Android Apps on Windows is pretty good, but why the fuck does it run through the Amazon App Store? On the rest, I honestly don't know what to think. It doesn't seem like such a big update to...
Android Apps on Windows is pretty good, but why the fuck does it run through the Amazon App Store?
On the rest, I honestly don't know what to think. It doesn't seem like such a big update to warrant a new Windows version. Teams is now somehow native to Windows, which I don't entirely understand because it already comes preinstalled anyway, and I don't know what to think about the design updates. W10 is a mess from a design perspective, and if it finally actually becomes unified, that's a big step forward. But it seems like they cared more about 2in1s and tablets than desktop PCs. Which I guess makes sense, but it doesn't give me a reason to update.
Also, all we saw was the start menu and the microsoft store. What about the explorer? That finally getting an update? I really don't care about widgets, they make no sense on a Desktop PC, because I can just multitask, I don't need a feed. The gaming features are kinda neat. Direct Storage and Auto HDR are a big bonus, but why the fuck did they show off Skyrim, a really old fucking game with it?
Also all the emotional talk at the start was cringe. Who the fuck cares?
AutoHDR's big ability is to inject HDR into old games where there wasn't any before, and Skyrim is probably the last of Microsoft's catalogue of last-gen video games that can still be considered...
but why the fuck did they show off Skyrim, a really old fucking game with it?
AutoHDR's big ability is to inject HDR into old games where there wasn't any before, and Skyrim is probably the last of Microsoft's catalogue of last-gen video games that can still be considered "current" enough to show that AutoHDR works on many older titles.
They really want that Apple flourish. This'll turn in to a yearly thing, just like Google, where they roll out windows 12/13/14 and try to get people to care. The look and feel of the presentation...
They really want that Apple flourish. This'll turn in to a yearly thing, just like Google, where they roll out windows 12/13/14 and try to get people to care. The look and feel of the presentation is just like an Apple presentation, but you know that under the hood, nothing is going to really change because they're chained to the Enterprise market. I wonder if they'll ship Internet Explorer with it.
This is why internal services are becoming extinct and being replaced by online services. Everything you listed there has an excellent online service available for it. Sure the switch to something...
This is why internal services are becoming extinct and being replaced by online services. Everything you listed there has an excellent online service available for it. Sure the switch to something new is expensive but the benefit is you no longer have to maintain or develop it. It just stays up to date and works on everything.
Honestly I like that versioning system better. If I need to figure out the capabilities of someone’s computer, I need to ask the version number. For macOS, that tells me exactly what I need to...
Honestly I like that versioning system better. If I need to figure out the capabilities of someone’s computer, I need to ask the version number. For macOS, that tells me exactly what I need to know. For windows, I have to try and remember if 1803 or 20H1 is a modern or ancient version of windows 10. It would be so much better if Microsoft went to a Major.Minor versioning scheme.
I mean, they kind of do. 1803 is the update released in March 2018. 20H1 is the update released in "half 1" of 2020. (I don't know why they changed to half-years over months, but it's still semantic.)
I mean, they kind of do. 1803 is the update released in March 2018. 20H1 is the update released in "half 1" of 2020. (I don't know why they changed to half-years over months, but it's still semantic.)
Once you know the formula, you are correct. But it also does not convey any significance of the update. Compare this to the Apple style. 11.0 is the newly released version. 11.1 is a minor update....
Once you know the formula, you are correct. But it also does not convey any significance of the update.
Compare this to the Apple style. 11.0 is the newly released version. 11.1 is a minor update. 11.1.1 is a bugfix release.
Was 1803 the update that changed almost everything, almost like a service pack, or was it just a minor update?
An operating system, especially a desktop OS should be boring and gtfo of the way. I'm seeing a worrying trends towards tablet-centric design which is the opposite of getting out of the way. If...
An operating system, especially a desktop OS should be boring and gtfo of the way. I'm seeing a worrying trends towards tablet-centric design which is the opposite of getting out of the way. If your design goal is to make your OS usable with a thumb, you cut shit out and do awkward compromises. I don't want to use Excel with my thumb.
Widgets, another push for the store (with Windows "not taking a cut" which sounds like a preparation to avoid the backlash from finally make it mandatory), more apps integrated on a system level and a bunch of weird gesture stuff. It looks like mostly ballast with there being a way to disable it at best and nothing but problems at the worst.
Tablet-centric is really easy to market. An advertisement that shows users dragging their fingers across the screen is super comprehendible. Never mind that it's less precise, leaves smudges on...
Tablet-centric is really easy to market. An advertisement that shows users dragging their fingers across the screen is super comprehendible. Never mind that it's less precise, leaves smudges on the screen, and requires the larger UI.
