Joe Beda writes that slides from the WinHEC sessions are posted up: Greg Schecter: Avalon Graphics Stack Overview [682 KB], Joe Beda: Avalon Graphics – 2D, 3D, Imaging and Composition [284 KB], Kerry Hammil: Graphics on the Windows Desktop [496 KB], David Brown: Avalon Text [1.05 MB]. The slides were targeting hardware people. This was really about letting IHVs know what they can do to prepare for what is coming in Longhorn and Avalon.
The Innovations of Longhorn’s Avalon Graphics Engine
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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These are some crazy sh*t over there! I am getting really excited about Longhorn, MS seems to really pushing the envelop with it and that’s only good news for technology!
Lets just hope its stable..
If all of this doesn’t turn out to be vaporware and is as good as the claims…Linux has an even bigger challenge in the future than previously thought…unfortunately.
At least the open source world will have a couple years to aggressively challenge upcoming technologies.
Popularity is not determined by technology only. Yeah you can praise Avalon all you want, but the average user doesn’t give a rat ass about your whatever your awesome composition and rendering system is called. If it works, works well and looks nice, they’ll use it, no matter the underlying technology.
It’s nice to get more info on Avalon and it is quite impressive. I think Microsoft has a better chance in pulling off Avalon than Indigo or WinFS. I also see why the folks at Stardock are mad a Microsoft because Avalon could put them out of the desktop mod business(their primary source of income).
The folks behind Cairo, x.org and related projects on Linux platform have a real challenge to compete against Avalon. If the desktop looks like an antique, then people won’t use it even if you give it away for free.
I wouldn’t be suprised to see Apple introduce a new Quartz engine in for OSX 10.4 since they would be pressured to do so by Microsoft in the UI department with Longhorn looming.
People are such eye candy whores.
OS X’s GUI is more than eye candy. The pdf display system is very practical for desktop publishsing machines. WYSIWYG is incredibly important in that field. Plus, is is much easier to read.
I also see why the folks at Stardock are mad a Microsoft because Avalon could put them out of the desktop mod business(their primary source of income).
I don’t think StarDock should be that angry– this whole new system could also mean more possbilities. I wouldn’t like seeing StarDock go under, WindowBlinds is among the first apps I install after doing a fresh Windows installation.
People are such eye candy whores.
Guilty as charged… But ehm, aren’t the whores the ones providing the candy…?
I would like to see the thing not to hear about it.
If nobody remembers, NT4 was supposed to have WinFS-like filesystem… And on and on.
In the end like always. M$ will (after al this blurb) put out some semifinished middleware solution and say that next version will include this features
btw. If anyone wants to use different OS for some reason he will use it. OSX fans will stay on OSX and Linux fans on Linux, while migrators will leave to OS of their choice. If software would mean a lot, then we wouldn’t see linux any users now. All that matters is just personal preference.
Windows could have a rocket enabled interface and I wouldn’t touch them with a ten foot pole. Everyone seems to forget the biggest flaw in Windows: License – First they take your pants, and then they take your ass. And this reason is the reason why people leave from Windows and not some fancy interface.
Lots of really great ideas here. To make it all happen the video card people have a completely new video driver structure for Longhorn. Sigh, the drivers were just now becoming semi stable.
I do have three issues with the avalon stuff:
– crap integrated video solutions
– eye candy will result in much slower responding UI
– fonts are going to be rendered using ExtraBlurry ™
1) Intel has said that their next few generations of integrated are going to be PS1.1 capable (basically crap). All the features discussed in the presentations require lots of video ram (64Mb at the min) and decent GPU power. Integrated gfx mobos wll not do this. Laptop users will burn through batteries all because the GPU is running a huge number of cycles to make nice pixel shadded titlebars.
2) UI “responsiveness” is going to become more sluggish. I like it when applications respond as quickly as possible to my input. This indicates to me that they’ve taken my input and are acting upon it. I can still type ahead of and task switch much faster than my windows box can keep up. The avalon eye candy will slow an applications inital window update to show that it’s doing “stuff”. Switching apps will be worse as textures get paged in, fonts got cached, etc. Oh well. People like pretty colors much more than a snappy response from their apps (see any macintosh application like iPhoto, Photoshop, iTunes)
3) The super-antialiased font rendering and legability sounds great, however I’ve seen several demos where the anti aliasing just makes the text look blurry and fuzzy. The very highest readability I’ve ever seen has been with a bit by bit pixel tuned font. The font was created for an exact “point” size. This sharpness, as well as really distinctively readable glyphs, made all the difference. Sadly that is the opposite of where Avalon is going.
Anytime you scale fonts you end up with partially filled pixels. For these edges of the glpyh the system has to give the pixel a corresponding gray. When you have a very large number of pixels this work great and looks smooth (e.g. 300 dpi and above!!) Dispalys are reaching much higher pixel densities, but we are still far from 300dpi.
There are a huge number of very cool and outstnading items in avalon. It’s going to require a card like an ATI 800000 Ultra Pro Mega card. Which will likely cost you $400, need a 1.2 Kilwatt power supply, and be obsolete in 4 months
, but animated start menu sure will look nice.
Yep, it all looks nice and integrated but it isn’t as if Microsoft have invented anything new here. They’ve taken what used to be the exclusive preserve of high-end Unix systems and used predictions of what graphics hardware will be in the future and went to town on them. It would have been innovative had Microsoft been able to do this on today’s existing hardware. The only way in which they are pushing the envelope is where they usually do it – hardware demands, and lots of them. There is a central theme in all of these presentations: “Ramp up the GPU speed.”
Dampen down and point out some of the hype of Longhorn -> Get modded down.
As I *just* pointed out in my 60th post on the SkyOS forum: the number of idiots on OSNews.com is growing daily…
What is you exception to David’s post? You speak like someone who actually believes MS is being innovative. Please, point me to a significant technology in Longhorn that hasn’t been seen before. In a way, Longhorn is exciting because its trying to merge all those technologies, but that’s not really innovation, but rather good implementation. Let me preempt some of those:
Window system tightly integrated with hardware: SGI IRIX
GUI drawn via vector graphics: NeXT Step
2D vector graphics accelerated by hardware: Cairo, EVAS, SVGL.
Database filesystem: Old BeFS
OS components in safe language (.NET): Lisp machines
Win.Forms 2.0: Most widgets already in Qt/KDE, other toolkits have had layout manager forever.
So what’s left? These are the major “innovations” in Longhorn, are they not?
with all the fancy graphics, I still do not have the functionality in Longhorn that *nix offers me.
The only way in which they are pushing the envelope is where they usually do it – hardware demands, and lots of them. There is a central theme in all of these presentations: “Ramp up the GPU speed.”
Dampen down and point out some of the hype of Longhorn -> Get modded down.
This is what I was referring to.
Exactly. The number of MS zealots never cease to surprise me. Things usually go like this:
MS person: Longhorn is innovative, cool and the best thing in the world!
Someone else: No it isn’t. A and B have been done before by X and Y.
MS person: You are a stupid zealot who can’t stand criticism!
No guys, MS is not a bliss!
