Reasons I love my laptop

[Indrora]

So, I carry around a laptop for day to day stuff, and just recently got a few used batteries from Dell for it since it was running on one dead one already and it handles 2 batteries (one replaces the CD Drive, its an old one)... and I'm thinking I like the results of my $50 shopping spree

I wonder how long it will last with gpg eating up CPU time getting keys from MIT...

[blakeyrat]

@Indrora said:

So, I carry around a laptop for day to day stuff, and just recently got a few used batteries from Dell for it since it was running on one dead one already and it handles 2 batteries (one replaces the CD Drive, its an old one)... and I'm thinking I like the results of my $50 shopping spree

As if any Linux program related to power management has ever worked in the history of ever. 10 years after every other OS on Earth has managed it, Linux still can't put a freakin' laptop in sleep mode-- it does not surprise me that it also fails to read a battery level correctly.

@Indrora said:

I wonder how long it will last with gpg eating up CPU time getting keys from MIT...

You are 1337 haxor!!!

Hey, maybe instead of ... that ... you should write a social network for furry porn comics buyers. I bet there's a lot of demand out there for that.

It bothers me, I have a friend like you who's big into Linux (well, OS X, but same shit) and spends all his time just doing stupid shit. "Hey look I wrote a decompiler for shared libraries!" "Why?" "IT'S FUN!!!" Not only is it not fun, but he spends hours and hours on these dumb projects and they're all completely useless... I keep trying to talk him into making something useful and bringing in some moolah, but he thinks it's more "fun" to play some geeky haxor version of "capture the flag" involving stealing passwords from-- I don't even know the whole thing was so stupid.

He also gets really excited about new features in Apple's development environment that Microsoft's had in Visual Studio for years and years... I hate people who claim to be into computers, but what they really are is into one specific narrow type of computer. (Linux or OS X.) That would be like if Top Gear was sold as a car enthusiast show, but they only ever drove Volvos and were entirely ignorant of any car features made by a company other than Volvo.

That said, Apple hired him. Either because of his haxoring or his sycophancy for Apple products, so.

Moral of the story: ignore everything I type on saturday mornings!

[Indrora]

@blakeyrat said:

As if any Linux program related to power management has ever worked in the history of ever. 10 years after every other OS on Earth has managed it, Linux still can't put a freakin' laptop in sleep mode-- it does not surprise me that it also fails to read a battery level correctly.

 This is actually the fault of someone doing math wrong. When you ask it to give you how long nei a second later, it reports the proper 2.5 hours per battery.

 @blakeyrat said:

You are 1337 haxor!!!

Nah, not really. GPG was eating up time because GNOME's keyring daemon had decided to fetch (recursively) the keys that had signed a few of my friend's keys, which in turn caused problems. 

The only reason this laptop runs Linux is because its an underpowered peice of crap that does compile jobs for me. 

As for your friend, I'm deeply sorry. OSX != Linux (its BSD). I run windows and linux and know when NOT to use either one.

[Iago]

Linux has no problem with sleep mode.  It's hibernation that's sometimes flaky. 

As for this bug -- that's just Gnome power manager sucking.  It does magical things to try to predict battery life instead of just telling you how long it's likely to last at the current load level, and as a result it is generally totally useless instead of merely slightly useless like most battery life predictions.  But that's a problem with Gnome, not Linux.  There are better alternatives.

[blakeyrat]

@Iago said:

Linux has no problem with sleep mode.  It's hibernation that's sometimes flaky.

Sez you. My HP tx1000 has yet to find a single Linux distro that'll sleep (and wake up!) correctly-- a few would sleep, but fail to wake up. But that hardly counts. I don't even think I bothered trying Hibernate, since Sleep didn't work.

I think at best you can say "Linux has no problem with sleep mode for certain laptop models. But it's sure as hell not like Windows or OS X where *every* laptop that can run the OS can sleep.

[PeaceFaker]

 @blakeyrat said:

Sez you. My HP tx1000 has yet to find a single Linux distro that'll sleep (and wake up!) correctly-- a few would sleep, but fail to wake up. But that hardly counts. I don't even think I bothered trying Hibernate, since Sleep didn't work.

I think at best you can say "Linux has no problem with sleep mode for certain laptop models. But it's sure as hell not like Windows or OS X where *every* laptop that can run the OS can sleep.

You tell me, I have the sequel HP tx2000 and it has quirks and oddtities. With some tweaking I have gotten it to suspend and resume 9 times out of 10 under linux.

Mostly it is because of a buggy ACPI table and some other flakey stuff. Funnily 64-bit linux is worse off than 32-bit which sounds to me like HP did some bad stuff that gets exposed by 64-bit operating systems. I have found that acpi=off, nolapic makes it resonably stable at a cost of performance.

To add, included windows vista worked all of the 4 hours I used it, XP not so much and Debian couldn't ship a new enough kernel to even boot(don't hate me for this, with the mentioned flags it works). Kernels newer than 2.6.34 generally work without tweaks.

[wrack]

Generally, hardware has problems and fucks the standards in the head; then the manufacturers provide Windows drivers that work around these problems (one of the resons sytesms are often not only slow, but unstable when running generic drivers Windows shipped with - these assume standards are followed. Linux rarely gets support from mainboard manufacturers, even less laptop mainboard manufacturers.

Remember the Foxconn crap where they shipped a BIOS that had separate acpi tables (? - I don't work much at this level, don't remember exactly) for different OSes, and the one tagged for Linux was filled in with garbage, making the OS unbootable? With additional insult where everything ran perfectly once you used a tool to copy data from Win2003 table to Linux one? I'm pretty sure I read about it in here a few months ago.

Anyway, the thing is, that while Linux devs try their best, they can't adapt to all the hardware out there when they don't even have access to such hardware.

On a semi-related note, the tx2000 (well, at least the tablet PC edition, if there's one that isn't) was the model that had an nvidia GPU on board that heated up so much it melted the solderpoints. I know, I saw. ;)

[Indrora]

@blakeyrat said:

@Iago said:

Linux has no problem with sleep mode.  It's hibernation that's sometimes flaky.

Sez you. My HP tx1000 has yet to find a single Linux distro that'll sleep (and wake up!) correctly-- a few would sleep, but fail to wake up. But that hardly counts. I don't even think I bothered trying Hibernate, since Sleep didn't work.

I think at best you can say "Linux has no problem with sleep mode for certain laptop models. But it's sure as hell not like Windows or OS X where *every* laptop that can run the OS can sleep.

 

I dont see what your problem is... 20 seconds of googling lead me to

http://kellyandsopho.com/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=LinuxOnHpPaviliontx1000z#Suspend_and_Hibernate

Hibernate is also now more reliable than sleep, as it pulls kernel mode hacks to just dump ram-> swap doing a hard compress on it. Works fine, as long as you're not doing hardcore computations around the time that you hibernate.

