With DaaS Windows Coming, Say Goodbye To Your PC As You Know It

Wolf K wrote:
On 2018-08-03 15:37, Jonathan N. Little wrote:
Wolf K wrote:
On 2018-08-03 12:18, Jonathan N. Little wrote:

Not really correct. There are just a few main families of Linux
distros and they have their corresponding package formats. The two
main versions rpm for Redhat family and deb for Debian family. Just
pick the one for the family you are using and it will work.

Exactly. And it's absurd, as I said. Either standardise the package
format, or build installers that will install any package format.

Well you are putting your Windows-which-has-only-one-vendor
perspective on multi-vendor Linux.

I'm missing something here.

Yes. I may have not made it clear enough, what I mean is Windows as and
OS and desktop environment is a "monolithic" unit. There is only one
Windows and it come from just one entity, Microsoft.

Linux on the other hand the OS is modular components of kernel and
multiple desktop environments, there are multiple Linux builds
specifically configured to meet different objectives and needs and they
are managed by different entities. Actually despite this there is quite
a lot of standardization among all the distros. Certainly compared to 20
years ago and that this is cooperative standardization and not mandated
standardization.

What gets confusing is with Windows the third-party applications updates
and maintenance is handled by separate update services. Whereas in Linux
the distro builders collect, test, and maintain the third-party
applications within their own repositories and the only the one update
service runs to keep both the OS and the apps updated.

In the Windows world, there are a multitude of software vendors. Same
in the Linux world. Even in the OS-X world, there are number of
vendors. That's why standard packaging/installing is necessary.
That is not exactly actuate, there are multiple setup executables in
Windows, not everything is an msi.

So since there is only one Windows, MS has more leverage to mandate
conformity. Not the same ecosystem in Linux, yet there is a remarkable
amount of cooperative conformity.

HTH

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

On 08/02/2018 09:27 PM, 😉 Good Guy 😉 wrote:

html
head
meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"
/head
body bgcolor="#FCFBE3" text="#000000"
div class="moz-cite-prefix"On 03/08/2018 03:47, Jonathan N. Little
wrote:br
/div
blockquote cite="mid Just calling it what it is. Me specifically? No, but awfully tired
of "Linux issues" that are just patently false. Just as false as
when Linux users say you can delete C:\Windows while running
Windows and trash your system.
br
br
br
/blockquote
Can you just take your crap to some Linux Newsgroup. We use Windows
and we have no plans to use your wonderful Linux system. br
br
Just get the hell out of Windows newsgroups and take all the junkies
with you. We don't need them here.br
br
br
<Cross-posted newsgroup to Windows10 removed.>br
br
br
blockquote cite="mid br
br
/blockquote
br
br
div class="moz-signature"-- br
div class="moz-signature"
div style="width: 340px;height: 290px; background-color: blue;
color: yellow;font-weight: bolder; font-size:200%; text-align:
center; margin: 30px 5px 30px 5px;"With over 950 million
devices now running Windows 10, customer satisfaction is
higher than any previous version of windows./div
/div
/div
/body
/html


*Be quiet, Punkstain*

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Wolf K wrote:
On 2018-08-03 09:54, Dan Purgert wrote:
Wolf K wrote:
On 2018-08-02 21:49, Jonathan N. Little wrote:
mike wrote:
My issue with that is that it's not always a complete installation.
The gui says it's installed.Â* OK, where the hell is it?Â* How to I
envoke it.Â* Why isn't there an icon on the desktop, or in the start
menu-adjacent list?Â* Well, depends on the program and the distro
and...and.Â* You shouldn't have to remember and type in a command
line to bring up a GUI configuration tool.

That is pure BS. If you install an application from the distro's
respective software repository it will setup the respective shortcuts
for the desktop environment. That's true for all the main DEs, GNOME,
Unity, KDE, LXDE, Xfce...

Yeah, from _that_ distro's repository. Unlike Windows/OS-X, there are no
universal installers that work the same for every distro. It's absurd
that if you get a program that's not in the repository, you may have to
do some extra work to get it to install.