They probably can't but they want to, so bad. It's painfully obvious. I first made a Microsoft account last month because they absolutely forced me to use the app store. Predictably, the...
They probably can't but they want to, so bad. It's painfully obvious.
I first made a Microsoft account last month because they absolutely forced me to use the app store. Predictably, the experience was horrible.
I don't think they want to at all. It does not fit with their current MO. It would essentially mean killing a lot of features and functionality they have invested heavily in over the last decade....
I don't think they want to at all. It does not fit with their current MO. It would essentially mean killing a lot of features and functionality they have invested heavily in over the last decade. The changes coming to the store in Windows 11 are a step further away from a walled garden. The fact that they are open-sourcing so many core windows utilities and components also makes it seem really far away from their minds.
Well, their current MO is going all-service. Everything's a subscription. I don't think the store is necessarily about taking a cut from other companies' sales (although I most certainly believe...
Well, their current MO is going all-service. Everything's a subscription. I don't think the store is necessarily about taking a cut from other companies' sales (although I most certainly believe they'd try, if they saw any way to get away with that), it's more about getting people into their ecosystem with an account and a credit card attached.
I installed Windows 10 without opening a Microsoft account, which must bother them greatly. I'm not sure you still can and you certainly won't be able to in Windows 11. I'm also sure they'll kill of the non-365 Office options soon. I'm pretty sure their ideal Windows would basically grow outward from the Store as its center.
This is actually old behavior. If you build a current Windows 10 installer with the media creation kit, the setup process has an option during the user account creation screen to make an offline...
the current behavior where you have to refuse to set up an internet connection before you can proceed with installing without an account.
This is actually old behavior. If you build a current Windows 10 installer with the media creation kit, the setup process has an option during the user account creation screen to make an offline account, regardless if your PC has internet connectivity.
They did. I've recently done installs of 2004 and 21H1 and both let me set up a local account without unplugging the ethernet cable. I definitely do remember when this was not the case. I'm not...
They did. I've recently done installs of 2004 and 21H1 and both let me set up a local account without unplugging the ethernet cable.
I definitely do remember when this was not the case. I'm not sure when the change happened.
The leaked Windows 11 build has an offline login option in the new setup UI. When Windows 10 first launched, they made this rather difficult but these days it's just an (under-emphasized) option...
The leaked Windows 11 build has an offline login option in the new setup UI. When Windows 10 first launched, they made this rather difficult but these days it's just an (under-emphasized) option during the setup process.
Seeing that Microsoft removed that option If you connect to the internet during install, I wouldn't say that it's 'under-emphasized', I'd call it a dark pattern.
Seeing that Microsoft removed that option If you connect to the internet during install, I wouldn't say that it's 'under-emphasized', I'd call it a dark pattern.
The video I saw of the setup process didn't require the VM to be disconnected from the internet, the offline account option was just hidden behind another button on the account setup screen. This...
The video I saw of the setup process didn't require the VM to be disconnected from the internet, the offline account option was just hidden behind another button on the account setup screen. This is similar to how current versions of Windows 10 operate.
I don't think it even goes as far as fear of antitrust action. Windows' current software ecosystem is it's biggest asset in the marketplace right now. Killing that leaves Microsoft customers with...
I don't think it even goes as far as fear of antitrust action. Windows' current software ecosystem is it's biggest asset in the marketplace right now. Killing that leaves Microsoft customers with no real reason not to move to ChromeOS or macOS. It would also go against the very open source, developer, and power-user friendly attitudes they have adopted under Satya Nadella. I don't see how they invest so heavily in features like Hyper-V and WSL only to turn around in a few years and completely kill them for the sake of locking consumers into an app store.
Is Apple still in court over the App Store antitrust stuff? If that’s cleared I don’t see why Microsoft couldn’t do it. I don’t think they would. But they probably wouldn’t get sued if they did.
Is Apple still in court over the App Store antitrust stuff? If that’s cleared I don’t see why Microsoft couldn’t do it.
I don’t think they would. But they probably wouldn’t get sued if they did.
Then there is this. That's going to be a hard pass for me. The TPM of the Dell XPS I'm writing this on died a few months ago, so I guess this laptop isn't getting upgraded. Also, neither of the...
Then there is this. That's going to be a hard pass for me. The TPM of the Dell XPS I'm writing this on died a few months ago, so I guess this laptop isn't getting upgraded. Also, neither of the two desktops I built last year have TPM.
Edit:
I did find this, but doesn’t help me with my XPS, and I don’t see the TPM in the bios of one of my machines.
Eww. That's a hard pass on Microsoft from me as well, then. Time to retire my old Win7 and move to a linux desktop. Now I just have to settle on a distro I'll be happy with for several years...
