Windows 7: "The Linux Killer" | Hacker News Reader

Windows 7: "The Linux Killer"

computerworld.com

17 pointsadnam66 comments

Windows job is to occupy about 128MB of RAM sitting in an invisible VMWare window, assisting Linux and OSX users at launching Microsoft Word to prepare that stupid TPS report every Friday.

"Windows Senior Vice President Steve Sinofsky showed off Windows 7 on his Lenovo S10 and said it used less than half of the netbook's 1GB of RAM."

o rly? Only half the system's resources to sit and do nothing?

Windows Senior Vice President Steve Sinofsky...

What do you expect from a guys with a title four words long? snicker

This guy is 4 times smarter than you. You should definitely check out his resume and his work. And perhaps if you're lucky, have a conversation with him to actually know how smart he is.

This guy is 4 times smarter than you.

I'm sure he'd be awesome if it was ever actually necessary to move Mt. Fuji. The fact remains, he works for Microsoft in this day and age. How smart can he be?

(Maybe he just really likes their corporate culture?)

hello_moto was way out of line. That said, it's probably a mistake to underestimate how smart Microsoft is. They should be respected as a formidable adversary. If they were all nitwits, they wouldn't have been able to build a platform as successful as XBox 360, for example.

It's undeniable, the XBox 360 has been extremely successful at losing money.

So has Facebook. Does that make them not formidable?

Almost every console loses money at launch. Consoles start as loss leaders. The XBox 360 recently turned a profit: http://www.joystiq.com/2008/01/24/the-xbox-turns-a-profit/ ... and the value of the platform is likely to continue going up.

"Almost every"? I don't think many Nintendo consoles subscribe to that.

If the xbox360 is profitable now, it would still need to repay 6 years of massive losses.

The xbox360 is an amazing machine. You guys need to be more positive!

Who cares about the 360? This time around Sony and MS came out with a more powerful 'same thing' while Wii innovated and made something really interesting. Why, my wife is even considering letting me get one of those. :)

I have a 360 and a Wii, the Wii controller is fucking amazing until it becomes a complete unresponsive pain in the ass with 90% of the games on the market. My most played games are WiiSports and Mario Galaxy, and in the past 9 months I've bought 1 game for it and it's a present! I'm considering getting Animal Crossing and that's probably it until the pre-summer game rush when I might buy 1 more game.

I bought my Xbox 360 about a month ago, I've got 5 games for it (10 for my Wii that I've had since release). I've got 6 games I'm waiting for the christmas price to get, which means that in under 3 months it'll have got more games than my Wii does.

I'm sorry, but the Wii really needs a kick in the ass because just like the PowerGlove by Nintendo, the controller has amazing potential but it really fucking sucks at the moment.

That's strange, this is the first negative review I've heard (not that I've been digging for them). Most of my friends have one and every game I've plaid on one of their systems was amazing. They all also seemed to be really impressed with the things you can do on the Zelda game (and most have bought the "crossbow" thing for the controller, etc.).

The division is now quite profitable and projections show they will work off all of the previous losses in a few years. Additionally, Microsoft has gained key strategic control of the living room.

Of 'the' living room? I don't think that's the case. I'd wager there are more wii's in living rooms than xboxes. The xbox is first and foremost a teenage hardcore gamer boys game system, not a family games console.

Also, working off all losses 'in a few years' is great, if things stay the same for those next 5-10 years. But these things can change over night. Some new device on the scene.

Being back to square one in 5-10 years isn't a resounding success though, considering the massive profits Nintendo is making.

Nintendo has been successful, especially in terms of sales and profits, no doubt. And yes, there are more Wiis in living rooms and 360s and PS3s combined.

However, success is not only measured in short term profits. When Netflix was support was added to the Xbox Dashboard software a few weeks ago, it became the number one delivery vehicle for instant watch videos overnight. To scoff at that level of influence over the entertainment space is shortsighted.

Additionally, the sales trends of every console in recorded gaming history shows 80% of the console sales occurred when the price was below $200. The 360 just recently dipped into that range this holiday season.

My Xbox 360 just stole 90% of my media watching from my laptop, with thanks to TVersity. I watch literally almost everything through my Xbox 360 now. It's even beat out my plans to get a Mac Mini to do the job, and even better it's capable of pushing at 720p for the same price.

Before I got the 360 I was struggling with DVD's and usually resorting to watching video off my media laptop. I'm hoping Hulu starts allowing their content in Canada so I can stream shows from the internet through TVersity.

I have a Wii, but I've found the 360 winning a lot more play time over the Wii mainly because of the mature games on the console and the fact it works as a DVD player and media center just kicks the Wii when it's down.

