Windows as a service? Now, there’s an argument for Linux | Hacker News Reader

Windows as a service? Now, there’s an argument for Linux

computerworld.com

37 pointsohjeez34 comments

> I’ve been happily using Linux desktops for decades. They work. In fact, they work well.

I have been using Linux since... 2000? Jesus. I've probably spent an entire year of my life just setting up a computer to make it usable. (If you think that's hyperbole, consider that i've been a serial distro tester, a distro maintainer, and I used Gentoo) And guess what's new? It's possibly worse today than it was then.

I've set up four new laptops in the past 4 months for Linux. One for my girlfriend, and three for me, using the latest distro versions of both brand-spanking-new dedicated to crappy hardware, and brand-spanking-new of the same old OS i've used for a decade and a half. The following are some of the things i've done to get Linux to work on these four machines.

I have sent multiple patches to distribution maintainers due to their OS poorly handling hardware that was supported in the kernel several years ago. I have spent hours trying to understand and properly enable hybrid graphics. I have fought with X and various apps and machine-specific drivers to support keyboard media buttons. I have edited X configs to support right click on a touchpad. I have read about 50 webpages just to understand which graphics or wlan driver i'm supposed to use, as it has changed multiple times for the same hardware.

I have upgraded and customized kernels, manually modified bootloader settings, built initrds, changed EFI settings, and dug through internet posts to figure out how to shrink a Windows partition down to a reasonable size for a dual-boot install (tricker than it seems, these days). I have upgraded firmware packages, enabled non-standard package repos, upgraded browsers by hand, and installed dock plugins to supplant the functionality the keyboard media buttons simply never performed correctly. I have written custom scripts to get an sd card to mount on plug-in, because the ones that already exist wouldn't work without running "lspci -v" first, each time.

All of this, and more, was necessary to get four laptops (that were released between 2014 and 2016) to provide the basic functionality that Windows and Mac users take for granted. Linux on the desktop? Maybe it works well, I don't know, I don't own a desktop anymore. But it's definitely shit on a laptop.

Think that's bad? Try switching back to windows. I've found it is at least as bad, except you can't edit driver source to work around brain damage. It is like staring into the abyss. I have no idea how normal people use computers anymore.

MacOS doesn't run any software I want (except office, which is terrible, since I know how to use windows office, and I no longer care enough to learn new menus / keyboard shortcuts). Some weeks it fails to resume 3-5 times, but it generally limps along, I guess. This makes it about as reliable as an average well-chosen linux laptop, at 2-3x the cost, and with an inferior userspace (for me, YMMV).

I just want there to be a company that makes a working linux box that is only as terrible as a MacBook. This is a disturbingly low bar. I guess the dell xps developer edition exists. That might be a good bet (especially after Ubuntu actually kills Unity).

The xps I'm sure is a fine Linux machine, as are probably a few other $1500-plus laptops, but I refuse to pay the equivalent of a used Honda Civic for a machine that is mainly just for letting me do research in multiple tabbed windows and write code. If my phone shipped a full OS, I could already use it as a portable PC with an HDMI monitor and Bluetooth keyboard/mouse.

The failure of modern mobile computing is simply user interfaces that are as practical as a Palm Pilot.

> Think that's bad? Try switching back to windows. I've found it is at least as bad, except you can't edit driver source to work around brain damage. It is like staring into the abyss.

This does not match my experience at all. I've installed both Linux and Windows on a lot of different hardware, and getting all the hardware to work under Linux is always harder. Probably partly because the manufacturer took care to make sure everything is workable under Windows, whereas Linux support was usually not even on the radar. Sure, there are plenty of annoyances on Windows, like how the Nvidia and Realtek driver installers also install a bunch of other software that you probably mostly don't need, but at least the hardware works once you're done with the driver install.

I think Linux "works", but only if you pick the right hardware, just as with Hackintoshes. The Intel GPU in my laptop has always worked out of the box, but the GTX 1080 in my gaming box still requires lots of fiddling.

Of course, that isn't great for an OS that people often install on computers they already happen to own.

And of course in typical Azure fashion this service requires an enterprise agreement, can't be tested using free credits, and requires a 12 seat up-front commitment. I'm interested to know if anyone knows of a cheaper service than this or AWS Workspaces from a reputable provider.

You could try Paperspace (YCW15, https://www.paperspace.com) for hosted Windows or Linux desktops. We run our own hardware to keep costs low, all instances have a GPU, and we built a streaming algorithm that works extremely well. We also have native apps for all desktop platforms and a killer web receiver as well :)

[disclaimer: I'm one of the co-founders]

Nice! Do you guys have any plans to support macOS in the future?

It says here[1] they have a Mac app.

Or did you mean offering MacOS as a virtual desktop? I don't believe there is a MacOS license that allows this.

1. https://www.paperspace.com/app

So, I have this problem where windows is completely unworkable, but once in a blue moon (say 4 hours once a year), I need desktop office.

Can I delete my vm between uses, and quickly spin up an office license for those 4 hours? I can pay significantly more than $0.28 / year if the process is slicker than dealing with a windows vm that gets booted once every 12 months (and then spends hours patching itself before it is usable).

Huh? Azure does not require an enterprise agreement and it's pretty easy to get $100 or $200 free credit, basically no questions asked. And the only thing you can't use that on is certain images that are billed at a higher rate (i.e. Red Hat images).