Actually, this is somewhat untrue. If you're using Debian (or one of
its children, such as Ubuntu or Mint or ... well any of the others out
there), then you _can_ just install the *deb file and have a fairly high
expectation that it'll do what it's supposed to do. I'm not really a
RedHat guy, so can't comment on whether or not they behave similarly.

"...MAY have to do extra work..." IOW, you agree with me. :-)

It was poor snipping on my part - you don't have to use "that distro's
repository", so long as you get the right package (*deb or *rpm).

But that also touches on something you brought up in a different post,
where you feel that having *deb for one "family" and *rpm for the other
"family" is "too many installers".


--
|_|O|_| Registered Linux user #585947
|_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert
|O|O|O| PGP: 05CA 9A50 3F2E 1335 4DC5 4AEE 8E11 DDF3 1279 A281

On Sat, 04 Aug 2018 05:14:27 +0000
Philip wrote:

FULL NAME: Cybe R. Wizard
ADDRESS: WizardsTower in the Quiet Forest
STATE: Quasi-conscious
ZIP CODE: 00000
DIRECT CONTACT NUMBER: 1
OCCUPATION: Wizarding


Cybe R. Wizard
--
An ounce of pretension is worth a pound of manure.

Mayayana wrote:
"Dan Purgert" wrote

| Exactly. If they were willing to share the details
| then Windows people could write to WINE. API
|
| I think you misunderstood. WINE doesn't have an API in the sense that
| it's a target you write for (ala Windows or Linux or Mac or whatever).
|

No, but it does hook API calls and direct them to
its own versions. As I understand it, it's hooking
the process and translating each API call to a Linux
equivalent. But not all API functions are covered.
And the ones that are may have quirks or limitations.
And it's not a one-for-one translation to the WINE
libraries.

I'm not entirely sure that's correct -- but as I said (somewhere...) I
haven't really used wine in the better part of a decade; so maybe
they've made some major changes to their subsystem.

In either event, it doesn't change the fact that "WINE" itself really
shouldn't be a compilation target if you're writing software. Just
write for Windows if you want to write for Windows, or Linux if you want
to write for Linux. Or use one of the various cross-platform languages
(not java - eww java ) if you want to target both.


So if I had the details about that I could make sure
I write a Windows program that won't have problems
on WINE. The approach of the WINE people was:
"Install each new WINE update, test your software,
and let us know what's broken."

Which is actually the general response from most dev teams under Linux.
It's that whole "Cathedral" vs. "Bazaar" thinking.

Being not much of a programmer, I can only talk from what I've *seen*
moreso than *experienced*; but the general thinking in the Linux
community is "I know my software and you know yours - rather than
requiring you to learn mine, just tell me what went sideways, and I'll
take a look."

Now, there comes a point where this relationship develops into "hey,
you've been sending a lot of reports about things, and some ideas on how
to fix them ... wanna help out?"

| [...] And they're probably mostly 19-22 y.o. They
| want to get the latest version of GTA working in
| WINE for the weekend.
|
| Doesn't this pretty much entirely just contradict what you're claiming?
| I mean GTA isn't written "for WINE" at all ...
|

No, it's not written for WINE. What I mean is that if
you look at the ratings for WINE support of various
software (at least last time I looked) you'll see a lot
of support for games and a few things like Photoshop.
They're picking things they want and working call
by call to support the functionality. In other words,
if they like GTA then they'll be motivated to work
on GTA-specific support.

Ah, yeah. Really that comes more out of WINE having been originally
built to deal with companies *stopping* support for Linux (way back in
the dark days, companies supported more than Windows).

And the other side of it is that a lot of "not games" software tend to
be somewhat more "niche", in that the developer teams have to somewhat
abide by the 80/20 rule.

In other words, they're not just trying to support all
supported functions in the main Windows libraries.
They're picking specific programs and working back
from that.

Yup, gotta start somewhere.


