A Future Without Windows Is A Dystopian Nightmare

Megalith

Megalith

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This guy hates the idea of systems like Chrome OS and thinks they will lead us into an age of locked-down computing. Is he right?

Imagine a future where the world is divided between builders and users. Builders create the applications and content that users consume. Today, we live in a world where most people are users, even if they have Windows or Mac OS. But at least with those desktop platforms, there's the opportunity to take the reins and start coding an app, building your own website from scratch or installing software that's not been endlessly sandboxed and prescreened for you. With Chrome OS, you're a passive player who cannot take full control of your device or your experience.
 
I'd think it'd be great using a few extra brain cells for a terminal :p
 
Yes. He is right. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, Samsung all want their own little controlled worlds. In fact I dare say ALL corporations want this. The Corporation is more important than the citizens. If Linux can keep them at bay then we may have some hope. So much has already been locked down that a lot of citizens don't know the difference.
 
I had a nightmare last night. In it, my company hired a new head of IT, who decided to "lock down" all of our computers so that we couldn't install software or change any settings — or even the wallpaper, which was filled with company logos. Many companies operate with policies like this, because they don't trust their employees and thus treat them like children. As for actual children, schools have found the perfect locked-down computer for them: the Chromebook.
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There is no difference between school kids and workers when it comes to f'n up a company computer.

This week, we found out that Chromebooks are outselling Macs (but still not Windows PCs) for the first time.
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$200 utilitarian computer that I have no fears of messing up, versus $1500 work of art. Surprised???

Tablets are selling at great rates. It does not mean that a tablet is going to replace a desktop.

The major development and content-creation tools don't run on Android, and with their tiny storage drives and slow CPUs, Chromebooks aren't meant for coding, rendering 3D models or editing large videos.
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OK? Content creation and content consumption are two different things. I own a TV, that doesn't make me a movie director.......


Why is it so hard for most people to classify 2 different pieces of electronics differently, even though they appear very similar in nature?

Is journalism still taught in college??? I'm not that educated so I don't know what these upper members of society are enriching their lives with now-a-days.
 
As long as Debian and Fedora and the like keeping rocking and rolling, I think we'll be fine, though maybe a tiny bit less free than we were in the 90s.
westrock2000 said:
I'm not that educated so I don't know what these upper members of society are enriching their lives with now-a-days.
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You can be sure it's some great stuff.
 
He's kind of right about not being able to develop for Android on Android. There's no Android Studio for Android. I don't think you necessarily need Android Studio to develop for Android, but it would be a huge pain in the ass without it.

The reason for that, though, is because there's no demand for it. If there were a demand for it, like if suddenly android had some desktop market share, then it would probably exist. There's no reason why an Android Studio couldn't be made for Android. Nothing is stopping it, certainly not Google, just nobody wants it. 'cause who wants to code and design on a phone?
 
GaryJohnson said:
He's kind of right about not being able to develop for Android on Android. There's no Android Studio for Android. I don't think you necessarily need Android Studio to develop for Android, but it would be a huge pain in the ass without it.

The reason for that, though, is because there's no demand for it. If there were a demand for it, like if suddenly android had some desktop market share, then it would probably exist. There's no reason why an Android Studio couldn't be made for Android. Nothing is stopping it, certainly not Google, just nobody wants it. 'cause who wants to code and design on a phone?
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Why would you want to develop for Android directly on an Android device? That would blow soooooo hard. Developing for Android is pretty damn easy, especially if you use Linux as your main computer. Setup is pretty damn quick, with many tools that you'll need only a click away....at least in Fedora they are.
 
ChromeOS is super locked down (great for my mother in law and my five year old), but its pretty easy to get an ssh terminal to an external server so you can create stuff, and there's also developer mode which gives you terminal access to the machine itself, or you can install a different os if you're willing to do a bit of legwork: my chromebox runs windows 10 pretty well (has some issues with sleep/suspend that I didn't on 8.1, but I haven't tried a clean install)
 
Windows is trying to get there on their own.

