I'm actually fascinated with the lastest comment on that page from klkvsk:
"Anyways, blame Intel and N-7265 wifi adapter you have in your laptop, not Microsoft. Windows does have a generic driver that works well most of their adapters, but seems like not all of them. That's a question for Intel, why is it not compatible."
This is just Linux guys' (me) scripted answer for people trying linux for the first time who has wifi problems. Things are really inverse now.
I'm not sure whats up with Intel wireless in the past couple of years but we (team of IT guys) constantly deal with issues with it on Windows (specifically HP notebooks). For a while our response was to look for driver updates. We finally discovered that rolling the driver back, usually to whatever came with Windows, was the real answer.
I recently switched from a 15" macbook to a lenovo windows 8.1 laptop after 10 years of mac/linux for my daily driver.
I live with Windows as the base install and virtualbox linux (arch + ubuntu).
I am so glad to be free of the Mac... My hardware is upgradeable again, the touchscreen is a real innovation, Excel opens instantaneously and when I want Unix, I use the linux vm, I am not tempted to use the strange halfway house that is the mac unix cli/packaging system with ports/homebrew on its back.
windows 8.1 is a bifurcated experience, but they tried to do something new... it feels like Apple desktop engineers only really do truly new stuff in desktop hardware (smaller, lighter, glue and solder) ... the software is pretty but way behind Gnome, KDE and Windows...
I was the biggest MS hater you could be 10 years ago.... now it is Apple that seems like the bad guy that isn't innovating now...
You do know that the "unix cli/packaging system" thing is actual UNIX, right? Like, bona fide, certified UNIX for a while now. Homebrew is just a different package manager than you're used to, but not so different from things like apt or yum once you get to know your way around it.
I'm sorry, but comparing homebrew to apt or yum just incenses me.
Let's begin with the most glaring difference: source distribution vs binary distribution. Installing my GNU Octave takes under a minute with yum or apt but hours or days with homebrew or macports.
Let's also proceed with how none of homebrew, macports or fink is native to Mac OS X, but is some tacked-on thing that most Mac OS X users are unfamiliar with (yeah, most Mac OS X users don't even know that a terminal exists or what to do with it). It does not control the entire OS, but only some packages, which are going to be installed in /usr/local or /opt or /opt/local. And woe betide the users, the same Mac OS X users who just learned that their OS has a command line, if they decide to use more than one of these package managers. Conflicting packages strewn all over their filesystem! Great fun trying to figure out which Python distribution is getting run and which Python packages are getting imported.
While we're on the topic of Unix unfamiliarity, let's also talk about simplicity. The typical user sees the following when told to install Xcode and run this, run that, set these environment variables, modify their .bashrc:
Now let's move on to "one day is a long time in brewland!" There is no promise of stability or attempt to make sure that all packages work together with each other. There is no stable distribution. If you're lucky, you might be able to check out specific git tags of each package, but this doesn't work for all packages, and you're expected to be updating your entire set of packages pretty much daily if you want to have "support". The instructions that worked yesterday for getting the software you want may not work today, because all of the packages moved under your feet overnight.
Let's finally also see what happens when they upgrade from one Mac OS X release to another: breakage everywhere. Some packages may need to be recompiled, some may no longer compile (hello there, LLVM bugs that prevent compilation of GNU Octave), or hours upon hours of copying or moving homebrew or macports trees around during an operating system upgrade.
Homebrew and macports are a parody of what Unix package management should look like, and fink doesn't have the maintainership that a GNU/Linux or BSD distro has.
File and window management is what kills OSX for me. Finder is just too simple and restrictive, and simple things like window snapping doesn't even exist in OSX. Don't get me started on the horrid mess that is maximization of windows. I really don't know what will happen when I press that green little button in the corner.
Funny you say that. I haven't tried Windows 8, but window management is my number one complaint about Linux UIs. Windows steal focus all the time. Try launching Firefox, and switch to Terminal while it launches. Firefox will jump in front. Window resizing is also bad. I can never hit the resize target in the lower right on the first try, and when I resize from the left edge, there's all sorts of ugly tearing. I can't stand the window snapping behavior (why should dragging a window resize it?) and there doesn't seem to be any way to bring all windows to the foreground for an app.
Regarding OS X, you're right to criticize the green button. In OS X Yosemite, the old unpredictable Zoom behavior has been dropped, and instead it toggles full screen.
