
Re: "but Android doesn't support that"
"...and take the pain of working out any bugs before expecting the rest of us to do it..."
I thought this is what the home edition of Win 10 was for?
272 publicly visible posts • joined 2 Jul 2014
To run Microsoft Office requires running Windows, and therein lies the problem. I've migrated a few schools from Windows-based networks to Google Apps with Chromebooks, iPads and a few Macs for the few tasks that require a proper computer, plus a Synology NAS to sort the local storage where needed and ensure the Macs are backed up.
Support calls go from weekly to annual as all the stuff just works without tinkering, and staff become able to perform day-to-day administrative tasks on the gear, so I only get called for 'hard' problems now (e.g. a network equipment failure). Kids get all their work done happily, teachers never look back, schools save tons of money (the cost of buying and supporting it all is literally reduced tenfold over the legacy Windows kit) and on top of that I get excellent referrals from it. Nobody misses Office at all.
It's amazing how necessary Office isn't when you don't have legacy requirements holding you back.
"These days installing an OS should not involve learning command-line stuff. Though I wouldn't deny the utility of being able to tinker under the hood, it should be an option -- not an obstacle to getting started."
For most operating systems (including most mainstream Linux distros) using CLI isn't a requirement at all for installation.
There are also a few around that it is, and rightly so as they are aimed at expert users. That's the target audience for this article.
Thanks for the review Trevor - it's good to hear what experience others have with the range!
I've deployed a few EdgeSwitch 24s and they have been bulletproof and awesome value for money. The GUI is garbage (as it is on all switches anyway) and the CLI is a little esoteric but once you have it sussed they are pretty damn good value for money. I haven't managed to break them or ever had issues with SFP modules.
I was considering some of their 10G kit but after reading this I might hold off - there's plenty of choice out there for networking kit these days.
One point of note I've found with twinax SFP+ cables is that they come in either active (buffered) and passive (wired directly) flavours, but it's not very well advertised. Passive appear to work most of the time, but then you get strange issues where one particular NIC or switch port doesn't work properly. I've yet to come across a switch or NIC that doesn't work with active cables. Just food for thought.
"Yeah, because we all have sooo much experience of 40GB connections"
Some of us do. And believe me, there's bugger all measurable difference in the IP stack between Windows and Linux performance on that (or any) kit; certainly not enough to be worth singing praises in forums. In the real world there are tons of other variables that have a bigger impact (e.g. hardware, infrastructure, etc) that make such statements completely worthless without a lot more qualification.
And believe me, all those hardware offload features in NICs are not all they are cracked out to be either - I've often had to turn this off due to buggy drivers or firmware from NIC vendors (*cough* Broadcom *cough*).
At the application layer things can be a bit different (NFS, CIFS, HTTP, etc, etc) and can swing either way depending on the service and OS. But there are so many variables there that we are heading way outside the scope of this thread. :)
Now all that said, it's good to see Microsoft making improvements. Everybody benefits from this sort of thing and shouting that $PREFERRED_OS is the best is just silly here.
@WatAWorld - finally a good post and not worthy of the downvotes it received.
The thing you appear to have overlooked about Windows is that it's dominance feeds itself more than any benefits it inherently provides. There are folks like yourself who genuinely like it (and that's perfectly fine) but the majority simply put up with it because they want a 'computer' and Windows has often provided the path of least resistance due to low hardware cost, wide hardware and app availability, etc.
Note that Windows has never been particularly user friendly - if it was then we wouldn't have the geek squad type outfits on just about every corner of every block to guide the average user through things. It's just that the benefits that it has offered in the past (i.e. massive app ecosystem, comes already bundled with PCs, etc) made it the least bad option by a slight margin.
These days the alternatives are more viable than ever and there are plenty to choose from. Partly because many uses for a computer can be satisfied with a browser, partly because a lot of effort has gone into other platforms to make them more viable, and partly because Microsoft has become increasingly arrogant as you point out. So that thin margin between Windows and others gets thinner.
So it's not hard to see why there is such a backlash to Windows 10. For every improvement in user friendliness there's something to negate it (e.g. GWX, interface changes, legacy apps not working, etc). It's not a terrible OS, but it's also not a great one for many folks either. And that thin advantage that made it the least bad option for many people has eroded to the point they start to look elsewhere at offerings that now 'less bad'.
Most importantly this is not a bad thing! There's no need to be defensive and slag off other platforms - Windows isn't going away any time soon. Those who love it can still enjoy it and for those who don't there are an ever increasing number of great alternatives available.
This technology diversity should be celebrated, not criticised. It's a win-win for all (see icon).