--
|_|O|_| Registered Linux user #585947
|_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert
|O|O|O| PGP: 05CA 9A50 3F2E 1335 4DC5 4AEE 8E11 DDF3 1279 A281

On 04/08/18 01:13, Wolf K wrote:
Isn't Linux just Linux? Or have the freewheeling devs actually "forked"
it into mutually incompatible OSs? Jeez, but that was a stupid idea. I
hadn't clue it was that bad. Really.

No, you just hadn't a clue.

So stop posting drivel


--
I would rather have questions that cannot be answered...
....than to have answers that cannot be questioned

Richard Feynman

On 04/08/18 01:30, Caver1 wrote:
On 08/03/2018 08:13 PM, Wolf K wrote:
On 2018-08-03 19:25, Caver1 wrote:
[...]
Windows is closed as far as the OS. OSX is completely closed, OS and
apps.
Linux is completely open. Yes different Families of Linux, Redhat,
Debian, Arch... Have their own package managers. This is because of
different OS structures.

I was under the impression that Linux is Linux wherever you go. Thanks
for clarifying that it's just like the closed Windows: stuff that will
run one version won't necessarily run on anther.



So asking the different families to have the same way to install apps
or app structure would be like saying Windows and OSX be able to use
the same app structure.

Isn't Linux just Linux? Or have the freewheeling devs actually
"forked" it into mutually incompatible OSs? Jeez, but that was a
stupid idea. I hadn't clue it was that bad. Really.

Nothing bad about it.
No each family is basically an OS to itself. None of the Linux families
are a fork of the other. They were each developed independently.

What the fork were they smoking?

Something better than MS and Apple.

Now with the development of Snaps and Flatpak the Linux world is far
ahead of the Windows and OSX world.
Just try installing a Windows app on OSX or vice versa.

Yeah, well, I've long argued that any program should be able to run on
any OS. After all, C++ is C++ on every machine. Just put in a "Let's
talk nice to each other" layer between the program and the OS. Good to
know that Linux is getting there, despite having been forked with.


This just shows your ignorance of the Linux environment.

It just shows his ignorance, full stop.


......


And Google could do it. "One OS to rule them all." Shudder.

But I thought that's what you wanted.

:-)


--
"If you don’t read the news paper, you are un-informed. If you read the
news paper, you are mis-informed."

Mark Twain

Wolf K wrote:
On 2018-08-03 19:25, Caver1 wrote:
[...]
Windows is closed as far as the OS. OSX is completely closed, OS and apps.
Linux is completely open. Yes different Families of Linux, Redhat,
Debian, Arch... Have their own package managers. This is because of
different OS structures.

I was under the impression that Linux is Linux wherever you go. Thanks
for clarifying that it's just like the closed Windows: stuff that will
run one version won't necessarily run on anther.

Well, this is where it gets a little bit ugly.

"Linux" (as in the bit written by Linus Torvalds, et. al.) is pretty
much the same across all the "distribution families".

However, the *Distributions* themselves are what make up the userland
and where the differences come in. That being said, if a programmer
targets the "Linux Standard Base" for their application, the worst
you're going to run into is that said programmer is a Debian-family (or
RedHat-family) guy, and only packaged it for that family; so you have to
compile from source if you use the other family.

There's not really a parallel for this in the Windows world; as the
"Windows 7 family" of "Home" / "Pro" / "Ultimate" really just changes
what features the end user can enable. The closest comparison I can
think of offhand is the differences between releases of windows -- i.e.
7 to 8.1 to 10 -- as you (sometimes) have to jump through hoops to make
"old software" work (e.g. compatibility mode, or whatever).



So asking the different families to have the
same way to install apps or app structure would be like saying Windows
and OSX be able to use the same app structure.

Isn't Linux just Linux? Or have the freewheeling devs actually "forked"
it into mutually incompatible OSs? Jeez, but that was a stupid idea. I
hadn't clue it was that bad. Really.

Yes and no.