@Thom Holwerda
I see, thanks, your post is very informative. Even the 60th post in SkyOS forum.
btw. What I said about SkyOS, is what I think about it. And yes, you’re welcome to think that I’m idiot:) Being treated as idiot by idiot somehow nullifies thigs, doesn’t it:)
@Rayiner Hashem
You forgot and missed some:
Virtual desktops: Well *X from the very stone age
Font Aliasing system: Adobe if I remember correctly, Older ATM versions
OS components in safe language: java, perl, phython, php… List goes on
Information Panel in Longhorn: Dashboard
Database base filesystem even before BeOS was Novell filesystem.
—–
(:Big Clock:) : Apple
(:Tons of bugs:) : M$ in all their previous versions (don’t know if this really is a joke)
What
Window system tightly integrated with hardware: SGI IRIX
GUI drawn via vector graphics: NeXT Step
2D vector graphics accelerated by hardware: Cairo, EVAS, SVGL.
Database filesystem: Old BeFS
OS components in safe language (.NET): Lisp machines
Win.Forms 2.0: Most widgets already in Qt/KDE, other toolkits have had layout manager forever.
Yes, but can you name one OS that implements ALL of these features. The cool thing about Longhorn will be that you get all of these things without requirng you to be part of some technological priesthood, or limiting your hardware and/or software choices.
http://www.skyos.org/board/viewtopic.php?t=18161
4th is our dear Thom.
btw. I’ve never said GPL it, I said (in short and translated for lowIQpeople)
“I wouldn’t touch it with ten foot pole, because touching it would encourage another alternative. One alternative is enough (and good enough). Two alternatives stealing ground one from each other is the worst possible thing that could happen’ to free software movement. That’s why I won’t even download SkyOS”
Yes, I still think like that and I’m proud on it.
Linux (at least before Longhorn release).
Database filesystem: Reiser4 (has simmiliar features as WinFS, although it’s been leaned towards performance. Read the plugins section in technical documentation), Storage for network
Window system tightly integrated with hardware: freedesktop.org
2D vector graphics accelerated by hardware: Cairo
GUI drawn via vector graphics: Next version of Gtk, follow mailing lists
OS components in safe language (.NET): mono, java, php, perl, phython
3D Desktop features: Looking Glass
By the time Longhorn gets out, all of these are going to be done deal. And what’s most important: Choice will still be yours.
But now to pains and sticks section:
.NET is very prone to spyware and other malicious things. One thing is remoting, second thing is access to your data which is now in really arranged fashion. Everything is an object in .NET isn’t it.
Remoting offers very simple way to make malicious software just as to make really good software (and when I say good I mean good, remoting just rocks). And will M$ be able to make .NET so secure to not allow this to happen’. No, It will happen’, and what’s more, it will even more than it happens now. Problem with all solutions that provide better work is that tools can’t be selective which job is good for humanity and which not. Face it. Computers are *stupid* (not as insult about next ones) and so are common users, you can’t expect that they will know what’s malicios and what not.
btw. M$ is more likely to skip security measures than GUI ones. Security measures aren’t visible, and no one will notice if they are missing. But being promissed something looking nice is engraved to everyones mind. In the end M$ PR machine will decide what can and what can’t be excluded.
As way I see. M$ is getting clear about the fact that Longhorn as in proclaimed and glorified specification is a fairy tale, at least in defined timeline. Now they have to choose what to promote and what to exclude. “Hell, even the bright M$ evangelist which persuaded Mozilla team to use M$ future to be APIs couldn’t answer not even noe real question. He just stopped posting without a single definitive answer after posting some lame answers”
“The number of MS zealots never cease to surprise me.”
MS zealots? I would say that Linux zealots far, far outnumber the amount of MS zealots that I have seen on here and other message boards.
“No guys, MS is not a bliss!”
And neither is Linux or Mac OS. I dont care who invents this or that, I just care who implements it the best. If Microsoft takes an idea from someone else and is able to mold it into something that works better, then good for them, and vica versa. Many people have critisized the Japanes for doing this, but it works, and they produce some of the best cars and electronics that you can buy.
And neither is Linux or Mac OS.
But BeOS and SkyOS are
>So what’s left? These are the major “innovations” in Longhorn, are they not?
You mentioned a number of *different* platforms having some of the features of Longhorn. But you didn’t mention a SINGLE platform/OS that had ALL these features in. Having the full implementation counts for something, doesn’t it Rayiner?
“But BeOS and SkyOS are
”
some people have a pathetic obsession with operating systems. for the rest of us they are tools
Why do people feel the need to come to each windows/macos/beos/skyos/bsd thread and shout that linux is better? and still get irritated if someone calls them a zealot? Just shut up already
“:You mentioned a number of *different* platforms having some of the features of Longhorn. But you didn’t mention a SINGLE platform/OS that had ALL these features in. Having the full implementation counts for something, doesn’t it Rayiner?”
it only counts when its really available. i dont consider product brochures and preview screenshots real enough for mass consumption
“Why do people feel the need to come to each windows/macos/beos/skyos/bsd thread and shout that linux is better? ”
why do windows people get really excited by alpha screenshots of longhorn and why do skyos people shout hurray for every beta release of skyos and why do beos fans keep talking about sweet memories of their dead os and why do mac os people think that they are elite people
simple reason: they are propogating what they use
Database filesystem: Reiser4 (has simmiliar features as WinFS, although it’s been leaned towards performance. Read the plugins section in technical documentation), Storage for network
Window system tightly integrated with hardware: freedesktop.org
2D vector graphics accelerated by hardware: Cairo
GUI drawn via vector graphics: Next version of Gtk, follow mailing lists
OS components in safe language (.NET): mono, java, php, perl, phython
3D Desktop features: Looking Glass
Yes, but will these be anything but half-implemented, half-assed beta-ware by the time Longhorn comes out? Will Nautilus be able to fully exploit all features of Reiser4? Will I be able to not care if my app uses KDE’s vector graphics subsystem, or GNOME’s? Will I have to rectally insert 20 differently safe language environments? Will they all be able to talk to each other?
You mentioned a number of *different* platforms having some of the features of Longhorn. But you didn’t mention a SINGLE platform/OS that had ALL these features in. Having the full implementation counts for something, doesn’t it Rayiner?
Undoubtedly it does. I never said it didn’t. Indeed, I pointed out Longhorn was “exciting” precisely because it attempts to integrate all these features. However, taking a bunch of well understood concepts and combining them isn’t innovative. Good product design? Yes. Good engineering? Sure. Good execution? If they can pull it off. Innovative? No.
Innovation takes brilliance, insight, originality, and creativity. It is the act of creating something from nothing, or leaping drastically beyond what already exists. Microsoft doesn’t do those things. That doesn’t make them bad people, it just makes them engineers rather than inventors!
Yes, but will these be anything but half-implemented, half-assed beta-ware by the time Longhorn comes out?
Will Longhorn be anything but vaporware? Remember, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard a lot of this stuff. A lot of Longhorn was supposed to be in Cairo back in 1996? Based on their past history, one must wonder about what MS can really deliver in time. At the same time, you can hardly say that the GNOME project, Trolltech, KDE.org, etc, have a track-record of “half-implemented, half-assed beta-ware.” Its illogical to assume that Microsoft will beat their track-record, while the OSS folks will fall short of theirs!