 

Remember the Foxconn crap where they shipped a BIOS that had separate acpi tables (? - I don't work much at this level, don't remember exactly) for different OSes, and the one tagged for Linux was filled in with garbage, making the OS unbootable? With additional insult where everything ran perfectly once you used a tool to copy data from Win2003 table to Linux one? I'm pretty sure I read about it in here a few months ago

they yes would put /garbage/ into the ACPI tables if it saw some of the things LInux did... and Windows 7 has some problems with unpatched versions of those boards too. The result was a political battle that lead to the death of another few foxconn employees and record lows in their sales. GG no re.

And yes, it was a GNOME bug I pointed out. This doesn't happen on Ubuntu because they aren't running REALLY bleeding edge stuff

[blakeyrat]

@Indrora said:

I dont see what your problem is... 20 seconds of googling lead me to

http://kellyandsopho.com/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=LinuxOnHpPaviliontx1000z#Suspend_and_Hibernate

Jesus shitting fuck. If you have to read (and understand) a page like that to get it working, IT DOES NOT WORK.

@Indrora said:

Works fine, as long as you're not doing hardcore computations around the time that you hibernate.

"It works, as long as it does!" Why would "hardcore" computations break it? What counts as "hardcore?" How about playing an MP4 video? Or an MP3? Or viewing a YouTube video? I'm nearly always doing one of those when I close the lid.

@Indrora said:

And yes, it was a GNOME bug I pointed out. This doesn't happen on Ubuntu because they aren't running REALLY bleeding edge stuff

The real point I'm getting at is, regardless of who caused the bug or why, Linux is trying to be taken seriously as an OS while there are still many extremely basic functions busted.

[joemck]

@blakeyrat said:

I think at best you can say "Linux has no problem with sleep mode for certain laptop models. But it's sure as hell not like Windows or OS X where every laptop that can run the OS can sleep.

The only reason for that is every laptop maker releases specific drivers to make Windows able to sleep it. Ever try sleeping a Windows laptop where the chipset driver isn't installed yet? With Linux, there're almost NO specific chipset drivers, so it's analogous to looking at what all hardware Windows supports WITHOUT installing any driver aside from what Windows ships with.

Compared to that, Linux is doing pretty darn good. Far more of the hardware in most laptops "just works" on a pristine fresh install of Ubuntu than of Windows. For example, my Sony Vaio UX handheld, which has a fair bit of nonstandard stuff in it. Under Ubuntu, the only 2 things that don't work out of the box are the fingerprint scanner and switching between the front and back webcams. Under both WinXP and 7, there are a couple dozen proprietary driver installers I have to run to get even basics like networking.

As for OS X, every laptop that can run the OS (officially at least) is a Macbook. Thus Apple has complete control over what hardware is in there. When you get into Hackintoshes, a lot of them *don't* sleep properly.

[Faxmachinen]

@blakeyrat said:

I think at best you can say "Linux has no problem with sleep mode for certain laptop models. But it's sure as hell not like Windows or OS X where *every* laptop that can run the OS can sleep.

Well, hibernation is no better in Windows XP. It used to work on this laptop, but one day it decided that it wouldn't any more. I've had problems with hibernate on all my Windows machines so far (except for the Windows 3.11 one).

[pkmnfrk]

@joemck said:

@blakeyrat said:

I think at best you can say "Linux has no problem with sleep mode for certain laptop models. But it's sure as hell not like Windows or OS X where every laptop that can run the OS can sleep.

The only reason for that is every laptop maker releases specific drivers to make Windows able to sleep it. Ever try sleeping a Windows laptop where the chipset driver isn't installed yet? With Linux, there're almost NO specific chipset drivers, so it's analogous to looking at what all hardware Windows supports WITHOUT installing any driver aside from what Windows ships with.

Compared to that, Linux is doing pretty darn good. Far more of the hardware in most laptops "just works" on a pristine fresh install of Ubuntu than of Windows. For example, my Sony Vaio UX handheld, which has a fair bit of nonstandard stuff in it. Under Ubuntu, the only 2 things that don't work out of the box are the fingerprint scanner and switching between the front and back webcams. Under both WinXP and 7, there are a couple dozen proprietary driver installers I have to run to get even basics like networking.

Hmm? That's strange. When I upgraded to Windows 7 (from XP) (and, it was a clean reinstall), the only drivers I had to install were:

1. Video card (it worked without it, but not high res)
2. My game pad (to get force feedback, but otherwise it worked)

(A few other devices, such as integrated sound, worked out of the box, but not well. I blame the manufacturers)

[PsychoCoder]

That's weird, when I installed Windows 7 everything worked out of the box. I had to install video drivers to get the quality of video I wanted but networking, RAID controllers, sound, everything worked without me having to install any drivers.

[blakeyrat]

@PsychoCoder said:

That's weird, when I installed Windows 7 everything worked out of the box. I had to install video drivers to get the quality of video I wanted but networking, RAID controllers, sound, everything worked without me having to install any drivers.

You have you remember when Linux fans talk about Windows, they're talking about Windows 98. If you're lucky, they're talking about 2000, but don't count on that.

[wrack]

@blakeyrat said:

@PsychoCoder said:

That's weird, when I installed Windows 7 everything worked out of the box. I had to install video drivers to get the quality of video I wanted but networking, RAID controllers, sound, everything worked without me having to install any drivers.

You have you remember when Linux fans talk about Windows, they're talking about Windows 98. If you're lucky, they're talking about 2000, but don't count on that.

No, XP. Remember that we can't afford hardware that can run Win7, otherwise we would use it instead of Linux.

[davedavenotdavemaybe]

@blakeyrat said:

10 years after every other OS on Earth has managed it, Linux still can't put a freakin' laptop in sleep mode

Ahem...

@Microsoft KB878467 said:

Your Windows XP-based computer does not resume from standby when you move your USB mouse or press a key on your USB keyboard

This problem occurs because you moved your USB mouse or pressed a key on your USB keyboard while your Windows XP-based computer was entering standby.

I love that one.

[Lingerance]

@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:

Ahem...
@Microsoft KB878467 said:

Your Windows XP-based computer does not resume from standby when you move your USB mouse or press a key on your USB keyboard

This problem occurs because you moved your USB mouse or pressed a key on your USB keyboard while your Windows XP-based computer was entering standby.

I love that one.

I love how it takes Windows (confirmed as of Vista) 3-4 seconds to recognize a USB HID device. That's not fustrating at all...ever. No siree. Oh, did they ever fix that bug where the computer gets super slow after Windows is installed for a year (you can rant all you want about users not installing junk, but guess what, they're users. They're going to fuck any toy they get half-way to andromeda)? What about that one where getting basic HD support questions requires 50+ clicks? Do the 2010 MMCs still suck as much as the 2003 ones did?

[Guest]

 @Lingerance said:

I love how it takes Windows (confirmed as of Vista) 3-4 seconds to recognize a USB HID device.

 I don't remember it ever taking that long. Except maybe the first time you plug something in.. after  that it's nearly instantaneous.

Oh, did they ever fix that bug where the computer gets super slow after Windows is installed for a year (you can rant all you want about users not installing junk, but guess what, they're users. They're going to fuck any toy they get half-way to andromeda)

I never understood this. I've never had to reinstall Windows because it got "super slow"... I've got installations of Win2k that are nearly 7 years old and they work just as well as they did the day I first installed them (hardware issues notwithstanding).

