MS Wish list.

On Wed, 09 May 2018 08:11:58 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Doomsdrzej
wrote:


The
clients below are also very cumbersome and don't allow you to mirror a
desktop as much as play videos from within your desktop (not what I
need).

welcome to linux.

Exactly. For all of the freedom it provides, it also offers an
unlimited amount of compromises that you need to accept.

and turns the simplest tasks into something far more complicated than
it needs to be.

For many geeks, that's part of the fun!

In article , Doomsdrzej
wrote:

The
clients below are also very cumbersome and don't allow you to mirror a
desktop as much as play videos from within your desktop (not what I
need).

welcome to linux.

Exactly. For all of the freedom it provides, it also offers an
unlimited amount of compromises that you need to accept.

and turns the simplest tasks into something far more complicated than
it needs to be.

For many geeks, that's part of the fun!

yep. meanwhile, the rest of the world wants to get actual work done.

On Wed, 09 May 2018 22:08:25 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Doomsdrzej
wrote:

The
clients below are also very cumbersome and don't allow you to mirror a
desktop as much as play videos from within your desktop (not what I
need).

welcome to linux.

Exactly. For all of the freedom it provides, it also offers an
unlimited amount of compromises that you need to accept.

and turns the simplest tasks into something far more complicated than
it needs to be.

For many geeks, that's part of the fun!

yep. meanwhile, the rest of the world wants to get actual work done.

Hence why productive people mostly choose Windows or MacOS. For
servers and 3D modeling, apparently, Linux is becoming king.

In article , Doomsdrzej
wrote:

The
clients below are also very cumbersome and don't allow you to mirror
a
desktop as much as play videos from within your desktop (not what I
need).

welcome to linux.

Exactly. For all of the freedom it provides, it also offers an
unlimited amount of compromises that you need to accept.

and turns the simplest tasks into something far more complicated than
it needs to be.

For many geeks, that's part of the fun!

yep. meanwhile, the rest of the world wants to get actual work done.

Hence why productive people mostly choose Windows or MacOS. For
servers and 3D modeling, apparently, Linux is becoming king.

linux is great for servers and embedded devices.

users still overwhelmingly do *not* use linux on the desktop because
the best software is only available for mac/win.

On Thu, 10 May 2018 12:01:07 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Doomsdrzej
wrote:

The
clients below are also very cumbersome and don't allow you to mirror
a
desktop as much as play videos from within your desktop (not what I
need).

welcome to linux.

Exactly. For all of the freedom it provides, it also offers an
unlimited amount of compromises that you need to accept.

and turns the simplest tasks into something far more complicated than
it needs to be.

For many geeks, that's part of the fun!

yep. meanwhile, the rest of the world wants to get actual work done.

Hence why productive people mostly choose Windows or MacOS. For
servers and 3D modeling, apparently, Linux is becoming king.

linux is great for servers and embedded devices.

users still overwhelmingly do *not* use linux on the desktop because
the best software is only available for mac/win.

While I already know _why_ they don't, it's a shame to me that
third-parties won't release software for Linux. I would have loved to
be able to buy some Blu-Ray playback software (I'm aware of the
MakeMKV run-around) and a version of AirParrot 2 for it. The fact that
the option of buying such software doesn't exist makes Linux something
that's hard to recommend or adopt.

Doomsdrzej wrote:
On Thu, 10 May 2018 12:01:07 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Doomsdrzej
wrote:

The
clients below are also very cumbersome and don't allow you to mirror
a
desktop as much as play videos from within your desktop (not what I
need).
welcome to linux.
Exactly. For all of the freedom it provides, it also offers an
unlimited amount of compromises that you need to accept.
and turns the simplest tasks into something far more complicated than
it needs to be.
For many geeks, that's part of the fun!
yep. meanwhile, the rest of the world wants to get actual work done.
Hence why productive people mostly choose Windows or MacOS. For
servers and 3D modeling, apparently, Linux is becoming king.
linux is great for servers and embedded devices.

users still overwhelmingly do *not* use linux on the desktop because
the best software is only available for mac/win.

While I already know _why_ they don't, it's a shame to me that
third-parties won't release software for Linux. I would have loved to
be able to buy some Blu-Ray playback software (I'm aware of the
MakeMKV run-around) and a version of AirParrot 2 for it. The fact that
the option of buying such software doesn't exist makes Linux something
that's hard to recommend or adopt.

Linux insists that anything technical not be protected by
an NDA. Now, think about all the things that rules out.

The AMD and NVidia video drivers for Linux, can't ship with
it, because they're binary blobs. And require an installation
mechanism that signals to a user, that they're "tainted".