SOME things differ slightly - for example, Debian-family distributions
using the configuration file /etc/network/interfaces for network card
configuration (mainly used in servers / setting up static IP addresses)
whereas RedHat family uses files in /etc/sysconfig/network. As I
mentioned above, these are somewhat akin to differences between
different release versions of Windows; it's just that in Linux, they're
continually there (rather than "only" for the overlap period of
Old_Windows and New_Windows).

Going specifically to the package managers themselves, a singular
approach may be nice, but that'd mean changes by one side or the other.
It's pretty much like arguing "everyone should use *.rar format for
archives" in windows (as opposed to ... whatever all the various zip
archive formats actually are).


What the fork were they smoking?

Now with the development of Snaps and Flatpak the Linux world is far
ahead of the Windows and OSX world.
Just try installing a Windows app on OSX or vice versa.

Yeah, well, I've long argued that any program should be able to run on
any OS. After all, C++ is C++ on every machine. Just put in a "Let's
talk nice to each other" layer between the program and the OS. Good to
know that Linux is getting there, despite having been forked with.

Flatpaks, etc aren't a "compatibility layer". They're just yet another
go around at making a "standardized installation format". So unless
they pull the same kind of overt "you do it our way or you don't do it
at all" nonsense that the systemd guys have; it's going to end up being
just another competing format.

In terms of programming, if you've written it for Linux, it'll pretty
much run on any Linux distribution, barring the "absolutely stable"
style of releases (e.g. "Debian Stable" or RHEL), as they tend to have
relatively old versions of everything -- due to the simple fact that
"look, libc6 version 6.1.33 is rock solid".


[...]
Do I think Linux could/would be a good desktop/laptop/tablet OS? Of
course. It's already on phones after all. But only if the Linux
community or some fat cat gets their **** together and starts focusing
on what the customers want. It's too good an OS to be left to the

Except, in general terms, it *is* what the customers want. It's not for
everyone, but that's entirely fine.

developers. BTW, I've seen more than one rumor that Google wants to move
Android onto other devices. Even desktops and servers. If they go ahead,
that's the end of Linux.

Nah. The community may get smaller; but as long as people want a PC
that isn't a walled garden, there will be Linux. Or whatever comes
along to replace it.

And Google could do it. "One OS to rule them all." Shudder.

Eh, Microsoft of the 90s.


--
|_|O|_| Registered Linux user #585947
|_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert
|O|O|O| PGP: 05CA 9A50 3F2E 1335 4DC5 4AEE 8E11 DDF3 1279 A281

On 08/03/2018 10:18 PM, Paul wrote:
Caver1 wrote:

Just try installing a Windows app on OSX or vice versa.

That's called Java.

That's true but many core Windows/Apple apps aren't written in Java.
The ones that are aren't produced by Windows/Apple.
Which I guess was my point as I didn't elucidate very well.

A commercial enterprise wishing to address multiple
OS platforms at the same time "writes once" in Java,
so the program will run everywhere. And the graphics
have improved enough, you can actually play simple
games without gagging at the performance.

*******

Windows doesn't absolute need installers for applications.
But portable applications won't be convenient for all
classes of users, which is why installers put things
in standard places and follow conventions.

The same thing happens in Linux.

I can easily make statically linked executables
on just about any platform, say "screw the
efficiency", and make nice "blobs" that can
be moved at will.

On Linux, you have dot folders in your home.
In Windows, you have the Registry, which is
a file system with permissions, plus the
ability to store arbitrary blobs. The one
thing the registry does have going for it,
is low overhead. I've seen thousands and
thousands of accesses per second, silently,
to the registry when you'd swear Windows was
quiescent. If you used a conventional file system
"people would notice". While it's easy to
heap scorn on the Registry, it's merely a
flavor, not an "alien". I don't like the
Registry (lack of tools), but, it is what it is.
If you replaced the Registry with an NTFS
tree "it would suck".

