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Windows compatibility bonanza: What nobody tells you about Linux and OSX

30 minutes ago, KarathKasun said:

Except this happens on Linux too.  It happens for the same reason there as in Windows, different apps using different GUI toolkits.  Windows is now running two GUI toolkits within the OS itself for, you guessed it, backwards compatibility.  Ill take a mishmash of styles rather than having programs where the WM fails to display any of the context menus because they were scripted for a different WM/GUI.  Also, if you did not know, there are full shell replacements for Windows.

No. I worked at Microsoft. Want me to tell you why? There is a clear reason it's like this. It's because different team at Microsoft are not able to talk to each other. It's highly compartmentalized. They don't work together, they have their own budgets etc. The reason Office, Edge and the OS are all different is because they are essentially made by different companies. They can't agree on a consistent image because they don't work together.. Yes, you do have different toolkits in Linux but most people I know don't mix and match.. even mixing and matching can be consistent with compatible themes.

 

30 minutes ago, KarathKasun said:

For the taskbar, this isn't a mac, the taskbar goes on the bottom. 

Sorry, fail again. The reason it should go on the top is because the edge of the screen is important real estate. You can use wide fast motions and hit it every time. Small fine movement are "expensive" compared to large fast ones. The top is the most valuable because push action with the mouse is easier than pull. When you start to pull the mouse into your wrist sometimes you'll have to adjust your hand, it's uncomfortable, it feels tight and so you move your arm.. not so with push you just extend your fingers. Try it now that I've said that. The reason just about every other OS places it on the top is because they have done UI studies and confirmed this is easier. Microsoft came to the same conclusion and ignored the studies, but they know it's wrong. And who cares *WHY* I want it.. I want it there because it's MY system and I want it there. Isn't that a good enough reason? Can't I control my environment? No.. thats not a thing on Windows?

 

Alright I got another one for you.

 

b8OV0.png

 

You've seen this windows hundreds, maybe thousands of times over the last 10-15 years or so.. What if I told you there was something on this window that that nobody see's because they are so use to it but once you do you'll never forget it. Right in the middle of the screen it says Organize. Go ahead and open that window up and click that and tell me what that does and why it's there.

"Only proprietary software vendors want proprietary software." - Dexter's Law

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@KarathKasun

 

How about we do something "easy" with Linux and Windows. Lets connect them to connect to a NFS share. NFS was created by Sun and they ported it to every other platform and gave it away to the world for free. It's an open standard and it works very very well. So lets use it.

 

On Windows this is the process for connecting to NFS with adjusting user UID's and GID's.

https://graspingtech.com/mount-nfs-share-windows-10/

 

... uhh... easy? Maybe? We got to go through several window dialogues, edit the registry and use a few command on the command line.

 

Lets try Linux..

Oh we add a single line to /etcfstab

location mountpoint moutoptions

 

OMG SOOOOO HARD!

 

sure. // roll eyes

 

config files > the registry. As I can just about tell you what every config file does with Linux.. On FreeBSD there is a man page for all of them even better there. Can you tell me what every registry setting in Windows does? Can anyone? But it's easy right?

"Only proprietary software vendors want proprietary software." - Dexter's Law

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15 minutes ago, jde3 said:

No. I worked at Microsoft. Want me to tell you why? There is a clear reason it's like this. It's because different team at Microsoft are not able to talk to each other. It's highly compartmentalized. They don't work together, they have their own budgets etc. The reason Office, Edge and the OS are all different is because they are essentially made by different companies. They can't agree on a consistent image because they don't work together.. Yes, you do have different toolkits in Linux but most people I know don't mix and match.. even mixing and matching can be consistent with compatible themes.

 

Sorry, fail again. The reason it should go on the top is because the edge of the screen is important real estate. You can use wide fast motions and it it every time. Small fine movement are "expensive" compared to large fast ones. The top is the most valuable because push action with the mouse is easier than pull. When you start to pull the mouse into your wrist sometimes you'll have to adjust your hand, not so with push. Try it now that I've said that. The reason just about every other OS places it on the top is because they have done UI studies and confirmed this is easier. Microsoft came to the same conclusion and ignored the studies, but they know it's wrong. And who cares *WHY* I want it.. I want it there because it's MY system and I want it there. Isn't that a good enough reason? Can't I control my environment? No.. thats not a thing on Windows?

 

Alright I got another one for you.

 

b8OV0.png

 

You've seen this windows hundreds, maybe thousands of times over the last 10-15 years or so.. What if I told you there was something on this window that that nobody see's because they are so use to it but once you do you'll never forget it. Right in the middle of the screen it says Organize. Go ahead and open that window up and click that and tell me what that does and why it's there.