At work, everything I did was under NDA. Companies we did
business with, we'd sign "blanket NDAs" that covered toilet
tissue and postage stamps. You couldn't say a word about
anything you were working on, no matter how trivial.

Given that's how the industry works, what exactly
do you expect Linux to do ? Reverse engineering stuff
in a clean lab, only gets you so far. That's how
the Linux NTFS driver was done, and why they hesitate
to "track" the stuff that Microsoft does to NTFS.

You make it sound like Linux is just "petulant"
and doesn't write the software you like, just
to see you twist in the breeze. But, they work
by a set of rules, and what you get, is a
side effect of those rules.

When I boot a Linux LiveCD, I can't have a working TV
tuner. Why ? The driver is there. But the firmware
is missing. The firmware is intellectual property,
belonging to someone, and nobody is interested in
licensing it, or getting a letter giving permission
to redistribute it. So what happens ? Paul re-masters
the stupid DVD, puts the firmware file on it, and
burns a new DVD, just so he can boot a LiveDVD and
run the tuner. But, I understand where they're coming
from - the funny bit, is some private person is
hosting the stupid firmware file, so if there was
an actual legal issue, that person would be in a
lot of trouble (assuming they're in a country where
that kind of IP is protected).

If I wanted to, that firmware file is on every CD
that ships with the product, and I could "extract"
it if I knew what to look for. So it's not like the
distribution is restricted in any meaningful way.
There are as many copies of that firmware out there,
as there are tuner cardboard boxes. But for a file
to appear on a Linux distribution DVD, there must be
clear title and no danger of going to court for
distributing a file without permission.

Paul

In article , Paul
wrote:

At work, everything I did was under NDA. Companies we did
business with, we'd sign "blanket NDAs" that covered toilet
tissue and postage stamps. You couldn't say a word about
anything you were working on, no matter how trivial.

fairly standard.

Given that's how the industry works, what exactly
do you expect Linux to do ? Reverse engineering stuff
in a clean lab, only gets you so far. That's how
the Linux NTFS driver was done, and why they hesitate
to "track" the stuff that Microsoft does to NTFS.

ntfs is microsoft proprietary and they don't support it on linux (or
macos for that matter).

as you say, ntfs has been reverse engineered, so linux *does* include
support for it, as does mac os. however, since it's not written by
microsoft, compatibility is not guaranteed.

the reality is that companies that make various hardware and software
products have little motivation to support linux since the engineering
and support resources is normally more than any additional revenue
they'd get, so they don't bother.

Paul wrote:

Linux insists that anything technical not be protected by
an NDA. Now, think about all the things that rules out.

The AMD and NVidia video drivers for Linux, can't ship with
it, because they're binary blobs. And require an installation
mechanism that signals to a user, that they're "tainted".

Not strictly true. Ubuntu now, and has done for years, comes with
proprietary tools. During installation it simply asks if you want to use
these third-party/licenced packages.

It's also no different to windows. It doesn't come with the proprietary
AMD/nVidia drivers either. In fact I'd argue that an OEM windows install
has fewer 3rd party packages than ubuntu.

The fact that many companies support linux extremely well, shows there is a
business model that works for linux.

The Linux community unashamedly pro open source, but it isn't anti
business.

Doomsdrzej wrote:
On Wed, 09 May 2018 22:08:25 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Doomsdrzej
wrote:

The
clients below are also very cumbersome and don't allow you to mirror a
desktop as much as play videos from within your desktop (not what I
need).

welcome to linux.

Exactly. For all of the freedom it provides, it also offers an
unlimited amount of compromises that you need to accept.

and turns the simplest tasks into something far more complicated than
it needs to be.

For many geeks, that's part of the fun!

yep. meanwhile, the rest of the world wants to get actual work done.

Hence why productive people mostly choose Windows or MacOS. For
servers and 3D modeling, apparently, Linux is becoming king.


For servers linux has been king for many, many years. The backbone of the
internet and www is mostly linux.

Plus in most scientific fields linux is the platform of choice for high
performance computing.

Chris wrote:
Paul wrote:
Linux insists that anything technical not be protected by
an NDA. Now, think about all the things that rules out.

The AMD and NVidia video drivers for Linux, can't ship with
it, because they're binary blobs. And require an installation
mechanism that signals to a user, that they're "tainted".

Not strictly true. Ubuntu now, and has done for years, comes with
proprietary tools. During installation it simply asks if you want to use
these third-party/licenced packages.

It's also no different to windows. It doesn't come with the proprietary
AMD/nVidia drivers either. In fact I'd argue that an OEM windows install
has fewer 3rd party packages than ubuntu.

The fact that many companies support linux extremely well, shows there is a
business model that works for linux.

The Linux community unashamedly pro open source, but it isn't anti
business.

