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Mortal OS Kombat: Linux versus Windows 7 (MaximumPC.com)
MaximumPC.com
discusses the upcoming battle between Linux and Windows 7,
which is out in a beta release.
"Windows 7 is also catering to admins with its tough little PowerShell utility--a souped-up version of the command line that now allows administrators to remotely mess with machines via a powerful console-based scripting environment.
But really, the fight is in the netbook space. IT World's Preston Gralla puts it clearly: if Linux gains traction on netbooks, people will become more familiar with using the OS (already a significant issue plaguing Linux-based netbooks). If people become more familiar with Linux as a whole, they might consider adopting it on their desktop platform as well."
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Just enough netbooks Posted Jan 15, 2009 21:08 UTC (Thu) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] You just need enough Linux-based netbooks out there that it's more expensive for the makers of webcams, scanners, and stuff to handle returns from users who don't know they have Linux than it is for them to send pre-release hardware to the bleeding edge distributions.It's already worth it for the netbook makers to handle returns from freedom-haters, just for the negotiating leverage to get the Windows XP they really wanted.
Just enough netbooks Posted Jan 16, 2009 9:00 UTC (Fri) by michaeljt (subscriber, #39183) [Link]
>It's already worth it for the netbook makers to handle returns from freedom-haters, just for the negotiating leverage to get the Windows XP they really wanted.
That sounds a bit hard. I believe that there are other reasons for wanting to use Windows than hating freedom.
Just enough netbooks Posted Jan 17, 2009 2:01 UTC (Sat) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
> That sounds a bit hard. I believe that there are other reasons for wanting to use Windows than hating freedom.
Like being able to install software. The netbooks I've seen are pretty restrictive in terms of the functionality they present to the end user. It's for a good reason, but still unless your a Linux geek it's doubtful you will be able to expand the utility of those devices much.
Just enough netbooks Posted Jan 17, 2009 14:36 UTC (Sat) by michaeljt (subscriber, #39183) [Link]
But again, that is (to my mind) the reason that Linux has chances there. They are more or less sold as fixed-functionality devices, and as such they neatly dodge one of desktop Linux's weakest points.
Just enough netbooks Posted Jan 17, 2009 15:40 UTC (Sat) by andrel (subscriber, #5166) [Link]
A surprising number of my colleagues have netbooks running Ubuntu. None have had any trouble using the package manager to install the software they want, even though they aren't Linux "geeks", to use your pejorative.
Compiling from scratch may be hard, but installing packages shipped by the distro is easy.
Just enough netbooks Posted Jan 17, 2009 15:47 UTC (Sat) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] Random factoid without a source: most PCs sold in the US home market don't have additional software purchased for them after the day of sale. Still true?
Just enough netbooks Posted Jan 19, 2009 10:15 UTC (Mon) by oblio (guest, #33465) [Link]
Maybe it's because people install shareware, freeware or Open Source software? :)
Just enough netbooks Posted Jan 19, 2009 15:36 UTC (Mon) by holstein (subscriber, #6122) [Link]
More probably, pirated (or "unlicensed", if you prefer that phrasing) software...
Just enough netbooks Posted Jan 30, 2009 12:35 UTC (Fri) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] Maybe it's because they don't understand what "installed" means? ;-)
Mortal OS Kombat: Linux versus Windows 7 (MaximumPC.com) Posted Jan 15, 2009 22:11 UTC (Thu) by ccchips (guest, #3222) [Link]
Regarding PowerShell:
First and foremost, educated users are quickly going to realize that the program won't run on systems that aren't operating under a GUI (unless Microsoft came up with a workaround for the fact that it depends very heavily on the ".net" thing, or unless ".net" is being de-coupled from the windowing interface.
Second, I believe the developers of this stuff will need to make text-processing as easy and straightforward as it is in the *nix world. Objects in pipelines are nice, and we can do a lot with them, but text processing is still very important, and will continue to be.
Mortal OS Kombat: Linux versus Windows 7 (MaximumPC.com) Posted Jan 15, 2009 22:21 UTC (Thu) by ccchips (guest, #3222) [Link]
OK - never mind - I misread something. I will install the beta on a "clean" system to test PowerShell.
Duh....I read someone literally who left me with the impression we had to have Vista installed first....