 

What about that one where getting basic HD support questions requires 50+ clicks? Do the 2010 MMCs still suck as much as the 2003 ones did?

 

Win2K and later "OK, so go start->run, type diskmgmt.msc, and tell me what you see". don't know how you're doing it but I count a max of maybe 3 or 4 clicks there. Of course you could always take the long indirect route through the wrong control panel applets.

[blakeyrat]

@Lingerance said:

I love how it takes Windows (confirmed as of Vista) 3-4 seconds to recognize a USB HID device.

Windows' own drivers don't take nearly that long. If your USB HID device (ATM Machine! TCBY Yogurt!) has its own drivers, well, Windows is hardly in control of how long they take to load.

@Lingerance said:

Oh, did they ever fix that bug where the computer gets super slow after Windows is installed for a year (you can rant all you want about users not installing junk, but guess what, they're users. They're going to fuck any toy they get half-way to andromeda)?

That doesn't happen in Vista or Windows 7. Some people had that problem in XP (I did), some people didn't... I'm not sure exactly what caused it, although in my case the slowdown was basically only visible when shutting down or restarting. I usually got impatient and just cut the power.

Vista and Windows 7 have something of a "slowdown" when you install patches, because installing patches clears the DLL cache. This isn't really a big deal, since your speed boost from the DLL cache is all a bonus anyway. Oh also, Vista has a "slowdown" when you first boot it, because it aggressively fills the DLL cache, instead of only filling it when idle like Windows 7 does. So there's that as well.

@Lingerance said:

What about that one where getting basic HD support questions requires 50+ clicks?

No tasks in Windows "require" 50 clicks. I don't know what the fuck "basic HD support questions" you were trying to answer, or how the shit you were going about it, but let's not make up shit, ok? Let's keep the debate in the realm of reality, instead of this fictional fairyland you've constructed.

@Lingerance said:

Do the 2010 MMCs still suck as much as the 2003 ones did?

What does that even mean?

@Lingerance said:

Filed under: Call me when Windows is actually nice to use. Thanks.

It's always been nicer to use than Linux. What's your number?

[viraptor]

@blakeyrat said:

As if any Linux program related to power management has ever worked in the history of ever. 10 years after every other OS on Earth has managed it, Linux still can't put a freakin' laptop in sleep mode

A data point: I had 3 laptops. Of those, 3 could sleep under linux without problems and 2 could hibernate correctly. Under XP (it was before vista time) one of them could sleep and hibernate, another (Vista this time) could hibernate only, the last one couldn't do either (Vista too). I had way more power-management issues under Windows, so it's not that clear cut.

@blakeyrat said:

It bothers me, I have a friend like you who's big into Linux (well, OS X, but same shit) and spends all his time just doing stupid shit. "Hey look I wrote a decompiler for shared libraries!" "Why?" "IT'S FUN!!!" Not only is it not fun, but he spends hours and hours on these dumb projects and they're all completely useless...

Seriously? What do you care. If it's fun for him, it's fun for him. Some people write decompilers, some collect pebbles. Who are you to say what is fun and what isn't? I have crazy fun writing utilities I might not need in the future, but which give me some interesting lessons.

Understanding shared libraries gives you insight into low-level information which might be useful for you one day when doing an actual project. Messing about with stuff is the best way to learn. Guess who are you going to ask for help the next time you have some crazy dependency / linking problem in a large project...

@blakeyrat said:

It's always been nicer to use than Linux.

... LOL (yeah, I guess it depends on what you do, but for my work, Windows is a toy)

[Lingerance]

@blakeyrat said:

Windows' own drivers don't take nearly that long. If your USB HID device (ATM Machine! TCBY Yogurt!) has its own drivers, well, Windows is hardly in control of how long they take to load.

I was under the impression Windows didn't ship with 3rd party drivers. Seeing as how I've always experienced this with fresh installs with the only drivers ever getting installed being the video card or NIC drivers I seriously doubt you can blame 3rd parties here.
@blakeyrat said:

No tasks in Windows "require" 50 clicks. I don't know what the fuck "basic HD support questions" you were trying to answer, or how the shit you were going about it, but let's not make up shit, ok? Let's keep the debate in the realm of reality, instead of this fictional fairyland you've constructed.

No single action requires that. But to collect hostname, IP address, (often enough) a look at the device manager, disk usage, RAM/CPU usage, or basically anything a help desk person would need to know while on the phone.
@blakeyrat said:

What does that even mean?

Windows' admin GUIs suck dick?@blakeyrat said:

It's always been nicer to use than Linux. What's your number?

Seriously? I've been told they havn't fixed the edge clipping (that half and half thing 7 does isn't a fix), dialogs that can prevent usage from the source window (this "feature" is misused, or at least was in my experience with XP), they still seem to hate the infitite edge part of Fitt's law, and they have unresizable windows with scrollbars in them (which I have to freaking scroll everytime I want to see information about an account I should be able to see at a glance [specifically if they're disabled or not]). All issues that the admin GUIs have. I know you don't work in IT, but admining Windows is a massive pain, and these minor GUI issues are like hourly paper cuts. Oh, and more specifically ISA 2003's (IIRC, number is probably off) MMC has like 150x100 pixels of actual working area (when used with a 800x600 resolution [which is the reso I got to work with]), the rest is taken up by a really big banner, an "information" pane and the side menu.



Note: when I bitch about Windows' GUI it's with shit that came with the OS, or is a seperate MS product. I shouldn't have to make this point but certain people (not you) seem to get confused on this point.



Edit: Just for clarification I basically want two things (based solely on my experience in HD and my training for being a Windows admin): the ability to get all the information I need to debug any common issue with a very small amount of effort, it should be easy enough that I can instruct the dumbest user through it and get the correct required information. I must also be able to spend a very small amount of time managing a very large amount of windows without needing to remind myself to slow the cursor when it starts getting to the edge of the target monitor, I should be able to have multiple programs I need to see almost always easily placed without massive overlapping, or wasted space which is caused by the current lack of window management. I should be able to quickly reach the window I need even if I have 18 windows open (common when I did HD, WA stuff I usually had 5-8). Windows is supposed to make my life easier, but I end up wasting small amounts of time very rapidly.

[blakeyrat]

@Lingerance said:

I was under the impression Windows didn't ship with 3rd party drivers. Seeing as how I've always experienced this with fresh installs with the only drivers ever getting installed being the video card or NIC drivers I seriously doubt you can blame 3rd parties here.

Are you high? Windows has always shipped third-party drivers, as long as I've been using it. Fuck, Windows 2000 had like every single printer driver HP ever wrote as part of the default install... back to the DeskJet 500. I know this because a common fix for HP's shitty driver installer failing was to just use one of the shipped-with-the-OS drivers for a similar model of printer, worked every time. Hell, for that matter, it ships with a working Novell filesharing driver... a product that directly competes with Active Directory, and the driver's right there on the disk.

