This has to be one of the worst tech ideas I've ever seen. Imagine all the security issues this will cause. Furthermore what if someone doesn't have good internet? Whoops! My OS is lagging not...
This has to be one of the worst tech ideas I've ever seen. Imagine all the security issues this will cause. Furthermore what if someone doesn't have good internet? Whoops! My OS is lagging not because of my hardware but because of my internet. Even with internet : input lag. There's a thousand reasons I can imagine why this is a bad idea
This reads as some Microsoft manager decided that the cloud is cool because buzz words.
I'm sure the real reason is to reduce the chances of people pirating the software, force people to use a Microsoft account to operate the OS, and gather more analytics / push relevant ads to the user.
I'm sure the real reason is to reduce the chances of people pirating the software, force people to use a Microsoft account to operate the OS, and gather more analytics / push relevant ads to the user.
I feel like if pirating were the real reason, MS would implement some real protections against using Windows without activation. As it is right now, you can install Windows without activating it...
I feel like if pirating were the real reason, MS would implement some real protections against using Windows without activation. As it is right now, you can install Windows without activating it and use it forever.
So that leaves account and data collection, which sounds about right.
On top of that, it doesn't even make sense to really fight against consumers pirating Windows (which may cost more in lobbying, litigation and bad press than they make by selling those cheap...
On top of that, it doesn't even make sense to really fight against consumers pirating Windows (which may cost more in lobbying, litigation and bad press than they make by selling those cheap licenses) while the real money comes from governments and corporations who pay hundreds of millions because they are locked into the ecosystem because the people who signed those contracts grew up with Windows because they could pirate it.
I addition to all of that, if Windows was difficult to pirate, it would hardly be used in huge markets such as Russia, India, China, and Brazil. It's better to be present without pay than letting...
I addition to all of that, if Windows was difficult to pirate, it would hardly be used in huge markets such as Russia, India, China, and Brazil. It's better to be present without pay than letting generations of users grow up thinking that Linux is actually a great thing. Training costs are a huge consideration for government and corporate clients, and it's a huge advantage when users require no training to use your product.
Oh yeah for sure, even an experienced person wouldn't be able to see what exactly they would be doing in the cloud since they could always just run a layer under it to collect data from RAM....
Oh yeah for sure, even an experienced person wouldn't be able to see what exactly they would be doing in the cloud since they could always just run a layer under it to collect data from RAM. Sneakily stealing all your personal data and there's nothing you can do about it or know about it. Even though I don't like windows at least you can see what it's doing to a certain extent when it's on a physical device.
Yeah part of the appeal for companies with SaaS stuff is that you have total control over the platform. The benefits to the customer end when whatever the service is could have been run on their...
Yeah part of the appeal for companies with SaaS stuff is that you have total control over the platform. The benefits to the customer end when whatever the service is could have been run on their own hardware. Didn’t want to update today? Too bad the software isn’t “yours” and you don’t get to decide what happens with it. Don’t like a UX change? No rolling back.
They can then rollout any changes they want way easier, including more sophisticated monitoring changes or other things they want to impose that are in their interest, and not yours.
Ironically, Microsoft only got as big as it is because of piracy. Microsoft's ecosystem grew by leaps and bounds by letting the tech savvy and the younger people pirate Windows 3.1/95 as well as...
Ironically, Microsoft only got as big as it is because of piracy. Microsoft's ecosystem grew by leaps and bounds by letting the tech savvy and the younger people pirate Windows 3.1/95 as well as Office 95 and up.
Everything that is old is new again. Thin clients are in again!
Basically Piracy gets the users. The users tell the company what they know. The company pays big for those licenses. Hell, I used to prefer Adobe over Avid simply because I could use my pirated...
Basically Piracy gets the users. The users tell the company what they know. The company pays big for those licenses.
Hell, I used to prefer Adobe over Avid simply because I could use my pirated Adobe at home to play around, meanwhile Avid needed that stupid USBs key.
Now my work computer essentially requires a reformat every year to update the stupid creative cloud license and I'm trying to convince my leadership to shift towards alternatives but for now they already paid for Adobe and they're stuck in that.
Additionally, my mom bought MS Office because I was already familiar with it because I had a pirated copy. She had been using WordPerfect for DOS for years up until she got a Windows 95 computer....
Additionally, my mom bought MS Office because I was already familiar with it because I had a pirated copy. She had been using WordPerfect for DOS for years up until she got a Windows 95 computer. My pirated copy influenced her into getting that first copy of MS Office and she's used nothing but different versions since.
Well, not sure about that one. If I'm not mistaken, Microsoft's servers still hand out Windows activation codes for free if you ask them "really nicely". Data-mining their users (pirates included)...
pirating the software
Well, not sure about that one. If I'm not mistaken, Microsoft's servers still hand out Windows activation codes for free if you ask them "really nicely". Data-mining their users (pirates included) is probably far more profitable than making them buy a license.
That's most likely also the reason that you can use Windows 10 without a license, without (almost) any limitations
I highly doubt that. I don't even think the extent of data mining the dedicated ad companies do is worth as much as people think. I think they just hoodwink marketing people with fancy analytics...
Data-mining their users (pirates included) is probably far more profitable than making them buy a license.
I highly doubt that. I don't even think the extent of data mining the dedicated ad companies do is worth as much as people think. I think they just hoodwink marketing people with fancy analytics telling them it's more effective than it probably is.
The actual value for Microsoft is to make themselves ubiquitous. The ubiquity means ecosystem/platform lock in. This is a way to make it so even Linux and Mac or Chromebook users cannot fully escape their orbit and, consequently, be incentivized to buy Microsoft software and/or do stuff in Azure.
Also consumer OS space is mostly dominated by OEM sales. Data-mining is a nice value-add and helps insure that consumers don't learn other OS. The real money is in being able to shake down every...
Also consumer OS space is mostly dominated by OEM sales. Data-mining is a nice value-add and helps insure that consumers don't learn other OS.
The real money is in being able to shake down every company in existence.
What’s even better is that all the tools and analytics to evaluate how your marketing platform is doing are provided for you by your marketing platform. They’re basically filling out their own...
What’s even better is that all the tools and analytics to evaluate how your marketing platform is doing are provided for you by your marketing platform. They’re basically filling out their own report card for you.
This is definitely a key reason--same with online only games. Windows has been a mainstay for a long time, but this would be a mistake in the same vein as Vista, 8, and 11
This is definitely a key reason--same with online only games. Windows has been a mainstay for a long time, but this would be a mistake in the same vein as Vista, 8, and 11
Yeah this is what I was thinking. I bet piracy is a contributing factor. Isn't this just basically DRM in a sense, as having to always be online and authenticated that your access to their cloud...
Yeah this is what I was thinking.
I bet piracy is a contributing factor. Isn't this just basically DRM in a sense, as having to always be online and authenticated that your access to their cloud servers is legit and paid for.
If it's hosted in the cloud, I'm guessing the marketing to customers would be less hardware requirements? Like how GeForce Now / Luna / etc. let you play games on high settings using anything that...
If it's hosted in the cloud, I'm guessing the marketing to customers would be less hardware requirements? Like how GeForce Now / Luna / etc. let you play games on high settings using anything that can support an internet connection.
Microsoft has been getting more lenient about piracy with recent windows versions. Hell, there’s been an instance of Microsoft Support using a crack script.
Microsoft has been getting more lenient about piracy with recent windows versions. Hell, there’s been an instance of Microsoft Support using a crack script.
It reads like that, but Microsoft is hard with this and there are billions invested in the tech. There are even third party companies developing maintaining and supporting the cloud environment...
It reads like that, but Microsoft is hard with this and there are billions invested in the tech. There are even third party companies developing maintaining and supporting the cloud environment for less tech inclined people. There's conferences with hundreds of businesses attending that are drinking from this kool-aid. It's massive, massive, money and it's a solution to the hardware issues Microsoft has always faced made even more real by the Covid supply chain issue.
They very much don't care if you have bad internet. They're looking to make money off of businesses mainly, schools, orgs, and consumers with decent internet.
Thin clients ala chromebook are gonna be all the rage because all they'll do is boot you into the cloud. Linux only machines are also in the wild that have read only operating systems to just boot the remote desktop client.
Personally? This tech is absolute garbage. It's forced and still in development. They just figured out how to redirect the Webcam for teams and zoom. There's lag for the mic, audio quality gets compressed, and forget any other peripheral you have.
This tech is for one type of user. The one that just wants a machine that works for school or office work. It's a productivity product but shitty at personal use. Also it's not yours. You rent it. It's a money generating system with some upsides but lots of cons.
I imagine this could be a huge benefit to schools. Kids destroy laptops so quickly. So it makes a lot of sense to give them absolute garbage machines and then offload the actual work to a remote...
I imagine this could be a huge benefit to schools. Kids destroy laptops so quickly. So it makes a lot of sense to give them absolute garbage machines and then offload the actual work to a remote server.
I seriously doubt MS intends for all windows users to go cloud only when the trend seems to be swinging the other way with Apple showing most of the stuff currently done on cloud works better locally if you have the hardware.
From a techincal standpoint what you say is true. I'm not even sure if kids should even have iPads, laptops, etc. Books are still cheaper, more reliable, reusable* and isn't discriminatory in poor...
I imagine this could be a huge benefit to schools. Kids destroy laptops so quickly. So it makes a lot of sense to give them absolute garbage machines and then offload the actual work to a remote server.
From a techincal standpoint what you say is true. I'm not even sure if kids should even have iPads, laptops, etc. Books are still cheaper, more reliable, reusable* and isn't discriminatory in poor vs not. Give them access to it in school, 100%. Take away 1 elective a year and make technology classes required just like science, history and english.
*I say reusable because there is no reason other than greed by the publishers that Algebra I books need to ALL be replaced every few years because of "revisions" instead of a few here and there from normal wear and tear.
However, from a societal standpoint it normalizes this behavior. So the kids using that thin client today grows up thinking its normal not to own anything on their own computer tomorrow.
“You will own nothing and you will like it.” This is obviously terrible for PC gamers or any other processing heavy work like photo/video editing. But like you said, this move is for their...
“You will own nothing and you will like it.”
This is obviously terrible for PC gamers or any other processing heavy work like photo/video editing. But like you said, this move is for their enterprise user.
Au contraire. The box itself is still gonna need to boot something that then has to log into the cloud machine. That something would ideally be a very barebones OS that just runs applications (at...
This is obviously terrible for PC gamers
Au contraire. The box itself is still gonna need to boot something that then has to log into the cloud machine. That something would ideally be a very barebones OS that just runs applications (at minimum the VM space), and there's no reason one of those applications can't be a game. In theory you could set it up in such a way that games run locally without having to set aside resources on any of the UI stuff.
Or it's just so bad that game devs switch to SteamOS/*nix, which I still count as a win.
Funny you say photo and video. They actually offer a cloud session with GPUs attached. They want you to do your CAD or gpu intensive work. They also market to the science community for computation...