Mortal OS Kombat: Linux versus Windows 7 (MaximumPC.com) Posted Jan 15, 2009 23:43 UTC (Thu) by ccchips (guest, #3222) [Link]
There is a line missing on my first post:
One of the problems with Powershell is that (in my opinion) it's not finished. As an administrator, for instance, I don't care much for a program that's supposed to replace things like "du -s *" if it fails on long filenames. I will test Windows 7 to see if this is still an issue - the PowerShell team blames this problem on the OS for some reason.
When I started reading about Wndows 7, the first writer lead me to believe that Vista was required as a springboard. Now I know I can do a clean install.
My apologies for poor research and knee-jerk responses.
Mortal OS Kombat: Linux versus Windows 7 (MaximumPC.com) Posted Jan 15, 2009 23:46 UTC (Thu) by ccchips (guest, #3222) [Link]
Regarding netbooks:
I'm not in the supply chain, so I can't say much about the behavior of manufacturers, but....
Wouldn't Microsoft have to do something aobut the 1 GB minimum requirement for Windows 7 if they want to have a better presence in that market? Or are they going to sell XP forever?
RAM requirements Posted Jan 15, 2009 23:57 UTC (Thu) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] A mass-market OS should be able to run on $20 worth of RAM. You can get 2GB for $30 retail now, so a 1GB requirement shouldn't be a problem.
not RAM, CPU Posted Jan 16, 2009 0:41 UTC (Fri) by pflugstad (subscriber, #224) [Link]
RAM is one thing, CPU and reliable wireless is something else entirely.
From what I hear, Windows 7 is Vista.1 (Vista with some of the annoyances filed off), so it's still gonna want a FAST CPU, which is going to be a problem in the netbook space.
And unless they overhaul Vista wireless support, wireless support is going to continue to be a joke. 30+ seconds to sync up to my unsecured, bog-standard wireless Linksys point? XP could do it in 5.
not RAM, CPU Posted Jan 16, 2009 2:31 UTC (Fri) by Kit (guest, #55925) [Link]
>From what I hear, Windows 7 is Vista.1 (Vista with some of the annoyances filed off), so it's still gonna want a FAST CPU, which is going to be a problem in the netbook space.
Windows 7 is supposed to be easier on the processor as well, and from testing it out in VirtualBox it seemed decently responsive (though not having Aero enabled might have made a difference... though I've read that on systems that can easily handle Aero it actually makes the system more responsive due to offloading the rendering from the CPU to the GPU through the DWM).
>30+ seconds to sync up to my unsecured, bog-standard wireless Linksys point? XP could do it in 5.
That's possible a driver/hardware quirk. Vista IME takes just a matter of seconds to connect to any router, and often reconnects after a suspend/hibernate faster than I can re-authenticate, but XP (different machine) would take 30+ seconds and Linux (same machine as the XP one) would take 45 seconds-1 minute.
I think it might be very dangerous to not take Windows 7 as a *very* serious threat to Linux's adoption. Thinking Microsoft will simply cede the Netbook market (something that probably makes their mouth water) is likely to lead to Microsoft completely crushing what the beachhead that currently exists.
not RAM or CPU, price Posted Jan 16, 2009 9:59 UTC (Fri) by PO8 (guest, #41661) [Link]
The major barrier to Microsoft in the netbook space is profit margin. To break even on Windows 7 they probably need something like $5-10 per unit, which is a significant fraction of the price of a $300 machine. The major costs of XP are already sunk, so it makes more sense for them to sell that there, but they aren't showing any great enthusiasm for this plan either, since they'd like to kill XP over the next few years.
The interesting part is that we might be only a couple of years away from netbooks with OLED displays and even cheaper flash that sell for $100 each. This would make it very hard for Microsoft to profitably sell onto them.
Microsoft easily has the capital to give away Windows 7 in the netbook space and eat the loss, but there are significant downsides for them in doing that. They really don't want another antitrust lawsuit right now, and they really don't want to post numbers that will mess with their fragile stock price. In any case, it would only postpone the inevitable unless they could somehow change their revenue model in the interim.
Eating the loss Posted Jan 16, 2009 17:01 UTC (Fri) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] How is one more copy of the already-developed Windows 7 costing them any more than one more copy of the already-developed Windows XP?They're going to have to do some pretty radical price discrimination, which will mainly benefit the netbook makers who are willing to keep making the Linux bluff.
Eating the loss Posted Jan 17, 2009 17:22 UTC (Sat) by efexis (guest, #26355) [Link] "How is one more copy of the already-developed Windows 7 costing them any more than one more copy of the already-developed Windows XP?"XP's already been paid for, Windows 7 hasn't... I guess if they can't show that their new operating systems will pay for themselves, confidence drops, and with that, share price?