And where does it say that a 12 seat commitment is required?

(Disclosure: I work for Azure, but nowhere near anything Windows, or this product. I'm a Linux nut and besides I'm not even convinced it's an Azure thing, this smells more like a WDG thing...)

If I could use VS in a reasonably sized VM over RDP for under, or around $20/month, I would jump at it... however, generally speaking, less than 8GB RAM is a non-starter, and much more than $20/month, I'll just keep windows on my main desktop.

As it is, VS and a few utilities are all I need windows for. Even then, a good build server might circumvent part of that. My own experience is really mixed though.

How many hours would you actually be logged in? In an 8 hour work day, I'm lucky to spend 5 actually typing code or waiting for a build. 5/24 * monthly "always on" rate might make the constant factors work.

As an aside, I think the whole premise is flawed, assuming you are more productive if you admin your own box. Spend $500-$1000 on something you can shove under your desk, and rdp/ssh/vnc to that.

I think the price/perf on that still murders the cloud, though I don't really care, since I like my privacy and haven't run the numbers recently.

I don't understand this at all. Cloud is vastly more expensive. Everything. From hard-drive space (compare buy + colocate with S3, even with raid-1) to cpu.

And as for network traffic ... everything murders the cloud in efficiency.

With cloud, I don't have to maintain the machine, or ask the IT guys at the office to poke open holes to access that machine... I can also access the same environment configured from work and home, and on the road, wherever... no need to keep a windows machine/vm. I was pretty happy with my Chromebook, except for "enterprise vpn" access not working, and wouldn't mind that interface when traveling.

I know there are other trade-offs, but having a working environment counts for a lot too.

I get that this is a factor for huge companies. They can avoid their own employees and instead try to navigate Amazon's, Google's or Microsoft's service departments. And I get it : mostly a big step up. It's a sad commentary on the quality of most organizations.

And especially in those cases, it's not worth it. A good IT department would be far cheaper than paying for a high-traffic site with lots of backend infrastructure like a bank would have.

I can also work from anywhere I have access to a computer to remote in from. No need to carry a work and personal device with me everywhere.

Im really not a fan of this guys writing. I admire his trolling abilities in the Dvorak style, but he does write a lot of articles that are button pushers.

Side note...I started evaluating elementary OS last night.

Dvorak is like the Ann Coulter of tech writing.

Yeah, it's pretty wretched. I do miss the old "byte magazine" though. It was awesome.

It is amusing how he went from being a die-hard PC curmudgeon that would troll Mac fans to one that was a Mac enthusiast who trolled PC people. Anything for the clicks!

VirtualBox (a free Virtual Machine) has RDP built in (you can enable it even if the guest operating system doesn't support it because it is done on a VM level).

I've never tried it but I wonder what performance you would see by trying to do all your work over RDP to a VirtualBox machine sitting on a headless server somewhere.

I've had more luck (i.e. more usable performance) with the NoMachine remote desktop product (basically X11 forwarding).

For a while I was also using GNU Screen over SSH too.

Thank you. I'll have to give NoMachine a look.

I used NoMachine NX about 12 years ago, it was so much faster than VNC, and X11 Forwarding. Great to see it's still kicking.

setting up nomachine is a real hassle though, for some reason they feel it nessisary to completely replicate the linux login infrastructure, aswell as mantaining a whole heap of paralell dependencies (that needs separate configuring, including a version of x11 from 2005 that causes some real headaches) for no apparent reason.

Why cant it just be an x11 proxy rather than an x11 proxy plus an entire authorization infrastructure?

I guess you wanted to setup an enterprise authentication scheme?

For a simple desktop usage all I did was installing the deb package on the server and it was ready to go. I just entered my ssh details on the client and done, remote desktop at my fingertips. no manual setup, no external authorization, no dependency hell.

We'll just conveniently ignore the costs of retraining users and of replacing any legacy systems they may use. Ooh look, shiny Linux!

Windows updates broke your in-house mission critical application, but it should run just fine on Linux. /s

When you rewrite your now hosed mission critical app you won't get screwed again. Seems like a reasonable response to getting screwed to me to move to a different supplier. But hey, making better friends with whatever supplier is screwing you without your consent could work too..? Deciding they're really ok and coming to terms with it as the natural order of things could work too..? Protecting yourself and claiming autonomy isn't the only solution by any means.

Right, the update process for Linux distros never, ever breaks anything so it's perfectly safe. /s

No, the advantage is that the update process is in your control not your suppliers. Which was the whole point of the article if you'd care to read it.

You can disagree with the utility of having that control yourself vs having it controlled by your supplier. If people here believe that utility to be not worthwhile from their direct experience - that's something I'd really like to hear because I'd likely learn something from it.

I'm not sure I learn much from your response.

Windows and Microsoft in general are legendary for how good their backwards compatibility is. There's this game from on windows 3.1 I like to play, and I've just got the exe somewhere, "world empire 2", it just works. This is surprisingly common.

A linux binary from 20 years ago is just not going to start. Even the basic libc wouldn't be there.

Which implies why nobody ever need worry about windows upgrades being pushed out and hosing their mission critical apps without their consent. This also implies the article is full of shit. But I guess world empire 2 wasn't mission critical for this guy..?

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