It's funny how our usage patterns are determined by our OS experience. I don't know any long-term Mac users who used the Zoom button; that seems to be a thing that Windows users do when they try a Mac. On the other hand, I reposition and resize windows frequently, but I rarely see Windows or Linux users do that.
When I first switched to OS X, Finder seemed like it lacked some basic features. But like much of OS X, once you learn the keyboard shortcuts, the real power shines through. There's a helpful free app for discovering them [1]. After holding the Command key for a few seconds, an overlay will appear with all the shortcuts for your current app.
I use BetterSnapTool [2] for window management. You can drag a window to some edge for quick resize/snap options, similar to Windows.
Personally, I use Vim-inspired bindings to move windows around quickly.
E.g. Command-Shift-J snaps a window to the left half; Command-Shift-K to the right. And Command-Shift-M to fully maximize a window. To snap windows to each of the four corners, I use the same pattern followed by 1,2 or 3,4. There’s lots of useful shortcuts you can configure, like sending windows back and forth between two monitors. Or just moving the mouse to reposition a window--or resize it--by holding down some key. I believe you can also customize the behavior when double-clicking the title bar.
As a user of i3/Xmonad on linux, this setup works well for me on OS X; I rarely use the track-pad to move windows around. And the iTerm hot-key shortcut toggles a popup terminal on the top right corner of my screen (or wherever you like).
Its caled 'zoom' not maximize. It zooms a window. If youre an app developer you can choose what this looks like.
There is separate fullscreen support that developers can add if they wish, but that requires extra code on their part because once fullscreened, the desktop environment handles each fullscreened app as its own virtual desktop.
I wish you could look over my shoulder as I use OS X, you may not be so convinced its 'simple'
Hm, I never had issues with that. Maybe if you use Chrome since that runs pretty terrible on OS X, but otherwise no issues. OS X tries to keep your memory pretty full, since there is no point in having a bunch of memory if you don't use it.
When used Mac OS X for an iOS project, it was hardly an issue, just something I happen to see sometimes being posted, not sure how serious it really is.
Otherwise I spend my time in other systems anyway, so I cannot properly judge it.
My Dad recently got malware on his Windows desktop computer, and wanted me to fix it for him. He's reasonably tech-savvy but malware can happen to the best of us. I tried searching and removing suspicious looking files, but it kept coming back, so I decided to reformat the computer and reinstall windows.
The first part was to get an image to install from. Windows offers .iso downloads on their website[0], but you need to enter the product key for the computer to access it. I used a third-party tool to dig this out of the registry, but attempting to use this key on the website gave a non-descript error-code. After googling around, I found that it wasn't giving me the download because it was an OEM-license (or something), since it came installed on the DELL computer.
Luckily my Dad had kept the disc that came with the computer, and I used this to reinstall windows. However, like the OP, I was missing drivers for a handful of things, including the built-in wireless and wired network adapters. Luckily, before reinstalling I'd found a folder on the C drive called "Drivers" which looked important, and had backed this onto a USB drive.
The point is, the whole process took much longer than expected due it being...Windows. The DRM and driver issues would likely be totally absent if I were installing linux. And the whole reason I was doing this in the first place was to remove adware, which is barely ever if at all a problem on linux!
The easist way to get rid of adware I tend to use on other's PCs is to just use System Restore. Most adware won't break in there so it just takes a few minutes to be reasonably sure that the system is clean again (at the expense of the last thing they installed, of course).
As for getting a clean slate back, Windows 8 has a Reset function that restores the system to a fresh install state while keeping data intact. Also much easier than hunting for a recovery DVD or an ISO.
I got a brand-new laptop with Windows 8 pre-installed from a local manufacturer in Turkey (Actually it says "Grundig" but it's assembled by Arçelik[1]), as a present. It had an i5 and an SSD so I decided to give it a go as a mobile workstation (I'm the kind of developer who likes his large monitors a bit too much). The installation was single-language and I wanted it to be English, so I re-installed from the dedicated partition and there I could choose English. Installation took quite a few restarts and at least an hour. During this time, most of the messages I received were really vague ("Your computer is being reset" with a looping load animation doesn't help me see the progress). After it finished, I went on to update it to Windows 8.1. Here's a summary of my experience: http://imgur.com/a/Qr49N ("Something happened". Wow!)
Please note all those pre-installed apps in the background of the last picture, which you can't get rid of unless a) you remove them one-by-one and clean registry manually or b) download a fresh copy of Windows from Microsoft but then you lose some drivers for some reason and need to hunt for them.