Eating the loss Posted Jan 19, 2009 15:43 UTC (Mon) by andrel (subscriber, #5166) [Link] You completely missed Don's point. The Windows 7 developers have already been paid. They get paychecks every two weeks, and no residual royalties. Windows 7 development is a sunk cost.
Windows XP and successors Posted Jan 24, 2009 3:36 UTC (Sat) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] ...but they aren't showing any great enthusiasm for this plan either, since they'd like to kill XP over the next few years. WinXP was declared end-of-life a couple of years back... it is still around only because Vista was such a spectacular failure. And I'm not so sure they could fix Vista's worst problems in the few years (completely forget about all the mouth-watering features they originally promised for WinXP's successor...). Netbooks might just force MSFT to keep WinXP around for quite some time to come... and thus kill off Win 8+ at the bud.
not RAM, CPU Posted Jan 17, 2009 8:57 UTC (Sat) by Kamilion (subscriber, #42576) [Link]
Hey, I'm running win7b1-32bit on this system right now.
Intel P4 3.4Ghz, 1GB of cheap ram, Radeon Xpress 200 desktop.
Normally I'm an ubuntu user, but since Microsoft was nice enough to give me a free key until august, I'll bite and play beta tester.
So far, it's been more stable than Vista SP1, even for a beta version.
http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2008/10/15/engineering-7...
Looks like they've finally extracted their head from their rectum and implemented a test-then-commit system. If you read the first post I linked, the old way was described as a commit-then-test system, which resulted in boatloads of incomplete code being merged into XP and Vista, thus explaining both OS's rocky beginnings.
Anyway. The new taskbar design is... 'revolutionary'.
Yeah, it's got a bunch of new eyecandy, if Aero's on, the taskbar's transparent, you can set the wallpaper to cycle every 10 seconds, hovering over an icon in the taskbar shows it's windows in a preview pain, if you hover over the preview, it turns all the windows glass except the one you're pointing at, icons in the taskbar are now lit with the mousecursor as the lightsource and the dominant color in the icon as the light color.
They moved the Security Center (Always an annoyance in XPSP2+) into the "Action Center", as well as hid all the tray icons under a ^ button (Works out well!, better than their old << flyout/flyin, IMO) that you can manually choose to display directly in the tray (I did this to OpenVPN and left all the other icons hidden) next to the 'Network' icon which has basically ripped off Network Manager's interface and embedded the list of VPNs & local APs directly in the flyout panel. There's also the same old audio tray from vista, which is pretty similar to pulseaudio's volume manager. Clock's finally two lines by default and displays the date. The hovertip can be set to display two additional timezone offsets. Finally, they added a magic corner next to the tray for show desktop. Hovering it glasses all windows, clicking it minimizes all. Handy.
The other sweet additions:
This is a feature that should have been implemented LONG ago.
But of course, we people don't work like that.
http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2008/12/30/at-home-with-...
Homegroups make sharing files between win7 boxes a snap. I mean, a SNAP.
There's now a "Share This" option in explorer, with an option to share with nobody, or homegroup ro or rw. Media Center and Media Player now discover content and libraries in the entire homegroup.
Keep reading upwards on the blog and you'll notice they are responding to the recent rocks we've been throwing at them.
Rock #1: "linux+powertop = pwning windows wiht teh powre savings!!"
Rock #2: "lawl we has support for most DEVICES EVAR!!!!!11one (even ur unique one-off chinese discount hongkong $3 usb vibrator hehe)"
Rock #3: "UAC SUCKS!"
Everything I've put on here so far has worked without a major hitch.
New stickynote tool like tomboy... I like it. Spartan, but useful. Good job.
Lots of things now have 'tasks'. Open up paint a couple times, you'll notice the start menu now shows a list of recently opened items without actually opening paint! Same with notepad! Havn't discovered how to clear it yet though.
Device Scape is pretty cool. Context Sensativity rocks.
Overall, I'm VERY impressed with the quality, the fact that they're actually listening and adapting to their users and stealing the best ideas from OSX, GNOME, and KDE, But of course, Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.
I've been a linux abuser since slackware 1.5. I still play XEvil.