Eww. That's a hard pass on Microsoft from me as well, then. Time to retire my old Win7 and move to a linux desktop. Now I just have to settle on a distro I'll be happy with for several years...
I hate the centered look of the start menu, how annoying is it that it will pop up right between the windows you snap to the left and right side of the screen? Ugh, whatever, at least I don't use...
I hate the centered look of the start menu, how annoying is it that it will pop up right between the windows you snap to the left and right side of the screen? Ugh, whatever, at least I don't use the start menu often.
The app snapping is nice. Android apps running natively is nice. Does this warrant an upgrade on anything but my laptop? Probably not.
My first thought was that they made the MacOS Dock, but worse. Honestly, absolutely none of this excites me in any way, and most of these things are irritating. The new visuals are irritating to...
My first thought was that they made the MacOS Dock, but worse.
Honestly, absolutely none of this excites me in any way, and most of these things are irritating. The new visuals are irritating to me because now everything looks like a cheap, unimaginative web app. Integrating Teams means that there's one more annoyance that I have to disable, and being able to run android apps is of questionable utility (seriously, you're running an operating system that is backwards compatible with generations of software that is not only more capable and better designed, but are actually meant to work with mouse and keyboard).
The only thing I actually think are improvements is the new window behavior, especially in regards to multi-monitor support. I think they were long overdue, but I'm still glad to see them. But overall, I really don't see any compelling technological reasons to upgrade (though I'm mostly saying that because I'm assuming that DirectStorage will work on Windows 10 as well)
From my understanding directstorage is exclusive to windows 11. I’m not worried about it though, I don’t have a gpu or ssd that can take advantage of it let alone a chipset. I literally have no...
From my understanding directstorage is exclusive to windows 11. I’m not worried about it though, I don’t have a gpu or ssd that can take advantage of it let alone a chipset. I literally have no reason to use windows 11.
First, as a designer myself I recognize that the task of modernizing Windows is an uber monumental challenge that I do not envy. I salute the Microsoft designers, PMs, and engineers. There are a...
First, as a designer myself I recognize that the task of modernizing Windows is an uber monumental challenge that I do not envy. I salute the Microsoft designers, PMs, and engineers.
There are a lot of things on the interface side that I love and hate about this update.
Love:
Mostly little visual refinements here and there.
A biggie: visual differentiation and area demarcation of frame and frame depths within application windows, through the use of borders, foreground/midground/background colors, shadows, and translucency. In Windows 10, different frames are very difficult to see when not in motion. Everything in Windows 10 just... mushes together in one big quadrilateral blob. Right now, the grey Tildes footer literally appears solidly conjoined with my grey taskbar. Many things visually bleed into other things without visual demarcation of area and borders. It's not always immediately clear where one things ends and another begins. My visual cortex hurts from trying to cognitively group and categorize on-screen elements.
A biggie: the window snapping appears very well done. The user is offered six layout configurations that cover most layout needs. The way the user is presented with window choices also appears well-implemened.
Subtle rounded corners. The ubiquity of hard corners in Windows 8 and 10 gave the OS a very harsh look.
New settings looks significantly better.
Windows' continued transition away from flat icons to 2.5D icons, and incremental improvement on system icons (at the least ones I saw). I think that the old/current system icons look bad; horrible when enlarged. I also find that many old/existing system icons are inadequate in communicating their meaning, like Multitasking (looks like a blind curtain with a pull cord), New Tab (looks like checker cookies), Devices (looks like some weird DJ turntable with an early 2000s swivel-out keyboard), Time & Language (waaay too much going on, icons should be conceptually succinct), VPN (looks like ovaries), Screen Snip (looks like a vasectomy operation), Speech Microphone (looks like a rectangular popsicle bar, not a microphone)... I could go on all day, heh.
Hate:
Centered taskbar. I know the traditional left-aligned taskbar is available. But the centered option is super awkward as it leaves the left taskbar area visually empty and interactively useless despite that area being incredibly valuable real estate. Wasted opportunity.
Oversized notifications still around. In Windows 10 on my Surface Pro a notification can take up between 1/8 to 1/6 of vertical real estate. Seems that Windows 11 doesn't really change this.
Here's the official post on the Windows blog: Introducing Windows 11 And a separate post on the Xbox blog with some gaming-specific info: Windows 11: The Best Windows Ever for Gaming
Getting excited for a new OS seems so outdated, for better or worse. How could this release actually excite me? What could it possibly have to make me desperately want it? I have no idea. Don't...
Getting excited for a new OS seems so outdated, for better or worse. How could this release actually excite me? What could it possibly have to make me desperately want it? I have no idea. Don't even think that is possible at this juncture. The things I'm concerned with are not revolutionary at all, mainly performance and stability. I'd bet most people don't give a rats ass for pretty modern UIs, they just want their stuff to run. That's basically the same feeling I get from next gen consoles. Cool, but meh...