Yes, it's jolly wonderful. Especially when the NVidia/AMD
driver has a Legacy status, no longer receives updates,
a kernel update comes in, DKMS fails to work, and so on.
That's why I have nothing but hugs and kisses for
NVidia and AMD :-/

If you stick with Nouveau, yes it sucks, but it's
properly supported. You'll never be left in a
lurch, because it was convenient to do that to you.

If I was in a position where I had to rely on Linux
as a daily-driver, I would have to run it "bog-standard"
to avoid stressful maintenance situations. Since they
have adopted "auto-patcher disease" like Windows, I can't
be worrying about stuff like that because I "became
a little too adventurous". I've already had cases where
a patch was injected, I rebooted, and "black screen, buddy".
Great. Yes, you can roll back the kernel, if you can
get into the menu that shows the older kernels. I don't
know how many times I've had a kernel update trash an
install (I run these in VMs), and had to roll back. In
one case, the bug involved, it took 1.5 years for them
to fix it, and for that bug to stop trashing my stuff.

(The bug was the paravirtualization detection of
VPC2007 as being Hyper-V, a mis-identification that
causes the wrong fake disk drivers being used
by Linux as a Guest. Then the Linux VM wouldn't
have any working storage. And it took them 1.5 years
to figure that out. And every once in a while,
one of my installs would suck in a kernel with
that particular paravirtualization code.)

Paul

On Thu, 10 May 2018 20:26:33 -0400, Paul
wrote:

Doomsdrzej wrote:
On Thu, 10 May 2018 12:01:07 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Doomsdrzej
wrote:

The
clients below are also very cumbersome and don't allow you to mirror
a
desktop as much as play videos from within your desktop (not what I
need).
welcome to linux.
Exactly. For all of the freedom it provides, it also offers an
unlimited amount of compromises that you need to accept.
and turns the simplest tasks into something far more complicated than
it needs to be.
For many geeks, that's part of the fun!
yep. meanwhile, the rest of the world wants to get actual work done.
Hence why productive people mostly choose Windows or MacOS. For
servers and 3D modeling, apparently, Linux is becoming king.
linux is great for servers and embedded devices.

users still overwhelmingly do *not* use linux on the desktop because
the best software is only available for mac/win.

While I already know _why_ they don't, it's a shame to me that
third-parties won't release software for Linux. I would have loved to
be able to buy some Blu-Ray playback software (I'm aware of the
MakeMKV run-around) and a version of AirParrot 2 for it. The fact that
the option of buying such software doesn't exist makes Linux something
that's hard to recommend or adopt.

Linux insists that anything technical not be protected by
an NDA. Now, think about all the things that rules out.

Anything that would allow you to play a Blu-Ray disc at the very
least.

The AMD and NVidia video drivers for Linux, can't ship with
it, because they're binary blobs. And require an installation
mechanism that signals to a user, that they're "tainted".

In AMD's case at the very least, the free driver is actually better
than the proprietary one. It doesn't "taint" the system and performs a
lot better. NVIDIA is another story.

At work, everything I did was under NDA. Companies we did
business with, we'd sign "blanket NDAs" that covered toilet
tissue and postage stamps. You couldn't say a word about
anything you were working on, no matter how trivial.

Given that's how the industry works, what exactly
do you expect Linux to do ? Reverse engineering stuff
in a clean lab, only gets you so far. That's how
the Linux NTFS driver was done, and why they hesitate
to "track" the stuff that Microsoft does to NTFS.

You make it sound like Linux is just "petulant"
and doesn't write the software you like, just
to see you twist in the breeze. But, they work
by a set of rules, and what you get, is a
side effect of those rules.

When I boot a Linux LiveCD, I can't have a working TV
tuner. Why ? The driver is there. But the firmware
is missing. The firmware is intellectual property,
belonging to someone, and nobody is interested in
licensing it, or getting a letter giving permission
to redistribute it. So what happens ? Paul re-masters
the stupid DVD, puts the firmware file on it, and
burns a new DVD, just so he can boot a LiveDVD and
run the tuner. But, I understand where they're coming
from - the funny bit, is some private person is
hosting the stupid firmware file, so if there was
an actual legal issue, that person would be in a
lot of trouble (assuming they're in a country where
that kind of IP is protected).

If I wanted to, that firmware file is on every CD
that ships with the product, and I could "extract"
it if I knew what to look for. So it's not like the
distribution is restricted in any meaningful way.
There are as many copies of that firmware out there,
as there are tuner cardboard boxes. But for a file
to appear on a Linux distribution DVD, there must be
clear title and no danger of going to court for
distributing a file without permission.