Oh, and I should note, the new Resource Manager is awesome: 1GB of ram, 622MB used, 251MB free, 0MB paged, I'm running about 12 different programs right now, downloading 3 episodes of Systm from vuze, NXCliented into two of my work boxes over an OpenVPN link, have about 60 tabs open in FF3.1B2, Aero cranked up, and playing with the Subsystem For UNIX-Based Applications addon that MS freely provides. (NFS CLIENT! GCC 3.2! A DEVFS /DEV AND PROCFS PROC! WOOOO! Now give us EXT2, you can steal BSD code, you did it with your IP stack, remember?!?)
NTFS now supports proper symlinks too... soft and hard, cross filesystem, including UNC network paths. It makes Libraries work. Thought I do wish they would get rid of the now-superfluous My-Whatever homedir directories in favor of My-Whatever libraries. (For instance, when running the My Pictures screensaver, how do you prevent it from throwing your porn in with your kid's birthday party pictures? With libraries, it's easy to create a separate porn library and let the screensaver show off your kid's awesome new pokemon card set without your coworkers knowing you're into redheads with tiny feet.
Anyway, I'm quite impressed.
Windows 7 and the future of Linux Posted Jan 17, 2009 16:13 UTC (Sat) by Darkmere (subscriber, #53695) [Link]
Thankyou. This is one of the best reviews of Win7 that I have read so far, and neatly sums up some of what I've seen myself there.
Ideas to steal/get hacking on: Meatacity composition (For Gnome based derivates, Kwin already does it) and solidifying the composition/3D-effects. (Hi Beryl)
Location awareness is just adorably sweet. Would be lovely if policykit could implement it. "Unlock my SSH keys when I am at home, drop them when I leave home" would be perfect. Along with a "timeout my SSH keys when screensaver activates at work". Yes Please.
Getting functioning search&indexing to work on *nix. Sorry, Beagle seems stale to dead. ( almost a year without releases ) tracker simply fails. ( Searching for "vidoc" doesn't show you the indexed files named and in a folder called "Vidocq", utter failure for a search function. Especially when it "helpfully" suggests something else. Nepomuk needs to actually release something before it can talk )
Speed/Power performance: Still hasn't trickled out into mainstream. After a few months running a desktop bootup slows to a crawl without reason sometimes. Erm. oups? ( partial/old crash sessions and sometimes DNS lookups along with badly fragmented/distributed files seem to be at fault, but it's not reliably debuggable in a distribution as they ship)
The audio stack issue on *nix. "Trust dmix and get odd latencies due to the behaviour" is the only thing that today works. Pulseaudio has a way to go before functionality ensures due to how it exposed and still expose strange behaviour and expectation in software. And the other ways are just "trust in dmix", unless you go to 4Front's OSS4 and move the mixer into kernel space, not quite a solution either.
On demand spawn of processes. Why isn't this the default yet? Why is cups starting every boot on my laptops default installation even when I don't have a printer attached/network connected? Arjan and others had it configured to "launch on demand" (xinetd?) why isn't this default?
Same for samba and others. "It's not much" but it's still something, please fix, distributors.
As a whole the OSS development scape lags behind because we suck at finishing projects. Developers are sometimes fickle, realise the warts on a system and go to make it "perfect" in the new edition. Which lags behind and leaves something that feels abandoned and warty, while the replacement "still doesn't do all that I want". It's a social issue built into our landscape, and the concentrated focus of developers with a coherent plan is one of few ways to get over it. This is where the distributions can either shine, or release a mish mash of incoherence. ( Desktop projects are also generally good here)
Still, We're not doing badly, but we do tend to lag behind at times.
not RAM, CPU Posted Jan 17, 2009 23:13 UTC (Sat) by togga (subscriber, #53103) [Link]
Thanks for sharing.
"So far, it's been more stable than Vista SP1, even for a beta version."
This scares me as it suggests that bug-fixes are deferred to next major release which you have to buy.
"Anyway. The new taskbar design is... 'revolutionary'."
You sound like you're biased by blind love. From what I can see and read (thanks for the link), the taskbar is more of an evolution than a revolution. But OTOH I also think that these type of taskbars are bad UI design anyway.
"Libraries.
I can't figure out the killer feature in these. You describe them as simple symlinks, but there's more to them right? I'm also disappointed that the concept of drive-letters is still there.
"The only box I had to spare was this crappy old P4"
Why? Doesn't it play nice on virtual hosts?