After tweaking, restarting, deleting stuff, modifying registry and so on, I could finally install the 8.1 update.
That's why I'm so excited about .NET going full cross-platform (I've been developing primarily on Windows since nearly 10 years, mind you).
As a Windows developer and somebody who actually likes using Windows, I'm still shocked by how pathetic Windows Update is.
I'm often reinstalling because as a developer I want to try out the newer platforms. I gave Windows 8.1 a try recently. Fresh install and Windows Update says there's nothing to update. Knowing that's BS, I force it to refresh -- after a significant wait suddenly there's 1GB of updates. Really? Why did I just download a 3.5GB ISO that is 1GB out of date? I press on and force the downloads to start because a safe system is a priority to me.
The downloads take forever to start. When they eventually do start, they randomly stop (no ethernet activity) for random periods of time. All this time I'm twiddling my thumbs wondering if there's some kind of "intelligent" downloader that is slowing down because I'm trying to do something else on the system. Eventually they finish downloading and installing and the system reboots. After the reboot... I have more hundreds of MBs more of updates waiting for me. WTF?
I go through this process 2 or 3 more times, and now I'm just left with "optional" updates. Curious, I click on the 'more information' link to hit the Microsoft website (because for some reason the Windows Update UI just shows the most completely useless generic text for each update). Apparently the 'optional' updates are "rollups"... surely that's important?! Who knows, because Windows Update packages are opaque blobs.
So I go ahead and install the optional updates. Reboot. Now everything is good, right? Nope, go take a look at the Windows Update History - it turns out a bunch of updates actually failed to install at some point? It looks like they might have successfully installed later... or did they? At this point I don't even care.
Compare with the Linux (Ubuntu, but I'm sure others qualify too) experience: apt-get update; apt-get upgrade. If there's an issue I get informed immediately and because the updates are per-package it's clear whether or not I should care -- no opaque blobs here. When it's done, I know it's done and there won't be any more magical updates mysteriously appearing. I know I can run the update/upgrade in the background while I use the machine for other things. I just don't understand why Microsoft can't get the update experience right!
> As a Windows developer and somebody who actually likes using Windows, I'm still shocked by how pathetic Windows Update is.
Heh. My workstation in my cubicle at the office is getting a hard drive replacement right now because some update left it stuck at startup, saying "Windows is configuring things. Please do not turn off your computer." (Or something to that effect.) I get it; if it takes longer than 15 minutes to fix, core IT is going to re-image the drive, but now I have to reinstall Visual Studio and SQL Server, and patch, and patch, and patch. And always be afraid that it will just happen again some day.
Seems to me that while the Windows Update hanging is a problem there, at least as big of a problem is that your "core IT" is only keeping base images of systems rather than images of complete-and-current builds with applications and current patches.
Your IT/PC guys keep images with Visual Studio and SQL Server? Yes, please. It was a major hassle getting approved for the PARTIAL-admin account just to so I could install those things.
> Your IT/PC guys keep images with Visual Studio and SQL Server?
Well, I've known of shops where IT keeps complete role-specific (e.g., developer, etc.) or even individual-computer images rather than just generic base images. Or at least have IT track software installed per-user and handle rebuilds even if they use a generic base image. Where I work they don't, unfortunately, but I would never not call that out as a problem.
Common practices and good practices are often not the same thing.
> That's why I'm so excited about .NET going full cross-platform
Just remember that it's only the web stack. No part of the Windows widget/form libraries (to make GUI apps) is being opened. I see this confusion a lot.
Most of my projects are consisting of an API-server and a web front-end lately but you are right, I'll at some point surely need to come-up with something which runs native on Windows and will need to setup Windows anyway.
I made the move in the same direction some years ago and, yes, there are always problems, but IME a missing or broken driver is common with a fresh install of Linux OR Windows.
I've often had to download a network driver (both WiFi and wired Ethernet) separately and get it onto the machine via physical media, bluetooth or IRDA.
As for software updates: Yes there's a load of Lenovo crapware and yes it's best to just do a clean install. I'm writing this on a T430s which I did a clean install on. I then installed the Lenovo software I actually use:
Power management driver
Active protection system (I replaced the DVD drive with a SSHD)
Fingerprint recognition thing
The OP says they install Ubuntu and all is well, but Ubuntu is going to be wanting software updates just as Windows is - it's just that it doesn't have separate crapware asking for them separately.