You will be able to sideload Android Apps per The Verge. That would be fantastic if you want access to Yalp Store, Aurora, or Fdroid apps, or anything else you would want access too.
You will be able to sideload Android Apps per The Verge. That would be fantastic if you want access to Yalp Store, Aurora, or Fdroid apps, or anything else you would want access too.
I've already told myself that my next gaming rig will be a Linux one. Linux is finally at the point where it can run most games either natively or via Wine & DXVK or VKD3D with minor performance...
I've already told myself that my next gaming rig will be a Linux one. Linux is finally at the point where it can run most games either natively or via Wine & DXVK or VKD3D with minor performance losses at worst. Microsoft haven't really made their case to convince me to stick to their ecosystem.
You may think it's dumb for me to want to switch, but most of the games I play/want to play either run natively on Linux, or run decently well via alternative means. As somebody who was previously forced to use Ubuntu back in 2007, Linux has progressed by leaps and bounds to become a viable alternative. Back in those days Vulkan didn't even exist, Steam barely functioned as an online marketplace let alone a launcher, and there was no kind of layer that would translate DirectX instructions into those of another graphical API.
Windows 11 looks... okay. I'm not that impressed with them more blatantly ripping off Apple's shtick, or trying to pander to the mobile crowd by making their user interface more like a mobile OS, or by allowing it to run Android apps.
My prime grievance with Windows 10 isn't the invasive telemetry data collection, or that it feels like WIndows 8 with the classic Windows Start menu slapped on in lieu of the crappy Metro interface, but rather how buggy and barely functional the system has been. When I first made the switch from 8.1 to 10, installing Windows updates were a massive pain in the arse with updates often failing due to corrupt system files, drivers, etc. I also had frequent problems with the Start menu simply not opening.
It actually took me about three reinstalls to get the OS in proper working order and that was on a brand new PC I purchased back in mid-2015 mere weeks before Windows 10 was even launched...
I made the hop two years ago, and I'm very happy with it. There are definitely some sacrifices with gaming on Linux, but I'm honestly impressed at how many Windows-only games run without issue....
I've already told myself that my next gaming rig will be a Linux one. Linux is finally at the point where it can run most games either natively or via Wine & DXVK or VKD3D with minor performance losses at worst.
I made the hop two years ago, and I'm very happy with it. There are definitely some sacrifices with gaming on Linux, but I'm honestly impressed at how many Windows-only games run without issue. Valve's Proton initiative has been a godsend.
I've heard a few years ago that The Witcher 3 ran via DXVK at a 30% lower framerate compared to natively on DirectX 9. Is the performance hit that dramatic?
I've heard a few years ago that The Witcher 3 ran via DXVK at a 30% lower framerate compared to natively on DirectX 9. Is the performance hit that dramatic?
I haven't done side-by-side comparisons or anything, but I was able to run The Witcher 3 flawlessly with no setup via Proton (which uses DXVK). You can see the ProtonDB reports here which are...
I haven't done side-by-side comparisons or anything, but I was able to run The Witcher 3 flawlessly with no setup via Proton (which uses DXVK). You can see the ProtonDB reports here which are almost universally positive. Some games definitely won't work this well (or at all), but a good number of Windows games "Just Work". It's actually gotten to the point where I'm not sure which games I've played have native Linux builds and which are Windows games running through Proton.
I’m sure it will be recommended to use Ubuntu or manjaro, but if you do make the switch I would highly recommend SolusOS. Every once in a while I will give one of the Ubuntu flavors a try but I...
I’m sure it will be recommended to use Ubuntu or manjaro, but if you do make the switch I would highly recommend SolusOS. Every once in a while I will give one of the Ubuntu flavors a try but I always end up back at Solus.
I find their curation to be more frustrating than not, anymore. No btrfs install options? No way to install from other distros, their weird insistence on ripping out Wayland and anything using...
I find their curation to be more frustrating than not, anymore. No btrfs install options? No way to install from other distros, their weird insistence on ripping out Wayland and anything using libhandy from their GNOME setup (I hope with the latter moving to libadwaita, they won't be able to do that and still ship current GNOME anymore) ? I get having a good default experience, but to deliberately prevent users who are a little more comfortable/competent with the system from making their own, pretty standard tweaks to the base install (I keep coming back to that filesystem thing) is an annoyance.
Plus I have serious doubts about their ability to keep the project going. They had install ISOs that were so out of date that multiple newer laptops could not even boot off of them, and when asked about when newer ones were forthcoming, I got a pissy reply about one of them being in the middle of completing their PhD-- which, all respect to them, but if you're that busy you need to be handing off those portions of the project to people with the free time to do so. They're also insistent that users can't roll their own install ISOs or make install scripts to install it from another distro.