Funny you say photo and video. They actually offer a cloud session with GPUs attached. They want you to do your CAD or gpu intensive work. They also market to the science community for computation heavy work.
Only thing holding someone back from gaming on the thing is the lack of peripheral support and the streamed image looking good as right now it piggy backs off of the RDP protocol and doesn't utilize hw acceleration client side.
So yeah, you will own nothing and like it. I can't be against this platform enough as a consumer. I understand the use cases and they may benefit, but damn please don't shove it down my throat.
For those who are not aware, Microsoft has a large swath of influence through the Consulting companies they work with through their Industry Solutions Partner Approach. These firms are the grunt...
For those who are not aware, Microsoft has a large swath of influence through the Consulting companies they work with through their Industry Solutions Partner Approach. These firms are the grunt workers of any large company and they all sell their products as being Microsoft forward. It's a sneaky way to have continuous influence without having a Monopoly, though it comes close.
All these Consulting Firms press their staff to become Azure certified because it's the BIG thing right now and the certification process honestly feels like a sales course. Microsoft effectively has legions of people selling Azure solutions to every client that walks through their door. It's a self-feeding loop for their business model and allows them to become cozy with constant streams of pay-as-you-go revenue.
Transitioning their OS to the Cloud is just another way to execute that stronghold. Already highly Azure dependent companies are going to be strong armed into this due to their dependency on the Microsoft stack. Microsoft isn't worried about getting money from the individual user with bad internet if they're able to throw their weight with these large business contracts.
I personally hate it though! Each day I work with offshore folks who are dependent on using virtual desktops hosted in Azure due to security reasons. Using that and attempting to screenshare active development with onshore through Teams is a daily struggle with connectivity issues. It hampers productivity and just adds extra stress to already difficult work.
Ah thank you! That sheds light on something I had been wondering about. The company I'm thinking of is Nerdio and they're slightly more than a consulting firm. Every course, however, they're...
Ah thank you! That sheds light on something I had been wondering about. The company I'm thinking of is Nerdio and they're slightly more than a consulting firm. Every course, however, they're pushing Microsoft hard and oftentimes have Microsoft speakers at their conventions. I always wondered what the relationship was between the two but skirting around regulation to have a legion of Microsoft reps pushing Azure down everyone's throats makes sense.
Every major cloud provider is doing the same, M$, AWS, Google, Oracle. I have worked with them all. The cloud providers don't have the Devs to directly support all the companies so 3rd party...
Every major cloud provider is doing the same, M$, AWS, Google, Oracle. I have worked with them all. The cloud providers don't have the Devs to directly support all the companies so 3rd party providers sometimes only support 1 cloud provider to keep salary and complexity down since they all do the same thing.
God, I'm happy that Proton in Steam is such a success, and that the Steam Deck exists. As soon as W10 is out of support, I'm moving to whatever distro is best supported and reasonably open source.
God, I'm happy that Proton in Steam is such a success, and that the Steam Deck exists. As soon as W10 is out of support, I'm moving to whatever distro is best supported and reasonably open source.
I got forced to update to W11 and it's such a mess. I'm running explorer patcher to fix the worst issues that W11 brought to the table. Sadly whenever I update my PC it completely breaks as...
I got forced to update to W11 and it's such a mess. I'm running explorer patcher to fix the worst issues that W11 brought to the table. Sadly whenever I update my PC it completely breaks as explorer patcher is windows patch dependent... I'm also strongly considering moving to Linux but I think it needs a little more time. Whenever my friend is over and some multiplayer game breaks again because Linux doesn't work with windows it makes me sad, but it's reality.
Linux has been around for decades, and for the last few it’s always always “needed a little more time”. Certain things get easier and the difficulties get smoothed over a bit but it is very slow...
Linux has been around for decades, and for the last few it’s always always “needed a little more time”. Certain things get easier and the difficulties get smoothed over a bit but it is very slow and it’s probably never going to be at the level where “it’s time”. The best gaming we get (and have ever gotten) in Linux is a wine compatibility layer variant rather than native support and for as long as that is reality we won’t escape the jank and unexpected game issues.
If you want to move from windows best to do it asap so you can start learning the new OS and getting used to its limitations. You will always have to make peace with some loss (or change) in functionality eventually, and you will adapt.
Every January for how many years in a row have we seen articles "Is xxxx the year of Linux??" Most Linux distros have gotten to the point that it "just works" on a fresh install "out of the box"...
Every January for how many years in a row have we seen articles "Is xxxx the year of Linux??"
Most Linux distros have gotten to the point that it "just works" on a fresh install "out of the box" for most people years ago.
Most "serious" apps (office suites, browsers, etc) have been mature enough for awhile now for home use. Where Linux failed most power gamers and home users was games. Now that Steam entered the fray that was/is a turning point.
Steam/Proton definately opens the door for serious discussion for home users and power gamers fed up with Microsoft's "dumbing down" of Windows on top of their spyware/adware centric designs.
If Microsoft pushes this idea of thin clients ahead, I honestly can see more people switching to a flavor of linux. The limitations will be 2 fold, IMO. The first will be the prebuilts coming with Windows. That inertia will be tough to fight. The second limitation will be education/community. Most of us are already tech support for our families so we can lead the charge on that front. I was already considering switching my parents over to Linux but drug my feet since they don't do much and I have their system locked down enough to not worry. I'm sure it would be an easy sell to explain that they would no longer have to pay the "Microsoft Tax" anymore when they get a new computer, won't have to pay for anti-virus subscriptions, etc yet they'll still be able to surf the internet news sites, watch youtube, etc.
I think you're right about steam being a part of the critical mass that might turn more onto linux, as well as windows getting increasingly more nutty. Just switched to linux last year, and also...
I think you're right about steam being a part of the critical mass that might turn more onto linux, as well as windows getting increasingly more nutty.
Just switched to linux last year, and also switched my mother over in the last 3mo as well. The real pivotal point was finding a company called System76 that sold pre-built ubuntu laptops since I could never get the USB method to work (and personally wanted some kind of real human support in case if I borked it up as a newbie). Having that expert on speed dial helped reduce the real fear/friction of switching over.
I think I'm that decision point where I have to decide if the convenience is worth it. I deleted my Reddit account knowing that there's no real alternative, and I was just going to have to relearn...
I think I'm that decision point where I have to decide if the convenience is worth it. I deleted my Reddit account knowing that there's no real alternative, and I was just going to have to relearn how to use rss feeds and return to old forums. I'm getting close to that point with Windows, where there'll be a downgrade to some of the things I do, and maybe that's fine. I have a Switch, at some point I'll get a Steam Deck, most of my games are old, and I know the deck can run emulators. I'm luckily in the strongest position to change that I've ever been.
But you're completely right. Some things won't work, and some things will require time and tinkering. That's frustrating, but I think Windows is going to get worse anyway.
As I recall, Microsoft (around Windows 8) wanted to make it so that you can only purchase applications through them which would be a major problem for Steam. At some point, I think Microsoft even...
God, I'm happy that Proton in Steam is such a success, and that the Steam Deck exists.
As I recall, Microsoft (around Windows 8) wanted to make it so that you can only purchase applications through them which would be a major problem for Steam. At some point, I think Microsoft even flirted with the idea of charging monthly for the use of Windows (like they do for most uses of Office). I think Microsoft really wants to eventually get to those points but is moving slowly. Making Windows something that is "in the cloud" could accomplish both restrictions of how to purchase software and the ability to charge monthly for using Windows.
Valve (who makes Steam) decided, at that time, to pursue Linux so as to make their own gaming platform OS and hardware. Their solution to the Microsoft problem is to simply not rely on Microsoft. Interesting how their efforts towards that point could eventually save their company in the end.
Why wait? Get some cheap e-waste hardware and start learning now, or install Windows Subsystem for Linux and tinker. You wait expecting to find some distro that will just be windows but linux in 2...
Why wait? Get some cheap e-waste hardware and start learning now, or install Windows Subsystem for Linux and tinker. You wait expecting to find some distro that will just be windows but linux in 2 years, you're gonna be disappointed. I hopped off windows a couple years back when my windows install corrupted unexpectedly for the umpteenth time and left me spending the weekend troubleshooting it instead of relaxing. I decided to install linux instead, expecting to be disappointed and switch back to windows like I did in years previous, but I didn't. I've played games day one site-unseen with proton, it's great.
All that said, I was able to do that because I've been tinkering with linux for 10 years on trash machines, so I knew how to troubleshoot issues as they appear, and won't get stuck without a usable system. I'd install linux on a VM, raspberry pi, WSL, whatever now, and start learning it.
EDIT: I'll also say, I love debian based distros, but for modern gaming hardware, spins like mint or PopOS are a trap, and a mess to get working. Anything new you're gonna want a rolling Arch system, or a system that prioritizes new hardware like Fedora or my favorite, Nobara, that specializes in gaming and just does all the things for you out of the box.
I have to wait because I share the desktop with my wife who wouldn't want to switch now. She doesn't want to move up to W11, but she quite likes W10. I was able to convince her to go to Linux once...
I have to wait because I share the desktop with my wife who wouldn't want to switch now. She doesn't want to move up to W11, but she quite likes W10. I was able to convince her to go to Linux once W10 was no longer a reasonable option.
I used Ubuntu (either exclusively or dual booting) when I was younger, so I'm reasonably confident I can figure out a new distro! I'm putting that caveat there because I legitimately don't know which will be the correct distro to switch to. For privacy, the one that I've seen recommended is Fedora, but I don't know enough about the lay of the land to commit.
And yeah, I think Proton is going to be a huge difference. I remember having to tinker with wine a lot back then. Which was fine when I had tons of free time, but that's not the case anymore.
I think you misunderstood, I was not recommending you wipe your main rig now, just tinker via Windows Subsystem for Linux (it's a thing you install on windows that lets you run linux programs in...
I think you misunderstood, I was not recommending you wipe your main rig now, just tinker via Windows Subsystem for Linux (it's a thing you install on windows that lets you run linux programs in windows via a linux container) or installing a linux Virtual Machine to tinker with, if spare hardware isn't around. Just jumping in blind is not a great thing, you're going to want to test the waters.
Oh sorry, I did misunderstand! I'm not that worried, I'm sure my Ubuntu experience must be worth something, at the very least. I'll follow your advice, that sounds like good training.
Oh sorry, I did misunderstand! I'm not that worried, I'm sure my Ubuntu experience must be worth something, at the very least. I'll follow your advice, that sounds like good training.
It might be a good idea to go on craigslist/your local used market of choice and buy the absolute cheapest x86 computer you can, no matter how bad the specs are. You can still easily get away with...
It might be a good idea to go on craigslist/your local used market of choice and buy the absolute cheapest x86 computer you can, no matter how bad the specs are. You can still easily get away with 4gb of ram and a pentium web browsing on a linux desktop, and lets you get comfortable with the differences between the OS's before you make a full switch.
