Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 2nd Aug 2012 22:36 UTC
Now that Windows 8 has gone gold, Microsoft can move on to other things. With Windows 8, the most important of these is probably to make sure people know how to actually use it. Metro is filled to the brim with hard-to-discover features, but Microsoft has a plan. Will it be enough?
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RE[3]: Bleh... not enough.
by Nelson on Sat 4th Aug 2012 03:28
in reply to "RE[2]: Bleh... not enough."
Member since:2005-11-29
I had a really long reply all written, but my Asus Transformer force closed the browser. Heh.
But to sum it up, I think KDE lacks a designer or 12, and a direction. Qt is in a questionable state. The Linux Desktop as a whole needs a unified rallying cry.
Its fine to have niches and fill them, but there needs to be a standard bearer somewhere. Let's stop rewriting the sound subsystem for the 12th time and work on fixing some gaping ux issues.
Don't think I'm saying the Linux Desktop is doomed, it just isn't good, at this point in time. Things will change. Look at what Valve is doing.
RE[4]: Bleh... not enough.
by delta0.delta0 on Sat 4th Aug 2012 09:54
in reply to "RE[3]: Bleh... not enough."
RE[3]: Bleh... not enough.
by ze_jerkface on Sat 4th Aug 2012 20:11
in reply to "RE[2]: Bleh... not enough."
Member since:2012-06-22
RE[4]: Bleh... not enough.
by Nelson on Sun 5th Aug 2012 14:32
in reply to "RE[3]: Bleh... not enough."
Member since:2005-11-29
X is the least of anyone's problems, its just become the whipping boy of the Linux crowd.
There are serious deficiencies in the Linux Desktop, and KDE frankly does almost nothing to alleviate any of these. The UX is absolutely emarassing and its reached the point where I'm certain they're joking. This can't be something they seriously put out.
Almost every platform, concept, or paradigm they've introduced has been second rate and detrimental to their own progress. Its like they've been jerking the chain of their userbase for half a decade while they try this stupid ass science experiment.
Gnome, ironically, looks like a more sensible approach, just completely without product direction. Its almost tragic.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.More News »
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2010-06-01
Why is the Linux Desktop in an abysmal state ?
Why is KDE a mess ?
Backup your comments with some facts please, because I am sorry but maybe you wish the above was true, but that really isn't the case, in fact its the exact opposite the news about Valve porting Steam to Linux and them putting so much support into the Linux Desktop is huge news for the Linux Desktop and its acceptance into the main stream. If Linux runs the latest AAA games, what possible benefit does windows provide ?
KDE is great now and only getting better, the Linux Desktop is great and is only getting better. Gnome is going through a hard patch that much I do concede, but Gnome3 has the ground work to be a solid Desktop environment. E17 is finally getting stable releases. Wayland is progressing nicely, same with BTRFS, a proper next gen filesystem.
You forget this centralised software installation method you are so happy Microsoft is getting has been an intrinsic part of Linux for decades and we don't have a shitty registry system that gets bloated
As for your final comment about other Os'es Apples OSX Mountain Lion seems to have been met with universal praise, I cant see how they aren't doing "any better" if any thing they are doing much better with a market capital twice that of Microsoft, in fact larger than Microsoft and Google combined.
Also Google, no idea what direction they will take with android and chrome os, but that just adds more competition with Windows 8 on the desktop. Nexus 7 has received major praise and is selling out where ever it has been released, Android on the tablet market is now a success story. In fact android 4.1 is truly outstanding and the nexus 7 is excellent value.