I bought a 360 elite, I see that the Arcade version isn't as bad of a deal as I originally thought it would be. Although I think they should have gone with a 12gb SSD over a memory card, but that's from someone who filled up 20 gigs of my Xbox's HDD in about a week when I first got the console.

IMO I'd say the Xbox isn't the best selling console out there, but for gamers it's got the best content (having stolen a lot of exclusives from the PS3 like Final Fantasy); it's also a great media center (amazing when you download TVersity), both of which mean it's going to stay as close to the TV as your VCR used to (at least I know it will in my house).

(Maybe he just really likes their corporate culture?)

This seems like a snide remark, though I can't tell for sure. While you doubtless know everything when it comes to Microsoft (viz, they're evil in every possible way) most of what I've heard is positive related to "corporate culture".

It's weird how people pick a side and stick with it whatever the context. So, when google gives its employees kindergarten toys to play with, that's great. When Microsoft gives every employee his own office, that's nothing.

For what it's worth, "Every employee has his own office" doesn't always apply anymore, since hiring has outpaced capacity over the past few years.

Whether you'd like to believe it or not, there are a bunch of smart guys who still work for Microsoft. Some really smart computer scientists actually prefer a steady, high salary in a company that's treated them well for a decade over the chance to make it big or go bust trying.

I've never worked for Microsoft and I doubt I ever will, but I have interacted with some really smart folks who do.

All I'm really getting at is the fact that you dislike the business tactics, operating systems, office applications, or corporate culture of Microsoft doesn't mean you should assume they don't have anyone smart working for them.

Some techies consider the possibility shipping thier software to millions of people "the chance to make it big". Microsoft offers that.

Sinofski is a revered person at Microsoft. He has been responsible for the last couple of versions of Office, includingthe radical 2007 decision, and was very much selected by merit to lead the development of Windows 7.

For anyone who tried the Vista beta, you know that traditionally Windows was a mess right up until (and often until after) it shipped. Lack of engineering discipline and talented engineers forced to go into management for raises was really hurting Windows. Sinofski shook up the rules and let the engineers quit management and go back to engineering at the same pay. He also helped shape policies that have substantially improved quality. For example, the main-line Windows 7 branch only contains ship-ready features. Windows 7 won't be late because Ballmer could say "hey, let's ship it tomorrow" and it would be ready.

He MCs the excellent Engineering 7 blog http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/ as well as a popular internal personal blog. His writing style is very long winded, but information rich. After reading his posts, seeing him at the company meeting, and giving a few tech talks, I am quite confident in his ability to turn Windows around. I wish I could say the same for many other teams.

[T]alented engineers forced to go into management for raises was really hurting Windows. Sinofski shook up the rules and let the engineers quit management and go back to engineering at the same pay.

While this sounds like a smart move by Sinofsky, it's even more revealing of Microsoft's cultural deterioration.

This guy is 4 times smarter than you.

Depending on the measure, probably many, many more times than 4. But it has nothing to do with his title, which is what I was poking fun at ;) The implication he wasn't smart because of his title was out of line, good call. I apologize.

Since I'm sure he doesn't really care much about his title, I guess I'm making fun of the people at Microsoft who decided that motivating people with four-word titles is a good idea.

It's hard not to come with a very-long-title in an organization as big as Microsoft (last time I heard they have over 60k employees).

I don't see the title as a way to motivate him. It's just to show where his position in the ladder. If you compare it with Google where things are messy for managers because they have way too many underlinks... then those long titles/ladders/levels start to make a bit of sense.

Tagging doesn't seem to apply to corporate hierarchy (^_^).

Not sure why you're moderated down. The parent noted that has a four word title, you responded that he's four times smarter. Perhaps your scarcasm was too subtle?

>>> o rly? Only half the system's resources to sit and do nothing?

If Windows 7 will really run swiftly on 1GB RAM and Intel Atom, that's actually a rather big thing, strengthening the MSFT domination in desktop OS's even further.

Taking different perspectives into consideration, it still seems to me that Steve's remark was spot on...

Actually, it's worse than that. Windows should consume ALL available memory, since unused memory could potentially be used as cache. Same thing that Linux does - if you've got more commonly used disk files than memory, your memory should be full 100% of the time after your machine is running warm. This can only increase performance, there's no penalty for caching something from disk (if the disk would be otherwise idle).

It's kind of like claiming that disabling Intel's SpeedStep is a good thing, since it makes the computer run faster all the time...