The only difference for Vista and 7 now are:
1) It now ships much larger drivers than before, including things like video cards
1) It also maintains a huge online repository of drivers that were too big to fit on the disk

Which is why every Vista or Windows 7 install I've seen, ever, will have a full set of drivers after its first Windows Update. If it was one of the rare cases that didn't have a full set of drivers out of the box. But Microsoft's never been opposed to shipping third-party drivers, and they've been doing it as long as I've been using Windows.

@Lingerance said:

No single action requires that.

Thank you for admitting you're a liar.

@Lingerance said:

But to collect hostname, IP address, (often enough) a look at the device manager, disk usage, RAM/CPU usage, or basically anything a help desk person would need to know while on the phone.

I've done IT. I can't imagine a situation where you need to do all of that over the phone... we usually asked the few obvious questions, then fired-up our remote control software to look for ourselves. Even if I did somehow talk an end-user into getting to the correct dialog (or CLI command) to display their IP, I wouldn't trust them to read the right number to me. Maybe I'm just a jerk, I dunno.

Seriously question: is obtaining all of that information from a naive end-user running Linux over the phone any easier? Honest answers, please, no fairylands.

@Lingerance said:

Windows' admin GUIs suck dick?

You have to give an actual reason, or there's no way to respond to this. Of course, you probably don't have an actual reason, so you're staying vague in the hopes we won't grill you, and you won't have to eventually type something like, "well, ok, i don't have any actual reasons to hate it, I just hate it!" and then you look like an idiot. It's not working.

@Lingerance said:

Seriously? I've been told they havn't fixed the edge clipping (that half and half thing 7 does isn't a fix),

Vague! Seriously, what is "the edge clipping" and why does it need to be fixed? What is the "half and half thing 7 does" and why doesn't it fix "the edge clipping"?

@Lingerance said:

they still seem to hate the infitite edge part of Fitt's law,

They perplexingly never took advantage of it in the Classic theme, but Vista and 7 fix this assuming you use Aero.

@Lingerance said:

and they have unresizable windows with scrollbars in them (which I have to freaking scroll everytime I want to see information about an account I should be able to see at a glance [specifically if they're disabled or not]).

What window are you referring to? Or are we playing Vague! again?

@Lingerance said:

All issues that the admin GUIs have. I know you don't work in IT,

You know I don't? WTF. Do you read these forums? What do you think I do? Professional golfer?

@Lingerance said:

but admining Windows is a massive pain,

Compared to Linux? Hah.

@Lingerance said:

Oh, and more specifically ISA 2003's (IIRC, number is probably off) MMC has like 150x100 pixels of actual working area (when used with a 800x600 resolution [which is the reso I got to work with])

I don't know what ISA 2003 is.

[viraptor]

@blakeyrat said:

@Lingerance said:

Oh, and more specifically ISA 2003's (IIRC, number is probably off) MMC has like 150x100 pixels of actual working area (when used with a 800x600 resolution [which is the reso I got to work with])

I don't know what ISA 2003 is.

 

@blakeyrat said:

Filed under: ), English has no concept of parenthesis inside parenthesis-- stop it

Oh... is blakeyrat out of his comfort zone? (he probably is by now (since he's annoyed by nested parentheses (which are perfectly ok (and actually make me feel like I'm writing lisp))))

(Actually), (((to avoid) misunderstandings), ((we could) ((properly chunk) (the sentences)))). (Easier), (isn't it?)

[Lingerance]

@blakeyrat said:

Are you high? Windows has always shipped third-party drivers, as long as I've been using it. Fuck, Windows 2000 had like every single printer driver HP ever wrote as part of the default install... back to the DeskJet 500. I know this because a common fix for HP's shitty driver installer failing was to just use one of the shipped-with-the-OS drivers for a similar model of printer, worked every time. Hell, for that matter, it ships with a working Novell filesharing driver... a product that directly competes with Active Directory, and the driver's right there on the disk.

The only difference for Vista and 7 now are:
1) It now ships much larger drivers than before, including things like video cards
1) It also maintains a huge online repository of drivers that were too big to fit on the disk

Which is why every Vista or Windows 7 install I've seen, ever, will have a full set of drivers after its first Windows Update. If it was one of the rare cases that didn't have a full set of drivers out of the box. But Microsoft's never been opposed to shipping third-party drivers, and they've been doing it as long as I've been using Windows.

Eitherway my point is it has that damage Out of Box. @blakeyrat said:

I've done IT. I can't imagine a situation where you need to do all of that over the phone... we usually asked the few obvious questions, then fired-up our remote control software to look for ourselves. Even if I did somehow talk an end-user into getting to the correct dialog (or CLI command) to display their IP, I wouldn't trust them to read the right number to me. Maybe I'm just a jerk, I dunno.

My point is, it could be easier.

As for all of the "vauge" things, I was being vague because it's a perversive thing. Every admin GUI I had to touch had that damage in some way or form. AD, file security settings, Outlook settings, etc... @blakeyrat said:

They perplexingly never took advantage of it in the Classic theme, but Vista and 7 fix this assuming you use Aero.

I don't know, that close window button looks really big compared to the maximize and minimize buttons. I'm not sure about you, but when I have to deal with a non-tiling WM I use minimize/maximize much more often individually than I do close. @blakeyrat said:

@Lingerance said:

Seriously? I've been told they havn't fixed the edge clipping (that half and half thing 7 does isn't a fix),

Vague! Seriously, what is "the edge clipping" and why does it need to be fixed? What is the "half and half thing 7 does" and why doesn't it fix "the edge clipping"?

@Microsoft said:

Manage open windows more easily—resize and arrange 16814 people like this

Snap

Size and arrange windows by simply dragging their borders to the edges of your screen. Instantly expand to full screen and back, or arrange two windows side by side.
o windows simply by dragging their borders to the edge of your screen.

Edge clipping is when you drag a window around and it's edge meets the edge of the screen, a monitor or another window and it "resists" a bit "snapping" to that edge.
@blakeyrat said:

You know I don't? WTF. Do you read these forums? What do you think I do? Professional golfer?

Yet you admitted in another thread to not working in IT. If that was someone else I'm sorry.

Edit: I'm sorry for assuming something you said previously still held true.@blakeyrat said:

I don't know what ISA 2003 is.

Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004 (ISA Server 2004).
@blakeyrat said:

Seriously question: is obtaining all of that information from a naive end-user running Linux over the phone any easier? Honest answers, please, no fairylands.

Latest Ubuntu Server gives me most of that information soon as I open a shell (by default). I may be arrogant in assuming it'd be equally easy to get that information from the desktop version. As for various server statuses I can usually get what I want with OoB behaviour from each daemon.

[Lingerance]

@viraptor said:

Oh... is blakeyrat out of his comfort zone? (he probably is by now (since he's annoyed by nested parentheses (which are perfectly ok (and actually make me feel like I'm writing lisp))))

Brackets go in parens if you need sub-parens. Just a single-quotes are supposed to go in double-quoted things. I have no citations on this, this is what I was taught in HS.

[blakeyrat]

@Lingerance said:

Eitherway my point is it has that damage Out of Box.

