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| Windows 8 desktop mode, Office 2013: touch-unfriendly |
| By Thom Holwerda on 2012-09-01 21:15:21 |
| The Verge published a video demonstrating how desktop mode and Office 2013 - a desktop application - work on Windows RT, the ARM version of Windows 8. The video showed a desktop mode that clearly didn't work well for touch, and even Office 2013, which has a rudimentary touch mode built-in, didn't work properly either. It looked and felt clunky, often didn't respond properly, and even showed touch lag. |
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| RE[3]: Apparently you need to turn on the touch mode in Office |
| By Thom_Holwerda on 2012-09-02 17:43:17 |
| You do realise that dot is in both shots there, right? |
 - Score: 1 |
| RE[2]: Window opportuniry |
| By AdrianoML on 2012-09-02 18:18:51 |
|
> * Ditching X.org for a working graphics stack (Wayland does look promising) * Fixing the audio subsystem (ditch ALSA, Pulseaudio, and the rest of that mess and put your resources into OSS 4 which actually works) * Providing API and ABI compatibility (yes, the Linux lovers say it's unnecessary but it damn well is necessary for commercial software) Seriously, none of that is a problem. I can install Unreal Tournament 99 for Linux, ported by Loki arround ~2000 and it works fine in this modern 64bit Gnome 3 ArchLinux install. If your poorly binary _only_ software depends on dynamic linked libraries that will sure change over the years, then sure, it will brake. Since this is linux you can also do cool stuff like route audio trough jack and apply any kind of DSP, mind you this game uses very old legacy OSS for actual sound output :) http://img803.imageshack.us/img8... |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE[4]: Apparently you need to turn on the touch mode in Office |
| By nej_simon on 2012-09-02 18:22:08 |
|
? The first screenshot shows touch mode enabled but not turned on, the second shows touch mode enabled and on. If touch mode is not enabled then there is no dot at all, such as in the video by The Verge. Take a look at the video I posted again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2... |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE: What if I want desktop office? |
| By modmans2ndcoming on 2012-09-02 18:24:24 |
| purchase the $600+ version of the surface that will have windows 8 on it rather than windowsRT. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: fail... |
| By modmans2ndcoming on 2012-09-02 18:25:44 |
| windows 8 is very usable. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[5]: Window opportuniry |
| By darknexus on 2012-09-02 18:50:58 |
|
> darknexus: I don't know what OS you normally use, but you seem to be talking about Linux from years ago. I run Fedora on the desktop, and while I have run into some issues, none of them were ever bad enough to keep me from being able to use the system. Part of the issue is that Linux is constantly updating. Linux is under continual advancement. You've just said it yourself. Most people don't want to be constantly updating, and they're quite content to have a few years between versions. The bleeding edge is called that for a reason, you know. > -While X is certainly a bit old, it has enterprise features that other OS's still don't support, especially when it comes to multi user systems, which Windows and OS X are NOT. Hmm, where to begin? First, the home user doesn't care one bit if their os has enterprise features. What they se is this: graphics crashed, all my programs went down with it. They do not care if it's because of unstable half-implemented video drivers, nor that some enterprise-level feature is present. They want it to work and do so relatively reliably. X, due to a combination of age and driver instability, is not reliable enough on an unpredictable home user situation. Yes, you can do amazing things with it on the corporate desktop but, to 99% of users, those features will never see the light of day. The other 1%… well, they're already using X.org aren't they? As for multi-user systems… you accuse me of talking about the Linux from years ago. I'll come right back and say you are talking about the Windows from years ago, and OS X? OS X was built on a UNIX userland (FreeBSD-based to be precise) from day one. You do not get much more multi-user than that and yes, I have administered Macs in a multi-user configuration. They are just as multi-user as Linux with X.org, with the advantage of easy configuration in most situations. If you can claim, with a straight face, that OS X and Windows (at least the NT-based versions) are not multi-user, then I'm sorry but I have to take away your geek card. :) > I have used pulse since it was put in Fedora. In at least the last 2 years I haven't had a single problem. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you don't do much audio recording or editing, and that you don't use VOIP software to keep in contact with people. Sure, you can play your music through Pulse and usually it will work, but for recording or gaming the latency is just staggering. > Your kernel API's are going to change. Its a fact of life. They do in Windows and OS X as well. Your user space APIs are stable. I can run software that was produced half a decade ago with no problems. (like Loki games). That doesn't matter if distro x (Ubuntu, I'm looking at you) decides to patch glibc and break binary compatibility. It does happen. Add to that, drivers are not stable in Linux, by which I mean that I cannot simply download a driver and load it. No, it has to match the kernel version and compilation that I have in whichever distribution I'm running. That's ridiculous. I can run drivers, 32-bit ones at least, on Windows 7 now that were created when XP was released. It's not recommended of course, but there are times when it just has to be done. I don't care, and neither does the average user, about what happens to the internal kernel APIs. That's not what I'm talking about. If you are going to change those internal APIs though, you need to keep the external interfaces the same (a userland for drivers if you will). This is what Windows and OS X do, and guess what, it works. All the user has to do is download a driver for their version of the os (or the closest available if there isn't one), install it, and go. It's not that simple in Linux and, until it is, no one except developers and corporate IT departments will adopt it. It will never be that simple because maintaining such a stable external API isn't fun. It's that 20% that no one in the Linux community ever want to do because it doesn't have the shiny factor. > I won't deny that Linux has some issues to work out to get to the desktop. But its not as bad as you make it out to be. Half or more of the problem you listed will never affect normal desktop users anyway. Come back when you've actually tech supported normal users on Linux as I have. Every problem I've listed is a recurring theme and has been for the last ten years, with the exception of Pulseaudio which is newer. It works for you. It can work for me. We both have the technical knowledge to fix it when something unexpected happens. Most people do not and, while both Windows and OS X can and do break, overall they break far less often. The breakage needs to keep to a minimum for a home desktop and, though programmers don't like to hear it, that means giving up new feature X and fixing old bugs in their programs. It's not fun. It's not rewarding. You'll never get recognized for fixing bugs and keeping stability. It is necessary, however, and this concept is fundamental to the desktop experience. |