Will Nautilus be able to fully exploit all features of Reiser4?
Probably, but the question is, will anything but explorer.exe take advantage of WinFS? Microsoft has lots of technologies (COM, etc), that aren’t really fully utilized by anyone but themselves. Certainly, you can’t say that COM is as widely used in Windows as KParts is in KDE, for example. Integration is a traditional weakpoint for both Microsoft and OSS, while it’s a traditional strongpoint for Apple.
Will I be able to not care if my app uses KDE’s vector graphics subsystem, or GNOME’s?
Since the cool stuff resides in the X server, you definitely won’t have to care. And if we’re going to bring up the toolkit debate again, I’ll respond by asking if you know whether Microsoft Office’s custom toolkit will be updated to have the same features and take advantage of the same services as Win.Forms 2.0! Is Borland going to update VCL? Are the media-player makers going to update their custom UIs?
Yes, but will these be anything but half-implemented, half-assed beta-ware…
This is description of Windows release. Why do you hope that Longhorn will be any better
Will Nautilus be able to fully exploit all features of Reiser4?
Read the specs, and then ask stupid questions.
Will I be able to not care if my app uses KDE’s vector graphics subsystem, or GNOME’s?
Cairo, man. Cairo. then there’s freedesktop.org
Will I have to rectally insert 20 differently safe language environments?
Well Windows come with 0 of them. Every god known distro includes at least php and perl. Rectally???
Well if you usualy do: apt-get insert-rectally [somesoftware] then yes. You will have, the rest of the world does “apt-get install [software]”
Will they all be able to talk to each other?
They already do, where’s your point?
You mentioned a number of *different* platforms having some of the features of Longhorn. But you didn’t mention a SINGLE platform/OS that had ALL these features in. Having the full implementation counts for something, doesn’t it Rayiner?
Actualy three answers (can’t decide which to choose, so here’s all of them):
1. And you know for sure Longhorn will??? Even M$ doesn’t know yet, but you know.
2. Ok, I buy it, give me Longhorn. What? Not here yet? What? In year 2007? Really? Do you know for sure it’s 2007?
3. How can you be so sure and doubtfull that it won’t, at least until Longhorn comes out?
p.s. First time in my life I’m really interested in your answers.
Rayiner just provided very basic thing, there’s no invention from M$ side. A very valid point. He also provided that everything already exists. Again very valid point.
All that it takes is cooperation of these projects, that already exist. And lucky us, cooperation isn’t starting now, it’s already progressing, and for the record it’s YEAR 2004, God dammit’, Almost 3 years to the time when Longhorn comes out
I suggset you use bold more wisely on this site.
At the same time, you can hardly say that the GNOME project, Trolltech, KDE.org, etc, have a track-record of “half-implemented, half-assed beta-ware.”
How about releasing a desktop environment without a menu editor? Hope you like the defaults!
Or possibly to include anything beyond the most primitive file selector, which compares quite linearly to the Window 3.x file selector?
How are those “new hardware x plugged” in notifications coming along in the Linux world? I sure love checking my root console to find out that sort of information.
How about the basic functionality “align to grid”? Has anyone had a few spare moments between chatting on IRC about how awesome their programming skillz are to implement a standard feature since Windows 95? I guess perhaps you enjoy positioning your icons pixel-by-pixel. But hey, rag on Microsoft.
“How about releasing a desktop environment without a menu editor? Hope you like the defaults!”
Huh? When? Which one? Every linux DE I’ve ever used had a menu editor. A more valid point would be why I can’t drag and drop to the menu (in KDE at least).
“Or possibly to include anything beyond the most primitive file selector, which compares quite linearly to the Window 3.x file selector?”
Yeah the file selector sucks in GTK, luckily, I rarely if ever need to use it. The KDE file selector is way more functional than GTK or Windows for that matter.
How are those “new hardware x plugged” in notifications coming along in the Linux world? I sure love checking my root console to find out that sort of information. Valid point. Although I’ve had more problems than not with Windows XP usb hotplug support.
How about the basic functionality “align to grid”? Has anyone had a few spare moments between chatting on IRC about how awesome their programming skillz are to implement a standard feature since Windows 95? I guess perhaps you enjoy positioning your icons pixel-by-pixel. But hey, rag on Microsoft.
Hmmm.. Right click on desktop -> icons -> Align to Grid
Pretty sure this has existed for a long time.. I suggest you try out a new Linux distro sometime.
btw somebody,
” Well if you usualy do: apt-get insert-rectally [somesoftware] then yes. You will have, the rest of the world does “apt-get install [software]””
HAHAHAHAHA. I had to laugh out loud at that.
“Everyone seems to forget the biggest flaw in Windows: License – First they take your pants, and then they take your ass.”
lol… that’s my new email signature!
How about releasing a desktop environment without a menu editor? Hope you like the defaults!
*Right-clicks big chameleon logo*: Menu editor? Check.
Or possibly to include anything beyond the most primitive file selector, which compares quite linearly to the Window 3.x file selector?
*Clicks Save-as*: Bookmark bar? Check. Path entry? Check. Quick-nav buttons? Check. Icon view? Check. Transparent network I/O? Check. Oh, XP doesn’t have that yet, my bad…
How are those “new hardware x plugged” in notifications coming along in the Linux world?
*Plugs in USB mouse, joypad, and network dongle*: Hotplug? Check!
I sure love checking my root console to find out that sort of information.
I just click the little “suseplugger” applet in my systray.
How about the basic functionality “align to grid”?
*Right-clicks desktop -> Icons*: Align-to-grid? Check!
Love the way you attack fud with informed comments
There is no question that Longhorn will do well in the home user market, but it won’t do well in the business market because it’s just entertainment. You need something like 5 Ghz processor to even run this boat. I refuse to buy a new computer until the one I own breaks, but that’s one of the reasons why I have money, and most people just don’t.
Microsoft puts together a lot of interesting technologies into a single platform and we get clowns babbling on about Lisp machines and other platforms that are either dead and have been for ages, or never had any signficant market presence.
Yeah, you can smell the fear in the anti-MS crowd. They know that Longhorn will be there with all of this eventually and way before Linux has anything that doesn’t resemble some cobbled together betaware.
Linux is fine on the server, but development for the desktop is too fragmented and with not enough talent to really overtake Windows in the near future. Couple that with the fact that the most popular open source software such as Mozilla/Firebird, OpenOffice, eclipse and others already not only run on windows, but invariably run better on windows.
Probably the only hope for some real competition to windows on the desktop is if Novell gets real serious about the desktop, forks Gnome(Redhat leading Gnome development is a dead-end), puts some heavy duty resources into a Xserver, and pushes Mono hard.
Don’t even mention KDE. As long as QT is owned by Trolltech and has its current license, it’ll always have issues that business will shy away from.
For anybody that was going to mention OSX in reply, forget about it. Linux will surpass Mac on the desktop soon and will be relegated to BeOS status unless Jobs gives up his hardware fetish and starts selling for x86.
Hee hee, all this technology integrated and accessible by .NET. I can’t wait, man!
Don’t be daft. The only reason anybody is babbling about Lisp machines is because someone made the claim Longhorn was innovative, and it was an example of a supposed Longhorn “innovation” that was done already. The fact that some of these features are parts of dead technologies is completely irrelevant.
