Longhorn could be tough sell for Microsoft

[williamhook]

I would buy it because:

1. It has a really cool 3D interface.

2. It has a nice sidebar.

3. I want to keep up to date.

BUT: I would need a new PC: 20Ghz Pentium 90 would be OK, plus 100Tb RAM, and a 900Tb Disk!!!!! :rofl:

[g-n-t]

well,

1-no, it does not have a 3d interface. it has a hardware accelerated 2d interface

2-no, it wont have a sidebar anymore

personally, i like that windows needs a faster computer at every upgrade. that means cheaper and faster hardware for me to run linux on.

[williamhook]

OK: 1. I meant a really cool look,

2. WHY NO SIDEBAR? :spam: That is like spam! Boo Hoo!

[Rahul]

Oh rest assured, Microsoft will find some way of eventually forcing you to have to buy longhorn with thier power of a consolidated monopoly.

585699325[/snapback]

yup , that just what they are gonna do

[z3r0n3]

from what i'm hearing, longhorn demands even more from your machine. why upgrade to longhorn when it's just gonna leave me less power for games and such? xp runs everything i need it to, no need to upgrade to longhorn for a few enhancements and more bloatware.

[Dr.Jones]

Remember that about 0.000000000004 % of the population is smart enough to know that WinFX and Avalon will be ported back to WinXP, thus they will associate it with Longhorn.

585717289[/snapback]

are you saying that 0,00028 person on earth know about it?

:p

[samriley]

Linux is an alternative for who?  My mother runs Windows just fine but I couldn't imagine her figuring out how to download iso images and installing them.

Linux is an alternative to Windows for nerds.

I'd say the two alternatives to Windows are: piracy, Mac OS X.

585717309[/snapback]

im guessing you havn't seen linux lately?

[aristotle-dude]

im guessing you havn't seen linux lately?

585719266[/snapback]

I'm guess he has. Guess what? It's not the interface, it's all about the apps. Linux does not have commercial desktop apps. Having said that, linux is still quite difficult for a noob to use.

Some people will not switch to OS X because they require a certain set of niche apps which are not available on the mac. The same thing goes for Linux.

Based on your comment, I'm guessing that you are talking about what the interface looks like (eye candy) or some of the usability improvements. That's all well and good but it's still got a way to go and Linux lacks commercial software.

Right now, the only real choices people have for the desktop are windows and OS X. The latter has ports of a large portion of linux software anyway. So where does that leave linux? It leaves linux to those who require fast windows compatibility through wine or dual booting windows that want to run an alternative OS so that they seem like ?bergeeks to their geek friends. There is also the subculture which insists on DIY computers because it's their hobby and they enjoy the challenge. Some of those people are attracted to linux because of the challenge of getting it working as well.

:laugh::

[samriley]

im talking about for the general user all they require is a user interface thats easy to use, an office package, a web browser and an email client.

well linux ui is pretty simple to use now, for office, open office beats microsoft office. web browser, firefox. and email theres a couple thunderbird or evolution to name two.

pretty much the only thing linux doesnt have is games, but thats cos developers insist in using directx instead of opengl and making their games portable.

[figgy]

from what i'm hearing, longhorn demands even more from your machine. why upgrade to longhorn when it's just gonna leave me less power for games and such

585719206[/snapback]

No you heard wrong. From the winsupersite review:

Cold boot time should be 50 percent less than with XP on the same system

In Longhorn, applications will launch and load files 15 percent faster than with Windows XP.

[aristotle-dude]

Ever try the Linux command-line?

Yes, in fact I administered the linux web server at work until our company hired a sys admin department and I got moved exclusively into windows software development. Next question?

That's great - here's a cookie...I mean a latte.? Cookies aren't good enough for a Mac user.

Aw poor boy cannot afford a latte? Have you tried the Chantico? I don't mind cookies but those Biscotti taste great with a latte. :laugh::

And the new groundbreaking user interface in Tiger is what?? And the brand new filesystem is what?? And they're backporting it to OS 9?? Oh wait, they're not.

585700214[/snapback]

Tiger will "ship" within a few weeks with Spotlight search API for searching within metadata and within docments. WinFS, which is just a search/indexing layer on top of NTFS will not ship for another 2 years.

Part of the new user interface enhancements (smart folders) rely on Spotlight technology.

They are also shipping Core Image and Core Video (Avalon in Longhorn) with Tiger which are an extension of Quartz, the hardware accelerated compositing engine found in Panther today.

Why would they port to OS9? Is MSFT backporting to Windows 9x? Longhorn is nothing more than NT 6.x with a new composition gfx engine and some other new APIs.

As I said before, I don't care about the flashy crap in longhorn. I want them to fix the process and thread management in NT as well as improve the memory allocation subsystem. Fix the damn core first.

[aristotle-dude]

im talking about for the general user all they require is a user interface thats easy to use, an office package, a web browser and an email client.

well linux ui is pretty simple to use now, for office, open office beats microsoft office. web browser, firefox. and email theres a couple thunderbird or evolution to name two.

pretty much the only thing linux doesnt have is games, but thats cos developers insist in using directx instead of opengl and making their games portable.