The era of owning things is drawing to a close, that whole thing was too capitalist anyway. Companies will own all of our stuff, corporatism is the future.

I'll spare everyone my rant about the death of capitalism at the hands of capitalists.
 
Lol what a joke, using Windows as the example of an open platform. And yet Microsoft just forcefully removed the wifi sharing feature. Yes, I know it could be a security risk, but it should be a feature off by default that you can turn on if you want.

I take it this person hasn't heard of Linux? Maybe they would be singing a different tune if they knew what a truly open environment, like Linux or FreeBSD, was like.

Meanwhile I'm having fun gaming in Linux, figuring out cool new ways to improve my operating system. I cut like 20s off my boot time the other day just by looking for ways to do that. Can windows let you do that? Nope!

"systemd-analyze blame", such a cool function.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
Windows is trying to get there on their own.

The era of owning things is drawing to a close, that whole thing was too capitalist anyway. Companies will own all of our stuff, corporatism is the future.

I'll spare everyone my rant about the death of capitalism at the hands of capitalists.
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If there is enough demand for something, somebody will make it and make money from it. And then a large corporation will purchase it and kill it ;)
 
I think it's great Microsoft is using their arrogance to push more people to Apple and Linux. Keep up the good work.
 
So Google is doing something with Chrome OS that it should have done with Android phones years ago?
 
toast0 said:
ChromeOS is super locked down (great for my mother in law and my five year old), but its pretty easy to get an ssh terminal to an external server so you can create stuff, and there's also developer mode which gives you terminal access to the machine itself, or you can install a different os if you're willing to do a bit of legwork: my chromebox runs windows 10 pretty well (has some issues with sleep/suspend that I didn't on 8.1, but I haven't tried a clean install)
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I would argue ChromeOS, or rather, Chrome devices aren't locked down at all. They use Coreboot (open source BIOS/Bootloader) and you can install other OSes on the devices.
 
There's a part of me that says this should happen.

Computers were developed as a means to an end; a tool that one used to get answers to your questions.
Like so many other possessions, they've become an end unto themselves.

I don't care about how I achieve my goal (get information, watch a video, play a game), as much as I care that the goal is reached in a satisfactory manner.

What concerns me about any Google product is what Google gets out of it.
As with all of their products, Chrome is used to glean information on its users. Some, if not all, of that information might currently be benign, be that fact that they have that ability is a cause for concern.

Google is certainly not the only company that wants to mine that information, and their methods are certainly not the most egregious (hello, Microsoft), but their products/services have become so pervasive that it would be unwise to ignore what they could become.

I had a nightmare last night. In it, my company hired a new head of IT, who decided to "lock down" all of our computers so that we couldn't install software or change any settings — or even the wallpaper, which was filled with company logos. Many companies operate with policies like this, because they don't trust their employees and thus treat them like children.
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Given how many employees act like children with company property, it's understandable.
Not to mention liability issues.
 
This guys is sort of an idiot. Yes Chrome can be more locked down then other systems... that is by design and not a bad thing. Computing as he is describing it at an office should be locked down... why pay an IT guy to clean up "regular" folks messes (which they are making when they are not really working). I have setup plenty of locked down Linux setups... and their are even offices that lock down windows. It seems to me this guys office decided to stop allowing people to mess around all day and he isn't happy about it.

His arguments are all mostly bunk to boot. There are people that honestly develop on the chrome operating system. (granted most are likely on a linux system.. but its not impossible) The cloud is good for more then storing pics.

I got as far as reading down to the point where he states there is value in Windows Movie maker. Chrome, osx or Windows for the vast majority of people any of them are fine, and neither is any better then the other when it comes to being walled up. Development happens on everyone of the platforms... and his points about web development are all wrong, pretty much any OS makes a fine web development platform and their are plenty of good reasons to use ChromeOS to develop with. Really with tools like GitHub - dnschneid/crouton: Chromium OS Universal Chroot Environment I think you can argue Chrome makes a far better web development platform then windows.