By "that damage" do you mean it taking a few seconds to load USB drivers? If you say so, but you're the only one claiming it happens at all.

@Lingerance said:

My point is, it could be easier.

Are you trying to say Windows isn't some holy product sent directly from God himself!? You mean... it's possible to improve it? It's not already perfect?

Well duuuuuuuh.

@Lingerance said:

As for all of the "vauge" things, I was being vague because it's a perversive thing. Every admin GUI I had to touch had that damage in some way or form. AD, file security settings, Outlook settings, etc...

Yah, admin UIs generally suck, because shitty programmers generally make the assumption that because someone is skilled enough to use the admin UI at all, they are skilled enough to cope with the shitty UI. While true, that sentiment doesn't make coping with the shitty UI any better.

But what I'm not going to buy, not without some very very compelling evidence, is that Linux admin UIs are any better than those in Windows. Considering most Linux *user* UIs are awful, I can only imagine how awful the admin UIs are. (Admittedly, I haven't played with a lot of them. I have gone through The CUPS Horror, the UI so awful even fucking ESR comments on it.)

@Lingerance said:

I don't know, that close window button looks really big compared to the maximize and minimize buttons. I'm not sure about you, but when I have to deal with a non-tiling WM I use minimize/maximize much more often individually than I do close.

Seriously? Minimize I might be able to buy, but maximize? I go months between using maximize... years maybe.

But wait, a few minutes ago you *specifically referred* to the infinite edge portion of Fitt's Law, and *only* the infinite edge portion. Now you're talking about button sizes for buttons that do not generally go against the edge of the screen (and when they do, Fitt's Law is in effect as they have infinite edges.) So... what's your complaint again? Did you originally mean to complain about the Start button not taking advantage of its obvious infinite edge, then realize all of a sudden that it's been fixed, then quickly scrambled to find something else Fitt's Law-related to complain about?

@Lingerance said:

Manage open windows more easily—resize and arrange 16814 people like this

Snap

Size and arrange windows by simply dragging their borders to the edges of your screen. Instantly expand to full screen and back, or arrange two windows side by side.
o windows simply by dragging their borders to the edge of your screen.

I find it hard to believe anybody at Microsoft wrote that gibberish.

@Lingerance said:

Edge clipping is when you drag a window around and it's edge meets the edge of the screen, a monitor or another window and it "resists" a bit "snapping" to that edge.

Ok, and what's your complaint? Why are you expecting Microsoft to "fix" a feature it doesn't even have? And since it doesn't have the feature, how do you know it's "broken?" I'm just trying to understand what you're getting at.

@Lingerance said:

Yet you admitted in another thread to not working in IT. If that was someone else I'm sorry.

No problem, it was just weird. Normally I'd say you couldn't possibly work in IT, since you didn't know Windows shipped with third-party drivers, but hey! Here we are.

@Lingerance said:

Latest Ubuntu Server gives me most of that information soon as I open a shell (by default). I may be arrogant in assuming it'd be equally easy to get that information from the desktop version.

Yeah, well, we're comparing A to B, right? It's perfectly valid to complain about anything relating to X, but you kind of have to temper that a bit if X is already the leader in its field. (I'm not saying that is true in this case, just saying that the debate only makes sense if you're comparing a real OS to another real OS, with no fairylands.)

[blakeyrat]

@Lingerance said:

@viraptor said:

Oh... is blakeyrat out of his comfort zone? (he probably is by now (since he's annoyed by nested parentheses (which are perfectly ok (and actually make me feel like I'm writing lisp))))

Brackets go in parens if you need sub-parens. Just a single-quotes are supposed to go in double-quoted things. I have no citations on this, this is what I was taught in HS.

Of course this would come up the month after I donated my copy of Elements of Style to a charity. Wikipedia only says nested parens "are not commonly used in formal writing", so I'll just drop it. It does make your text really, really hard to read though.

[Lingerance]

Rather than argue with all of the points you made (as I'm getting fairly sleepy, but I'm still restless) I'm going to go about an explain that I expect to be able to do from a modern OS.

Help Desk

I expect to be able to ask the user for the information I need without having to guide them through collecting each piece. The information needed to solve 80% of calls should take 20% of the time. I don't want to be distracted by having to explain the step to gets information from them. I want to focus on solving their issue. If I spend most of the call explaining how to get the iformation needed to either close the ticket or send it to someone else, that's a failure in my eyes. I want to be able to keep the entire debugging thought tree in my head without having to constantly refer to what's in the ticket each time I have to collect information. As I've never done HD for Linux desktops I have no idea what that's like. I'm just saying this from my annoyances when dealing with HD and Windows desktops.

System Administration

I expect to be able to get information I need to solve an issue at a glance. I do not want to hunt and peck for it. I do not want to open a window that has all the information I need but hides some of it in a scrollbar and the window won't resize thus having it remember the previous size isn't an option (AD seeing if a user account is disabled is my primary example of this. Other administration interfaces have this issue). I want to be able to focus on the task at hand, not on getting the information needed for that task. I've done Windows administration in a classroom setting, and had access to some of the tools when I did HD. I've done Linux administration in a professional setting. Administering the Linux machines was by far much easier than doing work with the Windows machines.

General Interface

I expect to be able to just position a window in a monitor and have it use all the space possible, then when I add more windows to that monitor I don't have to think about placement, it's just done. In Windows I have to manually place windows about and they often overlap, or have gaps, this looks sloppy, and although this sounds really lame, it's distracting. I want to focus on my work. I don't want to have to muck around to be able to see everyting that I need to see all the time. I want to be able to have a clean, orderly working area. I want to be able to find a window quickly. I want to be able to compare settings quickly (when the dialog prevents the main window from responding I can't do that. The file security settings used to do this on XP). If I plug in a mouse or a keyboard I want to be able to use it right away. I'm sorry but every Windows XP install I've dealt with had the issue where it takes 3-4 seconds for it to be recognized. Even fresh installs.

All in all, Linux may not meet all of what I expect, but it damn well covers more than Windows does. For the record wmii (suckless.org) is my WM. I haven't used Windows for work in 2 years, haven't used it at home for 6 years, so I expect some of my complaints to be invalid, however in my conversations with people who love W7 none of the things that made me leave in the first place have been fixed.

@blakeyrat said:

@Lingerance said:

Manage open windows more easily—resize and arrange 16814 people like this

Snap

Size and arrange windows by simply dragging their borders to the edges of your screen. Instantly expand to full screen and back, or arrange two windows side by side.
o windows simply by dragging their borders to the edge of your screen.

I find it hard to believe anybody at Microsoft wrote that gibberish.

Maybe you should've clicked the link then? It's the second point.
@blakeyrat said:

But wait, a few minutes ago you specifically referred to the infinite edge portion of Fitt's Law, and only the infinite edge portion. Now you're talking about button sizes for buttons that do not generally go against the edge of the screen (and when they do, Fitt's Law is in effect as they have infinite edges.) So... what's your complaint again? Did you originally mean to complain about the Start button not taking advantage of its obvious infinite edge, then realize all of a sudden that it's been fixed, then quickly scrambled to find something else Fitt's Law-related to complain about?