Get this through your commercial software industry addled head: Making a good idea commercially successful does not make you innovative. It makes you a good copycat (not that there is anything wrong with being a copycat!). The original implementation can be a total bomb, and yours could be a raging commercial success, and that does not in any way make the original less innovative, or your version any more innovative.
If you’re not the first one to implement an idea, or your idea isn’t a major improvement on an existing one, then you cannot claim innovation, it’s as simple as that. Regardless of how much money you make off it!
and that the graphic improvements spill over into Powerpoint, which still produces some of the ugliest graphics known to mankind (even on the OS X version)!
I mean, Microsoft claiming innovation here is like Al Gore claiming to have invented the internet! Sure, he might have approved the funding that lead to the project that brought the technology to the masses, but that does not mean he can take credit for the invention!
“Probably the only hope for some real competition to windows on the desktop is if Novell gets real serious about the desktop, forks Gnome(Redhat leading Gnome development is a dead-end), puts some heavy duty resources into a Xserver, and pushes Mono hard.
”
forking such a major project leads to even more fragmentation. better know what you talk about. redhat isnt leading gnome and there is nothing wrong with their contributions.
”
Don’t even mention KDE. As long as QT is owned by Trolltech and has its current license, it’ll always have issues that business will shy away from.”
again you are proving yourself a clown here. QT has much more proprietary products based on it compared to gtk. Business users dont have a problem with paying up money for QT. only FUD people like you
http://www.trolltech.com/products/hotnew/adobe.html
http://www.trolltech.com/products/3rdparty/index.html?cid=4
Opera
Wavetech and so on
“Couple that with the fact that the most popular open source software such as Mozilla/Firebird, OpenOffice, eclipse and others already not only run on windows, but invariably run better on windows. ”
that actually makes migration easier in the long run. you dont understand that all open source products are likely to be ported to diverse platforms and architectures and is a stragetic advantage rather than a weakness and will happen neverthless
My ranting about innovation isn’t completely intellectual masturbation. What we have now is a whole lot of hype about Longhorn. Some OSS people are going off the deep-end in fear, wondering how anything can possibly compete with it. The online media is blowing it completely out of proportion, fueling the hype engine to stratospheric heights.
Everyone needs to chill. Understanding that Longhorn is nothing more than a combination of well-understood, existing technologies is the first step to competing with it successfully. Instead of a potential competitor having to be an equally ground-breaking, innovative, and utterly new product, it simply has to be an integrated, well-engineered system, like Longhorn aims to be. Programmers know how to build integrated, well-engineered systems. Doing so is a lot of work, undoubtedly, but it doable, and not nearly as panic inducing as expecting to have to make fundamental breakthroughs in OS design in order to compete!
“Hee hee, all this technology integrated and accessible by .NET. I can’t wait, man!”
you better wait. MS has been talking about this stuff from 1996 onwards
All your base are belong to Linux????
Wuh? I don’t get it. I mean, obviously I’ve gotta wait, its not due out until 2007/8ish. Its not like there’s anything to do in the meantime.
If you want to talk about innovation in every Longhorn article that comes up, you should at least know what the definition of innovation is.
The actual definition of innovation is: “The act of introducing something new”. By that definition almost all software that is written is innovative.
But by your definition of innovation, there is almost nothing that is innovative because the “innovative” parts of Lisp, Irix, Next, BeFS were all done by someone before. Remember, nothing exists in a vacuum.
Raynier, it’s fine that you hate Microsoft for whatever ideology, but don’t come around here babbling about that Microsoft hasn’t ever done anything innovative and then claim that Lisp, Next, SGI, or BeFS were innovative when they were just doing the same things as Microsoft – and that is adding onto the work of others before them with their own twist.
I am referring to Gnome. You specifically said they were both not half-assed. Gnome is, and I mentioned how in several ways. Saying your modified, proprietary installation of KDE is not half-baked, does not affect Gnome’s half-assed-ness.
*Plugs in USB mouse, joypad, and network dongle*: Hotplug? Check!
How about plugging in something more exciting like a scanner or a printer or a digital camera?
Let’s not pretend linux is anywhere close to easy to use as windows, or MacOS X is when it comes to peripheral devices.
Also, I was referring to the notification, not whether or not it actually works after connecting it. I would hope your OS can at least get devices working by now.
“Saying your modified, proprietary installation of KDE is not half-baked, does not affect Gnome’s half-assed-ness”
whats half baked about gnome. the file dialogs are very good now and suse’s implementation is not proprietary at all. dont spread misinformation and lies
Personal attacks will not help your argument.
Speaking of competence, perhaps you will read my original comment if you want to see my complaints. I’m sure you’re too busy hacking the Linux kernel to do this, right? (you = teh l33t)
And suSE isn’t proprietary? Please point me towards an ISO (and no, a ghetto live CD does not count). Thx.
“What you say!!!
By Shapeshifter V.90 (IP: —.dsl.coastalnow.net) – Posted on 2004-05-24 03:30:04
All your base are belong to Linux????
Wuh? I don’t get it. I mean, obviously I’ve gotta wait, its not due out until 2007/8ish. Its not like there’s anything to do in the meantime.
”
who said anything about Linux. you said you cant wait. obviously you have to. besides it doesnt look like you much stuff to do
Window system tightly integrated with hardware: SGI IRIX
GUI drawn via vector graphics: NeXT Step
2D vector graphics accelerated by hardware: Cairo, EVAS, SVGL.
Database filesystem: Old BeFS
OS components in safe language (.NET): Lisp machines
Win.Forms 2.0: Most widgets already in Qt/KDE, other toolkits have had layout manager forever.
So what’s left? These are the major “innovations” in Longhorn, are they not?
Yep. Those are the ones. How about bringing all of these “previous” innovations together in one OS which will likely be used by the vast majority of the public at large? Is that not innovation.
I mean.. wow.. so a couple of dead Operating systems from the past have similiar features.. big f*cking deal. Where are they now ? Dead and buried.
Longhorn will be current and used by millions. Thats something none of the operating systems you listed ever achieved (with the exception of Qt/KDE on *nix).
Innovation takes brilliance, insight, originality, and creativity. It is the act of creating something from nothing, or leaping drastically beyond what already exists. Microsoft doesn’t do those things. That doesn’t make them bad people, it just makes them engineers rather than inventors!
I agree with this completely. Good points.
“Yep. Those are the ones. How about bringing all of these “previous” innovations together in one OS which will likely be used by the vast majority of the public at large? Is that not innovation.
”
as already indicated several times its only good engineering if MS actually delivers a product. currently NO. its not innovation at all
Couple that with the fact that the most popular open source software such as Mozilla/Firebird, OpenOffice, eclipse and others already not only run on windows, but invariably run better on windows.
Care to back this up with some data? Nope? Didn’t think so…
Don’t even mention KDE. As long as QT is owned by Trolltech and has its current license, it’ll always have issues that business will shy away from.
Blah blah blah. Qt’s license compares quite favorably to other commercial licenses, and the toolkit is one of the most portable ones around. You’re alluding to a non-existent problem in hope of supporting dubious arguments.
With that kind of baseless allegations, I guess one could say that you can really “smell the fear in the anti-Linux crowd”.