Â*Â* Paul


--
Caver1

Dan Purgert wrote:
Wolf K wrote:
On 2018-08-03 09:54, Dan Purgert wrote:
Wolf K wrote:
On 2018-08-02 21:49, Jonathan N. Little wrote:
mike wrote:
My issue with that is that it's not always a complete installation.
The gui says it's installed. OK, where the hell is it? How to I
envoke it. Why isn't there an icon on the desktop, or in the start
menu-adjacent list? Well, depends on the program and the distro
and...and. You shouldn't have to remember and type in a command
line to bring up a GUI configuration tool.
That is pure BS. If you install an application from the distro's
respective software repository it will setup the respective shortcuts
for the desktop environment. That's true for all the main DEs, GNOME,
Unity, KDE, LXDE, Xfce...
Yeah, from _that_ distro's repository. Unlike Windows/OS-X, there are no
universal installers that work the same for every distro. It's absurd
that if you get a program that's not in the repository, you may have to
do some extra work to get it to install.
Actually, this is somewhat untrue. If you're using Debian (or one of
its children, such as Ubuntu or Mint or ... well any of the others out
there), then you _can_ just install the *deb file and have a fairly high
expectation that it'll do what it's supposed to do. I'm not really a
RedHat guy, so can't comment on whether or not they behave similarly.
"...MAY have to do extra work..." IOW, you agree with me. :-)

It was poor snipping on my part - you don't have to use "that distro's
repository", so long as you get the right package (*deb or *rpm).

But that also touches on something you brought up in a different post,
where you feel that having *deb for one "family" and *rpm for the other
"family" is "too many installers".

It does provide an incentive to stick with
"mainstream" distributions at first. For example,
if you went to the Brother Inkjet printer download
page, and checked out their package types (and you saw
a .deb), you could then go back and look at which parts
of the Linux family tree would be supported for
your Brother printer. This will narrow down the
search considerably, and until you become used
to the level of detail, improve the odds of
first time success.

(Lower right has a distro list to look at...)

https://distrowatch.com/

Paul

On 08/04/2018 07:05 AM, Cybe R. Wizard wrote:
On Sat, 04 Aug 2018 05:14:27 +0000
Philip wrote:

FULL NAME: Cybe R. Wizard
ADDRESS: WizardsTower in the Quiet Forest
STATE: Quasi-conscious
ZIP CODE: 00000
DIRECT CONTACT NUMBER: 1
OCCUPATION: Wizarding


Cybe R. Wizard


I often wondered about your state of mind. You finally confirmed it.

--
Caver1

Paul wrote:
Dan Purgert wrote:
Wolf K wrote:
On 2018-08-03 09:54, Dan Purgert wrote:
Wolf K wrote:
On 2018-08-02 21:49, Jonathan N. Little wrote:
mike wrote:
My issue with that is that it's not always a complete installation.
The gui says it's installed. OK, where the hell is it? How to I
envoke it. Why isn't there an icon on the desktop, or in the start
menu-adjacent list? Well, depends on the program and the distro
and...and. You shouldn't have to remember and type in a command
line to bring up a GUI configuration tool.
That is pure BS. If you install an application from the distro's
respective software repository it will setup the respective shortcuts
for the desktop environment. That's true for all the main DEs, GNOME,
Unity, KDE, LXDE, Xfce...
Yeah, from _that_ distro's repository. Unlike Windows/OS-X, there are no
universal installers that work the same for every distro. It's absurd
that if you get a program that's not in the repository, you may have to
do some extra work to get it to install.
Actually, this is somewhat untrue. If you're using Debian (or one of
its children, such as Ubuntu or Mint or ... well any of the others out
there), then you _can_ just install the *deb file and have a fairly high
expectation that it'll do what it's supposed to do. I'm not really a
RedHat guy, so can't comment on whether or not they behave similarly.
"...MAY have to do extra work..." IOW, you agree with me. :-)

It was poor snipping on my part - you don't have to use "that distro's
repository", so long as you get the right package (*deb or *rpm).

But that also touches on something you brought up in a different post,
where you feel that having *deb for one "family" and *rpm for the other
"family" is "too many installers".