Overall, what you saying is that Windows 7 is a Vista SP2 with symlinks and reduced system requirements.
not RAM, CPU Posted Jan 18, 2009 19:26 UTC (Sun) by pflugstad (subscriber, #224) [Link]
Based on what I've been reading:
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/windows-7-beta.ars
Windows 7 is really Vista SP2 with some more clean up and polish (that sounds like it really should have gone into Vista).
CPU/RAM requirements are the same as Vista's. And to really make it fly, you need a good 3D card.
But, since this is M$, they're gonna make you pay for it.
And, getting back to the core discussion, I just don't see Vista or Win7 running on netbooks any time soon. RAM can be squeezed, but the CPU just isn't there. And Vista/Win7's disk requirements are probably going to rule out using a SSD (since a big enough SSD will be too expensive for the market).
Eh, who knows - the market is fickle - current netbooks are getting faster and by adding touchscreens are turning into tablet PCs from 3-4 years ago (which tanked). And Microsoft may be forced to sell into the netbook market in order to find any growth at all, but I predict it's gonna be a painful fit.
Ironically, we're now seeing articles about how the media is responsible for Vista's failure (they panned it too much) and that because they're "liking" Win7, it'll be a success. Smells like more astroturf to me.
not RAM, CPU Posted Jan 18, 2009 21:18 UTC (Sun) by zlynx (subscriber, #2285) [Link]
You should give MS a break there. It was what, 7 years from XP to Vista? That's 7 years that MS gave free XP upgrades to everyone, while Apple was charging for each version.
not RAM, CPU Posted Jan 19, 2009 15:19 UTC (Mon) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link]
"Mao is not such a bad guy. Look at what Stalin is doing!"
not RAM, CPU Posted Jan 19, 2009 16:00 UTC (Mon) by zlynx (subscriber, #2285) [Link]
Redhat or Sun or SUSE, then. They charge yearly OS support fees.
The money to pay programmers, tech support reps, QA testers and all has to come from somewhere.
not RAM, CPU Posted Jan 20, 2009 1:21 UTC (Tue) by togga (subscriber, #53103) [Link]
And that should be a reason to pay and install a new OS to get bugfixes?
RedHat and SUSE has free versions with with periodical upgrades. This is not what support deals are all about - if Win7 doesn't solve your issues, you are out of luck, if you have a support deal the Vendor are obliged to fix them.
Given that Win7 basically is Vista SP2, can you see a point in pflugstad's comment and that there could be some astroturfing going on in some of the comments in this thread and in the media coverage for Win7?
not RAM, CPU Posted Jan 20, 2009 16:38 UTC (Tue) by zlynx (subscriber, #2285) [Link]
"The money to pay programmers, tech support reps, QA testers and all has to come from somewhere."
"And that should be a reason to pay and install a new OS to get bugfixes?"
Well, yes. If you or somebody does not pay, there will not be new versions or new bugfixes. Redhat and SUSE's "free" bug fixes would quickly stop if no one paid their support fees.
Some amount of bugfixes should be free and that was my point about Microsoft's XP: Microsoft provided free bugfixes for 7 years, which is better than any other OS company I know of. I specifically mentioned Apple at first because they are the only other proprietary consumer OS worth mentioning.
Regarding pflugstad's comment, I was only responding to this: "But, since this is M$, they're gonna make you pay for it."
I should have made that clear, but I thought it was obvious since I was talking about charging for updates.
Windows 7 == Vista SP2 Posted Jan 23, 2009 5:43 UTC (Fri) by pflugstad (subscriber, #224) [Link] Given how busted the original Windows XP was, M$ really didn't have any option BUT to offer free upgrades - it was a security joke until XP2 came along (Code Red, Nimda, Blaster, SQL Slammer, on and on and on). MS was being crucified in 2002, 2003 with all their security problems. Trying to to charge for XP SP2 would have gone over like a lead balloon, especially with corporations (who were having to deal with all the above viruses), and likely with the Justice department (they were/are still under scrutiny for that).As far as Apple's upgrade charges are concerned, in their case the original versions are reasonable on their own and don't require service packs to get fixed. The new releases provide new functionality above and beyond just fixing the previous release. Windows Vista to Windows 7 is more like fixing what's busted with Windows Vista than a "new" OS (spiffy new toolbar aside). Right now, I lump Vista squarely in with the original Windows 2000 (which no one touched until SP3 IIRC) or the original XP (which wasn't even close to secure until SP2). And there is a *serious* love fest going with the media and Win7, more than I've ever seen before, about ANY OS (this showed up on the front page of Google News today).
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