The lesson when it comes to installing an OS is: Be prepared. Either be somewhere where you can download your NIC (or WiFi NIC) software separately and get it onto the machine (it's too often NIC drivers that are missing, which is pretty much the worst thing to be missing!) or get them downloaded first, after finding out what's in the machine.
As for the developer account thing: I don't know why that is, but it annoyed me too. They should really not do things like that. They should also stop the push to get everyone to log into VS using a Microsoft account, as that's plain annoying.
Finally: "I start Subleme[sic] Text , download some npm packages and started writing code ."
Installing Sublime text, npm (and npm packages) on Windows is just as easy as on Linux.
With .NET becoming easier to work with in Linux, I'm now considering a move back to Linux on my laptop, so perhaps I'll write an equivalent article on attempting to move the opposite way.
> but Ubuntu is going to be wanting software updates just as Windows is
But Ubuntu comes with drivers for all the network devices it supports, and when it does updates, it does them all in one go with a single reboot required. You install, get online, update, and you're done. A base Windows install often will require external media to get online to get updates, and the process is a painstaking series of rebooting and re-launching/re-starting windows update.
> Installing Sublime text, npm (and npm packages) on Windows is just as easy as on Linux.
I think the point is that he tried doing it The Microsoft Way, and that it was full of barriers and frustration. Of course you can use other tools, but Microsoft tools on a Microsoft system ought to be easy, right?
I agree that the updating process for Windows is still annoying after all these years, with reboots required, then launching Windows Update (which tells you there's nothing to do), then you tell it to check again, it finds stuff, it installs it - then you get it to check again and now it finds more stuff. This has got less painful over the years, but at least with Linux you do one update and might have to do one reboot if there's a kernel update, or restart some services or X if there's something there that needs it, so yes, Linux definitely wins here (and I hear there may be rebootless kernel updates coming...)
It's also odd that Windows 8.1, released much earlier than Ubuntu 14.04, didn't have a NIC driver that worked with the OP's device, when Ubuntu did. Obviously they put drivers through WHQL, but still, it'd be great if they could have a fast track for at least a very basic driver to get you connected.
I'd really like to see most devices which have some 'common' functions be able to function with a minimal feature set without requiring a special driver. I believe displays have been able to do this for years with VESA mode, (some) webcams with UVC. If this could happen for NICs, it would make life so much easier.
Yes, Microsoft tools on a Microsoft system should be easy. I think they should have a team who sit and start from scratch every day, installing the OS, getting the tools, starting to work - and see what the experience is like. It's as if they never test this.
I had to install Windows 8.1 Pro in order to use the Kinect v2 SDK. Boy is it annoying.
The worst part is if you want to use Skype - don't use the version of Skype that comes bundled with Windows! It forces you to change your Windows login into a MSN login and will only run while in the foreground (fullscreen). Total crap!
I had to change my login back to a local login and then download a "normal" version of Skype that also works in the background and doesn't force me to use MSN to log into windows.
That's just one of the many annoyances I ran into. I'm somewhat looking forward to Windows 10 - it can only get better (oh no, I said it!).
I'll agree with the statement about the advances of Linux in the past 5+ years. I must admit though, I learned almost everything I know in the terminal through wrestling RedHat and Mandrake into shape. It was extremely disheartening as a kid to finally get Linux dual-booted with Windows and then take 3 days to get Broadcom to work. - This isn't quit the same thing, but it's interesting to see how the community has taken shape to a point where Linux is a viable replacement for Windows for almost everyone.
Sigh. In 2009 I came back to Linux/Unix after a roughly equal amount of time and had my own WTF moments getting things up and running. But I got there, so no big deal and I didn't feel the need to bait the Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu forums with a post like that. Instead I RTFM'd and posted a couple polite questions asking for help with things I didn't understand and got tripped up with (WiFi drivers ;) ) and off I went on my way.
This is just /. style flamebait, no idea why it's on the front page of HN.
The UX of windows 8 is so incredibly poor (even after 8.1) that I question the methodology used to design it. Whatever test group or user studies are suggesting that MS is going in the right direction are deeply flawed.
It's just utterly confusing to figure out how to do nearly anything on the OS. There are all sorts of noisy visual cues that look like they communicate state or flow but don't, as well as many seemingly ill-conceived UX "modes" that bewilder me and that just doesn't happen for me with tech stuff.
Want to get to the control panel? There appear to be several different ones and you have to hover your mouse in just the right place on the screen in order to coax a bar to slide in and show you a few options. There are several such bars, each triggered by some kind of mouse hover.
