone from deciding to use it. Maybe the best business decision for MS would be to just copy OSX as much as possible and then let the legal department deal with any infringement claims.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- grandalf 12y ago
  I used to think that. Try using Windows 8.1 and see if you can figure out basic things. Try it with two monitors and you'll find that the hover zone for some of the hidden stuff is about 30x30 pixels. It reminds me of trying to find hidden doors on Zelda.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

beyti 12y ago

I think the OP has a lot of confusions about the "vendor", "operating system" and very suprisingly with "linux" and "ubuntu" generalization. I can understand the first two, but can't seem to understand one who has 8 years of xp with linux is able to generalize "ubuntu" with all of the other linux operating systems. Quite the waste of my time to read this, nothing gained for me other than the thought of "hackernews top posts are going bad" sadly.

theandrewbailey 12y ago
> The bottom line , the computer was full of crappy Lenovo and other brands software that just gets in my way and i don't want to use. Even worse after about 2 days some of the bundled Lenovo apps started crashing once in a while. I know this issue is not related to microsoft, and i am not blaming them for this. It's pretty clear that he distinguishes Microsoft from Lenovo. There's nothing specific that I can point to, but it seems that he knows the difference between Linux and Ubuntu, also.
- beyti 12y ago
  I can clearly read that he was devastated about the Lenovo bloatware aorund 3rd day and 1 for Microsoft & No network problem. I assume more of a vendor issue than microsoft caused this tiredness. And Ubuntu is a really distinguished linux distro for its ease of usability and general driver compatibility; not like most of other greatly used linux distros, which care more of power users than everyday users.
  - theandrewbailey 12y ago
    > And Ubuntu is a really distinguished linux distro for its ease of usability and general driver compatibility It's why I've had my parents using Xubuntu for the past 4 years. There haven't been any Big Problems. Calling Xubuntu Ubuntu might be cheating, but it's the same thing minus Unity.

M8 12y ago

"I start Subleme Text , download some npm packages and started writing code." Not really comparable to Visual Studio. One is a notepad while the other is an IDE.

josteink 12y ago
Fair enough (and I say this as a Visual Studio user), but we should also note his aim was not to have an IDE. The IDE was not a goal, it was a means to a goal. His goal, what he wanted to try out, was creating Windows Phone apps, and for this the big complex IDE is was a prerequisite, and this prerequisite caused him to fail reaching his goal. Contrast this to other development tasks, like web-development, and the need for these complex tools went away and he could be instantly productive. Does that say anything about developing Windows Phone apps? It's definitely not a direct apples to oranges comparison, but when making Windows Phone apps gets its complexity way beyond web-apps, that is entirely something within Microsoft's control.

gonewest 12y ago

I think it's fair game to point a finger at Microsoft for this, they can't claim lack of involvement or interest in their device ecosystem. They could be putting all vendor drivers in the Windows Update repository, insisting that the drivers themselves be separate from any optional or value-add tools, cracking down on straight up advertising ploys such as installing URL links to websites on the desktop, etc.

teh_klev 12y ago

Sigh. In 2009 I came back to Linux/Unix after a roughly equal amount of time and had my own WTF moments getting things up and running. But I got there, so no big deal and I didn't feel the need to bait the Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu forums with a post like that. Instead I RTFM'd and posted a couple polite questions asking for help with things I didn't understand and got tripped up with (WiFi drivers ;) ) and off I went on my way. This is just /. style flamebait, no idea why it's on the front page of HN.

Shorel 12y ago

I dual boot Windows 8.1 and Linux Ubuntu in a Dell Inspiron 13 2-in-1. It's true Intel network drivers suck. Not only WiFi. I have to transfer the Ethernet network driver for the desktops in the office via USB, as any Windows Install does not have the driver in the disk. And this is for wired networking. Nowadays most network hardware is done by Intel. So it sucks everywhere. In contrast, Ubuntu is totally plug and play. I have an external USB drive that can boot in the desktops and in the Dell laptop. Even with different video cards (AMD vs Intel), it just works. I can change the sound output device with a single click in Ubuntu. The laptop boots in 'secure mode' and Ubuntu is recognized by the UEFI loader. But not everything is perfect in Linux. The accelerometer (or whatever hardware that autodetects the laptop's rotation) only works in Windows. Then, for reading comics, I boot to Windows. The video performance is better in Windows. I always get screen tearing in Ubuntu, while I get perfect playback in Windows (unless I use display mirroring and output to HDMI and the internal display at the same time). If I want good FullHD video, I have to boot into Windows (and output to only one screen).