That's fair.

[dhromed]

@blakeyrat said:

@Lingerance said:

they still seem to hate the infitite edge part of Fitt's law,

They perplexingly never took advantage of it in the Classic theme, but Vista and 7 fix this assuming you use Aero.

 

Lies. Here's a breakdown.

Things (effectively) on the edge of te screen
- top left window control (maximixed window)
- top right window control (maximixed window)
- start button
- quicklaunch buttons
- taskbar buttons
(though the taskbar stuff is implemented as a last-minte mouse-reposition hack and thus kludgy as it only works for left-click.)

Things that are not on the screen edge:

- unmaximized window controls
- systen tray notification area :(((

These things are the same in Classic and Aero Vista, but I haven't used Aero 7 yet.

 

@Lingerance said:

I'm not sure about you, but when I have to deal with a non-tiling WM I use minimize/maximize much more often individually than I do close.

 

?

I'm not sure what kind of use case warrants lots of maxing/unmaxing. Is Alt+Tab not suitable for those needs?Win has a tiling feature, but it's a single operation, so if you add applications, I suppose it's cumbersome rather than a feature.

@blakeyrat said:

Seriously? Minimize I might be able to buy,
but maximize? I go months between using maximize... years maybe.

 

?

I keep shit
maximized as much as possible. What usage patterns makes loose windows
better to work with? They have several significant drawbacks:

• smaller
• can't take advantage of window controls in the screen corner ( <3333 )
• you
  keep having to constantly resize that shit anyway. At least Windows lets you drag
  all edges, rather than OSX which makes you drag a window and then locate
  a tiny drag handle.GNOME also does all edges, but it somehow feels less robust. Perhaps the hot area is narrower.

What are the advantages of having a sloppy mess of randomly-sized windows?

[quote
user="blakeyrat"]Did you originally mean to complain about the Start
button not taking advantage of its obvious infinite edge[/quote]

As I said earlier, XP Classic Start button is on the screen corner pixel.

@blakeyrat said:

I find it hard to believe anybody at Microsoft wrote that gibberish.

You ma have noticed the superfluous page texts that piggybacked on the copypaste.

@blakeyrat said:

Why are you expecting Microsoft to "fix" a feature it doesn't even have?

What
feature, specicfically? 7 lets you double-click an edge for single-axis
maximize. I do not know if it has the Snap feature Ling describes.

 

[Lingerance]

@dhromed said:

I'm not sure what kind of use case warrants lots of maxing/unmaxing. Is Alt+Tab not suitable for those needs?Win has a tiling feature, but it's a single operation, so if you add applications, I suppose it's cumbersome rather than a feature.

When I start up an app gets the full screen, as the day progresses I'll restore it and resize it to share the monitor with other apps as needed. As such the maximize/restore gets twice as much usage as close. As for the tiling feature, it's not per monitor and it doesn't let you have one vertical and two horizontal, if you resize a window it doesn't resize the others.

[blakeyrat]

@Lingerance said:

I expect to be able to just position a window in a monitor and have it use all the space possible, then when I add more windows to that monitor I don't have to think about placement, it's just done.

So if the only window on a monitor is a IM window, you want it to fill up the entire 1680x1050 space? With two text fields and a button? What a waste.

Look, if that's what you want, fine. But recognize: you are a very very rare person. You can't complain that Windows hasn't implemented complex bug-introducing features that only a small percentage of a small percentage of the population uses.

@Lingerance said:

In Windows I have to manually place windows about and they often overlap, or have gaps, this looks sloppy, and although this sounds really lame, it's distracting.

Only a psychologist can fix this for you.

@Lingerance said:

I want to be able to find a window quickly. I want to be able to compare settings quickly (when the dialog prevents the main window from responding I can't do that. The file security settings used to do this on XP).

File security settings is a tab in a Properties window. It doesn't block jack, and never has. Unless you're referring to some "file security settings" other than the ones in Explorer, but then we're playing Vague! again.

@Lingerance said:

I'm sorry but every Windows XP install I've dealt with had the issue where it takes 3-4 seconds for it to be recognized. Even fresh installs.

Do you use a Linux distro from 2001, then complain about its shortcomings? No? Then maybe you should upgrade.

I admit I was referring to Vista/7 when I said I don't experience the delay, because I have Vista at work (and have for years and years) and 7 at home (ditto). It's been so long since XP was current that I can safely say I barely remember XP.

[blakeyrat]

@dhromed said:

- taskbar buttons
(though the taskbar stuff is implemented as a last-minte mouse-reposition hack and thus kludgy as it only works for left-click.)

Fixed in 7. (Although I don't recall seeing that quirk in Vista, but I don't have a Vista machine handy to check.)

@dhromed said:

Things that are not on the screen edge:

- unmaximized window controls

Well, you wouldn't really expect them to be?

But this brings up another quirk in Windows 7... 7 has a bit of code to prevent you from dragging the window controls above the viewport to prevent them from getting clipped. When you move a window far enough up, 7 will bump it back down... and it bumps it exactly 1 pixel too far down to make use of infinite edges for the window controls! Hah. Microsoft badly needs to get everybody on the same page when it comes to usability.

@dhromed said:

- systen tray notification area :(((

Fixed in 7.

@dhromed said:

?

I keep shit
maximized as much as possible. What usage patterns makes loose windows
better to work with? They have several significant drawbacks:

Dude. My smallest monitor is 1680x1050. If you maximize anything on that, you end up with:

1) A window full of background color/filler

2) A window with extremely long lines of text that are nearly impossible to read

Now that said, I have a few apps that cope well with being maximized, like Visual Studio. But I don't use them maximized, because then I'd try to drag them around 15 times a day and then get confused/annoyed when they refused to move, then have to do that stupid "minimize, drag to other monitor, maximize" thing which is annoying.

@dhromed said:

smaller

Doesn't matter for the vast majority of apps.

@dhromed said:

can't take advantage of window controls in the screen corner ( <3333 )

True; but you can't do that on the left monitor anyway. And I don't close windows often enough to consider this an issue. (Rather, I close them with the keyboard most of the time.)

@dhromed said:

you
keep having to constantly resize that shit anyway. At least Windows lets you drag
all edges, rather than OSX which makes you drag a window and then locate
a tiny drag handle.GNOME also does all edges, but it somehow feels less robust. Perhaps the hot area is narrower.

OS X is now commanded by the Unix geeks from NeXT, who, being Unix geeks, hate usability in all its forms. They've been consistently destroying OS 9's beautiful UI for over a decade now, it makes sad me cry.

But for the record, I don't have to constantly resize. I resize once to get the windows approximately the size I want them, then they're good. There are still a few apps that are coded by gibbons and don't remember their size/position, for those apps it can be a pain... but they're rare. (The only one I can think of off the top of my head is World of Warcraft.)

@dhromed said:

As I said earlier, XP Classic Start button is on the screen corner pixel.

Ah yes, I remember now. But the visual appearance didn't imply that it did, so it was still a bit goofy.

@dhromed said:

What
feature, specicfically?