From the article;
"But do you want to live in a future where only a few people with "open PCs" have the ability to change the world, while the rest of us just live in it? f"

The argument that you can't change the world in Chrome is silly... if your smart enough to change the world, you should be smart enough to install a chroot in chrome or dual boot a full on FREE linux distro. You don't even have to pay a MS tax.
 
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mullet said:
I think it's great Microsoft is using their arrogance to push more people to Apple and Linux. Keep up the good work.
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Unfortunately there's still not much of an alternative for gaming, Linux only has about 20-25% the games working that Windows does. It's kind of like shoving people off the boat without a liferaft.
 
Yeah, bashing Microsoft is hip, right? Especially since 98% of the bashers are probably running it ("I hate it so, but there's a gun to my head and I have to run it!")

Whatever.
 
I'm on a flavor of Linux right now (Lubuntu 14.04) and for daily average use its pretty much the same as windows. The main thing I needed to install was the nvidia proprietary driver. That gave me 3d acceleration and the ability to easily configure multiple monitor desktops. When I boot up it shows 250MB of memory being used and 0% CPU. I've installed Steam, Transmission, Minecraft etc. And when I want to play older windows games, I dont even bother with wine, I use Virtualbox, and it works perfectly. Under Virtualbox with Windows XP I can play just about any game (including DOSBOX ones) mostly flawlessly, Diablo 2, HoMM, Quake 1-3, even Doom 3.

Linux can be made into a pretty solid desktop OS.
 
PornoSatan said:
I'm on a flavor of Linux right now (Lubuntu 14.04) and for daily average use its pretty much the same as windows. The main thing I needed to install was the nvidia proprietary driver. That gave me 3d acceleration and the ability to easily configure multiple monitor desktops. When I boot up it shows 250MB of memory being used and 0% CPU. I've installed Steam, Transmission, Minecraft etc. And when I want to play older windows games, I dont even bother with wine, I use Virtualbox, and it works perfectly. Under Virtualbox with Windows XP I can play just about any game (including DOSBOX ones) mostly flawlessly, Diablo 2, HoMM, Quake 1-3, even Doom 3.

Linux can be made into a pretty solid desktop OS.
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I personally run Linux on nearly every PC I have, except for my main rig which is running Windows 10. If only Linux ran all my games, then I'd replace Windows 10. But yea, I wouldn't worry about ChromeOS, when Linux is doing far better. And I believe some ChromeBook buyers are installing Linux on those machines.
 
Chromebooks are fine for what they are. The computing world is already divided by creators and consumers. Creators generally don't buy Chromebooks.

Whether it was a nightmare or not would depend on how Windows disappeared. If it was a slow decline over a period of a few years as it was replaced by something else. Well, then it would hardly be noticed as people had time to adapt.
If MS basically came out tomorrow and said; "we are closing our doors today fuck you all very much.", it would be pandemonium.

It would all be relative to the time scale. Oh, if either happened, could you imagine the smug cloud that would be hovering over the Linux fanatics if it finally went their way? Could you imagine the gnashing of teeth from them if everyone went to Apple instead?
 
tetris42 said:
Unfortunately there's still not much of an alternative for gaming, Linux only has about 20-25% the games working that Windows does. It's kind of like shoving people off the boat without a liferaft.
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Heck, not even that percentage is happening and then, it is only steam you are talking about. There are so many games that are not even on Steam which means, no Linux version. (Truth is, there are really no significant Steam versions of most games either.) I tried it not long ago and out of 60 games, 5 were only available on Steam and those were Valve based games. It was fun to try it out since I have always done so for the past 25 years but, it appears to be as stillborn as the rest of the attempts at gaming on Linux.
 
