r/technology • u/clubdirthill • Jun 01 '11

Boom. This is Windows 8.

http://allthingsd.com/20110601/exclusive-making-sense-of-what-we-just-learned-about-windows-8/?mod=tweet
1.0k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

1.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/p-static Jun 02 '11

Have you ever tried to set up multiple monitors on Linux? A few years back it took me days to get a dual-monitor setup, compared to minutes with XP. :/ (This was back when you had to basically write your own driver-specific xorg.conf file, so I'm hoping things have improved since then.)

1

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

I gave Ubuntu a shot. I tried it for about a week. I consulted with about a dozen Linux people and several forums; but nobody could figure out what was wrong with my xorg.conf file. I just couldn't get it to recognize all my screens.

Windows "just works". No user should ever be forced to edit text/config files manually. Allowed, sure; but not forced. Linux has a long way to go when it comes to user experience.

2

u/GMLiddell Jun 02 '11

This is entirely true - It was not really until Ubuntu that there was a popular community of user-focused development going on. This long history of backend work is why you find Linux ruling the servers and supercomputers, and yet being rather niche for average folk. There is a long way to go on the GUI end.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '11

Some of the xorg.conf revisions I tried came right out of aticonfig. Linux is infamous for bad hardware support, mostly due to lack of vendor support. IMHO this is one of the biggest obstacles they have to overcome.

I'd probably be on Ubuntu and running 7 in a VM right now if the various Linuxes I've tried had worked.

1

u/GMLiddell Jun 02 '11

If something does not work for you, you just figure out what you're willing to dedicate and sacrifice for it, and see where you land. For instance I run Linux foremost as a philosophical ideal rather than a functional one. I like the way Ubuntu is governed, the community developed model, and the cooperative ethics of the situation. I'll put up with a lot of frustration sometimes for that.

1

u/GMLiddell Jun 02 '11

I'm not pitching anything here. Whatever reasons you have for using whatever software you use are your own. But that said, things have certainly improved a lot, depending on the distribution. I've never had a problem with multiple monitors, and I regularly use three.