Windows 8 previewed

[teh603]

Re: Windows 8 previewed

It's the greed that is driving the Mexican drug gangs to do violence to everyone, and Americans are not above doing the same for easy money or to avoid working. That makes it very scarey. It is inconceivable that folks would elect representatives who are more moral than they are.

A breakdown that will cause the collapse of corporations will also bring down societal structure. Only violent psychopaths, which describe drug "lords" and gang leaders, prosper in such an environment.

It never got that bad in Weimar Germany, and I don't think it'd get that bad here. Sure there were Freikorps and Commies rioting in the streets (the Nazis were a small splinter party at the time, so Godwin's Law doesn't apply), but it didn't degenerate into Road Warrior. We've got a couple of examples of socio-economic collapse within recent history that nobody's bothering to look at, and not just because Americans are historical illiterates. Most of these weren't in the textbook to begin with, because we were going thru the Great Depression at the time.

[teh603]

Re: Windows 8 previewed

http://www.redflag-linux.com/en/news...class2=1&id=88

This might be relevant, although I have no idea what kind of distro the Chinese folks are talking about. Guess its their version of Netbook Remix or something?

[woodsmoke]

Re: Windows 8 previewed

Red Flag has been around some time:

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=redflag

And, as you can see from the screeny Meego is really optimized for the tablet form factor and is optimized for ARM and QT.

It really is very good evidence of which way it seems that all OS's are going to go if they want to stay "relevant" in the market of green goodness.

Which...is a good thing..

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=Meego

woodsmoke

[GreyGeek]

Re: Windows 8 previewed

A couple of years ago, while researching the Linux desktop market share in China (16% and forecast to rise to 25%) I downloaded Red Flag's LiveCD and ran it. It was a recent release of Red Hat 6, IIRC, but with a highly modified kernel. No source for the kernel was available at the time, and may not be now, but how would one enforce the GPL in China?

I looked for back doors or self-initiated network connections while running the LiveCD, but didn't see any. I don't know if any would be present if RedFlag were installed on the HD. I can't imagine China not taking advantage of every opportunity to spy on anyone and everyone who uses RedFlag.

RedFlag makes version in several major languages but the English version I checked out was poorly done. Many of the lower level dialogs still popped up in Chinese. In place of a word processor there were lots of cheap looking games, which I am not into. My personal opinion is that RedFlag isn't working too hard in trying to get folks to use their Linux distro, which makes the Linux desktop market share amazing, and in China I don't know how hard they have to work to get the Chinese to use RedFlag. Russia, for example, has created their own Linux distro and requires all government and military computers to replace Windows by 2015. That will pretty much prevent American espionage from accessing Russian military (and probably corporate) computers/secrets, while our government continues to use Windows computers, which is like keeping its drawers down around its knees and its rear hanging out of a street level window while its head is conveniently buried in a nearby flower pot.

[woodsmoke]

Re: Windows 8 previewed

LOL

keeping its drawers down around its knees and its rear hanging out of a street level window while its head is conveniently buried in a nearby flower pot.

Back when I was pushing the Calypso menu system I saw a BOATLOAD of downloads to different urls in China.... in fact....so many downloads that three guys in black suits showed up on the doorstep!

woodsmoke

[PhilT]

Re: Windows 8 previewed

This is a very interesting thread - and most informative. Thanks to all!

Excuse my lack of knowledge about hardware, but if both China and Russia are "pushing Linux" (even if they are their own flavours of Linux) and various other national governments both in Europe and South America are also getting rid of Windows, doesn't that mean that new future generations of processors will have to run Linux, so, even if M$ does manage to coerce some chip manufacturers to provide microprocessors that will not run anything but Windows, won't there still be a massive and growing market for processors that will run other software?

Maybe we'll have to use non-Intel or non-AMD chips? Or maybe it really is the beginning of the end for M$ domination and extortion?

Or maybe I just don't understand?