585719473[/snapback]

Sorry but I've tried out Open Office on windows and OS X and for all its faults (damn auto format in word), MS Office beats OO hands down for functionality and ease of use.

Those apps you mentioned (except for Evolution) are all cross-platform. There is no killer app for linux.

Boxed commercial apps are a necessity for wider acceptance of linux on the home desktop. The average Joe/Jane wants to be able to to go a store and buy software off the shelf and have it "just work".

[samriley]

tried 2.0 beta? its really come on a lot, the previous versions wernt all that good but 2.0 is much much better

Edited April 3, 2005 by samriley

[Chadwick]

i think longhorn is going to be like WinME, everyone was more than happy with windows 98 se so many didn't upgrade, those who did were disapointed with the bloated os and many of them proceeded to downgrade. Longhorn being so new and special is not gaurenteed to be better, ever buy a car the first year a new model comes out? See how well it stands up, its not until its out in the real world that the true problems will appear, longhorn is the beggining of Microsofts next wave of os's just like windows 95 -> ME. I wouldn't upgrade immediatley, i'd atleast wait for the first service pack.

[PyX]

Well I'm going to be the first one to purchase this windows. I am so tired of working with XP. Longhorn, from what I've seen, will be a lot more stable and will manage the good hardware better. Basically, 4 GB of ram in Longhorn will be better than 4 GB of ram in XP and that's pretty obvious because Longhorn has more support for the latest hardware (that's one of the main goals)

[g-n-t]

tried 2.0 beta? its really come on a lot, the previous versions wernt all that good but 2.0 is much much better

585719668[/snapback]

dont even bother with him, hes a mac user.

if he doesnt get ripped off, its not good enough for him.

@psykX, thats not true. the only innovations in terms of memory mangaement that i have seen or heard about was a giant memory leak in exploerer. other than that, longhorn will continue to use ram in the exact same way that xp and 2k do. It uses swap space even when there is free RAM, which leads to slower performance.

[strekship]

I don't think that Longhorn will turn out to be the modern WinME. It may run slower on older hardware, but if your system is up to date, then it should run.

[strumbum]

I think it will be harder if for nothing else because Microsoft is back-porting a lot of the new technology to xp.

[Vannos]

Longhorn will sell 100s of millions of copies. Everyone will have it. Dont forget, longhorn is going to be marketed as the foundation OS for the next 10 years.

[PureLogic]

I'd download it! :laugh:

I do understand why people will be reluctant to buy Longhorn. A lot of key features are being ported over to Windows XP, they might be not exactly the same as in Longhorn but "good enough" for most people.

[aristotle-dude]

tried 2.0 beta? its really come on a lot, the previous versions wernt all that good but 2.0 is much much better

585719668[/snapback]

No I haven't had the time. I have MS office at home and work through our license agreements at work.

[aristotle-dude]

dont even bother with him, hes a mac user.

if he doesnt get ripped off, its not good enough for him.

585719828[/snapback]

Yeah, that's why is use free software from:

http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/

Like:

Cyberduck

OSXPlanet

Smultron

VLC

:rolleyes:

If someone wanted to have a lightweight alternative to Word, they could look at AbiWord which is cross platform compatible and has native technology support on windows and OS X, unlike OO.

[gizmostripe]

Aristole, as much as i respect you (yes i do) You *really* need to read up on WinFS :)

Summary;

* Extensible library type systems (Documents, Music, Games etc.) developers can add custom ones.

* You dont need to bother about actual physical locations (No real need for drive letters, no duplicates of the same files) as theyre all aggregated into libraries.

* Searching is *part* of WinFS - Its more on relational metadata (images sent by john etc.) again; developers can plug in their own metadata much like spotlight :p

* More ways to sort and filter information, im a little sketchy on this.

* Contacts, IMs etc. part of the store not as files also can be relational to files, other contacts etc.

Theres also other stuff i havent read about. And NT upwards has had an indexing system, its just really crappy/unexposed.

Edit: https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=111679

Edited April 3, 2005 by gizmostripe

[g-n-t]

Yeah, that's why is use free software from:

http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/

Like:

Cyberduck

OSXPlanet

Smultron

VLC

:rolleyes:

If someone wanted to have a lightweight alternative to Word, they could look at AbiWord which is cross platform compatible and has native technology support on windows and OS X, unlike OO.

585720352[/snapback]

i was only kidding, lighten up.

However, i don't understand how you can praise Abiword and say that OOo is not good enough. i have abiword installed here and i just opened it up. honestly, its about as robust as Word mobile (from what ive seen in the WM2005 leak). OO(especially v2) has everything the average user needs and has very good import/export of MS office formats. Also, abiword is missing abiexcel, abipowerpoint, abiaccess...

why are we even talking about this anyway? i thought this was about longhorn :p

[patelvishaal]

i was really lookin forward to the whole longhorn thing wen i herd about it

but now i duno its like meh to me xp is really now its stable n dosnt crash as much

also i wana noe if they r still keepin tat new file system they were gona put on it and also i herd they scraped the side bar is it true?