Solus is a good idea run by people who are too stubborn for their own good, frankly.
Yeah you’re not wrong, but manjaro is in no way as user friendly as everyone says and wayland is in no way ready for gaming let alone steam play and proton. There’s something to be said for...
Yeah you’re not wrong, but manjaro is in no way as user friendly as everyone says and wayland is in no way ready for gaming let alone steam play and proton. There’s something to be said for simplicity, and while it hasn’t been as good since Ikey left the project, it’s still a very good beginner friendly distro, and eopkg is one of the simplest package managers I’ve ever used. Solus plasma and mate are also a thing, so you can use that if you don’t like budgie/gnome.
I've had zero issues with gaming on Wayland for years now, that's been all an Nvidia problem. Given that pretty much every DE just disables Wayland on the proprietary Nvidia drivers on their own,...
I've had zero issues with gaming on Wayland for years now, that's been all an Nvidia problem. Given that pretty much every DE just disables Wayland on the proprietary Nvidia drivers on their own, there's no reason to rip it out when it's been working on AMDGPU for years.
I like GNOME, it's why their insistence on ripping out libhandy-related stuff is so shortsighted IMO. I don't know why they loathe adaptive design in desktop applications, but again, it's looking like GNOME is going to make that much more difficult for them to do going forward, so their hands are going to be forced.
Simplicity is nice, but not when it comes at the expense of getting to tweak under the hood if you know what you're doing. New Linux users aren't going to be doing too much poking around in the terminal or anything, after all.
Solus are the ones who refuse to allow anything that depends on libhandy into their GNOME spin, it's nothing with GTK themselves. It's things like this response to Btrfs support, or this honestly...
Solus are the ones who refuse to allow anything that depends on libhandy into their GNOME spin, it's nothing with GTK themselves.
Well, I’ll be honest, I’ve kind of seen the writing on the wall for Solus for a while but it’s so easy to just pick up and use for a beginner which is why I recommend it so much. They’ve gotten...
Well, I’ll be honest, I’ve kind of seen the writing on the wall for Solus for a while but it’s so easy to just pick up and use for a beginner which is why I recommend it so much. They’ve gotten quieter with each release of Solus and there’s no update in sight for their software center or budgie 11. I don’t think Solus will be around very much longer, and the fact that they started taking donations for it is kind of a telling sign for me. I really like the look and ideas behind pop_OS, and they’re starting to build their own gnome based UI with cosmic so we will see how well 21.04 performs. I might have a new distro to use if it works as well as they say.
Yeah, I wish the Solus team would just focus on Budgie development alone, as it's legitimately a great DE. Even if they went the route Elementary or even Mint (both of whom have a lot more...
Yeah, I wish the Solus team would just focus on Budgie development alone, as it's legitimately a great DE. Even if they went the route Elementary or even Mint (both of whom have a lot more resources at their disposal than the Solus team) does, with a distro to show off Budgie that's based on a different distro like Debian or Ubuntu, would be better IMO. There's just so much work involved in maintaining a full distribution that they just don't have the bodies to get done.
It looks interesting, I'm kind of excited to see where system76 takes pop going forward.
There’s a flavor of Ubuntu for budgie, it’s not bad but it just feels incomplete. I’m excited for system76 as well, I’ve always wanted one of their desktops and they have really good hardware...
There’s a flavor of Ubuntu for budgie, it’s not bad but it just feels incomplete. I’m excited for system76 as well, I’ve always wanted one of their desktops and they have really good hardware support for drivers. I’m waiting for 21.04 to make the switch but unfortunately 21.04 isn’t out yet, and they still say it’s supposed to be out in June of this year, they still have 5 days!
Android Apps on Windows is pretty good, but why the fuck does it run through the Amazon App Store?
On the rest, I honestly don't know what to think. It doesn't seem like such a big update to warrant a new Windows version. Teams is now somehow native to Windows, which I don't entirely understand because it already comes preinstalled anyway, and I don't know what to think about the design updates. W10 is a mess from a design perspective, and if it finally actually becomes unified, that's a big step forward. But it seems like they cared more about 2in1s and tablets than desktop PCs. Which I guess makes sense, but it doesn't give me a reason to update.
Also, all we saw was the start menu and the microsoft store. What about the explorer? That finally getting an update? I really don't care about widgets, they make no sense on a Desktop PC, because I can just multitask, I don't need a feed. The gaming features are kinda neat. Direct Storage and Auto HDR are a big bonus, but why the fuck did they show off Skyrim, a really old fucking game with it?
Also all the emotional talk at the start was cringe. Who the fuck cares?