What Lingerance calls "clipping" to an edge. Or a normal person might call "snapping" to an edge. Windows doesn't do that.

@dhromed said:

7 lets you double-click an edge for single-axis
maximize.

It... it does? How do you turn it on?

@dhromed said:

I do not know if it has the Snap feature Ling describes.

Yes it does, but apparently the snap feature doesn't fix the non-existent and apparently broken "clipping" feature, again, according to Lingerance.

[pkmnfrk]

@Lingerance said:

Rather than argue with all of the points you made (as I'm getting fairly sleepy, but I'm still restless) I'm going to go about an explain that I expect to be able to do from a modern OS.

Help Desk

I expect to be able to ask the user for the information I need without having to guide them through collecting each piece. The information needed to solve 80% of calls should take 20% of the time. I don't want to be distracted by having to explain the step to gets information from them. I want to focus on solving their issue. If I spend most of the call explaining how to get the iformation needed to either close the ticket or send it to someone else, that's a failure in my eyes. I want to be able to keep the entire debugging thought tree in my head without having to constantly refer to what's in the ticket each time I have to collect information. As I've never done HD for Linux desktops I have no idea what that's like. I'm just saying this from my annoyances when dealing with HD and Windows desktops.

In the off chance that you ever do actual support for desktops (*shudder*), here's a handy reference chart:

	Windows	Linux
1.	Right click on the Network notification icon	Open xterm
2.	Click Status	Type "su -"
3.	Click the Support tab	Enter your password
4.	Tell me your IP address	Type in "/usr/bin/ifconfig eth0"
5.		Okay, try "/sbin/ifconfig eth0"
6.		No no, ee, tee, aich, zero.
7.		Tell me your IP address.

Note: The Linux column is derived entirely from a few quick google searches. YMMV.

[dhromed]

@blakeyrat said:

Dude. My *smallest* monitor is 1680x1050. If you maximize anything on that, you end up with:
1) A window full of background color/filler
2) A window with extremely long lines of text that are nearly impossible to read

 

I know! That's why I think widescreen is so goddamn stupid! There's a TON of vertical information in programs, and widescreen is spectacularly ill-suited for most computer work. It's good for movies, obviously, but eh, you don't watch movies all the time. Besides, HD is still not as wide as a 2:1 movie.You have that widescreen, and you still get black bands. I find it really quite pointless.

At work, I use portrait 1200×1600. It only sucks for photoshop (a 1024 layout is not going to fit), but I don't do much real work there anyway and I still get the benefit of a really large layers palette.

At home, I run 1360×1024, plus sidebars in applications. It's quite comfortable.

@blakeyrat said:

that stupid "minimize, drag to other monitor, maximize" thing which is annoying.

True.dat, but there are third-party tools to soften that pain.

@blakeyrat said:

True; but you can't do that on the left monitor anyway.

Goddamn multi-monitor nerds.

 @blakeyrat said:

But the visual appearance didn't imply that it did, so it was still a bit goofy.

I was delighted when I found it out. Luna theme makes it visually apparent, though. ...aaaand Vista fucks it up again, visually.

@blakeyrat said:

It... it does? How do you turn it on?

I just heard it. If it does not, then I've been lied to by odious malefactors for reasons unknown.

 @blakeyrat said:

When you move a window far enough up, 7 will bump it back down... and it bumps it exactly 1 pixel too far down to make use of infinite edges for the window controls!

 SO CLOSE.

The same thing happens with FFX4's controversial menu button. It is not in the screen corner. I assume it was designed by a man with his second monitor on the left.

[dhromed]

@blakeyrat said:

I can safely say I barely remember XP.

 

posting from an XP machine because I'm toocheap to buy me some 7 yet.

@blakeyrat said:

Only a psychologist can fix this for you.

 

Well, it is distracting. It's partially why I maximize, as I outlined above.

[PeaceFaker]

@bannedfromcoding said:

On a semi-related note, the tx2000 (well, at least the tablet PC edition, if there's one that isn't) was the model that had an nvidia GPU on board that heated up so much it melted the solderpoints. I know, I saw. ;)

 

 

Mine runs bloody hot but has not melted yet.

[dhromed]

@blakeyrat said:

@dhromed said:

- systen tray notification area :(((

Fixed in 7.

 

Hu? The bottom right corner  in 7 is used for Peek.

But it's moot anyway, because I have the clock and calendar widget in Vista at work, which I bring forward withWin+Space. Happy camper over here.

[dhromed]

@pkmnfrk said:

In the off chance that you ever do actual support for desktops (*shudder*), here's a handy reference chart:

	Windows
1.	Right click on the Network notification icon
2.	Click Status

 

Addenda:

1. in XP, the icon may also be double-clicked. This is an action that most normal users will know, even before they know how to single-click. I forget what happens in Vista+
2. In XP, the icon is off by default on any new installation.
   

[pkmnfrk]

@dhromed said:

@pkmnfrk said:

In the off chance that you ever do actual support for desktops (shudder), here's a handy reference chart:

	Windows
1.	Right click on the Network notification icon
2.	Click Status

 

Addenda:

1. in XP, the icon may also be double-clicked. This is an action that most normal users will know, even before they know how to single-click. I forget what happens in Vista+
2. In XP, the icon is off by default on any new installation.
   

1. Oh, hey, I didn't know that. Cool, I'll update my chart. (Edit: Actually, no I won't, since you can't edit old posts? WTF? I hate this forum)
2. Really? I know wireless connections are displayed by default...

[davedavenotdavemaybe]

@blakeyrat said:

Are you high? Windows has always shipped third-party drivers

Only since version 3.x - which is the cut-off point for favourable usability comparisons with modern *nix O/S. Really, it was only the implementation of plug and play in Win 95 which really sorted things out. So he's only 15 years out of date.

[davedavenotdavemaybe]

@Lingerance said:

Help Desk

I expect to be able to ask the user for the information I need without having to guide them through collecting each piece. The information needed to solve 80% of calls should take 20% of the time. I don't want to be distracted by having to explain the step to gets information from them. I want to focus on solving their issue. If I spend most of the call explaining how to get the iformation needed to either close the ticket or send it to someone else, that's a failure in my eyes. I want to be able to keep the entire debugging thought tree in my head without having to constantly refer to what's in the ticket each time I have to collect information. As I've never done HD for Linux desktops I have no idea what that's like. I'm just saying this from my annoyances when dealing with HD and Windows desktops.

System Administration

I expect to be able to get information I need to solve an issue at a glance. I do not want to hunt and peck for it. I do not want to open a window that has all the information I need but hides some of it in a scrollbar and the window won't resize thus having it remember the previous size isn't an option (AD seeing if a user account is disabled is my primary example of this. Other administration interfaces have this issue). I want to be able to focus on the task at hand, not on getting the information needed for that task. I've done Windows administration in a classroom setting, and had access to some of the tools when I did HD. I've done Linux administration in a professional setting. Administering the Linux machines was by far much easier than doing work with the Windows machines.