I might do that. NZ had a shortage of... everything electronic a while ago, but I'm sure trademe has something. Do you know what the popular noob distros are these days. I've heard of fedora,...
I might do that. NZ had a shortage of... everything electronic a while ago, but I'm sure trademe has something.
Do you know what the popular noob distros are these days. I've heard of fedora, mint, opensuse. Is Ubuntu still a thing? Last I looked at it, there were like three different ways of installing programs and it seemed quite confusing.
Ubuntu is till a thing, but they are kinda trying to go the way of apple/Microsoft with the start of a walled garden. I would second mint. As for the different methods of installing software,...
Ubuntu is till a thing, but they are kinda trying to go the way of apple/Microsoft with the start of a walled garden. I would second mint.
As for the different methods of installing software, there are techically a lot, but as a normal user, you will only use 1 80+% of the time, and 1 other 19.9% of the time. Windows you usually download an EXE from some website. This is... horribly insecure, for reasons Ill get to later, and the equivalent on linux is kinda your last resort.
Your first stop, as it were, is the distribution repositories, kinda like a (non commercial) app store. The distribution repositories can be accessed either through a command line tool (called the package manager) or through a graphical user interface. Any software installed through the repos will be automatically kept up to date. A lot of distros also allow you to easily add third party repositories. You will use this one 80-90% of the time.
If the repositories dont have the software you want (or you need the newest version and the repos dont have it yet), then you look if the software offers an 'appimage' or 'flatpak'. This are... kinda like .exes, but they are a bit more isolated from your system, so the security is a little better. (they arent installers, they are the executables themselves, and you either need to run them directly, or move them into the proper place so your system can recognize them as installed programs. I think some of the more 'out of the box' distros will offer to do the move for you the first time you run them. You will use this one 9.9-19.9% of the time.
barring that, some projects give you a 'single command' to run to install them on any distro. Usually, this command downloads an installer program that does a bunch of things to install the program. This is probably the riskiest option, and should only ever be used for very reputable software. (these softwares should also have instructions on how to do it without downloading an arbitrary script.) This method you will probably use .1% of the time. (as in, good chance you never use it)
Finally, if the software isnt in the repos, and doesnt have a flatpak/appimage, and doesnt have an install script, your probably gonna have to download a tarball and follow instructions specific to the project to compile it from source. You will almost certainly never have to do this unless you are making your own changes to the program, or the program hasnt been updated in 20+ years. The main reason this is less risky than random install scripts is that you can (theoretically) inspect what the program is going to do ahead of time. of course, most people dont inspect the source for viruses for every program they install, so in practice, unless you are modifying the program yourself, this and install scripts are equally risky. Ive never actually used this method because it was the only way to install something, Ive only done it because its a piece of software I wrote or am modifying.
there are, of course other methods, for example many programming languages have their own repos and package managers, but unless your a dev or a sysadmin, you wont deal with those, just like no 4 (and most likely no 3.)
Now, this may seem like a lot, but really, windows also has 3 ways of installing things these days, its just that most users only use 1 of those methods.
is equivalent to the windows app store, except there are no paid programs on linux repos, and there is actual useful software in the repos, instead of well, the Microsoft store.
doesnt really have an equivalence in windows.
is equivalent to downloading an exe from whatever website, you are completely at the mercy of whoever wrote the program. The reliance on this, is IMO, the main reason why windows tends to be more vulnerable to malware, because users are conditioned to download random .exes from who-knows-where, and it becomes very easy to trick a user into running whatever code you want.
is equivalent to itself. While its much rarer for windows programs to give compilation instructions, if your a dev making windows programs, you still do this alot.
Thanks for the advice! It does sound like not a lot has changed. I used to basically follow omgubuntu's guides generally. Techy enough to find the terminal, but not techy enough to use it beyond...
Thanks for the advice! It does sound like not a lot has changed. I used to basically follow omgubuntu's guides generally. Techy enough to find the terminal, but not techy enough to use it beyond basic things or adding ppas, if those are still around.
The concern I saw, and I'm completely out of the debate, was people debating snap vs flatpak vs deb. I did see an omgubuntu article where it was a pain in the ass to get a non snap application (I think it was Firefox) on Ubuntu, where any change you made reverted it to snap. It seemed very apple-y.
But like I said, it's been a long time. I'd be started not from zero, but not far from that either.
yah, snap is the main reason I dont reccomend ubuntu anymore. As I said, if you can learn the top 2, (deb and appimage, flatpak isnt as popular, but flatpak and appimage are pretty much...
yah, snap is the main reason I dont reccomend ubuntu anymore. As I said, if you can learn the top 2, (deb and appimage, flatpak isnt as popular, but flatpak and appimage are pretty much identical), you will almost certianly never need to think about the others. Just think of the package manager as the app store and appimage as a .exe, and you wont be wrong in any ways that matter to you.
At the level most regular people use computers now, input lag is a non-issue. Boomers are still hunt-and-peck typing and Zoomers don't know how directory trees and file systems work. They just...
At the level most regular people use computers now, input lag is a non-issue. Boomers are still hunt-and-peck typing and Zoomers don't know how directory trees and file systems work. They just don't navigate these GUIs quickly enough that they'd notice lag. We've successfully produced 1.5-2 generations who know how to computer. No more. No less.
As a non-windows user who nonetheless needs to use Windows for compatibility/work reasons, this sounds like a great idea. I'd love to just run a client on my box that handles everything that needs to be close to the metal and, more or less, just ignore all the other Windows stuff unless it's necessary. But then, for me, this is just a way to not have to use Windows/use Windows as little as possible. I count that as an absolute win!
Of course, Microsoft will botch it. But in theory it could be great.
"We've successfully produced 1.5-2 generations who know how to computer. No more. No less." That is such an awful thought. A big part of me hopes that you are wrong, but I can see it. What will...
"We've successfully produced 1.5-2 generations who know how to computer. No more. No less."
That is such an awful thought. A big part of me hopes that you are wrong, but I can see it.
What will happen after these generations get out of the workforce?
It will become specialized knowledge not commonly known to all. For example, in my grandmother's generation basically every household had someone in it who could mend clothes themselves. And a...
It will become specialized knowledge not commonly known to all. For example, in my grandmother's generation basically every household had someone in it who could mend clothes themselves. And a generation before that every household had someone in it who could make simple clothes from fabric, not up to the standards of a professional tailor or dressmaker but serviceable nonetheless.
Now it's stuff you have to go out of your way to learn, and the people who know tend to be much more skilled and knowledgable than your average person back then. But the baseline level of knowledge is just not there. Folks don't even necessarily know how to sew a button back on anymore or fix a stitch, but that used to be a basic life skill that kids could do. As clothes got cheap to the point of being virtually disposable (your wardrobe used to be one of the most valuable things you owned) the importance of maintaining clothes became not worth the trouble.
Keep in mind that "Windows 365" (the cloud version) isn't something new. It's been around for 2 years, though really only available to organizations. They, and obviously organizations, see uses...
Keep in mind that "Windows 365" (the cloud version) isn't something new. It's been around for 2 years, though really only available to organizations.
They, and obviously organizations, see uses cases for this. Provisioning computers for temporary, or shift, workers (as some examples used in one of the linked articles). And it makes someone's "computer" potentially even accessible from something like their phone (because companies I'm sure would love employees having more immediate access to their work devices).
The company I work for hosts VDIs for our employees and let me tell you that security is the number one thing we focus on at all times. I would hope Microsoft would do the same but money seems to...
The company I work for hosts VDIs for our employees and let me tell you that security is the number one thing we focus on at all times. I would hope Microsoft would do the same but money seems to come first with them lately.
Yeah this is the same bogus idea as remote-gaming-for-everyone. It works in a few cases. Sure. And really really well in those, too. Sure. But as a general consumer system, it has inherently way...
Yeah this is the same bogus idea as remote-gaming-for-everyone.
It works in a few cases. Sure. And really really well in those, too. Sure. But as a general consumer system, it has inherently way too many ifs and buts.
I can see this effectively being the end of Microsoft OS in terms of corporate use if they follow through with it. Companies will need to fully reevaluate if they can trust a fully cloud-based OS...
I can see this effectively being the end of Microsoft OS in terms of corporate use if they follow through with it. Companies will need to fully reevaluate if they can trust a fully cloud-based OS (if they have IT worth their salaries).
It would be nice to give rise to a user base that understands Linux (or it's siblings), but the higher likelihood is that everyone will move to MacOS because it's easy to use and you can use the computer without needing an apple account (though having one makes everything easier).
Or it would give rise to others who learn how to pirate it another way or fully bring back the best OS of all time: Windows XP lol.
You'll never own anything again and like it. This is one of the reasons I've really grown to love Linux and free software. I'm still having to use proprietary software but my next purchase is...
You'll never own anything again and like it. This is one of the reasons I've really grown to love Linux and free software. I'm still having to use proprietary software but my next purchase is going to be a laptop that supports coreboot. I don't want to be tired in if I can. I imagine I'll be one of those crazy old coots.
I was spinning up a home lab with a Gigabyte B560 plus a 11400. Imagine my surprise to find in the firmware (UEFI) an "Install Gigabyte shitty software" option. If you leave it enabled, it...
I was spinning up a home lab with a Gigabyte B560 plus a 11400. Imagine my surprise to find in the firmware (UEFI) an "Install Gigabyte shitty software" option. If you leave it enabled, it installs the software automatically on Windows.
Gamers Nexus did a video on that, covering a recent security vulnerability caused by it. It's also speculated that ASUS will suffer something similar in the future because they can also install...
Gamers Nexus did a video on that, covering a recent security vulnerability caused by it.
It's also speculated that ASUS will suffer something similar in the future because they can also install Armoury Crate, their branded bloatware, from their UEFI.
My dream is a Framework Laptop, with Coreboot, and Linux. Except it's not available in my country, and I don't wanna use any freight forwarding because I want a warranty and support. Also Coreboot...
My dream is a Framework Laptop, with Coreboot, and Linux.
Except it's not available in my country, and I don't wanna use any freight forwarding because I want a warranty and support. Also Coreboot on it has been a vague maybe in the future.
System76 laptops look good, but shipping across the ocean is still very expensive. :(
And I'm reluctant to buy a different brand because I can't trust them. Even Dell, with whom I've only had good experiences with so far (they're my company's vendor), still can't convince me to pull the trigger and get a laptop from them.
My work Dell Latitude 5420 has been rock solid in my experience, but that's an enterprise product and I know for a fact that their consumer laptops are worse. Yeah, the dock is trash, I used it...
My work Dell Latitude 5420 has been rock solid in my experience, but that's an enterprise product and I know for a fact that their consumer laptops are worse.
Yeah, the dock is trash, I used it once and then left it to gather dust in a drawer.
I emailed Framework a few months ago and they said they can't share any of their future country expansion plans, but I keep my fingers crossed. I'm in Europe anyway, they surely should be able to figure out shipping to the entire EU sometime soon.