AutoHDR's big ability is to inject HDR into old games where there wasn't any before, and Skyrim is probably the last of Microsoft's catalogue of last-gen video games that can still be considered "current" enough to show that AutoHDR works on many older titles.
They really want that Apple flourish. This'll turn in to a yearly thing, just like Google, where they roll out windows 12/13/14 and try to get people to care. The look and feel of the presentation is just like an Apple presentation, but you know that under the hood, nothing is going to really change because they're chained to the Enterprise market. I wonder if they'll ship Internet Explorer with it.
This is why internal services are becoming extinct and being replaced by online services. Everything you listed there has an excellent online service available for it. Sure the switch to something new is expensive but the benefit is you no longer have to maintain or develop it. It just stays up to date and works on everything.
Honestly I like that versioning system better. If I need to figure out the capabilities of someone’s computer, I need to ask the version number. For macOS, that tells me exactly what I need to know. For windows, I have to try and remember if 1803 or 20H1 is a modern or ancient version of windows 10. It would be so much better if Microsoft went to a Major.Minor versioning scheme.
I mean, they kind of do. 1803 is the update released in March 2018. 20H1 is the update released in "half 1" of 2020. (I don't know why they changed to half-years over months, but it's still semantic.)
Once you know the formula, you are correct. But it also does not convey any significance of the update.
Compare this to the Apple style. 11.0 is the newly released version. 11.1 is a minor update. 11.1.1 is a bugfix release.
Was 1803 the update that changed almost everything, almost like a service pack, or was it just a minor update?
From what I can tell, it seems mostly untouched. Which is a travesty - I can't believe it still has that giant ribbon and no tab support.
An operating system, especially a desktop OS should be boring and gtfo of the way. I'm seeing a worrying trends towards tablet-centric design which is the opposite of getting out of the way. If your design goal is to make your OS usable with a thumb, you cut shit out and do awkward compromises. I don't want to use Excel with my thumb.
Widgets, another push for the store (with Windows "not taking a cut" which sounds like a preparation to avoid the backlash from finally make it mandatory), more apps integrated on a system level and a bunch of weird gesture stuff. It looks like mostly ballast with there being a way to disable it at best and nothing but problems at the worst.
Tablet-centric is really easy to market. An advertisement that shows users dragging their fingers across the screen is super comprehendible. Never mind that it's less precise, leaves smudges on the screen, and requires the larger UI.
Microsoft will never make the store mandatory.
They probably can't but they want to, so bad. It's painfully obvious.
I first made a Microsoft account last month because they absolutely forced me to use the app store. Predictably, the experience was horrible.
I don't think they want to at all. It does not fit with their current MO. It would essentially mean killing a lot of features and functionality they have invested heavily in over the last decade. The changes coming to the store in Windows 11 are a step further away from a walled garden. The fact that they are open-sourcing so many core windows utilities and components also makes it seem really far away from their minds.
Well, their current MO is going all-service. Everything's a subscription. I don't think the store is necessarily about taking a cut from other companies' sales (although I most certainly believe they'd try, if they saw any way to get away with that), it's more about getting people into their ecosystem with an account and a credit card attached.
I installed Windows 10 without opening a Microsoft account, which must bother them greatly. I'm not sure you still can and you certainly won't be able to in Windows 11. I'm also sure they'll kill of the non-365 Office options soon. I'm pretty sure their ideal Windows would basically grow outward from the Store as its center.
This is actually old behavior. If you build a current Windows 10 installer with the media creation kit, the setup process has an option during the user account creation screen to make an offline account, regardless if your PC has internet connectivity.
They did. I've recently done installs of 2004 and 21H1 and both let me set up a local account without unplugging the ethernet cable.
I definitely do remember when this was not the case. I'm not sure when the change happened.
The leaked Windows 11 build has an offline login option in the new setup UI. When Windows 10 first launched, they made this rather difficult but these days it's just an (under-emphasized) option during the setup process.
Seeing that Microsoft removed that option If you connect to the internet during install, I wouldn't say that it's 'under-emphasized', I'd call it a dark pattern.
The video I saw of the setup process didn't require the VM to be disconnected from the internet, the offline account option was just hidden behind another button on the account setup screen. This is similar to how current versions of Windows 10 operate.
I don't think it even goes as far as fear of antitrust action. Windows' current software ecosystem is it's biggest asset in the marketplace right now. Killing that leaves Microsoft customers with no real reason not to move to ChromeOS or macOS. It would also go against the very open source, developer, and power-user friendly attitudes they have adopted under Satya Nadella. I don't see how they invest so heavily in features like Hyper-V and WSL only to turn around in a few years and completely kill them for the sake of locking consumers into an app store.