Some good points there but I don't entirely agree - I buy Dell desktops and servers by the thousands. All desktops come with Ubuntu and servers with nothing. Not a single MS license there, and Dell are a lot easier to obtain this from that most of the other big manufacturers. Even for small orders.
Why the downvotes for @tekHedd? He/she is right - Java is very popular for server apps, and not a half bad choice for that matter.
Unfortunately most folks who complain about Java are conflating it with the crappy desktop JRE from Oracle, which incidentally isn't even the reference implementation.
@elDog: Perfect summary. Trevor, delete the rest of the comments. This one nails it.
I suspected this anyway but after meeting a Microsoft employee and having a good chat about things it became evidently clear that they simply cannot comprehend doing something a computer that doesn't involve their products. It's so entrenched into the ecosystem that it really does filter right down to an entire community of sysamins, managers and even users. Even when they get incredibly frustrated by things like the ribbon, GWX, etc, they struggle to leave the comfort blanket, despite it often feeling prickly.
The problem with this is that it tends to alienate those who don't like the concept, so those who go elsewhere (Android, Mac, 'nix, etc) find it a struggle play along from the outside when nobody in there sees a need to reciprocate. Hence the strong anti-Microsoft mindset we set on sites like this.
I don't believe Microsoft is actively very malicious any more. They used to be; it was proven with leaked documents and court cases (EEE, OOXML/ISO, etc). They are simply still trying to overcome the above mindset, and there's an enormous amount of inertia both inside the company and across the industry.
There's still a long way to go however (ExFAT anyone?) so it really comes down to whether they can pull their collective finger out before the world/industry finishes waking up. They make some great products, let's just see if they can acknowledge that others do too now without trying to squeeze or buy them out of the market.
"One just has to register for distribution rights, once, for free."
But it's still something that shouldn't be necessary at all. Plus it requires submitting an email address, so make sure you use a disposable one so that it doesn't get leaked when Adobe's servers get breached again.
"This is the same industry that genuinely believes Unix design foundations laid down in an era of Winchester disks and Wang terminals are still even remotely fucking relevant today."
They are - there are more devices running software founded on this principle out there than there ever have been. Heck it was good enough for OS X, and that's a brilliant OS.
"Software is a means to an end, and that end is making the user's life easier, not harder."
Exactly, so when one spends more time using the tool than getting the actual job done, it's not a good tool. A good tool is one that goes largely unnoticed. For an ever-increasing number of people, Windows is no longer a good tool so hence this article.
Whether a good tool is FOSS is irrelevant but when you have an axe to grind I guess it's easy to forget that.
@LDS: totally agree - but a quality MacBook-style trackpad is where this stuff really shines as you don't have to lift your hand away from the keyboard. Sure a touchscreen is excellent for things like drawing and annotation, but for the use cases above it's surprisingly clumsy.
"If you are so colossally retarded that you think the emergency services and commercial aviation fit into the category of 'leisure aircraft' then someone should take away your internet access for our protection."
Well you did imply that restricting leisure aircraft would fix all the drone problems under 10,000ft. Given the high proportion of non-private operations in that space I'm not sure what your logic is here, except for maybe a bit of a chip on the shoulder.
What I can't figure out is how drones can be seen as a total replacement for private GA aircraft. There is so little overlap in use case between the two I don't even know where start.
For the record I own and fly a small plane, and several RC aircraft and a camera-equipped quadcopter. The plane is completely hopeless for a lot of photography work but it's a fun and quick way to move around the country, or even spend a bit of time just cruising about - and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Likewise the quad isn't going to take me anywhere and it's probably the least fun of the lot to operate (relatively speaking of course). It's more of a functional tool than anything else.
Restricting private aircraft is just pointless. Heck it's bad enough as it is today. Such aircraft are responsible for very few deaths on the ground, and being in the aircraft makes you take its location and operation a lot more seriously then when you are operating a drone from the ground.
Finally, I think the average bugsmasher would easily win a fight with a drone. Sure it would likely be expensive and I wouldn't be happy about any such damage, but I don't live in fear of falling out of the sky because of drones either.
In summary I suggest you find a solution that might actually solve something. Putting your name to your words would probably earn you a little more respect as well.
"The only surprise for me is that it's SQL Server going to Linux first. I honestly thought they'd port the cash cow that is Office to Linux desktops first."
Not really a surprise - they are playing their cards well here. I imagine the effort to port SQL Server to 'nix would be much easier than Office, plus SQL Server being a low-volume and high-margin product this would likely see higher RoI. It's also less risky - let's face it, not many Linux shops care much for SQL Server but it will be a handy niche for those who require it.
