Theoretically, you could buy it for $40, burn it to a disc/put it on a USB drive and then sit on it to see if Windows 8 becomes worth the bother, right? Way better than spending more later if you do want to upgrade in a year or two.
Well, maybe, if you don't want your apps to be capable of multitasking or multithreading... or file system access... or running in the background... or various other more esoteric limitations... :P
Actually, that's only if you program to the Metro APIs, which I assume are what you meant by "easier to program for." If you use the classic desktop APIs, you'll have all the capabilities and power that you did before.
If you want to develop for Windows 8 tablets, then Windows 8 may be good for you as the APIs and UI are identical. Even for ARM tablets, all you need to do is flip a switch in Visual Studio to produce ARM output instead of/in addition to x86 output.
The problem with Windows 8 is that they sacrificed a lot of the desktop UI and replaced it with a tablet UI (and its various limitations). Yeah, the desktop still exists, but it kind of has a second-class citizen status (despite what Microsoft claims). They also want to really encourage everyone to develop Metro apps, but the Metro API is really only meant for tablets due to its limitations on UI controls, multitasking, and such. It's a very, very poor fit for desktops and laptops that do not have the limited CPUs and electrical power that tablets do.
Been using it for a few weeks now. It's definitely a strange OS; feels almost like metro is a second column to be used next to classic, rather than one seamless user interface. I'll probably fork out the $40, though, based on one thing: the load times. I can get to the welcome screen in a mind-blowingly quick time.
I grab it but knowing what Microsoft does I do want to see a comparison chart between pro and Ultimate. I have 7 Ultimate now and intrigued about the differences to determine if I want to snag it.
My Arch install with Awesome takes like 10 seconds to get into grub, and the grub stalls 5 seconds. But after that, it's nearly instant. Surely, BIOS and bootloader has to take some time in Windows too.
My Arch install with Awesome takes like 10 seconds to get into grub, and the grub stalls 5 seconds. But after that, it's nearly instant. Surely, BIOS and bootloader has to take some time in Windows too.
Arch isn't as bad as Gentoo. Besides, Archbang takes maybe 15 minutes to get up and running and configured.
True not as bad as gentoo because no compiling. False about configuring. If you already have and know the configurations for a given set of hardware, then sure it doesn't take long. If it's hardware you've never Arched before, then it takes a lot of time to figure out what to do for certain things. And that assumes you know what you are doing. If you are a newb, open up a day or two on the calendar.
I'm assuming a old config and known hardware. Otherwise, it'll take 10 hours to decide what you want, not to execute what you want. Generally if you know the brands, it's not too hard to guess what you're looking for and tell the package manager to grab it for you. And the ArchBang installer (don't quote me on this...) I think will grab everything you need for you during the install. Driver-wise I mean. Also, if you get "wiki-search", you can use it to look up issues you may not know how to fix, and it's pretty painless. Or just visit the website if you have X running.
I'm assuming a old config and known hardware. Otherwise, it'll take 10 hours to decide what you want, not to execute what you want. Generally if you know the brands, it's not too hard to guess what you're looking for and tell the package manager to grab it for you. And the ArchBang installer (don't quote me on this...) I think will grab everything you need for you during the install. Driver-wise I mean. Also, if you get "wiki-search", you can use it to look up issues you may not know how to fix, and it's pretty painless. Or just visit the website if you have X running.
I would hope if you were trying to install Arch on some actual hardware (not a VM) that you would have another computer nearby to look things up. Otherwise it's going to be a world of hurt.
I've installed Arch on actual hardware more than once. It's-- not.. really any bad. I mean, it's not click next 5 times to get a full on desktop, but it really doesn't take that much time.
Edit: I know most Arch users are super elitist and douchy. I don't think Arch is the greatest thing ever. It's my go to light weight distro, but the Pacman/Packer combo has annoyed me more than once before.
I've installed Arch on actual hardware more than once. It's-- not.. really any bad. I mean, it's not click next 5 times to get a full on desktop, but it really doesn't take that much time.
Edit: I know most Arch users are super elitist and douchy. I don't think Arch is the greatest thing ever. It's my go to light weight distro, but the Pacman/Packer combo has annoyed me more than once before.
I just never want to look at another X configuration in my entire life.
You don't really need to anymore unless you want closed drivers. And even then, unless you install it manually, you can get lucky. Shits gotten better lately.
I just never want to look at another X configuration in my entire life.
You and me both. I think I may have accidentally fried a monitor by monkeying with it back in 95 or so. Fortunately that monitor was still under warranty, but yeah. There be dragons in the Xf86config file...
I just never want to look at another X configuration in my entire life.
You and me both. I think I may have accidentally fried a monitor by monkeying with it back in 95 or so. Fortunately that monitor was still under warranty, but yeah. There be dragons in the Xf86config file...
Wow, you've been out of the loop a lot longer than I have. It's been xorg.conf for almost a decade now.
Actually, while xorg.conf still overrides stuff, you aren't supposed to ever write anything to it. You're supposed to use specific files for specific stuffs now-a-days
I just never want to look at another X configuration in my entire life.