Since I'm ranting, even the usability on the modern IE site is horrid.
It seems that the idea is to have one environment for tablets and for 'normal' users and another for "pro" users who care about advanced control panels. Even if you accept two entirely different UX metaphors coexisting as reasonable, it still boggles the mind how anyone could expect normal users to figure out those strange mouse hovers.
It's just such a bewilderingly odd user experience. 8.1 cleans up a few of the biggest warts but is still (IMHO) a UX disaster and I would actively discourage anyone from deciding to use it.
Maybe the best business decision for MS would be to just copy OSX as much as possible and then let the legal department deal with any infringement claims.
I used to think that. Try using Windows 8.1 and see if you can figure out basic things. Try it with two monitors and you'll find that the hover zone for some of the hidden stuff is about 30x30 pixels. It reminds me of trying to find hidden doors on Zelda.
I had experiences very similar to those of the OP. After almost 20 years with Solaris or Linux as my primary OS (with a brief interlude using OSX), I bought a Lenova Yoga 2 Pro and I thought I'd try using Windows as my primary OS. Two motivators: Windows had at the time better HighDPI support than Linux, and since I use Vagrant for everything anyways, I thought I could get the best of both worlds. That experiment didn't last long.
It works both ways. My boss is a Dev that's been developing in Windows for a similar amount of time, and he's being exposed to Linux for the last 3 years due to the project we're both working on, and I can understand his frustration.
It's a different mind set, really. Emacs & the CLI are second class citizens on Windows. Big IDE's are second class citizens on Linux. Not too mention 20 years of experience solving problems and knowing where to look for answers....
"Emacs & the CLI are second class citizens on Windows"
I haven't used Emacs on Windows, but Powershell is the best shell I've used (I used to use zsh on Linux). There's also console2 and conemu if you want to avoid the built in cmd-derivative, which is rather unpleasant.
> Emacs & the CLI are second class citizens on Windows.
I'm wondering why a dev like Jonathan Blow seems to use mainly emacs for development on his Windows machine. He seems to be a developer with a focus on the Windows platform.
As someone who uses sc[1][2] (basic desc: spreadsheets in console with vi-like controls), I don't understand why someone would use switch to windows (as in reboot), just for Excel. Don't gnumeric and libreoffice fill all your typical spreadsheet needs?
I can't speak for everyone obviously, but I have plenty of lecturers that insist on .doc/.docx handups and after an incident where a basic document (as in headings, page breaks and paragraphs as the only formatting) written in Libreoffice ended up in a 5 column layout on Word for no explicable reason, I'd rather just write them in an application that I know will show the same when the lecturer opens the file as when I open it.
If your workflow is push-only, exporting to PDF fixes this. I have Office loaded on my iPad only for extreme situations. Also, I have Office 365 through my institution that I've been known to use once in a blue moon. Most of my document creation these days is org-mode -> PDF though.
That's not quite the situation, but thanks for the sc tip. It looks great, but again it's not really Excel that's keeping me on Windows. Phone has been Linux for 5+ years, at least (n900).
I have ended up running Win7 with a few 'Linuxes' in VMs. One main one, really though. #! for those who care... sadly recently discontinued.
The main reason I stick with Win7 is a) legacy reasons of my own, I suppose we could call them, and b) translation software. The FOSS alternatives aren't quite there yet (for heavy use), although I'd love to sit down for a few months/years and try to create one. A vi-like CAT tool that produced translation memories and lightning quick concordance... that's the dream.
Similar to Macha's POV, sometimes you just need to work with people who have no concept of free computing.
With all the positive Redmond news here recently, I really expected this to be a glowing review of how improved Windows is. But I guess some things never change?
Seems that author is confusing Microsoft Windows 8.1 with the Lenovo stuff which it ships along when you buy a laptop with the pre-installed software. And because of this reason I didn't bother reading other parts of the article.
Though, I have been using FreeBSD as a base for 10+ years, Linux at work and with the arrival of Windows 8.1 I have switched to base of 8.1+Hyper-V+FreeBSD as a VM. This perfectly works on the Lenovo hardware (which I prefer) and I am amazed how Microsoft improved, since the year of 1992+, when I have discovered their products.
> The bottom line , the computer was full of crappy Lenovo and other brands software that just gets in my way and i don't want to use. Even worse after about 2 days some of the bundled Lenovo apps started crashing once in a while. I know this issue is not related to microsoft, and i am not blaming them for this.