Huh, maybe I just ended up with a golden sample or something. To be fair we had some issues in the past with batteries quickly swelling up, but I also wasn't affected by that. Lenovo are fine from...
Huh, maybe I just ended up with a golden sample or something. To be fair we had some issues in the past with batteries quickly swelling up, but I also wasn't affected by that.
Lenovo are fine from what I've seen, they try to keep the ThinkPad line as traditional as possible, but no idea how they are from a reliability standpoint. I don't trust their consumer products either, anyway. Bought a mouse&keyboard bundle and the mouse broke in 2 months, and for warranty I would have had to send the entire bundle back instead of just the mouse.
This is just xendesktop v2 And anyone that has used any type of virtual desktop over bad internet knows how awful it can be. Plus Azure had sooooo many downtimes back when I was working somewhere...
This is just xendesktop v2
And anyone that has used any type of virtual desktop over bad internet knows how awful it can be. Plus Azure had sooooo many downtimes back when I was working somewhere that used it, not being able to use your computer because azure is down is gross
Personally I loved when Citrix went down at my workplace, it meant we could slack off and get paid. However I'd hate if my personal PC was remote-only.
Personally I loved when Citrix went down at my workplace, it meant we could slack off and get paid.
However I'd hate if my personal PC was remote-only.
I use Citrix Workspace for bidding software and it is absolutely trash. We come in and cannot get into Citrix workspace for half a day. We screw around a lot on those days too.
I use Citrix Workspace for bidding software and it is absolutely trash. We come in and cannot get into Citrix workspace for half a day. We screw around a lot on those days too.
Yeah, it's been one of my least favorite pieces of corporate software I've had the displeasure of using. Probably bested by CrowdStrike because when badly configured it's basically malware.
Yeah, it's been one of my least favorite pieces of corporate software I've had the displeasure of using.
Probably bested by CrowdStrike because when badly configured it's basically malware.
Meanwhile I'd rather be on a remote computer for work. I had a remote PC. Then they gave me a laptop with VPN. Then they took my remote PC away and I was stuck with the laptop and VPN. It sucks in...
Meanwhile I'd rather be on a remote computer for work.
I had a remote PC. Then they gave me a laptop with VPN. Then they took my remote PC away and I was stuck with the laptop and VPN. It sucks in comparison. I'd rather be on my home 27" monitor and mechanical keyboard than the laptop screen and keyboard.
If I was out of town, I could just use Citrix to RDP into the PC and check things. Now I've got to either say, "nope, I'm on vacation, didn't bring the laptop," or lug the laptop with me.
To be fair, I'm starting to lean into that direction too (besides the fact that Citrix sucks ass and I hope I will never have to use it again). I currently have to carry 2 laptops, one for work...
To be fair, I'm starting to lean into that direction too (besides the fact that Citrix sucks ass and I hope I will never have to use it again).
I currently have to carry 2 laptops, one for work and one for personal use, whenever I'm on the road, which is annoying. I'd rather keep my personal one and remote into the work laptop.
We have a fairly reliable VPN so I can just use Windows RDP and get all its niceties included, but I don't want to return the laptop because IT will murder me because of the things I've done to it. And I'm not sold on the idea of keeping it at home in a drawer and plugged in, and basically act as a server.
Ideally I could BYOD my own laptop and just keep the work stuff separate from personal stuff, but I'd have to figure out how to separate them. My laptop can only hold one BitLocker key at once, not sure if I can work around that to allow 2 BitLockers at once.
No BYOD for us on the company network. It's company provided equipment or Citrix. We can get Outlook / Teams installed on our phones but I've got no desire for that. VPN's okay. I'd just rather...
No BYOD for us on the company network. It's company provided equipment or Citrix. We can get Outlook / Teams installed on our phones but I've got no desire for that.
VPN's okay. I'd just rather not have my network handling any file transfers and leave it all on the company network. That and it's easier to kick off walk-away jobs on an on-network system. I can use screen or tmux if I remember to which isn't always the case. Then remember to, in addition to screen, run an anti-idle command so I don't get auto-logged out of the shell after an hour anyway.
I long for a world where everyone has access to cheap, speedy, and reliable internet to allow more consistent offloading of processes and storage. I was just speaking with my friend about game...
I long for a world where everyone has access to cheap, speedy, and reliable internet to allow more consistent offloading of processes and storage. I was just speaking with my friend about game streaming and the short lived google stadia, and how much potential a platform like that might have, if not in our current day and age.
I'd love a cheap little pc that seamlessly streams from some powerhouse server farm somewhere, but spotty internet and input lag ruins that experience for me.
Not to mention all of the people who enjoy having local hardware and building their own machines, I'm curious to see what data microsoft has to indicate that now is the time, because I expect some resistance to widespread adoption.
Game streaming is something I can get behind. I used to use a service called onlive that was fantastic. I had a crappy little overheating laptop and I could play AAA games at max settings. Being...
Game streaming is something I can get behind. I used to use a service called onlive that was fantastic. I had a crappy little overheating laptop and I could play AAA games at max settings.
Being able to run the program from a flash drive let me use my schools computer labs on nights that I wanted a new location.
If you're still in the market for something similar, Shadow has a similar product IIRC. It's been mostly positively reviewed, although the pricing is a bit prohibitive in my opinion. Personally...
If you're still in the market for something similar, Shadow has a similar product IIRC. It's been mostly positively reviewed, although the pricing is a bit prohibitive in my opinion.
Personally I've been really happy with GeForce NOW and PS4 Remote Play, although neither of these are equivalents. Both force you to play their available libraries of games (and you can't bring your own games), and PS4 Remote Play requires you to own a PS4/PS5.
This is really interesting. Thank you for letting me know. I actually have a pretty beefy machine now. Turns out being an adult with a paycheck is really conducive to having hobbies. But I will...
This is really interesting. Thank you for letting me know. I actually have a pretty beefy machine now. Turns out being an adult with a paycheck is really conducive to having hobbies. But I will definitely keep this in mind if future needs it arise.
In which case, you can also use Parsec, and/or Steam to play your libraries remotely. The only reason I stopped using Parsec is because it didn't handle steam controller input well.
In which case, you can also use Parsec, and/or Steam to play your libraries remotely.
The only reason I stopped using Parsec is because it didn't handle steam controller input well.
Thing is this market Microsoft is going for isn’t areas with bad traffic speeds. As Internet throughout and speed peaks - this future Microsoft dreams of becomes the reality. They will offer non...
Thing is this market Microsoft is going for isn’t areas with bad traffic speeds. As Internet throughout and speed peaks - this future Microsoft dreams of becomes the reality.
They will offer non streamed alternatives though. No military and many government agencies will never accept this.
Isn't this basically just the idea behind Chromebooks? Provide a very lightweight hardware and lock anything useful behind an internet connection. Microsoft probably wants to break into the school...
Isn't this basically just the idea behind Chromebooks? Provide a very lightweight hardware and lock anything useful behind an internet connection. Microsoft probably wants to break into the school devices market because its so heavily dominated by Chromebooks
You aren’t thinking cheap enough though. Running on the cloud means almost zero hardware on the consumers side. Just internet and a display. There is no way there is any barebones hardware that...
You aren’t thinking cheap enough though. Running on the cloud means almost zero hardware on the consumers side. Just internet and a display. There is no way there is any barebones hardware that could compete with performance and price in an environment with high traffic speeds.
Everything is going subscription (aka lease). Why? If you buy something, you amortize it for 3-5 years but you can probably use it for 10. There are people still running Office 2013 or Windows 7...
Everything is going subscription (aka lease). Why? If you buy something, you amortize it for 3-5 years but you can probably use it for 10. There are people still running Office 2013 or Windows 7 or that Dell PowerEdge xxxx. You can squeeze longevity out of something if you buy it.
If you go subscription, then this isn’t an option anymore. You pay to play and that’s it. You can expect everything to start going in this direction, not just Windows and tech but consumer goods and what have you.
My thoughts exactly. How many people out there still chugging along on Office 2007? How many people still driving a car from 20 years ago? If you can force this stuff into the cloud, you have the...
My thoughts exactly.
How many people out there still chugging along on Office 2007? How many people still driving a car from 20 years ago?
If you can force this stuff into the cloud, you have the constant stream of income, rather than trying to convince someone that they need new features. Plus once they're locked in to the system, you can forever increase the price.
sigh and in general people are happy to let this happen. Sure, some of us get annoyed, but most people don't seem to care (or at least don't notice the steps they carefully put people through to...
sigh and in general people are happy to let this happen. Sure, some of us get annoyed, but most people don't seem to care (or at least don't notice the steps they carefully put people through to get them used to the idea. For example physical media going away is one small step to get people more used to the idea and less likely to notice it happening until it's done).
This has been the direction Windows was going ever since 10 and possibly earlier. There is a reason that the "upgrades" to 10/11 are free and pushed as hard as they are. Linux is ready for most of...
This has been the direction Windows was going ever since 10 and possibly earlier. There is a reason that the "upgrades" to 10/11 are free and pushed as hard as they are.
Linux is ready for most of the tasks you would want out of it and the rest is incompatibility with proprietary hw and sw. If someone is coming from Windows it is more inconvenient because it has a different way of doing things. Windows did not have a priority of being a tool for the user at least since 10 so what else is to say there?
My kids may never know windows.... They use chromebooks and ipads in elementary school. Google HQ uses mostly chromebooks and mac. I could see it being a niche class in HS, but overall they will...
My kids may never know windows.... They use chromebooks and ipads in elementary school. Google HQ uses mostly chromebooks and mac. I could see it being a niche class in HS, but overall they will know Windows as well as i know a Mac (used a friends to google something like 5 times in my life)
Linux is ready for most of the tasks you would want out of it
I got a steam deck, so i got a USB hub/switch. I press a button and I'm using linux desktop and surprised how much easier it is.
You have windows changing the right click & start menu for the worst. renaming and hiding things. Still compatibility issues. (then the ads....)
On linux i'm like "oh that's handy" a lot, and theres a store to find whatever app i need. With steam moving gaming to linux... Azure and .Net working with linux, and windows getting worse and worse.... not sure how much longer it can force users to use it.
It seems like kids know of their Chromebook ("the computer") as being a thing that can browse the Internet... which their phone can also do. They do not know that "the computer" can run other...
My kids may never know windows.... They use chromebooks and ipads in elementary school.
It seems like kids know of their Chromebook ("the computer") as being a thing that can browse the Internet... which their phone can also do. They do not know that "the computer" can run other things (like games, applications, etc.) and so they seem to grow up as people who do not have any computer and just use their phone.
Schools like the Chromebooks because of their simplicity (of only doing limited things and being easily replicable). I think that teaches kids that computers are not much more than their phone with a larger screen...
That's what my sister is going through. She's used Windows before, and her school has Windows PCs only, but because she already had a phone before first using a PC, she doesn't see the need for...
That's what my sister is going through. She's used Windows before, and her school has Windows PCs only, but because she already had a phone before first using a PC, she doesn't see the need for one.