[buckeyered80]

Re: Windows 8 previewed

Well I think the strategy of Google and Apple is to present mobile computing on a mobile lightweight OS. Microsoft has so far failed at this strategy. This is their chance to make a headway into the mobile/tablet market which is booming and being led by Google and Apple. We'll see if this "live tile" strategy can defeat Android and iOS. Even though I know we are all open-source lovers, I still would rather see someone else take Microsoft's place in the next computing boom. I work on computers for a living and after seeing several hundred computers all loaded with MS bloatware, you tend to get a little tired of it. He he. So people think I am weird when I tell them I use Linux. They expected me to be a MS goon too. Not so!

[GreyGeek]

Re: Windows 8 previewed

....
Excuse my lack of knowledge about hardware, but if both China and Russia are "pushing Linux" (even if they are their own flavours of Linux) and various other national governments both in Europe and South America are also getting rid of Windows, doesn't that mean that new future generations of processors will have to run Linux, so, even if M$ does manage to coerce some chip manufacturers to provide microprocessors that will not run anything but Windows, won't there still be a massive and growing market for processors that will run other software?

I think they will have to be able to run Linux. As far as "system-on-a-chip" makers go, I don't think they will drop the x86 architecture altogether. In fact, I think they will continue to produce those CPUs and their GPU counter parts just as much as they did before.


The model I would offer to those OEMs who think that hopping onto Microsoft's slave ship for a ride to the New World is Nokia. When they abandon Symbian and MeeGo, and in affect Qt as well, their market share dropped like a rock from 44% to, the last I heard, 17%. and is still falling. So fast, in fact, that the Wall Street Journal is reporting that:

Fitch Ratings downgraded Nokia Corp.'s credit ratings by two notches, to one step away from junk territory, saying that the cellphone maker's market share quickly deteriorated and will take time to recover.

The ratings firm based its decision on Nokia's continued market-share losses and its surprise profit warning last week, when the Finland-based company shocked the market by confessing that its core mobile-handset business might not make a profit in the second quarter.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...#ixzz1OcsR9NUE

Nokia, at the insistence of its CEO, Stephen Elop, former Microsoft executive and 4th largest MS stockholder, sold off its Qt accounts receivable, laid off its programmers, abandon Symbian, MeeGo and use of Qt in future smartphone systems, ... everything ... and has become just another smartphone OEM featuring only Windows Phone 7. This at a time when four other OEMs pushing WinP7 have seen WinP7's market share drop from 2.7% (inflated) to less than 1.2% real, in customer hands sales.

And what are these SOAC OEMs going to run? An OS designed to be all things to all SOAC hardware, Windows 8, regardless of if it is a desktop, laptop, notebook, netbook or smartphone. No chance to buy the hardware and dual boot or install Linux. I haven't met many people who want to run a desktop or laptop like it was a touch phone. Think of Gnome users switching to KDE because of Unity.

Microsoft is shooting for the Moon to create a total MONOPOLY on the non-Apple computer space, and they are attempting to force the PC OEMs to ride the rocket too. Prudent PC OEMs, IF they can afford to, will not put all their eggs into the SOAC basket. They will be forced to run two separate assembly lines, if not two different kinds of assembly plants. Peripherals for the SOAC hardware will never work on conventional hardware, running Linux or prior versions of Windows. IF the Microsoft SOAC explodes on launch, and I expect that it will if WinPhone7 is any example, it will be the end of Microsoft's influence in the computer AND smartphone market. The migration to Apple and Linux that became a herd with VISTA's release will be a Tsunami with Win8. Apple's market share exploded when it did the exact opposite that Windows is planning -- they moved to the open x86 platform. Microsoft wants to go the other way.

Microsoft never got a handle on security and I doubt they ever will. That alone is forcing governments and businesses to migrate to Apple and Linux as soon as their contractual obligations expire. Even sooner if they evaluate the risks of staying with Windows as being more costly than abandoning the contracts. Microsoft is countering by flooding the media with stealth stories about "problems" in Apple and Google products. It is repeating its SCO trick by having a proxy, Lodsys, sue Google, as if that could stop WinP7's fall or make room for SOAC and Win8.