My expanding into Linux and OSX has been more of a wet dream. Good stuff.

Only my streaming server gaming rig is left on Windows now.
 
PornoSatan said:
I'm on a flavor of Linux right now (Lubuntu 14.04) and for daily average use its pretty much the same as windows. The main thing I needed to install was the nvidia proprietary driver. That gave me 3d acceleration and the ability to easily configure multiple monitor desktops. When I boot up it shows 250MB of memory being used and 0% CPU. I've installed Steam, Transmission, Minecraft etc. And when I want to play older windows games, I dont even bother with wine, I use Virtualbox, and it works perfectly. Under Virtualbox with Windows XP I can play just about any game (including DOSBOX ones) mostly flawlessly, Diablo 2, HoMM, Quake 1-3, even Doom 3.

Linux can be made into a pretty solid desktop OS.
Click to expand...

Since when did Virtualbox start using 3d passthrough? Seriously, the last time I used it which was late last year, that feature did not exist. (No, not the check 3d box which only really enables 3d on the desktop level, not direct 3d gaming.) I am quite serious, when did they enable that feature? I will always have Windows as my Host OS but, it would be great to run a Windows XP virtual machine so I could game on older games that no longer work on the newest OS. I do run virtual machines almost daily but that feature was not there last time I used Virtualbox.
 
Gorankar said:
Chromebooks are fine for what they are. The computing world is already divided by creators and consumers. Creators generally don't buy Chromebooks.

Whether it was a nightmare or not would depend on how Windows disappeared. If it was a slow decline over a period of a few years as it was replaced by something else. Well, then it would hardly be noticed as people had time to adapt.
If MS basically came out tomorrow and said; "we are closing our doors today fuck you all very much.", it would be pandemonium.

It would all be relative to the time scale. Oh, if either happened, could you imagine the smug cloud that would be hovering over the Linux fanatics if it finally went their way? Could you imagine the gnashing of teeth from them if everyone went to Apple instead?
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Too many business apps only run under Windows, many of them custom apps that would cost too much to replace. I'm still dealing with a couple custom legacy apps (written for Windows 2000 & 98) that have some desktops stuck on Windows 7 32 bit, and the server on 2003.
Most of the newer apps we have deployed are Windows only, so Windows isn't going anywhere.
 
BloodyIron said:
Meanwhile I'm having fun gaming in Linux, figuring out cool new ways to improve my operating system. I cut like 20s off my boot time the other day just by looking for ways to do that. Can windows let you do that? Nope!
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If I cut 20 seconds off my boot time in Windows 10, I would just be leaving my computer on all the time, as the 20 seconds you saved is longer than the time it takes my Windows 10 computer with SSD to cold boot!

That aside, there are plenty of tweaks you can do in Windows. Ever heard of regedit, msconfig, and sysconfig? Those are just a start for where you can tweak your Windows to make it better. Windows just usually works well enough that most people don't bother trying. Linux on the other hand, requires tweaks to work right.
 
Author's stance on computing seems to be an acknowledgment of the downsides that come with allowing "app stores" to become a gateway to desktop computing. A situation is created where programs/applications are then only allowed when they meet the irrelevant standards of whoever is running the app store.

As an example, anyone remember how Napster changed online music and really got the ball rolling? Something like Napster would never have been allowed into an app store. When you give the app store operator so much control, they will ALWAYS use it. Not just to protect users from "potentially harmful" programs, but to further their agenda. That includes protecting monopolies created by bundling core apps and not allowing competitors, accepting bribes to influence which apps get let into the app store, not allowing any apps which disagree with their politics, and not allowing any apps that enable "unapproved functionality".

The main reason Windows has an app store now is because so many people have enthusiastically embraced the "I'm a retard, please hold my hand" approach to apps/programs and Microsoft really couldn't afford to not give those users what they want. The difference is that Microsoft doesn't effectively force that as your only realistic option when it comes to using apps/programs on Windows. While it's possible to run programs/apps outside of the app store on other platforms, if less than 0.0001% of anyone who uses that computing platform ever tries or cares, you can be pretty sure no one will be developing any of those programs...
 