Enough with the FUD already.
This bull’s been neutered already… so far, WinFS and Palladium have both been scaled back. So really, not even Longhorn will deliver all this stuff together in one package – at least not as advertised. Who knows what will be next on the chopping block.
as already indicated several times its only good engineering if MS actually delivers a product. currently NO. its not innovation at all
You want me to believe for a minute that MS is porting code directly from NeXT and that .net was written in LISP ? Get real.
Every *innovation* out there is nothing more than someone taking previous ideas and “technologies” and adding on to them, coming up with new ideas and extending them.
Innovation is creating something new. If you take all of these rag tag technologies and create an OS that has them all when no other OS had them all before I’d say you just created something new.
The actual definition of innovation is: “The act of introducing something new”. By that definition almost all software that is written is innovative.
Nice spin. Spoken like a true marketing rep.
So, according to your definition, Linux is innovative as well, right? All software is innovative. Ergo, no software is innovative. A non-argument if I ever heard one.
Raynier, it’s fine that you hate Microsoft for whatever ideology, but don’t come around here babbling about that Microsoft hasn’t ever done anything innovative and then claim that Lisp, Next, SGI, or BeFS were innovative when they were just doing the same things as Microsoft – and that is adding onto the work of others before them with their own twist.
First things first. Rayiner has a lot more credibility than you – he’s been posting here a lot longer, has a pretty good technical grasp, and is always quite polite with the persons he debates with.
Second, the problem is that it is Microsoft – you know, that monopoly which you spend so much energy defending – that continually talks about “innovation.”
MS’s last innovative act was to put a hard drive in the Xbox (though it proved a bad business decision in the end – they’re taking it out in the Xbox 2). Yet the marketroids at Redmond are busy taking every ideas borrowed from other OSes and presenting them as “innovations.”
Rayiner simply calls bull when he sees it. And I, for one, agree with him.
Raptor
How about plugging in something more exciting like a scanner or a printer or a digital camera?
Let’s see…USB printer (Samsung ML1210)…check!
USB scanner (hp scanjet 2200c)…check!
I don’t have a USB digital camera, but a friend of mine was here recently with his (a Canon, I believe). We plugged it in, and a nice icon appeared on the desktop. We clicked on it, and there were the photos. I didn’t have to set anything up, or install anything. We were both amazed.
Let’s not pretend linux is anywhere close to easy to use as windows, or MacOS X is when it comes to peripheral devices.
What’s there to pretend – it’s the truth! Linux is as easy to use than Windows or Mac OS X for USB peripherals.
So, any more FUD for us to dispel?
> so far, WinFS and Palladium have both been scaled back
I suggest you read our archives, because this is not true (they were rumors that they were off, but the rumors were wrong).
et’s see…USB printer (Samsung ML1210)…check!
USB scanner (hp scanjet 2200c)…check!
Nice try. Two year old printers and scanners. That’s the reason I chose to move away from linux as my desktop. You always had to find the hardware that worked and often it was very old. It doesn’t look like much has changed. I still run linux mind you but for experimental purposes only.
Oh cameras that come up as USB mass storage devices might mount straight away, but that doesn’t mean all of them will work. How about a firewire miniDV camcorder?
You can make anything work with linux if you have the time and skills but it is not easy to just get a peripheral to work out of the box. Old hardware doesn’t count. The printer you pointed out I can’t even buy anymore!!!
While Apple will not be taking significant market share from MS any time soon (due to inertia vs. lack of innovation) Apple is ahead of MS in this context.
Basically, Apple is pulling a MS on MS. There are multiple reasons as to why MS got where it is today but one of them is developer support through easy to use tools and documentation (lets not nitpick semantics here please).
All this graphical/multimedia funtionality is going to need a new kind of “IDE” – one built for multimedia from the ground up. In Final Cut Pro/Motion/Logic/DVD Pro, etc., Apple already has in place the foundations of this MM-type IDE, knows what works and what doesn’t, best use cases, apis and frameworks, etc.
For example, while MS is still talking about animated this and that Apple already has this (http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/livetype.html) on the market.
All they would have to do is take this funtionality and put it in the OS as part of the OSX API. Yes I know this is not as simple as the statement makes it out to be – but they would have a lot of market tested code that would/could be (re)used which accelerates the process way faster than them creating this and other features from scratch as it looks like other OS’s outside of MS and Apple are going to have to do.
This bull’s been neutered already… so far, WinFS and Palladium have both been scaled back.
These were rumours that were… Oh wait, Eugenia already replied.
Anyway I’m excited about Longhorn– as I’m excited about any new OS release, whether it be Microsoft or whatever. That’s the whole point of being an OS fanatic, instead of being an anti-MS fanatic just for the cool of it.
And for everyone saying: “Longhorn isn’t even finished blabla”… If you feel like that, then don’t come up with Cairo, freedekstop.org, ReiserFS4 or whatever… I haven’t seen a distro combining those features either!
Your kind of people remind me of self-proclamed Music critics; they judge a CD by using their personal preference, while they should judge the quality of the album, not whether they like it or not. Objectivity my friends. Take of those Linux/GPL-colored goggles (and, let me repeat it once again, I do like Linux (MDK is my main OS), but I at least realize Lniuxis far from being where Windows/Mac OS X os, for the simple home desktop user, that is).
I think the reason people are getting so irate about all the longhorn stories is that it has just been so overhyped. The bottom line is, before Longhorn is released, this is all just handwaving and postulating. That’s what I like about open source products. The hype about upcoming features is basically confined to developer sites until the product is released. Microsoft hypes products years and years before they are ready and has so often fallen short of promises. It’s really not surprising that people are skeptical about the hype of the day.
And to Raptor about peripherals: Yes, some peripherals are a pain in the ass to get working in linux, usually the cheaper knockoff ones (note I said USUALLY). However I’ve noticed that when it works in Linux, especially for digicams it usually works better than in Windows. The last time my brother came over he tried to transfer some of his pics from a ~1 year old digicam (sony I believe) to my parents’ Windows XP computer. Didn’t work, he needed to download some 8 MB special software from sony to access his camera! I plugged it into my computer running linux and it worked with no issues. It goes both ways.
USB Cameras:
People come round here all the time with their digital cameras, taking photos of birthdays, other family/friends events. I always ask if I can get some of the photos off their cameras. They always say – sorry, I’ll have to email it, you’ll need drivers and stuff. I just say let’s try. Stick it in the USB socket – icon on desktop – away we go. It’s the same with every camera I’ve tried. Generally their mouths drop, and they say wow. Then they see the software I run – digikam, kimdaba and gimp2.0. Their mouths drop again.
MiniDV – firewire:
Again, modules already available in the kernel. Just have to load the drivers. I’m sure the same occurs in Windows. You have hardware – you load drivers. Mostly on linux, hardware is autodetected. For firewire DV, you have to load drivers. That is about the same level as windows don’t you think?
USB Printers:
HP just work. Set them up using CUPS on install, and any box on the network automagically finds it, and can use it – using new models of HP deskjets as well.
I have never come across any hardware that hasn’t been autodetected by linux, or hasn’t had a driver that is easily loaded and autoconfigured. Furthermore, I don’t ever check to see that hardware works with linux. Generally it just does, and without the need for manufacturer drivers.