To make matters worse, Microsoft still has an obligation to continue to support XP, VISTA and Win8 for years to come because of their contracts with fortune 1000 companies.

[PhilT]

Re: Windows 8 previewed

Thanks for that informative view about a diminishing M$-world, GG!

As you say: "Be free with Kubuntu"

[GreyGeek]

Re: Windows 8 previewed

...
. I work on computers for a living and after seeing several hundred computers all loaded with MS bloatware, you tend to get a little tired of it. He he. So people think I am weird when I tell them I use Linux. They expected me to be a MS goon too. Not so!

mmm.... the affect of Win8 and its "active tile" running from a SOAC on techies living off of supporting Windows? The Sytem-On-A-Chip will be software burned into an EPROM that is soldered onto the mobo. Having socketed chips is an invitation to piracy and disaster. But, how would a techi support that? Would Joe and Sally SixPack run a firmware update program? What do they do when it crashes and bricks their box?

Thinking out loud (you'd hear me if you didn't live so far way! ) I suspect that this SOAC will also include a 3G or 4G or wireless requirement so that when it boots up it connects to a cloud server via the Internet to verify the authenticity of the chip and to make the device functional. Applications will be like iPhone or Google apps but accessed from the cloud server after being licensed for use at the "store".. Data will be $tored on the cloud. What kind of service does a techi give to an iPhone or an Anderoid? Mostly, if he works at a certified service center he/she replaces it or sends it to a factory service center for repair. I don't see many independent computer shops making a living repairing smartphones.

Now that you mention it I see a huge decline in the number of MSCEs because of SOAC.

[teh603]

Re: Windows 8 previewed

mmm.... the affect of Win8 and its "active tile" running from a SOAC on techies living off of supporting Windows? The Sytem-On-A-Chip will be software burned into an EPROM that is soldered onto the mobo. Having socketed chips is an invitation to piracy and disaster. But, how would a techi support that? Would Joe and Sally SixPack run a firmware update program? What do they do when it crashes and bricks their box?

Thinking out loud (you'd hear me if you didn't live so far way! ) I suspect that this SOAC will also include a 3G or 4G or wireless requirement so that when it boots up it connects to a cloud server via the Internet to verify the authenticity of the chip and to make the device functional. Applications will be like iPhone or Google apps but accessed from the cloud server after being licensed for use at the "store".. Data will be $tored on the cloud. What kind of service does a techi give to an iPhone or an Anderoid? Mostly, if he works at a certified service center he/she replaces it or sends it to a factory service center for repair. I don't see many independent computer shops making a living repairing smartphones.

Mind if I tell you why I didn't think Jaunty should've supported cloud computing?

Because someday, people might find their computers being replaced with a Win8 box provided by their ISP. The official line is "your computer is no longer compatible with the internet." This Win8 box has a modified USB controller that doesn't allow outbound output; i.e. printing and copying files to a USB device. The DVD burner is also gone, replaced by a simple blu-ray player. All data once it enters the computer, is stored on a remote cloud.

So, how does the ISP keep your business? Because they hold your data hostage. You can't replace those family pics, or print out that novel you've been writing to mail it to a publisher. Its also not even your data anymore, because in the TOS they buried a clause saying "Its your data unless we can profit off it, in which case it becomes our data."

So yeah. Cloud computing is teh sucks if you look at it too closely.

[buckeyered80]

Re: Windows 8 previewed

I agree with GreyGeek in that I do not like the SOAC idea. I didn't know those were the plans for Windows 8 PCs. I am guessing that the iPads also use SOAC? It would be nice to have removable storage, being soldered onto the motherboard is a repair nightmare. So yeah, a techi's job in the future may be in for some big changes If SOAC succeeds.

But with all that said, where does Google's Android tablets fit into this?