Is Apple still in court over the App Store antitrust stuff? If that’s cleared I don’t see why Microsoft couldn’t do it.
I don’t think they would. But they probably wouldn’t get sued if they did.
Then there is this. That's going to be a hard pass for me. The TPM of the Dell XPS I'm writing this on died a few months ago, so I guess this laptop isn't getting upgraded. Also, neither of the two desktops I built last year have TPM.
Edit:
I did find this, but doesn’t help me with my XPS, and I don’t see the TPM in the bios of one of my machines.
Eww. That's a hard pass on Microsoft from me as well, then. Time to retire my old Win7 and move to a linux desktop. Now I just have to settle on a distro I'll be happy with for several years...
I hate the centered look of the start menu, how annoying is it that it will pop up right between the windows you snap to the left and right side of the screen? Ugh, whatever, at least I don't use the start menu often.
The app snapping is nice. Android apps running natively is nice. Does this warrant an upgrade on anything but my laptop? Probably not.
My first thought was that they made the MacOS Dock, but worse.
Honestly, absolutely none of this excites me in any way, and most of these things are irritating. The new visuals are irritating to me because now everything looks like a cheap, unimaginative web app. Integrating Teams means that there's one more annoyance that I have to disable, and being able to run android apps is of questionable utility (seriously, you're running an operating system that is backwards compatible with generations of software that is not only more capable and better designed, but are actually meant to work with mouse and keyboard).
The only thing I actually think are improvements is the new window behavior, especially in regards to multi-monitor support. I think they were long overdue, but I'm still glad to see them. But overall, I really don't see any compelling technological reasons to upgrade (though I'm mostly saying that because I'm assuming that DirectStorage will work on Windows 10 as well)
From my understanding directstorage is exclusive to windows 11. I’m not worried about it though, I don’t have a gpu or ssd that can take advantage of it let alone a chipset. I literally have no reason to use windows 11.
Ugh, you're absolutely right! More force-fed stuff to have to contend with; bleh.
The leaked beta has an option to move the task bar back to the left.
First, as a designer myself I recognize that the task of modernizing Windows is an uber monumental challenge that I do not envy. I salute the Microsoft designers, PMs, and engineers.
There are a lot of things on the interface side that I love and hate about this update.
Love:
Hate:
Here's the official post on the Windows blog: Introducing Windows 11
And a separate post on the Xbox blog with some gaming-specific info: Windows 11: The Best Windows Ever for Gaming
Google probably isn't interested in putting the Play Store on the main competitor to their fastest growing platform.
You accidentally made a new top-level comment instead of replying to @Grzmot.
Do you mean chromeOS?
Yep, and that platform already runs Android apps from the Play store.
Getting excited for a new OS seems so outdated, for better or worse. How could this release actually excite me? What could it possibly have to make me desperately want it? I have no idea. Don't even think that is possible at this juncture. The things I'm concerned with are not revolutionary at all, mainly performance and stability. I'd bet most people don't give a rats ass for pretty modern UIs, they just want their stuff to run. That's basically the same feeling I get from next gen consoles. Cool, but meh...
You will be able to sideload Android Apps per The Verge. That would be fantastic if you want access to Yalp Store, Aurora, or Fdroid apps, or anything else you would want access too.
I've already told myself that my next gaming rig will be a Linux one. Linux is finally at the point where it can run most games either natively or via Wine & DXVK or VKD3D with minor performance losses at worst. Microsoft haven't really made their case to convince me to stick to their ecosystem.
You may think it's dumb for me to want to switch, but most of the games I play/want to play either run natively on Linux, or run decently well via alternative means. As somebody who was previously forced to use Ubuntu back in 2007, Linux has progressed by leaps and bounds to become a viable alternative. Back in those days Vulkan didn't even exist, Steam barely functioned as an online marketplace let alone a launcher, and there was no kind of layer that would translate DirectX instructions into those of another graphical API.
Windows 11 looks... okay. I'm not that impressed with them more blatantly ripping off Apple's shtick, or trying to pander to the mobile crowd by making their user interface more like a mobile OS, or by allowing it to run Android apps.
My prime grievance with Windows 10 isn't the invasive telemetry data collection, or that it feels like WIndows 8 with the classic Windows Start menu slapped on in lieu of the crappy Metro interface, but rather how buggy and barely functional the system has been. When I first made the switch from 8.1 to 10, installing Windows updates were a massive pain in the arse with updates often failing due to corrupt system files, drivers, etc. I also had frequent problems with the Start menu simply not opening.
It actually took me about three reinstalls to get the OS in proper working order and that was on a brand new PC I purchased back in mid-2015 mere weeks before Windows 10 was even launched...