Her phone suits all her needs, even Minecraft (which was my last resort to getting her to use her computer, before a classmate told her there's a mobile version).
I'm concerned that she'll grow up not knowing how to perform basic tasks on a computer, which to me is a deal-breaker in today's (and clearly the future's) job market.
I just hope she will one day stumble upon something that does require a computer, and she'll actually have the patience to either learn to use it herself, or listen to me teaching her.
but so can chromebooks... most applications can be browser based (even offline). Photoshop can be done entirely in a browser now. PWA, system independent (iphone? android? mac? iPad? linux,...
an run other things (like games, applications, etc.)
but so can chromebooks... most applications can be browser based (even offline).
Photoshop can be done entirely in a browser now. PWA, system independent (iphone? android? mac? iPad? linux, steamdeck, it doesn't matter)
Microsoft was always afraid of the internet for this... Since any computer can use the internet, they loose their stranglehold.
Re: apps and programming too intensive for browser based (e.g. hogwarts legacy), You've got Android, Mac and iOS, Linux ... which are all similar architecture, now windows is the weird one and hogwarts runs great on linux.
I am a programmer and my apps compile to linux easily and azure is all linux too
Cloud/remote workstations function well when you have the infrastructure and control over the environment to support them well. My work environment is pretty much just a thin client to remote dev...
Cloud/remote workstations function well when you have the infrastructure and control over the environment to support them well. My work environment is pretty much just a thin client to remote dev boxes in shared infra, no noticeable latency via Chrome Remote Desktop even when working from home.
If we didn't own the infrastructure or didn't have such deep control over the stack it certainly wouldn't work as well though, nevermind what a consumer vs. enterprise experience would feel like.
I also use a remote workstation at my job and when we’re in the office things are generally very smooth. I’ve had to use it at times when working from home. The latency can be a bit jarring and a...
I also use a remote workstation at my job and when we’re in the office things are generally very smooth. I’ve had to use it at times when working from home. The latency can be a bit jarring and a fickle internet connection makes for a sometimes frustrating experience. In those cases I work locally and sync with the remote client later.
Now imagine that but I can’t work locally…this will likely be the thing that gets my spouse off of Windows entirely.
Turn an entire OS into a subscription seems like the idea to me. This world is broken. Bring us another one. Good thing there is still lots you can do with a Linux distribution for free. I just...
Turn an entire OS into a subscription seems like the idea to me. This world is broken. Bring us another one. Good thing there is still lots you can do with a Linux distribution for free. I just clean installed Ubuntu with KDE plasma desktop on my wife’s old 2011 MacBook Pro and it runs amazingly well. It’s a 12 year old machine! Now I know firsthand just how much Apple and Microsoft throttle their old devices to force new purchases. They could easily offer paired down versions of their updated software based on what a machine could run, but then we might not buy computers often enough. Dumb.
I've had no problem running my 2014 Macbook (or 2012, I don't even remember what year this is from, but I think it's an even year) and it doesn't even bug me to update (unlike my windows machine...
I've had no problem running my 2014 Macbook (or 2012, I don't even remember what year this is from, but I think it's an even year) and it doesn't even bug me to update (unlike my windows machine that I have for gaming that is constantly on me to update). It's what I'm using right now. Now my 2008 one won't run anything (the OS is too old and no browser even makes something to run on it and the old browser won't run any current webpages... and I'm talking Firefox, not safari).
Running MacOS I assume you mean? 2014 is believable. I also have a MacBook Air that is several years newer than the 2011 and it runs well. The 2011 would work as a web browser sure, but it was...
Running MacOS I assume you mean? 2014 is believable. I also have a MacBook Air that is several years newer than the 2011 and it runs well. The 2011 would work as a web browser sure, but it was really slow doing anything else. It runs much better on Linux. I also did it to run it as a smart home server. It worked okay doing it on MacOS, but if wifi was interrupted, it would not reconnect automatically. Small things like that made booting it on a much lighter OS a no brainer.
My company and my customers are excel power users and the office 365 online version of excel is trash. The desktop version has to stay exactly as it is otherwise we will all run to another data...
My company and my customers are excel power users and the office 365 online version of excel is trash.
The desktop version has to stay exactly as it is otherwise we will all run to another data product like alteryx / tableau etc. I’m sure basically all users of even moderately complex excel features would be annoyed by how crappy the web version is.
Huge misstep for Msft since their strongest moat is office and windows.
And even beyond windows people still choose windows to get to the proper windows version of office since the OSX and web versions are crap and the libre versions, while okay, good luck finding other people who know how to use it in a corporate environment.
It seems like my move to Linux is going to be accelerated pretty soon. All of my creative apps are on MacOS and Windows is literally just a gaming platform for me now. Guess what Windows? Steam...
It seems like my move to Linux is going to be accelerated pretty soon. All of my creative apps are on MacOS and Windows is literally just a gaming platform for me now. Guess what Windows? Steam runs fine on Linux.
That would be the final push I would need to fully transition to one of the many Linux distros. I'm already experimenting with Linux thanks to (finally) setting up my own home lab. I loathe cloud...
That would be the final push I would need to fully transition to one of the many Linux distros. I'm already experimenting with Linux thanks to (finally) setting up my own home lab. I loathe cloud based anything, and moving my entire OS onto the cloud sounds awful. So no thank you.
This is one of the dumbest ideas we might ever see. But I’m sure an executive pitched this without the slightest idea how to implement it and was just using flashy keywords to get attention from...
This is one of the dumbest ideas we might ever see. But I’m sure an executive pitched this without the slightest idea how to implement it and was just using flashy keywords to get attention from the older board members.
Not to mention, I’m sure users here remember when Microsoft tried implement this with a console a few years back, and it flopped so hard that Sony made fun of them when they went first at a gaming show.
I have a vision in my head of this sort of thing being the future (networking problems notwithstanding). Thin client devices which just stream the OS onto them, meaning that all the high-powered...
I have a vision in my head of this sort of thing being the future (networking problems notwithstanding). Thin client devices which just stream the OS onto them, meaning that all the high-powered processing happens in the cloud, and your device is just an end-point which pulls all the data in. The real killer will be when someone does this with a smartphone. Here's your new device, all of the processing and rendering happens elsewhere, and your phone just pulls it in and displays it to you. There's your multi-day battery life, right there.
I mean Remote Desktop Services has been around forever. Lots of companies implement it (although, on the local network) for security reasons. Low latency streaming also took off lately. So it...
I mean Remote Desktop Services has been around forever. Lots of companies implement it (although, on the local network) for security reasons. Low latency streaming also took off lately.
So it makes sense. In fact, everyday person would probably embrace it, since it would make things easier for them.
That'll be really bad IMO. Especially since I heavily use programs which are developed for Windows or MacOS and working with the latter only annoys me (Apple's autism is incompatible with mine...
That'll be really bad IMO. Especially since I heavily use programs which are developed for Windows or MacOS and working with the latter only annoys me (Apple's autism is incompatible with mine apparently).
I don't mind Linux at all, but especially Adobe stuff is lacking for that platform and some of the competitors which do run on Linux either don't have or have limited features to that.
This has to be one of the worst tech ideas I've ever seen. Imagine all the security issues this will cause. Furthermore what if someone doesn't have good internet? Whoops! My OS is lagging not because of my hardware but because of my internet. Even with internet : input lag. There's a thousand reasons I can imagine why this is a bad idea
This reads as some Microsoft manager decided that the cloud is cool because buzz words.
I'm sure the real reason is to reduce the chances of people pirating the software, force people to use a Microsoft account to operate the OS, and gather more analytics / push relevant ads to the user.
I feel like if pirating were the real reason, MS would implement some real protections against using Windows without activation. As it is right now, you can install Windows without activating it and use it forever.
So that leaves account and data collection, which sounds about right.
On top of that, it doesn't even make sense to really fight against consumers pirating Windows (which may cost more in lobbying, litigation and bad press than they make by selling those cheap licenses) while the real money comes from governments and corporations who pay hundreds of millions because they are locked into the ecosystem because the people who signed those contracts grew up with Windows because they could pirate it.
I addition to all of that, if Windows was difficult to pirate, it would hardly be used in huge markets such as Russia, India, China, and Brazil. It's better to be present without pay than letting generations of users grow up thinking that Linux is actually a great thing. Training costs are a huge consideration for government and corporate clients, and it's a huge advantage when users require no training to use your product.
Oh yeah for sure, even an experienced person wouldn't be able to see what exactly they would be doing in the cloud since they could always just run a layer under it to collect data from RAM. Sneakily stealing all your personal data and there's nothing you can do about it or know about it. Even though I don't like windows at least you can see what it's doing to a certain extent when it's on a physical device.
Yeah part of the appeal for companies with SaaS stuff is that you have total control over the platform. The benefits to the customer end when whatever the service is could have been run on their own hardware. Didn’t want to update today? Too bad the software isn’t “yours” and you don’t get to decide what happens with it. Don’t like a UX change? No rolling back.
They can then rollout any changes they want way easier, including more sophisticated monitoring changes or other things they want to impose that are in their interest, and not yours.
Ironically, Microsoft only got as big as it is because of piracy. Microsoft's ecosystem grew by leaps and bounds by letting the tech savvy and the younger people pirate Windows 3.1/95 as well as Office 95 and up.
Everything that is old is new again. Thin clients are in again!
Basically Piracy gets the users. The users tell the company what they know. The company pays big for those licenses.
Hell, I used to prefer Adobe over Avid simply because I could use my pirated Adobe at home to play around, meanwhile Avid needed that stupid USBs key.
Now my work computer essentially requires a reformat every year to update the stupid creative cloud license and I'm trying to convince my leadership to shift towards alternatives but for now they already paid for Adobe and they're stuck in that.
Additionally, my mom bought MS Office because I was already familiar with it because I had a pirated copy. She had been using WordPerfect for DOS for years up until she got a Windows 95 computer. My pirated copy influenced her into getting that first copy of MS Office and she's used nothing but different versions since.
Well, not sure about that one. If I'm not mistaken, Microsoft's servers still hand out Windows activation codes for free if you ask them "really nicely". Data-mining their users (pirates included) is probably far more profitable than making them buy a license.
That's most likely also the reason that you can use Windows 10 without a license, without (almost) any limitations
I highly doubt that. I don't even think the extent of data mining the dedicated ad companies do is worth as much as people think. I think they just hoodwink marketing people with fancy analytics telling them it's more effective than it probably is.
The actual value for Microsoft is to make themselves ubiquitous. The ubiquity means ecosystem/platform lock in. This is a way to make it so even Linux and Mac or Chromebook users cannot fully escape their orbit and, consequently, be incentivized to buy Microsoft software and/or do stuff in Azure.
Also consumer OS space is mostly dominated by OEM sales. Data-mining is a nice value-add and helps insure that consumers don't learn other OS.
The real money is in being able to shake down every company in existence.