Seems pretty clear to me that he's not confusing the Lenovo stuff with Windows.
Even if he was, that speaks to one of the main issues with Windows: most of the time you get a Windows machine, it has manufacturer-installed software. Microsoft could choose to control that through their licensing, but they don't.
Heh. Last time I installed the "driver" for my Logitech mouse on Windows, I think it was 150 MB. 150 MB! For a mouse driver!? I remember when we got REAL WORK done with DOS 6.22, Windows 3.11, and Office 4.0, and it all fit on a 10 MB hard drive, with room left over for Doom.
There is probably 10MB worth of driver, and 220MB worth of crapware. If you install a fresh copy of Windows those hardware vendors are going to try their damned hardest to get their crapware back on to your machine.
That 220MB includes some app with a not native UI (likely ugly and unintuitive) to enable unnecessary features.
I have it even worse: every time I plug my Razer mouse into a different port, the driver installer comes up. I've NEVER downloaded the thing, and it came to me through Windows Update. I always say "Never Install" but it always comes back, but the mouse functions fine without.
I have just opened support.lenovo.com and checked for the drivers of Yoga models, randomly chosen 4 of those, and all the official WiFi drivers are worth: 64MB. I am not sure what the author was downloading then.
---
BCM WIFI driver for Windows 8.1 (32-bit)
exe 64 MB Windows 8.1 (32-bit) Wifi-BCM-5.93.98.207 2/12/2015
---
The issue is not about the WiFi driver, i can live with that but when my wp8 phone is getting in my way of downloading the driver, its just wrong, really wrong. Its like it is saying to me "You don't know what you are doing, let me fix this for you".
But this guy (you, whoever) didn't actually know what they were doing...otherwise he wouldn't have blown away the restore partition without saving the stuff that they needed to do a vanilla install.
So what you're saying is, if my computer never had Windows installed on it, I'm not supposed to be able to install it ?
As a linux user, I expect the leading commercial products to be at least on par with what a relatively standard linux distribution gives you. But no, apparently a vanilla ISO of the OS is not enough, you need more.
I didn't say that and that wasn't what we were talking about.
The guy in the post said that he didn't want to install the crappy Lenovo software from the restore partition. If he had he could have saved the drivers and then re-installed.
If I wiped the machine and didn't have drivers on hand I would expect something not to work...with any OS.
You are clearly a Linux "advocate" and you don't really care about this except to the extent that you can denigrate Windows to make your "side" seem superior.
I don't use computers that way. I try to learn how things actually work. When they don't work like how I would assume they work, I make a note for next time, and move on. I don't see the failings of some nameless developer somewhere in the bowels of a company or an open source project as indicative of , or representative of, some larger plot or plan that impinges my freedoms, rights, or prerogative. It's just another thing in a sea of things to remember about working with imperfect man-made tools to perform other tasks that I'm actually interested in. The software that manages my disk access and video card doesn't convey a sense of righteousness to me and I don't identify myself by or through it.
- In order to (re-)install Windows you need your drivers
- If you have a previous install, then you need to copy the drivers and keep them
- If you don't, you're screwed and it's your fault
I don't think it is normal for a consumer OS to require this step, especially since Linux which is not a consumer-oriented OS does it. I'm not saying it's some part of a plan to impeach freedom/my rights/whatever, actually I just think it's completely in line with the expectation that consumers will not install their OS, only OEMs will, and no extra effort is made for those who want to tweak their computer; it is expected that computers are sold with Windows and that people don't change that. Fair enough, it's totally aligned with their strategy.
Now I'm not saying you don't need any external drivers in Linux (looking at you, NVidia), but in my experience (same for many people, including the guy from the post) you can get to work with a bare ISO. I'd expect every commercial OS to be at least as good as that.
> You are clearly a Linux "advocate" and you don't really care about this except to the extent that you can denigrate Windows to make your "side" seem superior.
Can we grow up ? For everything I'm personally interested in, yes, Linux clearly is better. But for the wider world, no one can seriously believe Linux is able to replace Windows, and for a good reason. It is not superior nor is it inferior (and clearly the ease with which you can install it is irrelevant compared to how you actually use it)
In short: don't look for a "Us vs Them" when there is none. I'm pointing what I think is a weakness in Windows, that doesn't make it weak or inferior.
> I'd expect every commercial OS to be at least as good...
You can expect whatever you want. That doesn't make it likely or even reasonable. That's kind of my point. You say that it's not set up for people that tweak their computer...I build systems and don't have that problem because I learned how it actually works and don't really get hung up on how I wish it worked.