OTOH, porting Office would open the floodgates to making Linux desktops viable in the enterprise. Perhaps even for home users too who are fans of Office. It would be great for users to have such choice of course but at this stage far too risky for MS - it would be the thin end of the wedge.
"Linux desktop users are not among those usually credited to be willingly to pay for software or services."
Rubbish. Actual evidence shows that Linux users are generally more generous when it comes to paying up; look at the Humble Bundle stats for an example.
I use Linux (and OS X and to a lesser extent, Windows) and I've paid for all of my software that requires it. I've also volunteered to donate to many distros, LibreOffice, Mozilla, OpenWRT and many, many others. Many more than once. Experience with colleagues and friends shows exactly the same pattern.
We don't use Linux because it's free as in beer, we use it because most distros are insanely well-featured out of the box and generally much more so than Windows (although the latter can be brought up to scratch after install a plethora of third-party products, many of which are FOSS). We can try anything we like with no activation hoops or license hassles to worry about. When we find something we like, we use it and donate whatever we feel it is worth to us. Simple and painless.
We also like the ability to change vendor and keep our apps and stuff if things ever go south. Not that I've had to exercise that feature often, but it's good to know it can be done.
"The reason most people buy a new PC, or one of the reasons, is to get the new OS"
No, usually it's just because the old one broke or started running too slow and exceeded the user's frustration threshold. Most folks just don't care about the OS as long as the stuff they had before still works and stuff they want to use are easy to find.
Now that so much of the above-mentioned 'stuff' is web-based, the OS matters less than ever. Hence why we now have a far more diverse market, which is fantastic however way you look at it. Yes that may result in a small downturn for those still limited to the Wintel scene. Windows isn't going away though, we've just got more to choose from is all. HP simply need broaden with the market.
"While it's been ages since I've bought Dell hardware, I would like to know if new systems are configurable using NON-Windows, NON-proprietary Java."
Well the iDRAC is mainly web-based, and while the console uses Java it works fine with the non-proprietary OpenJDK. No Oracle required.
Still, it would be nice if Dell would get with the times.
"technically literate and can figure out how to uninstall older Java versions, With Linux, one should know how to use your distro's package management tools."
Agree, except that Oracle still haven't figured out how to package Java properly. The RPMs are average at best, and if you are expecting Deb packages, best of luck to you.
Fortunately a lot of decent software works happily with OpenJDK.
"unscalable text files".
This old chestnut again and again. So can you please take a moment to explain to the audience exactly what's so 'unscalable' about text files? I've found them quite ideal for managing 1000s of hosts, if that's what you are trying to state. And I've had years of Windows experience too before discovering 'nix.
"There are a lot of enterprises who just migrate legacy midrange stuff to Linux as a gap fill until they can move to Windows"
Citation needed. It's not the early 2000's anymore.
We've migrated tons of stuff to Linux, permanently. Saved a fortune and not just in license costs, it's much easier to support too. The only migration I can see on the horizon from here is to the BSDs as they seem to have their stuff sorted a bit better than Linux.
"You needed to be running an NT-based version of Windows to get BSODs."
Incorrect. I agree the troll was pretty weak, but your reply falls pretty short too.
Windows 95 and its successors were certainly famous for their ability to product a BSOD and I remember them clearly. More often than not they were the result of failing hardware or crappy drivers. Don't tell me you've forgotten the infamous BSOD during the Windows 98 demo presentation delivered by Mr. Gates himself?
Thanksfully things have really improved since those days. In fact since Windows moved entirely to NT I started seeing them much less frequently.
I wouldn't exer expect to see them on something like the 950.
"Microsoft should just start using Intel Atom chips in its mobiles."
Please no. If that took off then we are back to no competition in the industry again, and look at what that did for the world through the late 90s and early 00s.
As much as I'm glad we have a viable third choice in Windows Phone, I'm even more glad we actually have more competition in the entire marketplace. It's made everything much better for customers and kept the old incumbent Microsoft a lot more on its toes than ever.
@LaeMing
It would seem that way at a glance, but my experience with schools shows that this often isn't the case. I've spent far less time fixing Macs than Windows PCs in dealing with schools, to the point that many schools now refuse to support Windows due to the extra work it creates. Not my decision but theirs.
This is with the Macs having no centralised control and simply providing a Time Machine service for those staff using Macs to use. And when I say difference, we are literally talking weekly callouts for Windows versus one or two a year for the Macs.
Now for the caveats. I haven't worked with Windows 10 so can't comment there, and this is in smaller schools without dedicated IT staff so Windows may be a bit easier in bigger institutions if there are some dedicated sysadmins in command.