What’s even better is that all the tools and analytics to evaluate how your marketing platform is doing are provided for you by your marketing platform. They’re basically filling out their own report card for you.
This is definitely a key reason--same with online only games. Windows has been a mainstay for a long time, but this would be a mistake in the same vein as Vista, 8, and 11
Yeah this is what I was thinking.
I bet piracy is a contributing factor. Isn't this just basically DRM in a sense, as having to always be online and authenticated that your access to their cloud servers is legit and paid for.
obviously, but what is the fake reason here? Windows is shitting the bed hard.
If it's hosted in the cloud, I'm guessing the marketing to customers would be less hardware requirements? Like how GeForce Now / Luna / etc. let you play games on high settings using anything that can support an internet connection.
Microsoft has been getting more lenient about piracy with recent windows versions. Hell, there’s been an instance of Microsoft Support using a crack script.
It reads like that, but Microsoft is hard with this and there are billions invested in the tech. There are even third party companies developing maintaining and supporting the cloud environment for less tech inclined people. There's conferences with hundreds of businesses attending that are drinking from this kool-aid. It's massive, massive, money and it's a solution to the hardware issues Microsoft has always faced made even more real by the Covid supply chain issue.
They very much don't care if you have bad internet. They're looking to make money off of businesses mainly, schools, orgs, and consumers with decent internet.
Thin clients ala chromebook are gonna be all the rage because all they'll do is boot you into the cloud. Linux only machines are also in the wild that have read only operating systems to just boot the remote desktop client.
Personally? This tech is absolute garbage. It's forced and still in development. They just figured out how to redirect the Webcam for teams and zoom. There's lag for the mic, audio quality gets compressed, and forget any other peripheral you have.
This tech is for one type of user. The one that just wants a machine that works for school or office work. It's a productivity product but shitty at personal use. Also it's not yours. You rent it. It's a money generating system with some upsides but lots of cons.
I imagine this could be a huge benefit to schools. Kids destroy laptops so quickly. So it makes a lot of sense to give them absolute garbage machines and then offload the actual work to a remote server.
I seriously doubt MS intends for all windows users to go cloud only when the trend seems to be swinging the other way with Apple showing most of the stuff currently done on cloud works better locally if you have the hardware.
From a techincal standpoint what you say is true. I'm not even sure if kids should even have iPads, laptops, etc. Books are still cheaper, more reliable, reusable* and isn't discriminatory in poor vs not. Give them access to it in school, 100%. Take away 1 elective a year and make technology classes required just like science, history and english.
*I say reusable because there is no reason other than greed by the publishers that Algebra I books need to ALL be replaced every few years because of "revisions" instead of a few here and there from normal wear and tear.
However, from a societal standpoint it normalizes this behavior. So the kids using that thin client today grows up thinking its normal not to own anything on their own computer tomorrow.
“You will own nothing and you will like it.”
This is obviously terrible for PC gamers or any other processing heavy work like photo/video editing. But like you said, this move is for their enterprise user.
Au contraire. The box itself is still gonna need to boot something that then has to log into the cloud machine. That something would ideally be a very barebones OS that just runs applications (at minimum the VM space), and there's no reason one of those applications can't be a game. In theory you could set it up in such a way that games run locally without having to set aside resources on any of the UI stuff.
Or it's just so bad that game devs switch to SteamOS/*nix, which I still count as a win.
Funny you say photo and video. They actually offer a cloud session with GPUs attached. They want you to do your CAD or gpu intensive work. They also market to the science community for computation heavy work.
Only thing holding someone back from gaming on the thing is the lack of peripheral support and the streamed image looking good as right now it piggy backs off of the RDP protocol and doesn't utilize hw acceleration client side.
So yeah, you will own nothing and like it. I can't be against this platform enough as a consumer. I understand the use cases and they may benefit, but damn please don't shove it down my throat.
For those who are not aware, Microsoft has a large swath of influence through the Consulting companies they work with through their Industry Solutions Partner Approach. These firms are the grunt workers of any large company and they all sell their products as being Microsoft forward. It's a sneaky way to have continuous influence without having a Monopoly, though it comes close.
All these Consulting Firms press their staff to become Azure certified because it's the BIG thing right now and the certification process honestly feels like a sales course. Microsoft effectively has legions of people selling Azure solutions to every client that walks through their door. It's a self-feeding loop for their business model and allows them to become cozy with constant streams of pay-as-you-go revenue.
Transitioning their OS to the Cloud is just another way to execute that stronghold. Already highly Azure dependent companies are going to be strong armed into this due to their dependency on the Microsoft stack. Microsoft isn't worried about getting money from the individual user with bad internet if they're able to throw their weight with these large business contracts.
I personally hate it though! Each day I work with offshore folks who are dependent on using virtual desktops hosted in Azure due to security reasons. Using that and attempting to screenshare active development with onshore through Teams is a daily struggle with connectivity issues. It hampers productivity and just adds extra stress to already difficult work.
Ah thank you! That sheds light on something I had been wondering about. The company I'm thinking of is Nerdio and they're slightly more than a consulting firm. Every course, however, they're pushing Microsoft hard and oftentimes have Microsoft speakers at their conventions. I always wondered what the relationship was between the two but skirting around regulation to have a legion of Microsoft reps pushing Azure down everyone's throats makes sense.
Every major cloud provider is doing the same, M$, AWS, Google, Oracle. I have worked with them all. The cloud providers don't have the Devs to directly support all the companies so 3rd party providers sometimes only support 1 cloud provider to keep salary and complexity down since they all do the same thing.
God, I'm happy that Proton in Steam is such a success, and that the Steam Deck exists. As soon as W10 is out of support, I'm moving to whatever distro is best supported and reasonably open source.
I got forced to update to W11 and it's such a mess. I'm running explorer patcher to fix the worst issues that W11 brought to the table. Sadly whenever I update my PC it completely breaks as explorer patcher is windows patch dependent... I'm also strongly considering moving to Linux but I think it needs a little more time. Whenever my friend is over and some multiplayer game breaks again because Linux doesn't work with windows it makes me sad, but it's reality.
Linux has been around for decades, and for the last few it’s always always “needed a little more time”. Certain things get easier and the difficulties get smoothed over a bit but it is very slow and it’s probably never going to be at the level where “it’s time”. The best gaming we get (and have ever gotten) in Linux is a wine compatibility layer variant rather than native support and for as long as that is reality we won’t escape the jank and unexpected game issues.
If you want to move from windows best to do it asap so you can start learning the new OS and getting used to its limitations. You will always have to make peace with some loss (or change) in functionality eventually, and you will adapt.
Every January for how many years in a row have we seen articles "Is xxxx the year of Linux??"
Most Linux distros have gotten to the point that it "just works" on a fresh install "out of the box" for most people years ago.
Most "serious" apps (office suites, browsers, etc) have been mature enough for awhile now for home use. Where Linux failed most power gamers and home users was games. Now that Steam entered the fray that was/is a turning point.
Steam/Proton definately opens the door for serious discussion for home users and power gamers fed up with Microsoft's "dumbing down" of Windows on top of their spyware/adware centric designs.
If Microsoft pushes this idea of thin clients ahead, I honestly can see more people switching to a flavor of linux. The limitations will be 2 fold, IMO. The first will be the prebuilts coming with Windows. That inertia will be tough to fight. The second limitation will be education/community. Most of us are already tech support for our families so we can lead the charge on that front. I was already considering switching my parents over to Linux but drug my feet since they don't do much and I have their system locked down enough to not worry. I'm sure it would be an easy sell to explain that they would no longer have to pay the "Microsoft Tax" anymore when they get a new computer, won't have to pay for anti-virus subscriptions, etc yet they'll still be able to surf the internet news sites, watch youtube, etc.
I think you're right about steam being a part of the critical mass that might turn more onto linux, as well as windows getting increasingly more nutty.
Just switched to linux last year, and also switched my mother over in the last 3mo as well. The real pivotal point was finding a company called System76 that sold pre-built ubuntu laptops since I could never get the USB method to work (and personally wanted some kind of real human support in case if I borked it up as a newbie). Having that expert on speed dial helped reduce the real fear/friction of switching over.
I think I'm that decision point where I have to decide if the convenience is worth it. I deleted my Reddit account knowing that there's no real alternative, and I was just going to have to relearn how to use rss feeds and return to old forums. I'm getting close to that point with Windows, where there'll be a downgrade to some of the things I do, and maybe that's fine. I have a Switch, at some point I'll get a Steam Deck, most of my games are old, and I know the deck can run emulators. I'm luckily in the strongest position to change that I've ever been.
But you're completely right. Some things won't work, and some things will require time and tinkering. That's frustrating, but I think Windows is going to get worse anyway.
What issues are you facing with Windows 11? Anecdotally, I find the OS to be modern and bug-free.
As I recall, Microsoft (around Windows 8) wanted to make it so that you can only purchase applications through them which would be a major problem for Steam. At some point, I think Microsoft even flirted with the idea of charging monthly for the use of Windows (like they do for most uses of Office). I think Microsoft really wants to eventually get to those points but is moving slowly. Making Windows something that is "in the cloud" could accomplish both restrictions of how to purchase software and the ability to charge monthly for using Windows.
Valve (who makes Steam) decided, at that time, to pursue Linux so as to make their own gaming platform OS and hardware. Their solution to the Microsoft problem is to simply not rely on Microsoft. Interesting how their efforts towards that point could eventually save their company in the end.
Why wait? Get some cheap e-waste hardware and start learning now, or install Windows Subsystem for Linux and tinker. You wait expecting to find some distro that will just be windows but linux in 2 years, you're gonna be disappointed. I hopped off windows a couple years back when my windows install corrupted unexpectedly for the umpteenth time and left me spending the weekend troubleshooting it instead of relaxing. I decided to install linux instead, expecting to be disappointed and switch back to windows like I did in years previous, but I didn't. I've played games day one site-unseen with proton, it's great.
All that said, I was able to do that because I've been tinkering with linux for 10 years on trash machines, so I knew how to troubleshoot issues as they appear, and won't get stuck without a usable system. I'd install linux on a VM, raspberry pi, WSL, whatever now, and start learning it.
EDIT: I'll also say, I love debian based distros, but for modern gaming hardware, spins like mint or PopOS are a trap, and a mess to get working. Anything new you're gonna want a rolling Arch system, or a system that prioritizes new hardware like Fedora or my favorite, Nobara, that specializes in gaming and just does all the things for you out of the box.
I have to wait because I share the desktop with my wife who wouldn't want to switch now. She doesn't want to move up to W11, but she quite likes W10. I was able to convince her to go to Linux once W10 was no longer a reasonable option.
I used Ubuntu (either exclusively or dual booting) when I was younger, so I'm reasonably confident I can figure out a new distro! I'm putting that caveat there because I legitimately don't know which will be the correct distro to switch to. For privacy, the one that I've seen recommended is Fedora, but I don't know enough about the lay of the land to commit.