Which makes using the whole operating system a challenge unless the
potential user is not bothered by the many ethical and legal problems
surrounding it. It IS possible to use all of your hardware to most of
its potential without entering into any kind of conflict, but most
people are not willing to jump through the hoops to do so and will
stick to the Mac or use Windows.

On Fri, 11 May 2018 08:45:04 -0000 (UTC), Chris
wrote:

Paul wrote:

Linux insists that anything technical not be protected by
an NDA. Now, think about all the things that rules out.

The AMD and NVidia video drivers for Linux, can't ship with
it, because they're binary blobs. And require an installation
mechanism that signals to a user, that they're "tainted".

Not strictly true. Ubuntu now, and has done for years, comes with
proprietary tools. During installation it simply asks if you want to use
these third-party/licenced packages.

At which point it will install the codecs, but it doesn't usually
install the proprietary graphics drivers until after the installation
is completed.

It's also no different to windows. It doesn't come with the proprietary
AMD/nVidia drivers either. In fact I'd argue that an OEM windows install
has fewer 3rd party packages than ubuntu.

The fact that many companies support linux extremely well, shows there is a
business model that works for linux.

The Linux community unashamedly pro open source, but it isn't anti
business.

Agreed. Despite the fact that it doesn't install 3rd party drivers by
default, the drivers Microsoft DOES install with Windows for the
computer's hardware are usually superior to what Linux offers at least
on the GPU side. Linux will force Nouveau on you for an NVIDIA GPU but
Windows will install an outdated version of a proprietary driver which
will allow you to play 3D games and the like out of the box. It's up
to the user to get better drivers otherwise.

Paul wrote:
[...]
Did you know that WinXP was modular ?

Someone actually made a product to control the
installation of various parts of it, something
like "Windows Lite". I've tried a couple of times
to do Google searches to find a link, but haven't
succeeded. But at the time, it was a novel concept
(the usage by a third party, of the modularity of
the installation process).

I've done a bit of searching [1] and I think you may be referring to
the 'nLite' tool: https://www.nliteos.com/index.html

It would not surprise me to find Windows 10 is modular
as well. What's missing is a GUI to control it.

No, it's not (missing)! :-) NTLite https://www.ntlite.com, same
author.

[1] My lucky search was on 'windows xp lite version'.

"Keith Nuttle" wrote

| I have a laptop with an i7 CPU, a lot of ram, and disk space. On this
| computer I would just select all and let it go.
|
| However on my tablet with 1GB of ram, 32GB of storage space, I could
| select the modules I want.

I don't think included software is a significant bloat
factor. The basic OS keeps growing because things
are added, like support for new file types and hardware.
But that growth is minimal, and generally necessary.
The real problem, since Vista, is that Microsoft forces
you to basically store an entire install DVD on disk, as
the winsxs folder. That folder then grows with each
thing you add. The secondary problem is that you're
restricted from removing such things. (As well as software
you don't need. On XP I removed Media Player and the
useless help files, along with backup drivers and the
whole System File Protection mess that stores backup
copies of files in a hidden folder. Doing that kind of thing
is harder on Vista+, for two reasons: 1) The system is
very brittle and breaks easily and 2) you have to jump
through hoops to clear the file restrictions so that you
can delete things.

The result, on Vista+, is a grotesquely bloated system,
but it also has lots of drivers, and the restrictions provide
stability. So the general experience for most people is
of a system that runs smoothly and dependably.

The other factor that causes a lot of bloat is recent
vintage software. Install something like MS Office and
you've added enough bloat to make a new OS. Similarly,
Libre Office is gigantic and won't let you just install the
parts you need. (You can skip parts, but that only means
you won't see them. What hope is there when OSS office
software programmers don't even have the sense to
go modular?)

I have Paint Shop Pro 5, which weighs in at 54 MB.
I also have PSP16, which is more like 400 MB. The
functionality is similar between the two. Lazy programmers
using lots of "wrappers". They figure they no longer have
to write lean software.

And of course there's Microsoft's .Net, which is a
pig that shouldn't be needed on most computers. But
now it's built in.

Then there's the Metro add-on in 8/10, though I
don't know how much room that takes up.

Win98 basic install was about 700 MB. XP is about 1 GB.
Vista/7 jumped up to 7-9 GB. At least 4 GB of that is the
winsxs folder. They don't tell you, or give you a choice,
in storing the install files.

I'd be curious to know what parts actually could be
made modular, but I doubt they'd account for much
space.

In article , Mayayana
wrote:


Win98 basic install was about 700 MB. XP is about 1 GB.
Vista/7 jumped up to 7-9 GB. At least 4 GB of that is the
winsxs folder. They don't tell you, or give you a choice,
in storing the install files.

hard drives are *much* larger than they were back in win98 days or even
win7 days. an extra few gig isn't worth worrying about anymore.