Upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for only $39.99!

[psxphill]

Latest Linux Mint, latest Ubuntu, latest Fedora. take your pick.

Which one is best?
 

I can't stand lacking multiple desktops at windows 7 at work, but other's wouldn't care, because they never got used to that feature f.x. Ditto for whatever is your particular favourite thing.

I tried it back in the 9x years when Norton (?) included it in one of their packages. I never got on with it, but there are multiple add on's that allow you to do it.
 
Microsoft even has one of their own that has been recently updated (I assume for windows . http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cc817881.aspx
 
or an open source one that appears to still be going http://virtuawin.sourceforge.net/

[psxphill]

Pretty stupid comment indeed. If you don't like the Unity desktop, just run "sudo tasksel" and pick something different. Or choose a different installation medium right from the beginning (e.g. the Xubuntu or Lubuntu ISO). Unlike other OSes, you're not limited to that one and only desktop environment, you know?

It seems very user unfriendly to have to run a command to change desktop. Isn't their a configuration screen?
 
Will Steam be supporting the other distros?
 
You say you're not limited to one and only desktop environment as if that is a good thing. You must have loved it when Bluray and HD-DVD were getting exclusive movies so you had to buy two players, so much choice. Its a pity that everyone grew up and spoiled it for you.

[psxphill]

It's hard to believe how badly Sony bungled the console market after the domination of the PS2.

They bungled the PS2 as well, it's just momentum from the PS1 kept it going.
 
When the PS1 came out it was powerful and simple. You wrote software in C, the libraries did everything for you. Compare this to the Saturn where you had two cpu's sharing the same memory bus, so you had to write your code so that it ran from cache as much as possible.
 
The PS2 was much harder to code for. Especially when compared to the xbox. The xbox came late to the market though, so developers were committed to it. Microsoft did a good job at getting people writing for it though, so by the end of that generation they were ready for the next.
 
Sega could have made more of an impact with the Dreamcast, but piracy killed the console stone dead. The gamecube was ok, but Nintendo wanted it to be a console for kids and while some games made it through anyway there weren't enough to build momentum.
 
With the PS3, Ken had gotten drunk on his own success. The PS2 hadn't deserved to be the success it was & the PS3 was even worse in term of complicated design. Plus they thought they could go it alone on a graphics chip. They were just going to implement a framebuffer, with the Cell actually rendering the graphics. At some point they gave up on the idea, it was obviously not good enough. Whether they gave up because of the time it would take to make it good enough, or whether they thought it could never be good enough I don't know. But they ended up going cap in hand to NVidia for a graphics chip.
 
It didn't help that Microsoft persuaded IBM to sell them the same CPU core that was going to be used in the PS3 and rather than using the Cell cores as well, Microsoft just specified that they wanted three of the CPU cores.
 
Sony also thought that when they clicked their fingers the developers would come running to write exclusive software. They had with the PS1 & PS2. However on the PS2 it was just because there were no other viable platforms at the time, on the PS1 it was because it was easier to write software. The 360 launched first, was easier to write software for than the PS2 & Microsoft courted the developers.
 
All that happened was Sony's luck ran out.

[psxphill]

Personally, I have more interest in ChromeOS.
Microsoft is struggling to remain relevant.

While ChromeOS is struggling to become relevant, although it's likely that it missed it's chance. It's got the same level of awareness as WebOS.
 
Everyone said that Microsoft were wasting their time with the xbox, but they are quite good at doing what's required to get the job done. Even if that means changing what they are doing.
 
I remember a lot of resentment at 95 and XP when they came out. But they were key turning points for Microsoft. ME got a bad reputation because not only did it not really improve much beyond 98, it was also competing with 2000. It didn't help that they added restore points to ME, but it ended up taking up most of your disk space.
 
Apart from the lack of start menu, which I rarely ever used anyway. Windows 8 is just a new improved version of Windows 7. You can get some of the start menu functionality by adding a tool bar (right click task bar, select toolbars then New toolbar, then select the start menu folder). Or you can use a third party tool.
 
Not wanting to change is fine, stick with what you've got. What I find hilarious is the "I hate windows 8 because of the lack of start menu as I don't want to change how I work. Because of this I'm going to switch to Linux" attitude.

[psxphill]

As far as android being closed, how do you figure? Android.source.com and download sources to your hearts content. The android bits have even been in the linux kernel at times.

It's not all open, google play for instance isn't.
 
http://source.android.com/compatibility/index.html
 
They also keep the source secret until their device is ready & only include drivers for the hardware their new device uses. They are talking about improving the situation moving forward, but it's all a little underhanded.