| - Score: 4 |
| RE[2]: What if I want desktop office? |
| By vaette on 2012-09-02 19:30:04 |
| Surely you can just connect a keyboard to a Windows RT tablet as well? |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[6]: Window opportuniry |
| By AdrianoML on 2012-09-02 19:54:54 |
|
> You've just said it yourself. Most people don't want to be constantly updating, and they're quite content to have a few years between versions. The bleeding edge is called that for a reason, you know. If you don't want breakage, use Ubuntu LTS (Just like Google does) or Debian. Fedora is a bleeding edge distro made for linux enthusiasts. Don't try to match bleeding edge systems (like Arch) with "long-term" systems (like Windows). > I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you don't do much audio recording or editing, and that you don't use VOIP software to keep in contact with people. Sure, you can play your music through Pulse and usually it will work, but for recording or gaming the latency is just staggering. Pulseaudio is a very nice sound systems with low latency or (XOR) low power usage in mind. It does not even overlap with Alsa, it actually let's Alsa do what it's good for (kernel/driver handling) and replaces Alsa Userspace, which was really broken and featureless. And even though the pulseaudio transition was pretty messy, nowadays you're a fool for not using it. > Add to that, drivers are not stable in Linux, by which I mean that I cannot simply download a driver and load it. That just show how ignorant you are to "the Linux way". You know, they don't need ABI/API stability for drivers because, hey look, 99.999% of all drivers are included inside the kernel (yay score for monolithic kernels), and so every single change they make automatically takes into account these drivers. Just saying that "you can't simply download a driver and load it" shows how much of a Windows mindset you're trying to bring into the Linux world. That will never change for really GOOD reasons. > If you are going to change those internal APIs though, you need to keep the external interfaces the same (a userland for drivers if you will). This is what Windows and OS X do, and guess what, it works. Guess what, Linux does THE SAME for the external, userland APIs. You can load up programs statically compiled more than 10 years ago, and they will run fine. (look at my Unreal Tournament 99 post) The reason we don't usually do that is because since we already have source code for pretty much everything we can dynamically link everything, reduce RAM/Disk usage, fix bugs and just recompile everything again. That's what distro do and will keep doing. > All the user has to do is download a driver for their version of the os (or the closest available if there isn't one), install it, and go. It's not that simple in Linux and, until it is, no one except developers and corporate IT departments will adopt it. Again, since 99.999% of drivers come with the kernel, the user does not need to do anything in Linux. It's actually easier. Oh, and the plug 'n play is much faster. Things only get ugly when no driver is available. |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE[2]: fail... |
| By brion on 2012-09-02 21:39:12 |
|
It works well enough in my testing, though I don't use it exclusively or as my primary OS. On a laptop or desktop, it basically feels like Windows 7 with a tablet OS bolted on the side. :) [I'm currently running it under Parallels 8 on my MacBook Pro.] The tablet-oriented apps are sometimes a bit awkward under touchpad or mouse control; getting at the "charms" through hotcorners feels like a hack, and activating the app bar through right-click is pretty funky too. The rest of the OS (Desktop view and desktop apps) still appears to look and work just like Windows 7, with a more "flattened" widget style. If they'd just left in the start menu and booted to desktop mode on non-touch devices, you'd probably see a lot less whinging. On a tablet, that touch-oriented OS is interesting; I actually rather like it and I'm curious to see how it pans out when real devices hit the market. On a laptop with a touchscreen, Metro is a little nicer since you can use the gestures like on a pure tablet, but you're still able to use desktop apps with a real keyboard and touchpad. What's going to be *really* interesting is seeing how things go on hybrid touch/keyboard devices. These exist already in the Android space with things like the ASUS Transformer's keyboard+trackpad dock. iOS has keyboard support but no mouse support, and neither iOS nor Android will run your traditional desktop apps from other operating systems. Intel-based touch devices will actually run real apps in desktop mode... I can use Git and Visual Studio on the Samsung Series 7 tablet to develop apps -- obviously they're not very touch-friendly, but hook up a monitor and keyboard/mouse and it's a "real computer". On my Dell Inspiron Duo (mini laptop with a touchscreen that swivels to use in either "laptop" or "thick tablet" mode) I can also do some development, but the screen and keyboard on that particular device are not great. (The Inspiron Duo's fatal flaw is a lack of a video-out connector, so you can't fully "dock" at your desktop by connecting a bigger monitor.) Of course if Windows RT won't run desktop apps not from Microsoft, the ARM-based devices will be more limited... but they'll still be dockable for Office and web apps. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[3]: Window opportuniry |
| By diegoviola on 2012-09-02 21:43:27 |
|
Please consider using http://ompldr.org/ or http://imgur.com/ next time, ImageShack sucks and I can't see your image without registering to that site. Edited 2012-09-02 21:44 UTC |
| - Score: 2 |
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