It used to allow you to change the layout of the add/remove programs window, though its been mostly inactive since MS started segmenting their OS's into Home/Pro versions.  Now it just leads to some basic Explorer settings.

 

Honestly, you are bringing up tiny things where I can bring up huge problems on the Linux side.  Things like the state of X, Wayland, and Gnome.  Or the fact that Wayland should had been completed and implemented years ago, but got stuck in "open source politics".  Or the fact that I still have to recompile a pretty big swath of programs every time I update the kernel.

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4 minutes ago, KarathKasun said:

It used to allow you to change the layout of the add/remove programs window, though its been mostly inactive since MS started segmenting their OS's into Home/Pro versions.  Now it just leads to some basic Explorer settings.

Was that the first time you clicked it? Just curious.

 

The point is to try to help you see the crap you've become blind to. I don't have a windows system so I have to go on what I remember.

 

I like X, I'm old school and compiling stuff is good, when I use Linux I use Gentoo so I'm pretty use to it.

"Only proprietary software vendors want proprietary software." - Dexter's Law

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5 minutes ago, jde3 said:

@KarathKasun

 

How about we do something "easy" with Linux and Windows. Lets connect them to connect to a NFS share. NFS was created by Sun and they ported it to every other platform and gave it away to the world for free. It's an open standard and it works very very well. So lets use it.

 

On Windows this is the process for connecting to NFS with adjusting user UID's and GID's.

https://graspingtech.com/mount-nfs-share-windows-10/

 

... uhh... easy? Maybe? We got to go through several window dialogues, edit the registry and use a few command on the command line.

 

Lets try Linux..

Oh we add a single line to /etcfstab

location mountpoint moutoptions

 

OMG SOOOOO HARD!

 

sure. // roll eyes

 

config files > the registry. As I can just about tell you what every config file does with Linux.. On FreeBSD there is a man page for all of them even better there. Can you tell me what every registry setting in Windows does? Can anyone? But it's easy right?

Why would I try to connect to a NFS share with Windows when Samba is a much better solution with windows domain integration?

 

You are intentionally bringing up edge cases where I can do the same for Linux.  Also, Free BSD is not Linux, so...

 

Tell me, how does a newbie deal with GUID partition problems when the GUID for a disk changes and the bootloader no longer works?  Why isnt that a problem in Windows?

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1 minute ago, jde3 said:

Was that the first time you clicked it? Just curious.

 

The point is to try to help you see the crap you've become blind to. I don't have a windows system so I have to go on what I remember.

No, Its been there since... NT 4.0, I think.  May have been introduced with NT 5 though, memory concerning stuff that old is a bit fuzzy.

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3 minutes ago, KarathKasun said:

Tell me, how does a newbie deal with GUID partition problems when the GUID for a disk changes and the bootloader no longer works?  Why isnt that a problem in Windows?

Mount by disk uuid. and it is a problem on windows.. I don't know how to fix it there. (I'm sure it's easy tho)

"Only proprietary software vendors want proprietary software." - Dexter's Law

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2 minutes ago, jde3 said:

Mount by disk uuid. and it is a problem on windows.

Ive never had windows fail to find the system disk after moving it to a new system (was using GUID), thats a Linux only problem.

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1 minute ago, KarathKasun said:

Ive never had windows fail to find the system disk after moving it to a new system, thats a Linux only problem.

Put two drives formatted with windows in a system. You'll run into it.

"Only proprietary software vendors want proprietary software." - Dexter's Law

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2 minutes ago, jde3 said:

Put two drives formatted with windows in a system. You'll run into it.

I usually have at least 3-4 internal drives and have never had that problem with Windows.  I have had issues with UEFI boot order getting borked, but Ive never run into a situation where it outright refuses to boot.

 

With early XP/2000 the only problem with swapping drives to a new system was that you had to make sure and load the generic IDE drivers first.

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7 minutes ago, KarathKasun said:

Why would I try to connect to a NFS share with Windows when Samba is a much better solution with windows domain integration?

Because I have an NFS server.. several of them actually. They are extremely simple to manage. Why would I change them all for one client system?

"Only proprietary software vendors want proprietary software." - Dexter's Law

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10 minutes ago, KarathKasun said:

I usually have at least 3-4 internal drives and have never had that problem with Windows.  I have had issues with UEFI boot order getting borked, but Ive never run into a situation where it outright refuses to boot.