I made the hop two years ago, and I'm very happy with it. There are definitely some sacrifices with gaming on Linux, but I'm honestly impressed at how many Windows-only games run without issue. Valve's Proton initiative has been a godsend.
I've heard a few years ago that The Witcher 3 ran via DXVK at a 30% lower framerate compared to natively on DirectX 9. Is the performance hit that dramatic?
I haven't done side-by-side comparisons or anything, but I was able to run The Witcher 3 flawlessly with no setup via Proton (which uses DXVK). You can see the ProtonDB reports here which are almost universally positive. Some games definitely won't work this well (or at all), but a good number of Windows games "Just Work". It's actually gotten to the point where I'm not sure which games I've played have native Linux builds and which are Windows games running through Proton.
I’m sure it will be recommended to use Ubuntu or manjaro, but if you do make the switch I would highly recommend SolusOS. Every once in a while I will give one of the Ubuntu flavors a try but I always end up back at Solus.
I find their curation to be more frustrating than not, anymore. No btrfs install options? No way to install from other distros, their weird insistence on ripping out Wayland and anything using libhandy from their GNOME setup (I hope with the latter moving to libadwaita, they won't be able to do that and still ship current GNOME anymore) ? I get having a good default experience, but to deliberately prevent users who are a little more comfortable/competent with the system from making their own, pretty standard tweaks to the base install (I keep coming back to that filesystem thing) is an annoyance.
Plus I have serious doubts about their ability to keep the project going. They had install ISOs that were so out of date that multiple newer laptops could not even boot off of them, and when asked about when newer ones were forthcoming, I got a pissy reply about one of them being in the middle of completing their PhD-- which, all respect to them, but if you're that busy you need to be handing off those portions of the project to people with the free time to do so. They're also insistent that users can't roll their own install ISOs or make install scripts to install it from another distro.
Solus is a good idea run by people who are too stubborn for their own good, frankly.
Yeah you’re not wrong, but manjaro is in no way as user friendly as everyone says and wayland is in no way ready for gaming let alone steam play and proton. There’s something to be said for simplicity, and while it hasn’t been as good since Ikey left the project, it’s still a very good beginner friendly distro, and eopkg is one of the simplest package managers I’ve ever used. Solus plasma and mate are also a thing, so you can use that if you don’t like budgie/gnome.
I've had zero issues with gaming on Wayland for years now, that's been all an Nvidia problem. Given that pretty much every DE just disables Wayland on the proprietary Nvidia drivers on their own, there's no reason to rip it out when it's been working on AMDGPU for years.
I like GNOME, it's why their insistence on ripping out libhandy-related stuff is so shortsighted IMO. I don't know why they loathe adaptive design in desktop applications, but again, it's looking like GNOME is going to make that much more difficult for them to do going forward, so their hands are going to be forced.
Simplicity is nice, but not when it comes at the expense of getting to tweak under the hood if you know what you're doing. New Linux users aren't going to be doing too much poking around in the terminal or anything, after all.
Did I miss a bit of news here? I was under the impression that libhandy and GTK were close pals.
Solus are the ones who refuse to allow anything that depends on libhandy into their GNOME spin, it's nothing with GTK themselves.
It's things like this response to Btrfs support, or this honestly incredibly rude response from DataDrake to a developer re: libhandy that make me say that Solus is not ready for primetime and gives me misgivings about trusting their development team. They're basically incapable of taking any criticism, even well-reasoned and supported criticism, onboard without getting offended.
Well, I’ll be honest, I’ve kind of seen the writing on the wall for Solus for a while but it’s so easy to just pick up and use for a beginner which is why I recommend it so much. They’ve gotten quieter with each release of Solus and there’s no update in sight for their software center or budgie 11. I don’t think Solus will be around very much longer, and the fact that they started taking donations for it is kind of a telling sign for me. I really like the look and ideas behind pop_OS, and they’re starting to build their own gnome based UI with cosmic so we will see how well 21.04 performs. I might have a new distro to use if it works as well as they say.
Yeah, I wish the Solus team would just focus on Budgie development alone, as it's legitimately a great DE. Even if they went the route Elementary or even Mint (both of whom have a lot more resources at their disposal than the Solus team) does, with a distro to show off Budgie that's based on a different distro like Debian or Ubuntu, would be better IMO. There's just so much work involved in maintaining a full distribution that they just don't have the bodies to get done.
It looks interesting, I'm kind of excited to see where system76 takes pop going forward.
There’s a flavor of Ubuntu for budgie, it’s not bad but it just feels incomplete. I’m excited for system76 as well, I’ve always wanted one of their desktops and they have really good hardware support for drivers. I’m waiting for 21.04 to make the switch but unfortunately 21.04 isn’t out yet, and they still say it’s supposed to be out in June of this year, they still have 5 days!