I'd rather be running something not Linux on a laptop... and I do. I use it on the desktop, but its shite on the laptop. Awful wireless and less than stellar performance as far as battery life goes compared to Vista (and likely Win 7).

Meh. All the OS's suck, its just a matter of choosing one that sucks the least for your use case.

The point that Linux enthusiasts become Linux realists is when they realize they are afraid to put their laptop to sleep by closing the lid.

Bingo! That is why for the past few years every laptop I have bought has OS X on it. The hardware works, in particular sleep suspend. Close the lid and it goes to sleep, open the lid and it wakes up in moments, not thirty seconds. On the desktop I run Linux, but for a laptop it is all OS X. Everything I do is c/c++, unix, or web related so working in OS X doesn't matter.

My Eee Pc 901 works fine with suspend/resume, both take just a couple of seconds. The only thing that sometimes fail is audio, but that is easily recovered.

EDIT: With Ubuntu 8.10

"Easily recovered" translates to "minor pain in the ass"

Lot of build up for the pain body, bro.

The point that Linux enthusiasts become Linux realists is when they realize it doesn't magically work on every computer, and buy something to suit.

I hit the power button, choose suspend or hibernate.

Later I hit the keyboard to resume, enter my screensaver password, and resume work.

Edit: I play music and download files with the lid closed. So I don't want my computer to turn off when I do that. And OS X uses screensaver when resuming too - I own one.

That's pretty long-winded. I save several seconds on each of those operations by not having to do any of them, ever - just close the lid, open the lid.

I love my Mac.

That was actually the switching point for me, from Linux to OS X. After months of effort, I finally got suspend/resume working well on my laptop, but still couldn't find a way to close the lid, connect to a monitor, and have X11 automagically handle the screen resolution shift.

I'm not sure I could switch back; I'm more likely to switch to Windows than Linux again, just for the international support.

Me too, and Debian runs great on it; suspend/resume included.

uh, suspend/resume works fine on both my laptop and my netbook under linux...

But keep telling yourself that Windows is the future; it's part of my competitive advantage ;-)

Are you serious? I had to reinstall Windows on my laptop the other day, but since I didn't have a Windows CD with me, I installed Ubuntu to use in the meantime until I got back home to reinstall Windows.

Ubuntu worked fine out of the box and detected all the drivers perfectly, and the wireless worked fine. The battery life applet in particular was extremely nice, providing a watt-by-watt breakdown of power usage over time. To put it simply--everything Just Worked. Now, I had a huge number of pet peeves about 8.1 which I discovered soon after I installed it--but despite the various minor but annoying problems I had with it, it worked.

So then I installed Windows when I got home, since that's the platform I develop on.

It didn't have any LAN drivers, so I had to grab a USB thumbdrive to install those.

Nor did it have wireless drivers. Or graphics drivers. Or sound drivers. Oh, and it bluescreened when it tried to install the webcam drivers, so I had to force it not to. It had basically nothing out of the box.

It took me an entire day to get Windows working with a basic development environment, all my drivers, and all the latest updates. By comparison, this took 30 minutes on Ubuntu.

Laptops seem to be Windows' week point with regards to drivers: it seems as if Microsoft has completely ignored them with regards to hardware support. Given this kind of experience, it's no wonder Linux is making inroads in the laptop market!

Laptops seem to be the weak point of a lot of things, and it makes sense: nonstandard hardware, heavy use (movement), batteries, suspend...

In the end, it's all dependent on your hardware. Some laptops work well with linux, some do not. Some have buggy ACPI, some do not. Forex: my laptop works great with suspend and hibernate. My wireless card has OSS drivers. Not all laptops do.

Agreed, I've actually had more trouble with Ubuntu quirks on my System76 laptop than I did on my old Vaio.

> Laptops seem to be Windows' week point with regards to drivers

I disagree. I had the exact same experience with a 2002 IBM ThinkStation. Intel Chipset - as standard as anything comes. Ubuntu worked out of the box, Windows had nothing. It booted in 640x480 (IIRC, maybe it was 800x600) for crying out loud.

So the argument here is that Windows 7 is a Linux "killer" because it's got high yield possibilities for netbooks. Is that what we're supposed to believe?

Maybe it should have been "Linux for the masses killer." I don't think there is anyone who thinks it will be kicked from the server realm any time soon.

But if the article was named that, I doubt it would be front page on HN right now.

Which is a rather bad sign.

Very true.

Yes well, all that Linux work and Now Windows 7 for Netbooks kills it. I guess I can retire as a wealthy opensource programmer as my work is now done!

I am so tired of the "X killer" meme, it really is the time to put it to rest. Has it ever proved true? Ever?