You and me both. I think I may have accidentally fried a monitor by monkeying with it back in 95 or so. Fortunately that monitor was still under warranty, but yeah. There be dragons in the Xf86config file...
Wow, you've been out of the loop a lot longer than I have. It's been xorg.conf for almost a decade now.
I know it's xorg.conf now and has been for a while (has it been a decade already? time flies). However, back when I fried my monitor, it was still Xf86config.
Those were the days, installing Slackware 3.0 off a huge stack of 3.5" floppies, compiling custom kernels to get drivers for your hardware that weren't in the stock kernels, manually editing XF86config files, showing how "l33t" you are by pimping out your .fvwmrc...
Naaa... Those days sucked. They built character and expertise, but they still sucked. :P
I want to make devices and software that replicate that character building and expertise generation to be used in schools. Not in real life: computers need to do things for people. But in school, difficult-to-use devices can foster that same kind of learning in a controlled environment.
I want to make devices and software that replicate that character building and expertise generation to be used in schools. Not in real life: computers need to do things for people. But in school, difficult-to-use devices can foster that same kind of learning in a controlled environment.
That would be a good idea... I think some of the newer gadgets like Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and such could probably be used as a start at least on the hardware side of things. I mean, I dunno if they still make them, but you used to find all sorts of neat home electronics kits at Radio Shack to build your own crystal radios and whatnot. Something along those lines where you have a breadboard, a pile of 74xx series chips (with maybe some 555 or similar timers or whatever), some LEDs, 7-segment displays, and resistors would be nice. The projects would need to be scaled down to something appropriate to the school level, of course (I had basically the same setup for some college classes, but other than a "get to know the chips" warmup project, we were building some stuff like ADCs and DACs and even simplistic CPUs with subroutine stacks and everything that may be too advanced for elementary school).
I'm not quite so sure what would be appropriate on the software side of things. Maybe something along the lines of Lego Mindstorms may be appropriate as programming, even with a simplified language, can often bring about some of the same experiences.
Perhaps some specialized devices/programs where you don't exactly know what they do but that you can explore and play around with to figure out what they do would be appropriate. We can argue that giving a 5th grader a breadboard and a pile of 74xx chips may be a bit much for them to handle, but giving a black box that may or may not be made of 74xx chips on the inside that allows a kid to explore how it works by connecting up various pins to various inputs and outputs may work nicely.
There are lots of specialized educational computing devices out available, many of which Lou has mentioned. I personally don't think they will help, here is why.
Let's say you want kids to learn lockpicking. So you put locked boxes in the classroom filled with candy. The kids really want candy. There are no keys. The curious ones are sure as hell going to learn to pick those locks as long as they are simple enough that an amateur can figure it out via investigation, logic, and the process of elimination.
Now let's say there are two boxes. One is locked and full of crappy candy. The other is unlocked and full of awesome candy. Nobody will even try to learn lockpicking because the candy is there.
We learned computers to play DOS games and such because there was no alternative. Someone who lacks exceptional motivation and curiosity isn't going to go through the trouble to program a Raspberry Pi when there's an iPad right next to it.
Put CoD or whatever Homestuck RPG in the classrooms. On Linux. Do everything possible to ban the Wine wiki and PlayOnLinux. If they can get it running, they deserve not to be studying, the teacher probably isn't as clever anyway.
Put CoD or whatever Homestuck RPG in the classrooms. On Linux. Do everything possible to ban the Wine wiki and PlayOnLinux. If they can get it running, they deserve not to be studying, the teacher probably isn't as clever anyway.
A bit too far as cleverness doesn't necessarily imply that you don't need to be studying. At most, it means they don't need to study how to configure games via Wine on Linux. That's not going to teach them calculus, though. Granted, I'm generally in favor of well-rounded primary education covering as many of the arts, sciences, and humanities as reasonably possible. The problem with education isn't necessarily with the subject matter (with a few exceptions -- computer literacy should be taught much more in depth than it generally is currently taught, for example), it's more with the methodology. Now, if the CoD/Linux/Homestuck RPG example was part of the curriculum for computer literacy, then yeah, I can see the student being clever enough to not have to study for computer literacy in all likelihood. However, fat lot of good that will do when trying to calculate the distance a projectile will travel when fired at a 45 degree angle at 20 m/s.
However, fat lot of good that will do when trying to calculate the distance a projectile will travel when fired at a 45 degree angle at 20 m/s.
To be fair! If they can configure Wine on their own, they can probably Google for an application that does that.
Yes, but that doesn't mean they learned squat. That just means they know how to Google and use a random application/web site/etc. that calculates projectile motion. It doesn't mean they actually know how to solve the problem. Someone, somewhere, has to know how to solve the problem to write the application that solves it to begin with.
The point of this exercise was that computers are getting too easy, this is bad for learning computer literacy, so we need to provide a computer exercise that's hard to complete in order to foster learning of computer literacy. However, Googling for a projectile motion app causes the same problem we were trying to solve, only instead of causing the problem in computer literacy, it's causing the problem in mathematics and physics.