While I agree it's ridiculous, Apple imposes a limit of 100MB for cellular downloads - http://www.macrumors.com/2013/09/18/apple-increases-over-the... - so even though it's a more reasonable figure, still a showstopper for obtaining your 230MB wi-fi driver.
This is for app downloads; you can't install an app larger than 100MB over cellular. You can download generic files of any size in the browser, or from within apps.
Anecdotal, as is this whole thread, but I have off and on experience with Linux, starting with Red Hat around 2001, several different distros, laptops and PCI wifi cards, and I don't remember ever having to separately download a NIC driver. In Windows, however, I have had to do this several times. I fully feel the author's frustration that in 8.1 Windows doesn't include their OEM's drivers. That's not to say the driver world of Linux is just peachy, far from it, but at least I can start connected to the internet to begin troubleshooting my issues.
I'm in almost the same position as the OP. I bought a toshiba s55 with Win 8.1 as a travel rig because my eeePC just wasn't able to handle the load any more. The Toshiba doesn't fit as well into an airline seat, but it is a very nice setup. I use Linux Mint in VirtualBox (my main work machine- the one I'm on now- is also Mint but as a native install.
In short, I'm quite pleased with win 8.1. I like the tile stuff ok. VBox with Mint is fast enough for development work (no usb 3 support yet). But for the first time in years I can confidently print and scan and really get full use out of my hardware.
The drawback is crapware. I apparently downloaded something called Pokki which isn't really a virus (some people might have a use for it) but which is pretty hard to get rid of (maybe not for Win types but it took me a while). I don't think they tried to be malicious- everything was in an easily discoverable folder and their website tells you where it is, the just have an auto-start process that you have to delete after starting in 'safe mode.'
Other than that it's fine. I follow the same security practices: I have an admin account that I don't use very much but I use for installing 'global,' trusted software like vbox and Office (Libre/MS). I do my work under a non-priviledged account. Etc. Oh, and I did use the Norton virus thingy, just in case.
Overall my experience with Win 8.1 has been positive.
I dual boot Windows 8.1 and Linux Ubuntu in a Dell Inspiron 13 2-in-1.
It's true Intel network drivers suck. Not only WiFi. I have to transfer the Ethernet network driver for the desktops in the office via USB, as any Windows Install does not have the driver in the disk. And this is for wired networking.
Nowadays most network hardware is done by Intel. So it sucks everywhere.
In contrast, Ubuntu is totally plug and play. I have an external USB drive that can boot in the desktops and in the Dell laptop. Even with different video cards (AMD vs Intel), it just works.
I can change the sound output device with a single click in Ubuntu. The laptop boots in 'secure mode' and Ubuntu is recognized by the UEFI loader.
But not everything is perfect in Linux.
The accelerometer (or whatever hardware that autodetects the laptop's rotation) only works in Windows. Then, for reading comics, I boot to Windows.
The video performance is better in Windows. I always get screen tearing in Ubuntu, while I get perfect playback in Windows (unless I use display mirroring and output to HDMI and the internal display at the same time).
If I want good FullHD video, I have to boot into Windows (and output to only one screen).
Fair enough (and I say this as a Visual Studio user), but we should also note his aim was not to have an IDE. The IDE was not a goal, it was a means to a goal.
His goal, what he wanted to try out, was creating Windows Phone apps, and for this the big complex IDE is was a prerequisite, and this prerequisite caused him to fail reaching his goal.
Contrast this to other development tasks, like web-development, and the need for these complex tools went away and he could be instantly productive. Does that say anything about developing Windows Phone apps?
It's definitely not a direct apples to oranges comparison, but when making Windows Phone apps gets its complexity way beyond web-apps, that is entirely something within Microsoft's control.
I think it's fair game to point a finger at Microsoft for this, they can't claim lack of involvement or interest in their device ecosystem. They could be putting all vendor drivers in the Windows Update repository, insisting that the drivers themselves be separate from any optional or value-add tools, cracking down on straight up advertising ploys such as installing URL links to websites on the desktop, etc.
I respect the writer's persistence. I got a new Acer laptop with Windows 8.1 on it and decided to give it a shot. I already had a live USB ready to go but decided I'd see how much I could work on Windows before getting frustrated.
Not long apparently. Once the setup process started asking me for an e-mail address with no option to skip I gave up and put Linux Mint on it. Keep doing your thing, Micro$oft.