And yeah, I think Proton is going to be a huge difference. I remember having to tinker with wine a lot back then. Which was fine when I had tons of free time, but that's not the case anymore.
I think you misunderstood, I was not recommending you wipe your main rig now, just tinker via Windows Subsystem for Linux (it's a thing you install on windows that lets you run linux programs in windows via a linux container) or installing a linux Virtual Machine to tinker with, if spare hardware isn't around. Just jumping in blind is not a great thing, you're going to want to test the waters.
Oh sorry, I did misunderstand! I'm not that worried, I'm sure my Ubuntu experience must be worth something, at the very least. I'll follow your advice, that sounds like good training.
It might be a good idea to go on craigslist/your local used market of choice and buy the absolute cheapest x86 computer you can, no matter how bad the specs are. You can still easily get away with 4gb of ram and a pentium web browsing on a linux desktop, and lets you get comfortable with the differences between the OS's before you make a full switch.
I might do that. NZ had a shortage of... everything electronic a while ago, but I'm sure trademe has something.
Do you know what the popular noob distros are these days. I've heard of fedora, mint, opensuse. Is Ubuntu still a thing? Last I looked at it, there were like three different ways of installing programs and it seemed quite confusing.
Ubuntu is till a thing, but they are kinda trying to go the way of apple/Microsoft with the start of a walled garden. I would second mint.
As for the different methods of installing software, there are techically a lot, but as a normal user, you will only use 1 80+% of the time, and 1 other 19.9% of the time. Windows you usually download an EXE from some website. This is... horribly insecure, for reasons Ill get to later, and the equivalent on linux is kinda your last resort.
Your first stop, as it were, is the distribution repositories, kinda like a (non commercial) app store. The distribution repositories can be accessed either through a command line tool (called the package manager) or through a graphical user interface. Any software installed through the repos will be automatically kept up to date. A lot of distros also allow you to easily add third party repositories. You will use this one 80-90% of the time.
If the repositories dont have the software you want (or you need the newest version and the repos dont have it yet), then you look if the software offers an 'appimage' or 'flatpak'. This are... kinda like .exes, but they are a bit more isolated from your system, so the security is a little better. (they arent installers, they are the executables themselves, and you either need to run them directly, or move them into the proper place so your system can recognize them as installed programs. I think some of the more 'out of the box' distros will offer to do the move for you the first time you run them. You will use this one 9.9-19.9% of the time.
barring that, some projects give you a 'single command' to run to install them on any distro. Usually, this command downloads an installer program that does a bunch of things to install the program. This is probably the riskiest option, and should only ever be used for very reputable software. (these softwares should also have instructions on how to do it without downloading an arbitrary script.) This method you will probably use .1% of the time. (as in, good chance you never use it)
Finally, if the software isnt in the repos, and doesnt have a flatpak/appimage, and doesnt have an install script, your probably gonna have to download a tarball and follow instructions specific to the project to compile it from source. You will almost certainly never have to do this unless you are making your own changes to the program, or the program hasnt been updated in 20+ years. The main reason this is less risky than random install scripts is that you can (theoretically) inspect what the program is going to do ahead of time. of course, most people dont inspect the source for viruses for every program they install, so in practice, unless you are modifying the program yourself, this and install scripts are equally risky. Ive never actually used this method because it was the only way to install something, Ive only done it because its a piece of software I wrote or am modifying.
there are, of course other methods, for example many programming languages have their own repos and package managers, but unless your a dev or a sysadmin, you wont deal with those, just like no 4 (and most likely no 3.)
Now, this may seem like a lot, but really, windows also has 3 ways of installing things these days, its just that most users only use 1 of those methods.
is equivalent to the windows app store, except there are no paid programs on linux repos, and there is actual useful software in the repos, instead of well, the Microsoft store.
doesnt really have an equivalence in windows.
is equivalent to downloading an exe from whatever website, you are completely at the mercy of whoever wrote the program. The reliance on this, is IMO, the main reason why windows tends to be more vulnerable to malware, because users are conditioned to download random .exes from who-knows-where, and it becomes very easy to trick a user into running whatever code you want.
is equivalent to itself. While its much rarer for windows programs to give compilation instructions, if your a dev making windows programs, you still do this alot.
Thanks for the advice! It does sound like not a lot has changed. I used to basically follow omgubuntu's guides generally. Techy enough to find the terminal, but not techy enough to use it beyond basic things or adding ppas, if those are still around.
The concern I saw, and I'm completely out of the debate, was people debating snap vs flatpak vs deb. I did see an omgubuntu article where it was a pain in the ass to get a non snap application (I think it was Firefox) on Ubuntu, where any change you made reverted it to snap. It seemed very apple-y.
But like I said, it's been a long time. I'd be started not from zero, but not far from that either.
yah, snap is the main reason I dont reccomend ubuntu anymore. As I said, if you can learn the top 2, (deb and appimage, flatpak isnt as popular, but flatpak and appimage are pretty much identical), you will almost certianly never need to think about the others. Just think of the package manager as the app store and appimage as a .exe, and you wont be wrong in any ways that matter to you.
At the level most regular people use computers now, input lag is a non-issue. Boomers are still hunt-and-peck typing and Zoomers don't know how directory trees and file systems work. They just don't navigate these GUIs quickly enough that they'd notice lag. We've successfully produced 1.5-2 generations who know how to computer. No more. No less.
As a non-windows user who nonetheless needs to use Windows for compatibility/work reasons, this sounds like a great idea. I'd love to just run a client on my box that handles everything that needs to be close to the metal and, more or less, just ignore all the other Windows stuff unless it's necessary. But then, for me, this is just a way to not have to use Windows/use Windows as little as possible. I count that as an absolute win!
Of course, Microsoft will botch it. But in theory it could be great.
"We've successfully produced 1.5-2 generations who know how to computer. No more. No less."
That is such an awful thought. A big part of me hopes that you are wrong, but I can see it.
What will happen after these generations get out of the workforce?
It will become specialized knowledge not commonly known to all. For example, in my grandmother's generation basically every household had someone in it who could mend clothes themselves. And a generation before that every household had someone in it who could make simple clothes from fabric, not up to the standards of a professional tailor or dressmaker but serviceable nonetheless.
Now it's stuff you have to go out of your way to learn, and the people who know tend to be much more skilled and knowledgable than your average person back then. But the baseline level of knowledge is just not there. Folks don't even necessarily know how to sew a button back on anymore or fix a stitch, but that used to be a basic life skill that kids could do. As clothes got cheap to the point of being virtually disposable (your wardrobe used to be one of the most valuable things you owned) the importance of maintaining clothes became not worth the trouble.
Keep in mind that "Windows 365" (the cloud version) isn't something new. It's been around for 2 years, though really only available to organizations.
They, and obviously organizations, see uses cases for this. Provisioning computers for temporary, or shift, workers (as some examples used in one of the linked articles). And it makes someone's "computer" potentially even accessible from something like their phone (because companies I'm sure would love employees having more immediate access to their work devices).
But ya, it's rife for security issues.
The company I work for hosts VDIs for our employees and let me tell you that security is the number one thing we focus on at all times. I would hope Microsoft would do the same but money seems to come first with them lately.
Yeah this is the same bogus idea as remote-gaming-for-everyone.
It works in a few cases. Sure. And really really well in those, too. Sure. But as a general consumer system, it has inherently way too many ifs and buts.
I can see this effectively being the end of Microsoft OS in terms of corporate use if they follow through with it. Companies will need to fully reevaluate if they can trust a fully cloud-based OS (if they have IT worth their salaries).
It would be nice to give rise to a user base that understands Linux (or it's siblings), but the higher likelihood is that everyone will move to MacOS because it's easy to use and you can use the computer without needing an apple account (though having one makes everything easier).
Or it would give rise to others who learn how to pirate it another way or fully bring back the best OS of all time: Windows XP lol.
No kidding.
What an awful idea.
You'll never own anything again and like it. This is one of the reasons I've really grown to love Linux and free software. I'm still having to use proprietary software but my next purchase is going to be a laptop that supports coreboot. I don't want to be tired in if I can. I imagine I'll be one of those crazy old coots.
I was spinning up a home lab with a Gigabyte B560 plus a 11400. Imagine my surprise to find in the firmware (UEFI) an "Install Gigabyte shitty software" option. If you leave it enabled, it installs the software automatically on Windows.
Coreboot should have more funding...
Gamers Nexus did a video on that, covering a recent security vulnerability caused by it.
It's also speculated that ASUS will suffer something similar in the future because they can also install Armoury Crate, their branded bloatware, from their UEFI.
My dream is a Framework Laptop, with Coreboot, and Linux.
Except it's not available in my country, and I don't wanna use any freight forwarding because I want a warranty and support. Also Coreboot on it has been a vague maybe in the future.
System76 laptops look good, but shipping across the ocean is still very expensive. :(
And I'm reluctant to buy a different brand because I can't trust them. Even Dell, with whom I've only had good experiences with so far (they're my company's vendor), still can't convince me to pull the trigger and get a laptop from them.
My work Dell Latitude 5420 has been rock solid in my experience, but that's an enterprise product and I know for a fact that their consumer laptops are worse.
Yeah, the dock is trash, I used it once and then left it to gather dust in a drawer.
I emailed Framework a few months ago and they said they can't share any of their future country expansion plans, but I keep my fingers crossed. I'm in Europe anyway, they surely should be able to figure out shipping to the entire EU sometime soon.
Huh, maybe I just ended up with a golden sample or something. To be fair we had some issues in the past with batteries quickly swelling up, but I also wasn't affected by that.
Lenovo are fine from what I've seen, they try to keep the ThinkPad line as traditional as possible, but no idea how they are from a reliability standpoint. I don't trust their consumer products either, anyway. Bought a mouse&keyboard bundle and the mouse broke in 2 months, and for warranty I would have had to send the entire bundle back instead of just the mouse.
This is just xendesktop v2
And anyone that has used any type of virtual desktop over bad internet knows how awful it can be. Plus Azure had sooooo many downtimes back when I was working somewhere that used it, not being able to use your computer because azure is down is gross
Personally I loved when Citrix went down at my workplace, it meant we could slack off and get paid.
However I'd hate if my personal PC was remote-only.
I use Citrix Workspace for bidding software and it is absolutely trash. We come in and cannot get into Citrix workspace for half a day. We screw around a lot on those days too.
Yeah, it's been one of my least favorite pieces of corporate software I've had the displeasure of using.
Probably bested by CrowdStrike because when badly configured it's basically malware.
Meanwhile I'd rather be on a remote computer for work.
I had a remote PC. Then they gave me a laptop with VPN. Then they took my remote PC away and I was stuck with the laptop and VPN. It sucks in comparison. I'd rather be on my home 27" monitor and mechanical keyboard than the laptop screen and keyboard.
If I was out of town, I could just use Citrix to RDP into the PC and check things. Now I've got to either say, "nope, I'm on vacation, didn't bring the laptop," or lug the laptop with me.