Now, I'm all for using apps and such to solve problems such as projectile motion and other problems in mathematics and physics at a certain point. After all, real engineers, scientists, and so on use computer software to help deal with the grunt work of their jobs once they're working professionally or even once they've gotten by introductory classes in their fields in college. I mean, for my physics and chemistry classes in high school, we were allowed to use scientific and graphing calculators to do our number crunching since that wasn't what the class was about -- it was about physics or chemistry, depending on the class. Similarly, I'd often use a spreadsheet or a quick and dirty BASIC program or whatever to do number crunching for lab reports for those classes. However, I always had to show the actual work leading up to the stage where I plug the numbers into the calculator/spreadsheet/etc. to demonstrate that I actually understood the science behind what was going on. Even in college, my introductory engineering classes (I wasn't a computer science major in college -- I was more interested in electrical/hardware engineering such as chip design at first), we had to do all the calculations by hand except for the final number crunching to demonstrate we got the basics down pat. When we got to higher level classes, where it was already assumed that you knew the basics, they let us use software to deal with the drudgery of repeated calculations of the basics so we can concentrate on just what the class was about.
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Actually, that's only if you program to the Metro APIs, which I assume are what you meant by "easier to program for." If you use the classic desktop APIs, you'll have all the capabilities and power that you did before.
If you want to develop for Windows 8 tablets, then Windows 8 may be good for you as the APIs and UI are identical. Even for ARM tablets, all you need to do is flip a switch in Visual Studio to produce ARM output instead of/in addition to x86 output.
The problem with Windows 8 is that they sacrificed a lot of the desktop UI and replaced it with a tablet UI (and its various limitations). Yeah, the desktop still exists, but it kind of has a second-class citizen status (despite what Microsoft claims). They also want to really encourage everyone to develop Metro apps, but the Metro API is really only meant for tablets due to its limitations on UI controls, multitasking, and such. It's a very, very poor fit for desktops and laptops that do not have the limited CPUs and electrical power that tablets do.
Edit: I know most Arch users are super elitist and douchy. I don't think Arch is the greatest thing ever. It's my go to light weight distro, but the Pacman/Packer combo has annoyed me more than once before.
Those were the days, installing Slackware 3.0 off a huge stack of 3.5" floppies, compiling custom kernels to get drivers for your hardware that weren't in the stock kernels, manually editing XF86config files, showing how "l33t" you are by pimping out your .fvwmrc...
Naaa... Those days sucked. They built character and expertise, but they still sucked. :P
I'm not quite so sure what would be appropriate on the software side of things. Maybe something along the lines of Lego Mindstorms may be appropriate as programming, even with a simplified language, can often bring about some of the same experiences.
Perhaps some specialized devices/programs where you don't exactly know what they do but that you can explore and play around with to figure out what they do would be appropriate. We can argue that giving a 5th grader a breadboard and a pile of 74xx chips may be a bit much for them to handle, but giving a black box that may or may not be made of 74xx chips on the inside that allows a kid to explore how it works by connecting up various pins to various inputs and outputs may work nicely.
Let's say you want kids to learn lockpicking. So you put locked boxes in the classroom filled with candy. The kids really want candy. There are no keys. The curious ones are sure as hell going to learn to pick those locks as long as they are simple enough that an amateur can figure it out via investigation, logic, and the process of elimination.
Now let's say there are two boxes. One is locked and full of crappy candy. The other is unlocked and full of awesome candy. Nobody will even try to learn lockpicking because the candy is there.
We learned computers to play DOS games and such because there was no alternative. Someone who lacks exceptional motivation and curiosity isn't going to go through the trouble to program a Raspberry Pi when there's an iPad right next to it.
The point of this exercise was that computers are getting too easy, this is bad for learning computer literacy, so we need to provide a computer exercise that's hard to complete in order to foster learning of computer literacy. However, Googling for a projectile motion app causes the same problem we were trying to solve, only instead of causing the problem in computer literacy, it's causing the problem in mathematics and physics.
Now, I'm all for using apps and such to solve problems such as projectile motion and other problems in mathematics and physics at a certain point. After all, real engineers, scientists, and so on use computer software to help deal with the grunt work of their jobs once they're working professionally or even once they've gotten by introductory classes in their fields in college. I mean, for my physics and chemistry classes in high school, we were allowed to use scientific and graphing calculators to do our number crunching since that wasn't what the class was about -- it was about physics or chemistry, depending on the class. Similarly, I'd often use a spreadsheet or a quick and dirty BASIC program or whatever to do number crunching for lab reports for those classes. However, I always had to show the actual work leading up to the stage where I plug the numbers into the calculator/spreadsheet/etc. to demonstrate that I actually understood the science behind what was going on. Even in college, my introductory engineering classes (I wasn't a computer science major in college -- I was more interested in electrical/hardware engineering such as chip design at first), we had to do all the calculations by hand except for the final number crunching to demonstrate we got the basics down pat. When we got to higher level classes, where it was already assumed that you knew the basics, they let us use software to deal with the drudgery of repeated calculations of the basics so we can concentrate on just what the class was about.