What does it even me? Taking over market dominance? Completely eradicating from existence?

NeWS didn't kill X11 and DPDF won't either!

Maybe the world would be a better place if it had... ;)

It's a figure of speech. When you refer to X as a "Y killer", what you are really saying is "the market has concluded that Y is a better product than X, and the guys who make X really want to change that".

It has nothing to do with actual killing. Consumer products rarely get killed. [1] Most of them never live in the first place. The others go out with a whimper. They get gradually shuffled to the back of the shelf and are eventually thrown away in disgust. [2]

What this article is really claiming is that Linux is now the OS to beat in the netbook market and that Microsoft is showing signs of recognizing this and trying to catch up. Of course, this is just a pundit's opinion at this point, not Microsoft's stated position. If you ever hear a Microsoft rep describe a future Microsoft product as a "Linux killer" it will be a big moment. That's as close as a marketer is likely to come to saying "we know you think our current product sucks".

---

[1] As some have pointed out, the only company that routinely manages to literally kill successful products is Apple... which kills its own products by removing them from the market and replacing them with new models. E.g.: the iPod Mini.

[2] Or eBayed, which is the recycling-conscious penny-pincher's method for throwing something away.

It means X is really strong.

I feel good about Linux right now.

Oh man, this is great.

remember: we're gonna fuckin' kill google.

and the fuckin' ipod, too, by the way.

Ballmer: just shut the fuck up.

It seems like the Windows tax would have an even greater effect on the netbook market. People will pay a lot more attention to the difference between a $350 and $400 netbook than they will between a $1950 and $2000 laptop. Why spend 12.5% more when you can get Linux for free and still do everything you want?

I also think that netbooks appeal to a different buyer too. Windows still has strong appeal to hardcore gamers, but no serious gamer is going to use a netbook for gaming. Firefox on Linux looks and feels like Firefox on Windows, so if all you want is web browsing, why not Linux? Why pay the Microsoft tax just to get IE instead? I'm sure Windows 7 will find willing buyers on netbooks, but a "Linux killer"? I don't see that. Netbook buyers are more utilitarian and value-concious, so Linux will continue to grow in that market.

I have a dual-boot home-built P4 machine at home with a Logitech wireless multi-media keyboard. Under XP, the device functions as a standard 102-key keyboard. None of the extra buttons work (mute, volume adjust, etc.) Under Ubuntu, most of the keys work as designed (and this was autodetected during installation. I have not done any post-install customisation of the keyboard). I can mute volume, adjust it up/down, scroll windows with the little scroll wheel, etc. Nearly all of the extra keys work under Ubuntu that XP ignores. I could install the special software Logitech shipped with it to make those keys work, but it's slow enough already under XP without adding extra software to run. The machine is limited by motherboard design to a max of 2 GB RAM (which it has). Under Ubuntu, I very rarely see any page file swapping going on, but XP swaps frequently even with no applications open. Windows 7 better have superior memory and process management if they want to run in a low-RAM environment.

The threat to Windows comes entirely from "netbooks"

I stopped reading here.

I'm not the type to say that Linux isn't good. I use it on a daily basis. However, if you're in a large enough non-tech firm, you know that there are people who really don't get tech. Any difference (even difference for the better) is bad. That will prevent Linux adoption.

While I don't work in tech support, I'm the next office over from the ones who do and they'll face problems as silly as people thinking that their printer didn't need to be plugged in (to the wall) to print things or that you can un-send email. For many people you just can't change things without a lot of retraining even if it should be obvious.

"...they'll face problems as silly as people thinking that their printer didn't need to be plugged in (to the wall) to print things or that you can un-send email..."

They're wrong, but there's no law of nature that says they must be wrong, and in fact I would contend that they are perfectly reasonable assumptions, not "silly." There's nothing that should be obvious about either of those examples.

Exactly. Iff you understand tech, it it obvious what to do in those cases. If you don't it is much like magic. You don't have a sensible baseline of how things should behave. So you make assumptions, and are occasionally wrong.

If the issue is really the resource consumption of the OS, I'll believe it when I see it -- thus far every iteration of Windows has been more bloated than the last.

Is XP still shipping on most low-power notebooks though? Not from what I've seen... From what I've seen, most "email, word and internet explorer" users are using vista and getting along OK.

So Microsoft is planning to make software that's targeted at popular hardware? And then promote it?

Is that supposed to be surprising?

"The threat to Windows comes entirely from 'netbooks'"

Do I really need to read any more of this reasoned argument?

Article already pointed out this is the biggest growth area in computing. But I gather you didn't read that.

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