Please note that this is a statement about personal experience, and there will be plenty of people who have tried hardware, and had a nightmare with it. However, in my experience, that is no different than on windows. Sometimes, hardware is a nightmare.
Matt
I suggest you read our archives, because this is not true (they were rumors that they were off, but the rumors were wrong).
Somehow I knew you’d say that! You’ve continually argued that Windows is not being trimmed back, despite all the news contrary to the fact. WinFS has changed from being an all-encompassing technology, to one that will benefit the user only at the desktop level. Not to fret, this is already covered by technology such as BlackMagic:
http://news.com.com/1606-2-5214217.html
For my sources on these “rumors” please go here:
http://news.com.com/Longhorn+goes+to+pieces/2100-1016_3-5212077.htm…
http://www.crn.com/sections/BreakingNews/dailyarchives.asp?ArticleI…
Sorry about misspelling your name!!
http://blogs.msdn.com/jmazner/archive/2004/04/13.aspx
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=6955
I have never come across any hardware that hasn’t been autodetected by linux, or hasn’t had a driver that is easily loaded and autoconfigured. Furthermore, I don’t ever check to see that hardware works with linux. Generally it just does, and without the need for manufacturer drivers.
Please note that this is a statement about personal experience, and there will be plenty of people who have tried hardware, and had a nightmare with it. However, in my experience, that is no different than on windows. Sometimes, hardware is a nightmare.
Well I guess linux has come a long way then. I have had a lot of problem hardware in the past and kind of got tired of trying to make things work, it was fun while I was in college.
OMG…. this is sooooooooooo tedious.
“Advanced search features that Gates has termed the “Holy Grail” of Longhorn, the next major version of Windows, won’t be fully in place until 2009, Bob Muglia, the senior vice president in charge of Windows server development, told CNET News.com.”
Am I making this up?
“Yes, but can you name one OS that implements ALL of these features. The cool thing about Longhorn will be that you get all of these things without requirng you to be part of some technological priesthood, or limiting your hardware and/or software choices.”
Right, are you saying that Longhorn won’t limit hardware choice?
I read it won’t run on any computer with a cpu lower then 600 or 700 mhz?
That limits my choice of hardware a lot imho. With Linux I can still run up to date software on a p1, and it’s fast!
An old computer is not a piece of crap, and there’s no reason to throw a working computer away, adding up to the junkpiles. And buying new hardware that is more power hungry, wasting even more energy to run an OS?
Some guy referred to the laptop’s , I wonder if MS expects laptops to have way better batteries in 2006 so they can run the same amount of hours as now. Users would be more happy if they just could use their laptop for many more hours then run extra eye candy.
Also.. a desktop can be beatiful without being a resource hog, it’s all about colours, simple layout, … Coming with 3D and all that proves that a) MS has no clue how to make a desktop beautiful and good on the eye in a smart way or b) MS knows very good what it’s doing and of course won’t stop Intel from making large profits when the new windows comes out.
Am I making this up?
They’re postponing the network functionality of WinFS. Big deal. It’s not like you’ve an enterprise network at home, stuffed with trillions of documents. WinFS will work on your local disks as it was always supposed to. By the time the move to Longhorn in the enterprises will get inertia, the networking side of WinFS will probably be ready and available as service pack addon or whatever.
I also see why the folks at Stardock are mad a Microsoft because Avalon could put them out of the desktop mod business(their primary source of income).
What’s this nonsense?
Last time I read something from the Stardock guys, they were EXCITED because Avalon brings them new opportunities.
“:You mentioned a number of *different* platforms having some of the features of Longhorn. But you didn’t mention a SINGLE platform/OS that had ALL these features in. Having the full implementation counts for something, doesn’t it Rayiner?”
it only counts when its really available. i dont consider product brochures and preview screenshots real enough for mass consumption
Really? Then it doesn’t count for the other examples too. The LISP machines are long gone, NeXT is not around, BeOS is no more, SGI is dying, etc etc…
As for Evas and Cairo they are only used here and there by all 5 people, and in no really usefull desktop or corporate setting.
So none of there are “really available”.
So none of there are “really available”
Longhorn in proposed specs is not around. So, Longhorn is not “really available”
C’mon, before you open your mouth at least check calendar. It’s not 2007
.. machine and NOT a Tech company. Remember the hype around WIN95? MS has NEVER delivered what they promised and never will. So let’s wait another 4 to 5 years and compare their promises to the facts.
Longhorn is a bubble; a castle in MS’s mind. It’ll burst and turn into a dog shed; But because Bill Gates sais it’s a castle People will believe him and fork out money.
I suggest you read our archives, because this is not true (they were rumors that they were off, but the rumors were wrong).
So there are many rumours of WinFS and Palladium being scaled back. Microsoft deny it (what a shock) and you believe them (you’ve referenced a blog on MSDN!)? Of course they’re going to deny it.
Microsoft has promised an object filesystem for well over ten years, and if they do deliver on a hyped feature it is always scaled far back from the hype generated before release. Palladium and WinFS are two such hyped features, but require such a departure from current infrastructure that it will be a true miracle if Microsoft delivers the featureset of both in full.
“Some guy referred to the laptop’s , I wonder if MS expects laptops to have way better batteries in 2006 so they can run the same amount of hours as now. Users would be more happy if they just could use their laptop for many more hours then run extra eye candy.”
If you actually watched the slides, you’d notice that Microsoft really takes into account the limited battery life of laptops. One mentioned solution in a presentation was turning the eye-candy automatically off (eg. Aero Glass -> Aero) when the laptop is detached from the power supply. There were also many other points that they must consider (like heating problems).
Remember that there will be (according to currently available info) at least three levels of user experiences from which to choose from (automatically or manually). They are currently called:
-Classic (W2k look and feel, least eye-candy, least requirements)
-Aero
-Aero Glass (full eye-candy)
“Also.. a desktop can be beatiful without being a resource hog, it’s all about colours, simple layout, … Coming with 3D and all that proves that”
The primary reason for MS going to 3D is not eye-candy, but to make the UI scalable, especially for those high-resolution displays (think about 300dpi or more) that are coming. With current pixel-based window managers (at least on Windows’) everything would be way too small on normal displays.
Other reason is to reduce the burden of CPU, as GPU will be able to handle more of the load. In desktop mode most of the resources of the powerful display adapters are unused, anyway.
All the nice effects, that also can be used for better usability in many cases, are just added extra.
something which does not exist? It is beyond me that people start flame wars and get at each others hair for something which DOES NOT EXIST.
Uhm, dude, I’ve tested every single Longhorn build, and let me assure you: Longhorn is very much real. I’ve used the 3D features on build 4074… And that’s still pre-alpha. But, nevertheless, it was usable. My system didn’t hog, it didn’t crash, and let me tell you: my system desperatly needs an upgrade (Athlon XP 1600+, 512 MB SD-RAM, Ati Radeon 9000 128 MB DDR-RAM). So, I’d politely say shut up and don’t spread nonsense; you’ve clearly haven’t tested a single build.