Check the bottom of the screen (you may have to look carefully). You're looking for something like Sign in without a Microsoft account (not recommended) -> Local account - there's a similar flow when creating a new user.
It is there, but it's (obviously deliberately) hidden behind one hell of a UX antipattern. I guess they want people to use Microsoft accounts more than they want people to be able to use Windows.
And Microsoft accounts are still stuck using only 16-character passwords (!), and I'm not completely clear on what does and does not get 'synced' - if it's my %AppData%, I don't trust SkyDrive, so that's definitely out.
In my many years of installing both Windows and Linux I've learned the most important lesson is always have a USB Ethernet adaptor to hand as you can be certain you'll have problems getting the WiFi card to work correctly at some point.
(Ubuntu is very good on this front. Debian not so much but that's down to politics not technology. Windows is still a hot mess)
I sadly had the same experience as this guy. I guess when you are a standard user browsing the web, everything works fine on windows, but if you are a web developer it's just a nightmare.
There is always something to install which is not there, I have to install tons of drivers, Putty, WinCSP, a decent terminal (cmd.exe is just unusable), WAMP, python, various python libraries, perl, node.js (lots of front-end tools needs it now), Cygwin (otherwise it's impossible to do anything with the base programs), wget.exe, 7zip, notepad++ (the built-in notepad does not handle newlines properly), git, setup bash aliases, emacs, Firefox ... (the list can be expanded).
So yeah, you can code on Windows, but you are basically fighting with the system all the time to install everything you need.
The thing is...you're trying to make it act like linux. That will be a fight. If you take the time to learn how things are done on windows...or any platform for that matter...it wouldn't be that hard.
I have been using xBSD and OS X for the last 10 years, but have been confronted with the need to do some financial modelling on Windows (as a side note, I guess this is not "serious" computing, according to some comments here).
Attempt #1: Try the SciPy/Anaconda stack. Mostly OK, but Python's Windows support is an afterthought. Anaconda is especially sweet, but getting any kind of serious Python distribution running in a corporate environment is a pain. Integration being the main source of misery.
Attempt #2: Try F#. Sweet mother of god, everything runs, compiles, does what I expect it to do and efficiency is awesome. Visual Studio 2013 is although an IDE, but nowhere near a bloated, monstrous carcass like Eclipse; or in fact not as bloated as some Emacs setups I've seen. Only "downside": the need to buy a couple of books on .Net and F#.
The moral of the story: Microsoft has an enormous capacity to create some ground breaking stuff and then f- it up completely by bad commercial decisions. Thankfully it seems, they've started to fix that.
Makes me wonder. Microsoft are open-sourcing things in an obvious attempt to win back the developer crowd. Is there more they can do in enabling default (where appropriate) or quick installs of typical developer tools?
I think the OP has a lot of confusions about the "vendor", "operating system" and very suprisingly with "linux" and "ubuntu" generalization.
I can understand the first two, but can't seem to understand one who has 8 years of xp with linux is able to generalize "ubuntu" with all of the other linux operating systems.
Quite the waste of my time to read this, nothing gained for me other than the thought of "hackernews top posts are going bad" sadly.
> The bottom line , the computer was full of crappy Lenovo and other brands software that just gets in my way and i don't want to use. Even worse after about 2 days some of the bundled Lenovo apps started crashing once in a while. I know this issue is not related to microsoft, and i am not blaming them for this.
It's pretty clear that he distinguishes Microsoft from Lenovo. There's nothing specific that I can point to, but it seems that he knows the difference between Linux and Ubuntu, also.
I can clearly read that he was devastated about the Lenovo bloatware aorund 3rd day and 1 for Microsoft & No network problem. I assume more of a vendor issue than microsoft caused this tiredness.
And Ubuntu is a really distinguished linux distro for its ease of usability and general driver compatibility; not like most of other greatly used linux distros, which care more of power users than everyday users.
> And Ubuntu is a really distinguished linux distro for its ease of usability and general driver compatibility
It's why I've had my parents using Xubuntu for the past 4 years. There haven't been any Big Problems. Calling Xubuntu Ubuntu might be cheating, but it's the same thing minus Unity.
"Anyways, blame Intel and N-7265 wifi adapter you have in your laptop, not Microsoft. Windows does have a generic driver that works well most of their adapters, but seems like not all of them. That's a question for Intel, why is it not compatible."
This is just Linux guys' (me) scripted answer for people trying linux for the first time who has wifi problems. Things are really inverse now.