You need to have both of them formatted as system disks. Windows can't tell what one to boot. It boots but if they are cloned drives it becomes even harder to tell what one is actually C: the UEFI can map either occasionally it will boot from one then map the other as C.

 

Whatever your using in Linux is doing it a stupid way. Of course the layout changes, thats why you identify the drives as uuid on install. If you do that you'll never have a problem again. The installer should be doing that by default. Bad implementations are plenty.. and I believe I've said before several times. Linux isn't good. It's not. But it's better than Windows. I like FreeBSD, Illumos and MacOS much more than Linux. They are better designed OS's.. but sometimes we have to use shit like Linux and even. eww.. Windows.

"Only proprietary software vendors want proprietary software." - Dexter's Law

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Hard is that voice in the back of your head telling you that you might not be able to fix something. It's subjective. If you find something hard then it's hard.. but.... personally I think if you took someone with no knowlage about computers at all.. placed them in front of Linux they would figure it out faster than Windows.. it has much fewer legacy concepts. like.. a new user might say.. Whats a C Drive? "thats your system disk" Weird. why is it C and not A? "A and B are reserved for floppies" Ok.. Uh whats a floppy? "it's a disk thats not floppy, nevermind. It's just C ok."

"Only proprietary software vendors want proprietary software." - Dexter's Law

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2 minutes ago, jde3 said:

You need to have both of them formatted as system disks. Windows can't tell what one to boot. It boots but if they are cloned drives it becomes even harder to tell what one is actually C: the UEFI can map either.

 

Whatever your using in Linux is doing it a stupid way. Of course the layout changes, thats why you identify the drives as uuid on install. If you do that you'll never have a problem again. Bad implementations are plenty.. and I believe I've said before several times. Linux isn't good. It's not. But it's better than Windows. I like FreeBSD, Illumos and MacOS much more than Linux. They are better designed OS's.. but sometimes we have to use shit like Linux and even. eww.. Windows.

No, Im talking about the UUID changing when the drive in on a different motherboard or drive interface adapter resulting in a "no root found" error.

 

Im well aware of the limitations of each OS and the problems they bring to the table, but Windows tends to be the one OS that finds itself somewhere in my device hierarchy.  I dont have to punch myself in the groin to get a Windows install up and 100% working on pretty much any hardware.  I don't have to fight oddball drivers that require out of date libraries or hand compiled modules.  On a basic level, it just works

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2 minutes ago, KarathKasun said:

No, Im talking about the UUID changing when the drive in on a different motherboard or drive interface adapter resulting in a "no root found" error.

 

Im well aware of the limitations of each OS and the problems they bring to the table, but Windows tends to be the one OS that finds itself somewhere in my device hierarchy.  I dont have to punch myself in the groin to get a Windows install up and 100% working on pretty much any hardware.  I don't have to fight oddball drivers that require out of date libraries or hand compiled modules.  On a basic level, it just works

Ya.. fear the day that you do have to get that deep into windows though.. because it is rough down there.

 

UUID is part of the disk itself. It's not the serial number but it's assigned to the partition on creation. You can also identify drives by serial if you have to. /dev/disk/by-id/... But UUID uniquely identifies the partition.

"Only proprietary software vendors want proprietary software." - Dexter's Law

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9 minutes ago, jde3 said:

Hard is that voice in the back of your head telling you that you might not be able to fix something. It's subjective. If you find something hard then it's hard.. but.... personally I think if you took someone with no knowlage about computers at all.. placed them in front of Linux they would figure it out faster than Windows.. it has much fewer legacy concepts. like.. a new user might say.. Whats a C Drive? "thats your system disk" Weird. why is it C and not A? "A and B are reserved for floppies" Ok.. Uh whats a floppy? "it's a disk thats not floppy, nevermind. It's just C ok."

Linux has some of that same cruft.  What is a "root user"?  What is a "dev/kernel/etc"?  and so on.

 

I find all computers are equally easy to use for newbs if you have Chrome or FireFox pre-instlled and you tell them to click that for the internet.

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Thats kind of the nice part about Unix, you can usually figure it out.. the root is the start of a tree.. ah. make sense. A root user is the user that has control of the tree. (I use to teach Linux)

 

etc, or the commands might be a little harder.. vowels were expensive in the 70's apparently. :)

 

Good chat man.

"Only proprietary software vendors want proprietary software." - Dexter's Law

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3 hours ago, Giganthrax said:

You should follow the way of the Linus and browse sketchy websites via virtual machine

Trovalds? :) I would but this Core Duo with 3 Gb of RAM Handles VMs poorly.

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1 hour ago, KarathKasun said:

What is a "root user"? 

Groot

groot.jpg

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