But anyways, people like you won’t ruin my day, just passed antoher exam for my study in Psychology
It’s funny to see people here burning microsoft about innovation when the oss worls lets cool innovating projects like fresco die out [http://www.fresco.org].
Cairo and X better than avalon??? lol don’t make me laught. Cairo is a lame hack that someone came up in a hurry to get something that can hold up to quartz and avalon. As for X it’s already held together with wires and bandages, no match for directx.
So none of there are “really available”
Longhorn in proposed specs is not around. So, Longhorn is not “really available”
C’mon, before you open your mouth at least check calendar. It’s not 2007
I know that. Can’t you read? My reply was exactly to address THAT issue you mention!
I wrote that if the problem is that Longhorn is not really available (as someone mentioned): “Then it doesn’t count for the other examples too.” (the other examples being Lisp Machines, NeXT, BeOS, SGI, etc).
Read my post again, it’s 4-5 postings above yours.
Duh!
Longhorn is a bubble; a castle in MS’s mind. It’ll burst and turn into a dog shed; But because Bill Gates sais it’s a castle People will believe him and fork out money.
So you must think you’re oh so very clever, don’t you? See, you can see through all the hype and inferious consumers cannot.
Get a life, moron.
This is so funny, all those guys fighting about an OS
Op topic: When MS introduced XP, the first desktop OS based on the NT kernel, it was a huge leap forward from 98/ME! I expect MS has learned something from the past and I believe they’ll deliver a beautiful OS in about 2 or 3 years.
Think about it, they have all the support you can get in this world from hardware and software vendors, they have lots of good programmers and lots of $$$. Why wouldn’t it become a great OS? And who cares anyways, when it’s out and it sucks you can always install another OS
@foljs
I know that. Can’t you read? My reply was exactly to address THAT issue you mention!
…
Read my post again, it’s 4-5 postings above yours.
Duh!
Read my post cca. 30 above. There are exmples some of them in their final and very working version and some in development.
Yeah, but I forgot air XAML replacement – XUL. XUL s working very fine and in a very finished fashion.
Duh, duh!!
————–
@Thom Whatever
Uhm, dude, I’ve tested every single Longhorn build, and let me assure you: Longhorn is very much real. I’ve used the 3D features on build 4074… And that’s still pre-alpha. But, nevertheless, it was usable.
You’re not the only one testing Longhorn. I’ve tested them all too. (Whenever I needed a good laugh, or whenever Linux developers start to make occasional fuzz about Longhorn, or the few moments when I was interested in .NET technology from mono-VisualC# perspective). Every time I looked at it. Well it was a good laugh. And always my scepticism went away. If that is the progress they made from XP, well 2007 is very optimistic date for release with these specs. Cutting and trimming in M$ fashion (cca. 50%) would be realistic for 2007.
It’s still too early for pre-alpha (most of the features in these papers are not present in current build and others don’t work as they should).
It was usable??? God, what was usable about that bloatware?
Difference between me and you is that I didn’t want to see 3D (although I checked that one too), I checked underlaying layers (layers being constantly promoted by M$ PR). OS and Eye candy is more or less one hour impression, after that all becomes standard, while underlaying layers define your actual working fashion and speed.
It was usable??? God, what was usable about that bloatware?
Well, it was that usable that I was considering throwing away my proven Server 2003 install, and replace it with the 4074 build. I just didn’t have the guts. And besides, my Server 2003 install is so perfectly balanced, I’m just too attached to it
. Not a single crash in months and months and months…
And besides, I try to ignore people who use the Dollar sign when speaking of Microsoft– Seems to me they kinda got stuck in pre-puberty.
WS2003 is pretty stable I agree, I haven’t had much trouble with one I have to support (Exchange once lost complete mail, but that was all, solved from backup).
But…
But replacing it for Longhorn???
In…
In this state??? With a memory overhaul, disks struggling with them self after 15 minutes of system standstill??? In this state where only kind of patching is reinstaling the new pre-alpha version???
Well I really hope that you’re not having job that would depend on seriousity or psychological stability. Especially you should be prevented to touch any computer in hospitals or any other public places.
—-
M$ – Is this not true and official??? Well, now I’m blushing, thanks for correcting me. I always thought that M$ is a greedy company that’s overpricing everything and squeezing everybody, without any measure of what’s right and what’s wrong in bussines world besides the fact that they completely lack any sense for cooperation and dignity. Thanks to you Thom, I’ve been converted
First things first. Rayiner has a lot more credibility than you – he’s been posting here a lot longer, has a pretty good technical grasp, and is always quite polite with the persons he debates with.
Raynier has about as much credibility as the average anti-microsoft slashdrone. Seriously, if he has to bring back Lisp machines and other long-past dead or dying technologies to bash Microsoft than he’s lost a lot of credibility with me.
About QT – sorry, but $1500 per developer/ per platform is a joke. I can download Microsoft’s c/c++/.net sdks for free. If you watch a couple videos you can even get the VB.NET ide for free. If I want to be crossplatform, Mono or Eclipse/SWT will give you much more productivity than QT and for free. The days of doing guis in c++ are numbered anyway(except maybe for pdas and other handheld devices). It’s just not worth the trouble.
About eclipse, firefox, other crossplatform open source projects – Listen, you can bury your head in the sand about these matters, but everybody on the planet knows that firefox and eclipse runs better on windows than on linux or any other platform. Now whether that is because they put more effort into the windows ports, have more technical expertise on windows, or whatever is open to debate, but linux has never been the fastest kid on the block anyway when it comes to desktop performance.
Anyway, I know it infuriates you that Microsoft is putting together great technology. By the way, for my day job, I write c++ network protocol translation code on linux, so I know both sides of the fence. Have fun thinking your elite because you can pop in a mandrake CD. Maybe, I’ll reboot into my gentoo partition at home another day when the fonts are as good as my cleartype fonts on XP.
Nice try. Two year old printers and scanners. That’s the reason I chose to move away from linux as my desktop. You always had to find the hardware that worked and often it was very old.
Grasping at straws, aren’t we? Two year old peripherals are “very old”? I don’t know, they still work very well for me. I’m not going to go out and buy new hardware just to prove you wrong.
Oh cameras that come up as USB mass storage devices might mount straight away, but that doesn’t mean all of them will work. How about a firewire miniDV camcorder?
There is a firewire module for the kernel, so my guess would be that it should work. Anyway, firewire is sooooo “two years ago” – USB 2.0 is the way to go.
You can make anything work with linux if you have the time and skills but it is not easy to just get a peripheral to work out of the box. Old hardware doesn’t count. The printer you pointed out I can’t even buy anymore!!!
Well, I don’t know about that…I’m pretty sure I saw it for sale at Future Shop. Too bad if it’s out of production, it was a very cheap but quite good laser printer. In any case, the point is moot, since more recent Samsung Laser printers work just as well.
Oh, and old hardware does count, because that’s what the majority of people have.
You should really give Linux another try: hardware compatibility is no longer a valid reason not to use it.
Raynier has about as much credibility as the average anti-microsoft slashdrone.
This coming from an anti-Linux marketroid…
Seriously, if he has to bring back Lisp machines and other long-past dead or dying technologies to bash Microsoft than he’s lost a lot of credibility with me.