However I just wanted to point out that many tech folks get pretty obsessed with being overly controlling of their endpoints, when often a combination of good equipment, a little bit of trust and a willing to try alternatives can really go a long way.
"Yes, you can spend a fortune migrating to a zoo of incompatible products with a poor user experience"
Integrating independent products that are standards-based and well-documented is often very straightforward. That's the job of a competent sysadmin.
"or you can have one solution from Microsoft that just works."
That sometimes works. With a massive intertwined series of dependencies on each other, such that you get forced into concurrently upgrading them in order for them to work with each other, and then find that some features you used to rely on have been deprecated at the whim of the vendor with little alternative available. And upgrading the hairball that is SharePoint requires very expensive help if you want any hope of it ever working in future.
Trust me, I've spent two decades working in both environments. The MS way is a quick win with likely pain down the road.
Spending time properly integrating disparate products that each do their job well and comply with open standards where possible usually results in a much more stable and usable long term solution. And if it's well thought out in advance, it becomes very easy to swap any one component out for another if it no longer meets your needs. That's possibly the biggest single failing of the trap that is the Microsoft ecosystem - their products have never been designed to play well in a heterogeneous environment.
"With DRM I could prevent you accessing the document unless your machine and configuration met my standards for security. Indeed, I could prevent you accessing at all unless you were in a secure environment using a designated id. I could allow you access for a specific period. I could stop you printing it or sharing it....."
That sort of stuff sounds great on paper but rarely works well in practice, especially with users who don't understand it properly (which is most of them).
In reality, the helpdesk gets involved wasting costly hours sorting issues where Sarah can't print her document she needs because Bruce in his ignorance though it might be a good idea to turn that off, while crafty Alex decides to whip out the smartphone and take a photo of the screen instead which then gets automatically OCRed by Evernote and stored goodness-knows-where. But at least the information can now be printed.
DRM serves little purpose but to create headaches, because ultimately the final interface to the human being (e.g. display) stays just as weak as ever.
Agree @kryptylomese - sadly in my experience is that Windows folks are generally (but there are some exceptions fortunately) very blind to any other way of doing anything - to them 'Windows' and 'computers' are virtually synonymous. The folks with 'nix experience generally accept that there any many ways to achieve anything and simply get on with what suits the task at hand. Yes I do generalise, but I've lived in both camps in my years in industry and it's something I've often noticed.
Many of the 'nix folks are still wary of Microsoft for their past attempts to actively make 'simply getting on with the task' very difficult in a heterogeneous environment. That seems to be much less true these days so perhaps it's time to bury the hatchet, shake hands and move forward together?
I applaud the SSH effort - it will really help to build some bridges in the every increasing mix of stuff we see in a datacentre these days.
Fighting over scripting languages and such is just silly. Find a tool that works for you and get on with the job.
Why the hate, Velv?
As you state yourself, hardware obsolescence is bad. Nobody is asking the FCC to fix it all, just not to close the door to one of the few options we (the community) still have left. Any effort improve security, reduce landfill and extend the useful life of embedded hardware can only be a good thing. Sure it's a small share of the market but it all helps.
Not to mention that many SOHO routers I've worked with don't even work properly as shipped. OpenWRT provides no end of improvement to such devices. I'm sure I'm not alone in wanting to keep that avenue open for as long as possible
"Surprised the performance is good enough though."
Why? For starters the OS doesn't move frames in a switch, it's just there for abstracting management of the actual ASIC(s).
"As anyone who has tried really high end connectivity like Mallanox or 40GB Ethernet,"
That would be me. And in reality it depends on many more factors than just the OS, such as NIC chipset and driver quality. For many day-to-day tasks I've seen little discernible different between Windows and Linux at 10G or 40G. I've found Linux (and *BSD) often pull ahead slightly once you increase the frame size (who doesn't these days?) but in reality it's hardly enough to bother writing home about.
"Linux will remain a geek sideline until the devs buy into the fact that opening a terminal window for anything other than once in a blue moon disaster recovery is automatic, total FAIL in the mainstream desktop space."
But getting folks to use the Registry editor is acceptable by comparison? And the terminal is acceptable for doing mandatory tasks like disabling telemetry features?
Don't get me wrong; you raise a somewhat valid point. But the difference isn't all that wide. As a sysadmin who deals with both platforms daily, I see regular Joes (i.e. don't even know what a terminal is) use Linux desktops every day without or any issue, while it's not uncommon to need regedit.exe or cmd.exe to get by on a Windows box.
It does somewhat depend on the Linux distro in question of course, but most of the more popular ones are pretty darn good nowadays.