Newly-minted Windows 8 fanboy poops on Linux

[SteveRiley]

Poking at icons is suddenly boring, for he has discovered the joy of sliding the mouse from corner to corner and eliminated the messy distraction of having to fiddle with window sizes. While he was a big fan of GNOME, Windows 8's similarity attracted him, and the live tiles are so...wait for it..."refreshing."

http://betanews.com/2013/05/28/dear-...for-windows-8/

I hereby turn this topic over to you, my fine KFN community, for an appropriate shredding!

[sealbhach]

Okay well he never understood the concept of open source and why that's really important to me and to many others.

.

[HalationEffect]

Well, he already liked one godawful thing (GNOME), so no big surprise that he would like another godawful thing.

[dmeyer]

"Magic corners" came to and were useful on KDE way before the Gnome devs even thought about it or MSFT butchered the concept. Everything you can do in terms of interface on any other desktop, you can do in KDE. It might not be a 1-to-1 translation but you get close. Combine Widget Dashboard + a hot corner and you have the Gnome Workspace viewer /Activities if you use the right plasmoids. Same story with the Dash. The only thing KDE doesn't really have an answer for is Unity's HUD. Krunner just doesn't do it quite as well.

Also, windows are good. This full screen by default crap is awful. I got a 17" laptop so that I can have things side by side and actually multi-task. Its really not that hard to move a window to a snap zone. I mean we have multiple desktops! Linux is leap years ahead of Windows in terms of having a good workflow and KDE is the pinnacle for getting the perfect workflow. You just have a billion settings to go through first.

Also what do live tiles objectively bring that is superior to plasmoids? A dedicated view? Just use the widget dashboard. Per app info? Many plasmoids integrate with applications. Also, the live tiles are such an mess. I hate the gaps you get and can't stand the ridiculous array of colours.

The only fault I can find with KDE nowadays, is the pretty terrible styling. Plasma looks amazing nowadays, but Oxygen is still awful and QtCurve is great but lacks gtk+ support. My biggest hope for Plasma 2 is essentially an oxygen2, a better default plasma theme, and just some overall spit and polish. Boot up a ROSA live usb and you'll instantly see how pretty their theming is. It just looks so good. KDE really just needs somebody dedicated to make everything look perfect and beautiful.

Also, don't forget the amazing hot keys in KDE.

If I'm not all too coherent I apologize, have an exam tomorrow and am procrastinating inefficiently.

[SteveRiley]

Sorry, dmeyer, but... You criticize tiles for their "ridiculous array of colors" (which I agree with), but then lament that Oxygen is "awful" with "terrible styling"? I rather like Oxygen's subdued, stay-out-of-my-way appearance. I find colorful window decorations to be distracting, and rather like the muted grays.

[Frank616]

Steve:

I don't understand it, but then there are a lot of people in this world that I don't understand. How could a person go from a quite usable desktop OS like Win7 to Linux, and then go back to Win8 and like it? Beats me. However, I guess its good we have choice. Like my mother in law (a very wise woman) would say: "Everyone has a right to their own stupid opinion."

Frank.

[SteveRiley]

Windows 8 actually has its place. On a decent-sized tablet, like that Samsung XE700t I had for a while, it's really quite usable. Metro works as advertised on a two-dimensional surface built primarily for content consumption.

But it's terrible on a three-dimensional surface (vertical display, horizontal keyboard and mouse) built primarily for content creation. Too often, this important distinction gets lost in all the arguing over which is "better."

[SteveRiley]

Boot up a ROSA live usb and you'll instantly see how pretty their theming is. It just looks so good. KDE really just needs somebody dedicated to make everything look perfect and beautiful.

Sorry, dmeyer, but... You criticize tiles for their "ridiculous array of colors" (which I agree with), but then lament that Oxygen is "awful" with "terrible styling"? I rather like Oxygen's subdued, stay-out-of-my-way appearance. I find colorful window decorations to be distracting, and rather like the muted grays.

I retract my earlier statement. I just Googled for some ROSA images. Indeed, they've done a fine job theming KDE. Fine would actually be an understatement. No garish colors at all -- instead, a very intuitive and pleasing mix of even more levels of gray.

[Frank616]

Steve:

Metro works as advertised on a two-dimensional surface built primarily for content consumption. But it's terrible on a three-dimensional surface (vertical display, horizontal keyboard and mouse) built primarily for content creation. Too often, this important distinction gets lost in all the arguing over which is "better."

That can probably be said for all tablets, and a point that I continue to make. Tablets / phones are fine for consumption, which is what the majority of users do. My wife loves her Galaxy Tab 10.1. They are a poor fit for creation IMHO.

With that said, my brother was just here. He runs a sign business, and loves his iPad. It does allow him to work with primarily graphical info requiring little keyboard input, other than to check off boxes, so I'll admit that tablets are also useful in vertical applications.

I don't ever see myself with a tablet, unless it becomes a personal TV, which is primarily a content consuming device.

Frank.

[dmeyer]

I retract my earlier statement. I just Googled for some ROSA images. Indeed, they've done a fine job theming KDE. Fine would actually be an understatement. No garish colors at all -- instead, a very intuitive and pleasing mix of even more levels of gray.

Yeah, I didn't meant to say Oxygen is the worst thing in the world. I just meant to say that the basic look just seems a tad inelegant/rough compared to what other DEs in Windows, OSX and the Linux worlds have to offer. I've recently started to fall in love with the "flat" appearance coming out of the Gnome camp. It just seems more modern and clean. I mean, the difference between a QML widget/app and a QWidget or QGraphicsView one is so striking. The one just looks good, and the other doesn't. It's so difficult to describe why but immediate to see when you compare them. I'm so excited for plasma2. KDE has a very bright future indeed.

[phonic-otg]

In relation to the topic, the guy making win8 claims does so as a paid writer. In relation to the ROSA theme I don't see any difference to the themes available in KDE already....

[OldSmoky2]

I think it's worth noting that while he loved getting MS Office for $10, so much that he even said it would have been worth paying full price, he said nothing at all about security/malware/viruses/etc. I remember my experience several years back when I bought a cheap laptop from the Dell Outlet store. I needed a new computer at the time, it was basically half-price, and I knew going in that I'd wipe out Windows and install Linux on it as soon as I got it. It came with Windows 7 and I booted that up exactly one time out of curiousity. I was connected online when I did that and in less than a minute, I think, up popped a scary warning that went something like, "OMG! You are online with no protection! Your computer is going to be destroyed! Go buy an anti-virus program NOW!" Of course, I fixed that right away with my Linux install CD.
Anyway, I do know that while you shouldn't be ignorant about security using Linux, you are way better off from the start with Linux than with any version of Windows. It's going to cost you, year after year, to deal with it using Windows. And any reviewer saying Windows 8 is the best OS on the planet isn't being honest if they don't mention that.