Well, he still has more credibility than you. His point still stand: Microsoft is not innovating, it’s repackaging, and putting a “brand new” sticker on it. And yet you MS fanboys drink up the kool-aid without a second thought.
The days of doing guis in c++ are numbered anyway(except maybe for pdas and other handheld devices). It’s just not worth the trouble.
That is your opinion, I have yet to see this in actual production environment.
Anyway, history tells us that technologies rarely replace previous ones – rather, they all carve up niche markets and are used for different tasks by different people. Qt is a great toolkit and its popularity is increasing, not decreasing. And the price is reasonable if you compare to the base price of other commercial offerings (special discouts and MS anti-competitive dumping don’t count…).
I know you’re in adoration with .NET and everything Microsoft, but that doesn’t mean the whole world is following behind you.
but everybody on the planet knows that firefox and eclipse runs better on windows than on linux or any other platform.
I’ve just test Firefox on Linux and on Windows, on the same machine. Same performance. It ran as well on both platforms. Lay off the Kool-Aid a bit, will ya?
linux has never been the fastest kid on the block anyway when it comes to desktop performance
I don’t know, with Kernel 2.6 my desktop is pretty spiffy. The only thing that’s missing is desktop double-buffering – which doesn’t really improve performance, mind you, it just gives the impression that it’s faster. Anyway, that should be in the next X server I install on my PC. Then the anti-Linux marketroids won’t have anything on my desktop performance.
Meanwhile, when I play a really big movie file with KMPlayer, I have absolutely no UI skipping or other artefacts. If I do the same thing on Win2K on this box…whoa!
So in fact, with Kernel 2.6, I’d say that Linux is more responsive than Windows 2000 for multimedia performances…
Anyway, I know it infuriates you that Microsoft is putting together great technology.
Not at all. BTW I’ve worked with MS before, I’ve designed a game that had an Xbox version.
By the way, for my day job, I write c++ network protocol translation code on linux, so I know both sides of the fence.
Yadda, yadda, yadda. Don’t think this gives you any extra credibility. I’m as much a Windows user as a Linux user, and yet I’m pro-Linux. There are other people who work with and program for both systems who have diverse opinions. Arguments should stand on their own merit, not their poster’s past experience.
Have fun thinking your elite because you can pop in a mandrake CD.
Could you be more condescending, please? We can still tell you don’t have any valid arguments. Being more arrogant will surely give you more credibility…
Maybe, I’ll reboot into my gentoo partition at home another day when the fonts are as good as my cleartype fonts on XP.
Nice try. Freetype2 has nicer fonts than cleartype, especially at high resolutions like 1600×1200. We’ve gone through this before on OSNews quite a few times (before you were around, it seems), comparing screen shots, and the fact is that fonts are as nice (or nicer, depending on personal preferences) on Linux using libfreetype2 than on Windows or Mac OSX.
Enough with the FUD already.
As for X it’s already held together with wires and bandages, no match for directx.
X has been able to do a heck of a lot more than anything in Windows for decades. Besides, DirectX is not comparable to an X server. You can only compare DirectX to OpenGL. I wonder. Why did Microsoft reinvent the wheel with DirectX when OpenGL had existed for years?
I laugh at the people who swallow the Microsoft hype whole. It reminds me of someone who had been in the IT industry for over twenty years who told me Windows was going to get ‘securiotics’ in a discussion.
Well, it was that usable that I was considering throwing away my proven Server 2003 install,
Look. Windows 2003 is a server OS. Got that? The Longhorn build is a client OS. You’re having me on, right?
Not a single crash in months and months and months…
I never had a single crash on Windows 95. Know why? I hardly ever did anything with it. Once you get into a business environment and start developing applications, installing them, rolling them out to users etc. I’ve seen Windows and the surrounding technology do some pretty unexplainable things – clients and servers. Thank goodness we run a whole lot of Netware in our company. How do people cope in all Windows environments?
Let’s see 2 years from now how Longhorn will look like. I’m sure MS will work hard on it.But there’s no doubt that other people will also do their homework. IF and only IF , Longhorn will offer me :
– security ( or at least tools to set it up myself as I want)
– privacy ( read this as freedom)
– reasonable price ( not free , afterall I bought XP even if my machine came with it.Also I have bought RedHat,Suse , yet I use Slackware , how ironic is that?)
– fully customizable DE (I know is not the case for Win , but you know what I mean)
I’m not a Linux zealot. I use XP & Slackware on a 50/50 % rate. I am pretty familiar (or at least I like to think that) with both of them and I have no problem at all switching between them. Probably I should find a boot loader to load a random OS at boot , this way somehow , justice will be done
Raynier has about as much credibility as the average anti-microsoft slashdrone.
If you want more credibility take what someone like Rayiner then you’ll have to itemize what he’s written and say why he’s wrong.
Seriously, if he has to bring back Lisp machines and other long-past dead or dying technologies to bash Microsoft than he’s lost a lot of credibility with me.
Why not? That’s what Microsoft is ‘bringing back’. Lisp; what on Earth do you think XML is today? Another thing Microsoft has got behind that everyone has bought an unbelievable amount of hype about. Text files of representations of data – how original.
just joking….:)
Nothing easier. Just recompile lilo, grub or whatever Slack uses and make a change to select random() instead of getting key input:)
After that you should probably add $RANDOM for runlevel too:)
just insert this in /etc/rc.d/rc
runlevel_of_surprise () {
# if you do %6 you can even enlarge the surprise of system booting or not
A=$RANDOM
let RL=A%5
echo $RL
}
runlevel=`runlevel_of_surprise`
you can do the same for everything else
fully customizable DE (I know is not the case for Win , but you know what I mean)
Installing a new desktop environment isn’t that hard you know.
http://www.litestep.net
http://www.lighttek.com
http://www.shellfront.org
etc.
etc.
Or did you mean Development Environment? In that case, forget I even posted this
Not even one DE you provided isn’t customizable. All that they change is Panel and provide some Windows skins (with a great loss of speed, I tested it so I know), but not even one is not a customizable selective DE, I can’t select IE not to load at boot time, or any other M$ integrated feature or do you really count Panel as DE.
btw. Hey, man I was already thinking we lost you.
But you were just replacing 2003server for Longhorn didn’t you? And now you’re back with us:)
Immortal words from Wizzard of OZ for you:
There’s no place like home,
There’s no place like home,
There’s no place like home…
“X has been able to do a heck of a lot more than anything in Windows for decades.”
That’s why it needs to die. Fresco (RIP) is also based on a client/server architecture called CORBA. Did you ever take a look at the xlib api? it’s grotesk, it’s crap compared newer api’s like directfb or fresco.
“Besides, DirectX is not comparable to an X server. You can only compare DirectX to OpenGL. I wonder. “
DirectX != Direct3d, and you can compare it except for the server client part wich DX doesn’t have.
“Why did Microsoft reinvent the wheel with DirectX when OpenGL had existed for years?”
Perhaps because the opengl Architectural Review Board can’t get their act straight? Two years from now you’ll still be waiting for opengl 2.0 while directx 9 is allready here (1 year now?).
“I laugh at the people who swallow the Microsoft hype whole. It reminds me of someone who had been in the IT industry for over twenty years who told me Windows was going to get ‘securiotics’ in a discussion.”
Whatever.