To be fair, I'm starting to lean into that direction too (besides the fact that Citrix sucks ass and I hope I will never have to use it again).
I currently have to carry 2 laptops, one for work and one for personal use, whenever I'm on the road, which is annoying. I'd rather keep my personal one and remote into the work laptop.
We have a fairly reliable VPN so I can just use Windows RDP and get all its niceties included, but I don't want to return the laptop because IT will murder me because of the things I've done to it. And I'm not sold on the idea of keeping it at home in a drawer and plugged in, and basically act as a server.
Ideally I could BYOD my own laptop and just keep the work stuff separate from personal stuff, but I'd have to figure out how to separate them. My laptop can only hold one BitLocker key at once, not sure if I can work around that to allow 2 BitLockers at once.
No BYOD for us on the company network. It's company provided equipment or Citrix. We can get Outlook / Teams installed on our phones but I've got no desire for that.
VPN's okay. I'd just rather not have my network handling any file transfers and leave it all on the company network. That and it's easier to kick off walk-away jobs on an on-network system. I can use screen or tmux if I remember to which isn't always the case. Then remember to, in addition to screen, run an anti-idle command so I don't get auto-logged out of the shell after an hour anyway.
I long for a world where everyone has access to cheap, speedy, and reliable internet to allow more consistent offloading of processes and storage. I was just speaking with my friend about game streaming and the short lived google stadia, and how much potential a platform like that might have, if not in our current day and age.
I'd love a cheap little pc that seamlessly streams from some powerhouse server farm somewhere, but spotty internet and input lag ruins that experience for me.
Not to mention all of the people who enjoy having local hardware and building their own machines, I'm curious to see what data microsoft has to indicate that now is the time, because I expect some resistance to widespread adoption.
Game streaming is something I can get behind. I used to use a service called onlive that was fantastic. I had a crappy little overheating laptop and I could play AAA games at max settings.
Being able to run the program from a flash drive let me use my schools computer labs on nights that I wanted a new location.
If you're still in the market for something similar, Shadow has a similar product IIRC. It's been mostly positively reviewed, although the pricing is a bit prohibitive in my opinion.
Personally I've been really happy with GeForce NOW and PS4 Remote Play, although neither of these are equivalents. Both force you to play their available libraries of games (and you can't bring your own games), and PS4 Remote Play requires you to own a PS4/PS5.
This is really interesting. Thank you for letting me know. I actually have a pretty beefy machine now. Turns out being an adult with a paycheck is really conducive to having hobbies. But I will definitely keep this in mind if future needs it arise.
In which case, you can also use Parsec, and/or Steam to play your libraries remotely.
The only reason I stopped using Parsec is because it didn't handle steam controller input well.
Thing is this market Microsoft is going for isn’t areas with bad traffic speeds. As Internet throughout and speed peaks - this future Microsoft dreams of becomes the reality.
They will offer non streamed alternatives though. No military and many government agencies will never accept this.
Isn't this basically just the idea behind Chromebooks? Provide a very lightweight hardware and lock anything useful behind an internet connection. Microsoft probably wants to break into the school devices market because its so heavily dominated by Chromebooks
You aren’t thinking cheap enough though. Running on the cloud means almost zero hardware on the consumers side. Just internet and a display. There is no way there is any barebones hardware that could compete with performance and price in an environment with high traffic speeds.
Everything is going subscription (aka lease). Why? If you buy something, you amortize it for 3-5 years but you can probably use it for 10. There are people still running Office 2013 or Windows 7 or that Dell PowerEdge xxxx. You can squeeze longevity out of something if you buy it.
If you go subscription, then this isn’t an option anymore. You pay to play and that’s it. You can expect everything to start going in this direction, not just Windows and tech but consumer goods and what have you.
My thoughts exactly.
How many people out there still chugging along on Office 2007? How many people still driving a car from 20 years ago?
If you can force this stuff into the cloud, you have the constant stream of income, rather than trying to convince someone that they need new features. Plus once they're locked in to the system, you can forever increase the price.
sigh and in general people are happy to let this happen. Sure, some of us get annoyed, but most people don't seem to care (or at least don't notice the steps they carefully put people through to get them used to the idea. For example physical media going away is one small step to get people more used to the idea and less likely to notice it happening until it's done).
This has been the direction Windows was going ever since 10 and possibly earlier. There is a reason that the "upgrades" to 10/11 are free and pushed as hard as they are.
Linux is ready for most of the tasks you would want out of it and the rest is incompatibility with proprietary hw and sw. If someone is coming from Windows it is more inconvenient because it has a different way of doing things. Windows did not have a priority of being a tool for the user at least since 10 so what else is to say there?
My kids may never know windows.... They use chromebooks and ipads in elementary school. Google HQ uses mostly chromebooks and mac. I could see it being a niche class in HS, but overall they will know Windows as well as i know a Mac (used a friends to google something like 5 times in my life)
I got a steam deck, so i got a USB hub/switch. I press a button and I'm using linux desktop and surprised how much easier it is.
You have windows changing the right click & start menu for the worst. renaming and hiding things. Still compatibility issues. (then the ads....)
On linux i'm like "oh that's handy" a lot, and theres a store to find whatever app i need. With steam moving gaming to linux... Azure and .Net working with linux, and windows getting worse and worse.... not sure how much longer it can force users to use it.
It seems like kids know of their Chromebook ("the computer") as being a thing that can browse the Internet... which their phone can also do. They do not know that "the computer" can run other things (like games, applications, etc.) and so they seem to grow up as people who do not have any computer and just use their phone.
Schools like the Chromebooks because of their simplicity (of only doing limited things and being easily replicable). I think that teaches kids that computers are not much more than their phone with a larger screen...
That's what my sister is going through. She's used Windows before, and her school has Windows PCs only, but because she already had a phone before first using a PC, she doesn't see the need for one.
Her phone suits all her needs, even Minecraft (which was my last resort to getting her to use her computer, before a classmate told her there's a mobile version).
I'm concerned that she'll grow up not knowing how to perform basic tasks on a computer, which to me is a deal-breaker in today's (and clearly the future's) job market.
I just hope she will one day stumble upon something that does require a computer, and she'll actually have the patience to either learn to use it herself, or listen to me teaching her.
but so can chromebooks... most applications can be browser based (even offline).
Photoshop can be done entirely in a browser now. PWA, system independent (iphone? android? mac? iPad? linux, steamdeck, it doesn't matter)
Microsoft was always afraid of the internet for this... Since any computer can use the internet, they loose their stranglehold.
Re: apps and programming too intensive for browser based (e.g. hogwarts legacy), You've got Android, Mac and iOS, Linux ... which are all similar architecture, now windows is the weird one and hogwarts runs great on linux.
I am a programmer and my apps compile to linux easily and azure is all linux too
Cloud/remote workstations function well when you have the infrastructure and control over the environment to support them well. My work environment is pretty much just a thin client to remote dev boxes in shared infra, no noticeable latency via Chrome Remote Desktop even when working from home.
If we didn't own the infrastructure or didn't have such deep control over the stack it certainly wouldn't work as well though, nevermind what a consumer vs. enterprise experience would feel like.
I also use a remote workstation at my job and when we’re in the office things are generally very smooth. I’ve had to use it at times when working from home. The latency can be a bit jarring and a fickle internet connection makes for a sometimes frustrating experience. In those cases I work locally and sync with the remote client later.
Now imagine that but I can’t work locally…this will likely be the thing that gets my spouse off of Windows entirely.
Turn an entire OS into a subscription seems like the idea to me. This world is broken. Bring us another one. Good thing there is still lots you can do with a Linux distribution for free. I just clean installed Ubuntu with KDE plasma desktop on my wife’s old 2011 MacBook Pro and it runs amazingly well. It’s a 12 year old machine! Now I know firsthand just how much Apple and Microsoft throttle their old devices to force new purchases. They could easily offer paired down versions of their updated software based on what a machine could run, but then we might not buy computers often enough. Dumb.
I've had no problem running my 2014 Macbook (or 2012, I don't even remember what year this is from, but I think it's an even year) and it doesn't even bug me to update (unlike my windows machine that I have for gaming that is constantly on me to update). It's what I'm using right now. Now my 2008 one won't run anything (the OS is too old and no browser even makes something to run on it and the old browser won't run any current webpages... and I'm talking Firefox, not safari).
Running MacOS I assume you mean? 2014 is believable. I also have a MacBook Air that is several years newer than the 2011 and it runs well. The 2011 would work as a web browser sure, but it was really slow doing anything else. It runs much better on Linux. I also did it to run it as a smart home server. It worked okay doing it on MacOS, but if wifi was interrupted, it would not reconnect automatically. Small things like that made booting it on a much lighter OS a no brainer.
Yep. Not sure which os it is on (I am really bad about updating).
My company and my customers are excel power users and the office 365 online version of excel is trash.
The desktop version has to stay exactly as it is otherwise we will all run to another data product like alteryx / tableau etc. I’m sure basically all users of even moderately complex excel features would be annoyed by how crappy the web version is.
Huge misstep for Msft since their strongest moat is office and windows.
And even beyond windows people still choose windows to get to the proper windows version of office since the OSX and web versions are crap and the libre versions, while okay, good luck finding other people who know how to use it in a corporate environment.
It seems like my move to Linux is going to be accelerated pretty soon. All of my creative apps are on MacOS and Windows is literally just a gaming platform for me now. Guess what Windows? Steam runs fine on Linux.
Bye soon.
That would be the final push I would need to fully transition to one of the many Linux distros. I'm already experimenting with Linux thanks to (finally) setting up my own home lab. I loathe cloud based anything, and moving my entire OS onto the cloud sounds awful. So no thank you.
This is one of the dumbest ideas we might ever see. But I’m sure an executive pitched this without the slightest idea how to implement it and was just using flashy keywords to get attention from the older board members.
Not to mention, I’m sure users here remember when Microsoft tried implement this with a console a few years back, and it flopped so hard that Sony made fun of them when they went first at a gaming show.
Does anyone remember G.ho.st. I remember using it back in the day, at the time it felt like the future, and now... is the future again?
I have a vision in my head of this sort of thing being the future (networking problems notwithstanding). Thin client devices which just stream the OS onto them, meaning that all the high-powered processing happens in the cloud, and your device is just an end-point which pulls all the data in. The real killer will be when someone does this with a smartphone. Here's your new device, all of the processing and rendering happens elsewhere, and your phone just pulls it in and displays it to you. There's your multi-day battery life, right there.
I mean Remote Desktop Services has been around forever. Lots of companies implement it (although, on the local network) for security reasons. Low latency streaming also took off lately.
So it makes sense. In fact, everyday person would probably embrace it, since it would make things easier for them.
That'll be really bad IMO. Especially since I heavily use programs which are developed for Windows or MacOS and working with the latter only annoys me (Apple's autism is incompatible with mine apparently).
I don't mind Linux at all, but especially Adobe stuff is lacking for that platform and some of the competitors which do run on Linux either don't have or have limited features to that.