[psxphill]

You know what? You're right. Better to spend 40 bucks on a product that you will never get a look at the source code for without an NDA. Better to support a company who threatens hardware vendors who install anything but OEM windows on it. Better to support a company who has proven itself for more than twenty years to be a vicious monopoly who will buy, litigate or outright steal its way to market saturation.

The irony is that you are saying those things on a message board dedicated to a machine made by commodore, who were way worse than Microsoft when it came to dodgy business practises.
 
I'm not that bothered about seeing the source code.

[psxphill]

I resisted smartphones as long as possible. Now that I have one I couldn't go without the ability to check my calendar on the go.

Feature phones had calendar's too, how old was the phone you used to have?

[psxphill]

Um, yeah, IF you're using a current version.
AND btw, even WinXP SP2 isn't current enough for Windows update to work with correctly.
As I've mentioned before, in order to use a 2005 copy of Win XP Media Center I had to manually install SP3, then let the system install 119 software patches, then install Java, Flash, a PDF reader and a bunch of audio and video codecs (so that I could play DVDs and work with video and audio files).
 
So no gentleman, it doesn't "just work".

That actually sounds like a breeze. The only thing that makes it sound slightly annoying is that going from SP2 doesn't automatically download SP3. It always used to, but I never used media centre & it could have broken in the mean time. Big deal that it downloaded 119 patches automatically, that counts as it just works.
 
The rest of the software is stuff that doesn't actually belong in an operating system. I'm surprised about not being able to play DVD's, I thought that would have been one of the points about media centre. But bundling a DVD player with windows means they have to play for a license based on the cost of the OS, which is why they've made it separate again.
 
IIRC Microsoft used to bundle Java, but Sun stopped them. If they bundled Adobe PDF reader then they'd probably receive an anti-trust case from foxit and vice versa. They are even forced to provide E & N versions of Windows that don't include things like Windows Media Player or IE in Europe.

[psxphill]

It's sad that I feel the need to defend Linux on an Amiga forum.

How does Linux have any relationship at all to the Amiga?

[psxphill]

Since what version does windows support mounting an ISO ? Without downloading an external app like demontools

Windows 8, right click iso & select mount.
 

People are ranting against linux in a microsoft thread on an Amiga forum. Obviously there must be some emotion behind these sentiments.

It's just about giving back as good as we got. The first mention of Linux was in an anti-Microsoft post.
I think that is where the really true failure of Linux is, in it's bitter users.

[psxphill]

Had to fix that for you :razz:
 
I find it quite the opposite, actually. If this thread is any indication, the bitter ones are the ones who never got Linux to work.

No, it's the ones that succeeded that seem bitter. The rest of us and just gave in and ran windows.
 
I actually did get Linux to "work", it just doesn't support the hardware I have in my laptops. It's all a bit too unixy for me as well and I've been using unix for a very long time.

[psxphill]

I thought it was bloodline (or Karlos? I forget) who had a thread here showing a lot of the unix-y goodness in the amiga shell.
 
Kcon and/or zshell are very unixy.

So is Cygwin on windows. AmigaOS isn't very unixy.

[psxphill]

I'll never use 8. I'll use xp and 7 for anything I actually need windows for. If it comes with any pc I buy, I suppose I can downgrade or just hack it to get rid of the horrid parts. My bet is they separate that horrid metro interface in the next release, but we'll see.

My bet is that you'll end up running it and you won't hack anything.

[psxphill]

I'll bet you a dollar that it never touches a single one of my machines.

I'd give you a dollar for you to "cut off your nose to spite your face", it would be funny.
 

Gonna have a hard time finding someone to take that bet, even for a dollar, my friend. It's a sure thing.

It's a sure thing alright, he'll be losing that dollar. Windows 9 might be different to Windows 8 in those areas, but it's not going to go back to how it was before.
 

A.k.a. "the DX10 gambit." The sad thing is that it's worked once before...
 
 
9, actually. 10 was the carrot to get people who wanted Bioshock to look as pretty as possible to switch to Vista.

New DirectX features require new graphics card drivers & Vista has a new graphics card driver model, to support new stuff. Justifying a whole new round of driver development, testing and certification for an old operating system is difficult.

[psxphill]

Bravo, Microsoft, you are truly visionaries.

They were, they had tablet products before apple were cool. Their execution hasn't really worked out, but they tried.
 
I'm still running Windows 8 on my 4 year old laptop and it's running better than 7/vista/xp.
 
I don't miss the start menu at all & never use metro.

[psxphill]

You're that much more future-ey than the ignorant masses for using the newest version-of-Windows-nobody-wanted.

It's not future-ey, the ignorant masses have been told to hate Windows 8 so hate it they will. OTOH they have been told to love Apple stuff.
 
People make up their mind first and then alter their perception to match. You don't even know that you're doing it.
 
Windows is not the only operating system, but it's the only one that I can be bothered to run these days & I like installing new things.