I am so fucking glad I don't work with you. The rookies I often have to deal with are bad enough, but you're so much worse. Unlike them, you have no excuse for claiming ignorance of the solutions to all those problems, since you evidently claim to know what you're talking about. I'd expect anyone who'd worked with me for a month to be able to explain to you, or to a user, how to solve every made-up problem you're talking about. Windows isn't perfect from that point of view, but it's immeasurably better than Linux. I note that your AD problem is easily soluble by fiddling with the advanced settings - which are comparable in complexity to the basic settings in any Linux system.

@Lingerance said:

Manage open windows more easily—resize and arrange windows by simply dragging their borders to the edges of your screen. Instantly expand to full screen and back, or arrange two windows side by side. Snap Size windows simply by dragging their borders to the edge of your screen.

Jam the random random with your noodle. As for the "UI is atrocious" maybe so but it is extremely fast. How else could background jobs be done so simply. I'll have to show you a good example for "The BackGrounder" feature.

[davedavenotdavemaybe]

@blakeyrat said:

@Lingerance said:

I want to be able to find a window quickly. I want to be able to compare settings quickly (when the dialog prevents the main window from responding I can't do that. The file security settings used to do this on XP).

File security settings is a tab in a Properties window. It doesn't block jack, and never has. Unless you're referring to some "file security settings" other than the ones in Explorer, but then we're playing Vague! again.

I think he's talking about needing to use ctrl-tab occasionally in badly written 3rd party apps to switch focus from a dialogue box to a main window. Not a Windows issue.

[blakeyrat]

@dhromed said:

@blakeyrat said:

@dhromed said:

- systen tray notification area :(((

Fixed in 7.

 

Hu? The bottom right corner  in 7 is used for Peek.

Uh, yes?

But we were talking about the notification area, which indeed does take advantage of the infinite bottom edge in Windows 7. So I don't see why you're bringing up Peek or what it has to do with anything...

@dhromed said:

I know! That's why I think widescreen is so goddamn stupid! There's a TON of vertical information in programs, and widescreen is spectacularly ill-suited for most computer work. It's good for movies, obviously, but eh, you don't watch movies all the time. Besides, HD is still not as wide as a 2:1 movie.You have that widescreen, and you still get black bands. I find it really quite pointless.

I basically somewhat end up using my widescreen monitors as "two vertical monitors", more or less. Usually it's like a Word doc on one side, then a bunch of IM windows on the other. Then either VS or SSMS on the right. At work that is.

As for movies, movies have been filmed in all sorts of aspect ratios, ranging from 1.33:1 to 2.66:1. At the time monitor/TV makers choose 1.6:1 that was the aspect ratio of most movies. But guess what happens? Movie makers get "insulted" when their movies are the same aspect ratio as TV, and switch aspect ratios... which explains why a lot of movies now are switching to 2:1 or 2.33:1... this is also how we got 1.6:1 in the first place, as movie makers didn't want their 1.33:1 movies looking like big TV shows.

So! Regardless of what aspect ratio computer monitors/TVs choose, movies will be in another aspect ratio. This is psychology, not technology. You'll always see black bars.

[Guest]

@pkmnfrk said:

In the off chance that you ever do actual support for desktops (shudder), here's a handy reference chart:

Windows part doesn't work always. Like dhormed said, LAN connections aren't displayed by default in XP. And in 7 (probably Vista as well, I haven't touched it in ages), there is "Network and sharing center" step. Of course, you could also do "cmd, ipconfig" which works in every version of Windows (or at least those you can except reasonable people to use)

And you can leave su & password parts out. Or if you want to use root, then you can simply write "ifconfig eth0" as there is pretty good chance that it's in the root's PATH (and if it isn't, it's quite likely you have bigger problems to worry about). ifconfig doesn't show DNS & gateway though, so you need to use "route" and "cat /etc/resolv.conf" as well.

[Lingerance]

@blakeyrat said:

So if the only window on a monitor is a IM window, you want it to fill up the entire 1680x1050 space? With two text fields and a button? What a waste.

No, I want the OS to handle keeping windows in an orderly fasion, if I resize one window I want to be able to tell it to resize the window that's adjacent to it at the same time.
@blakeyrat said:

Do you use a Linux distro from 2001, then complain about its shortcomings? No? Then maybe you should upgrade.

As stated before experienced in Vista as well.

[Lingerance]

@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:

I am so fucking glad I don't work with you. The rookies I often have to deal with are bad enough, but you're so much worse. Unlike them, you have no excuse for claiming ignorance of the solutions to all those problems, since you evidently claim to know what you're talking about. I'd expect anyone who'd worked with me for a month to be able to explain to you, or to a user, how to solve every made-up problem you're talking about. Windows isn't perfect from that point of view, but it's immeasurably better than Linux. I note that your AD problem is easily soluble by fiddling with the advanced settings - which are comparable in complexity to the basic settings in any Linux system.

Uhh, what? I know how to get that information. I'm saying it's unnecessarily tedious to do so. I have no issue actually doing those things other than the fact they could be easier or more friendly.

[davedavenotdavemaybe]

@Lingerance said:

I know how to get that information.

You evidently don't know the right way to do so, though, because:

@Lingerance said:

I'm saying it's unnecessarily tedious to do so.

That's only true if you do it wrong.</p

What I'm getting from your whining is that despite having worked out that the way you're doing something isn't a very good way to do it, you're so used to hopelessly bad Linux UIs that you didn't try any of the myriad alternative methods in Windows to find the one which works for you.

[wrack]

As regular user, you can use any of the pairs
/sbin/ifconfig
/sbin/route -n
or
ip addr
ip route
. As root, you can drop the /sbin/ part, as it's in path. Not very tedious.

Also, +1 for tiling window managers. And if I'll ever hear the "spatial" crap again, I'll have to drink more. I assure you, that no one of the 30+ people I know good and interact with everyday, don't have that oh-so-common spatial memory governing their way of life. It's easier to remember names than locations.

[Faxmachinen]

@dhromed said:

I know! That's why I think widescreen is so goddamn stupid! There's a TON of vertical information in programs, and widescreen is spectacularly ill-suited for most computer work.

Yes, though half of that vertical information is blakeyrat quoting every other sentence. Seriously though, that's a good point. I like widescreen, but I couldn't tell you exactly why.

[Lingerance]

@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:

What I'm getting from your whining is that despite having worked out that the way you're doing something isn't a very good way to do it, you're so used to hopelessly bad Linux UIs that you didn't try any of the myriad alternative methods in Windows to find the one which works for you.

Wow massive logic fail here. "He's saying that there should be a way to get enough information that all of the common HD/TS calls could be closed in a minute but Windows clearly can't do that so I'm going to say something completely unrelated to the argument because I like having HD/TS calls take longer than they should."



Edit: There's another benefit to having all of the common support information provided from a single application, eventually the users will realize we need something from the support information application and we won't even have to walk them through opening it, they can explain their problem, we can ask them for the information we need immedately without having to walk them through getting it from whatever random place it's in. 1/5 calls will need to give information that isn't in that, but 4/5 will be dealt with in 1-2 minutes of call time instead of 3-5. For a busy HD/TS this is a massive time save.