It does provide an incentive to stick with
"mainstream" distributions at first. For example,

Yup, and that's pretty public these days. I hang out in the LinuxMint
IRC channels; and for a while there, there was at least one person
*daily* who came into the channel with a story along the lines of "so
that Win10 forced update broke my system, and I came across some article
that said maybe I'd like Mint..."

Some were happy with it nearly out of the box. Others needed a bit of
"yep, things are different; if you keep trying the windows-way of
things, you'll end up frustrated and give up". Finally there were the
group of "tried it, didn't like it, but thanks for trying to help."


--
|_|O|_| Registered Linux user #585947
|_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert
|O|O|O| PGP: 05CA 9A50 3F2E 1335 4DC5 4AEE 8E11 DDF3 1279 A281

On 08/04/2018 07:18 AM, Dan Purgert wrote:
Mayayana wrote:
"Dan Purgert" wrote

| Exactly. If they were willing to share the details
| then Windows people could write to WINE. API
|
| I think you misunderstood. WINE doesn't have an API in the sense that
| it's a target you write for (ala Windows or Linux or Mac or whatever).
|

No, but it does hook API calls and direct them to
its own versions. As I understand it, it's hooking
the process and translating each API call to a Linux
equivalent. But not all API functions are covered.
And the ones that are may have quirks or limitations.
And it's not a one-for-one translation to the WINE
libraries.

I'm not entirely sure that's correct -- but as I said (somewhere...) I
haven't really used wine in the better part of a decade; so maybe
they've made some major changes to their subsystem.

In either event, it doesn't change the fact that "WINE" itself really
shouldn't be a compilation target if you're writing software. Just
write for Windows if you want to write for Windows, or Linux if you want
to write for Linux. Or use one of the various cross-platform languages
(not java - eww java ) if you want to target both.


So if I had the details about that I could make sure
I write a Windows program that won't have problems
on WINE. The approach of the WINE people was:
"Install each new WINE update, test your software,
and let us know what's broken."

Which is actually the general response from most dev teams under Linux.
It's that whole "Cathedral" vs. "Bazaar" thinking.

Being not much of a programmer, I can only talk from what I've *seen*
moreso than *experienced*; but the general thinking in the Linux
community is "I know my software and you know yours - rather than
requiring you to learn mine, just tell me what went sideways, and I'll
take a look."

Now, there comes a point where this relationship develops into "hey,
you've been sending a lot of reports about things, and some ideas on how
to fix them ... wanna help out?"

| [...] And they're probably mostly 19-22 y.o. They
| want to get the latest version of GTA working in
| WINE for the weekend.
|
| Doesn't this pretty much entirely just contradict what you're claiming?
| I mean GTA isn't written "for WINE" at all ...
|

No, it's not written for WINE. What I mean is that if
you look at the ratings for WINE support of various
software (at least last time I looked) you'll see a lot
of support for games and a few things like Photoshop.
They're picking things they want and working call
by call to support the functionality. In other words,
if they like GTA then they'll be motivated to work
on GTA-specific support.

Ah, yeah. Really that comes more out of WINE having been originally
built to deal with companies *stopping* support for Linux (way back in
the dark days, companies supported more than Windows).

And the other side of it is that a lot of "not games" software tend to
be somewhat more "niche", in that the developer teams have to somewhat
abide by the 80/20 rule.

In other words, they're not just trying to support all
supported functions in the main Windows libraries.
They're picking specific programs and working back
from that.

Yup, gotta start somewhere.



As always there are options for Linux users.
If a distros version or wine doesn't quite do what you need you can use
PlayOnLinux Which lets you use the version of wine the program needs.
Then there are Cedega & Codeweavers. Which to me are best thought of as
commercial wine software as you have to pay for them. They both do
better to support the Windows API better than free wine but the programs
they support is limited.
Wine is getting better and supporting more programs then before. You do
have to figure out what version of wine works or works best for a given
program. That's where winehg.org comes in.
So when you write a Windows program write it. If it becomes popular
enough wine will pick it up.


--
Caver1