My browser is Chromium
ManofGod said:
Since when did Virtualbox start using 3d passthrough? Seriously, the last time I used it which was late last year, that feature did not exist. (No, not the check 3d box which only really enables 3d on the desktop level, not direct 3d gaming.) I am quite serious, when did they enable that feature? I will always have Windows as my Host OS but, it would be great to run a Windows XP virtual machine so I could game on older games that no longer work on the newest OS. I do run virtual machines almost daily but that feature was not there last time I used Virtualbox.
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Nah, I'm not not passing through a dedicated device through to the virtual machine, its just via the "extended features" set which allows you to enable 2D / 3D acceleration if you have the VirtualBox Guest Additions installed. You can give it up to 128MB vram, and when using 3DMark and some other tools, they see it as a GeForce 6800. For its intended purpose it's actually quite good IMO.
 
My OS boots in under 5 seconds. It was 20s longer before. Still boots faster than windows (any version) can on my hardware.

And yes, i know about those tools. I'm a sys admin and I've been using Windows since 3.11, no stranger to that. Still nowhere near the level of access i get in Linux.


jardows said:
If I cut 20 seconds off my boot time in Windows 10, I would just be leaving my computer on all the time, as the 20 seconds you saved is longer than the time it takes my Windows 10 computer with SSD to cold boot!

That aside, there are plenty of tweaks you can do in Windows. Ever heard of regedit, msconfig, and sysconfig? Those are just a start for where you can tweak your Windows to make it better. Windows just usually works well enough that most people don't bother trying. Linux on the other hand, requires tweaks to work right.
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pxc said:
"A future without" in the title is unnecessary.
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Was waiting for this one.;)

It all boils down to what one does with a device and the type of device or devices they use. There's no replacement for Windows for what I do, at this point I can't even use Windows 7 and 8.x would problematic as well.
 
I look at all the fuss over Microsoft's anti-competitive practices in the past, and see what Apple is lauded for doing now, and just sigh. I think it's done more good than harm and seeing it go woudl do the inverse.
 
PornoSatan said:
My browser is Chromium


Nah, I'm not not passing through a dedicated device through to the virtual machine, its just via the "extended features" set which allows you to enable 2D / 3D acceleration if you have the VirtualBox Guest Additions installed. You can give it up to 128MB vram, and when using 3DMark and some other tools, they see it as a GeForce 6800. For its intended purpose it's actually quite good IMO.
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Tried that and it did not work, the game would not start at all. :( Oh well, maybe they changed some things in the newer versions.
 
Sorry this guy imo is a rambling idiot who didn't put much thought into his arguments...

He lives in fear of a world where a company will produce a platform and somehow make it so no one can really develop for it? wha?

If Android OS creates devices and ability to be more productive (aka surface pro etc), then Google will create tools to develop for android on android. Sure the writer is correct that most android devices are low powered etc etc... but that will not always be the case. Those mobile processors are starting to out-grow mobile devices already. Just as Celeron processors, they will eventually be good enough or for most.

The hardware won't be a limiting factor when (or if) Windows ever becomes a walled garden only environment (which it won't).

This guy wants computing to be more difficult than it should be for most, just to cater to a few that probably should be technical enough to deal with those hurtles? Downloading and installing apps is a real problem these days for most "users", removing that by replacing it (additional option more like) with a trusted "store" simplifies things in many ways.
 
What's the difference between a "locked down" ChromeOS (which will still support sideloading apps, BTW) and Windows? Microsoft has made it perfectly clear that they are trying to build their own "walled garden"...and only are allowing sideloading after a HUGE backlash from users and developers...but they have the same ambitions for the "Windows Store" that every other tech giant does.
 
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