Change sucks, sometimes....

[moresmarterthanspock]

Not getting into R&P, I'm talking about computers in general, and games, and anything related. First off, I quit playing WoW when they released Cataclysm. It changed too much, and it wasn't the wow I remembered
playing before. Not to mention they dumbed many things down to appeal to more players.
IMO, blizzard was not loyal to its long-time wow-players, and basically kicked them to the curb to attract different players, dumb players, who can't find their quest objective on the map, so they needed an updated map to show the player the location of the quest. Just call it GPS if you want, because part of the fun was exploring and taking verbal directions from the quest-givers.
Now with the threat of Kiosk-style OSs, and the forseen demise of the desktop, we are entering a world of over-simplicity. I love to use my brain to figure things out. I don't like the fact
that I can figure out every option in the Wii setup menu in about 1 minute.
I am not fond that our choices are becoming more limited. Linux is great, but limited proprietary support, and the open-source drivers for GPU's lack some functionality. Then again, if there was full proprietary support for things such as Netflix(which uses Silverlight), or other content delivery services, many things in Linux would be closed off, because companies would not want to release their proprietary source code.
Computers used to be fun for me, such as setting IRQ, DMA, and I/O jumper on hardware, and editing configuration files to make games run at their best.
Market to the masses, mass profit, is the motto of technology today. I used to brag about using Linux, and now many people use dumb-downed versions of Linux, without appreciating or even being aware of what goes on under the hood. I suppose you could say I take pride in bragging rights. (Oh, you use Windows? I use Linux. What, never heard of it? It's pretty cool.) Now, it's(You use Linux too? Ubuntu? Really? Wow, I love to compile things. Oh, lol, you don't know what compiling is? Your missing out. Too bad. haha.) Ok, maybe there are a few things that non-techie mundanes still miss out on.
But seriously, computing used to be a hobby, now it is a necessity, which to me, sucks. I'm all for change, but don't take away the good old days. Leave those options open for me, please.
I tried to edit, it probably looks like a mess, but hopefully it's easier on the eyes.

[derFunkenstein]

The enter key. She is your friend.

[moresmarterthanspock]

Lol. For some reason I rarely use the Enter key on forums. Maybe I should type things up in a Word Processor like I did in college, then cut and paste my results to the forum for a more professional finish. Then again, the casual atmosphere of forums are nice.

[just brew it!]

I occasionally find myself missing the MS-DOS days, when a person could actually understand everything that was going on in the PC -- from the application software all the way down to the hardware device level.

We're not asking you to format your posts like a formal research paper; but the wall-o-text you posted just kinda made my eyes glaze over!

[Dagwood]

I too miss the good ol days of DOS ! I knew where all my files were because I put them there myself, and networking was easy! you used sneaker net.

HOWEVER! I like my iphone. I don't have a clue how it works and I don't care. I did not read a page of the manual. I use it for getting things done.

Find a new hobby, tinkering with computers is so 1980. I here making apps for your phone is all the rage now.

[mikehodges2]

Lol. For some reason I rarely use the Enter key on forums. Maybe I should type things up in a Word Processor like I did in college, then cut and paste my results to the forum for a more professional finish. Then again, the casual atmosphere of forums are nice.

It's an interesting post, but I only got halfway through -I cba to read a block of text like that in the morning..
The enter key. She is your friend.


As is the edit button.

[Madman]

I started reading the first sentence, #&^@% a text BLOB, rant about WOW. Skipped to the end to read a few words, noticed Linux, and only then forced myself to read the whole thing. Arrrghhhh PAIN!!!

Anyway, to answer the rant, sometimes it can be so, but hardcore geek stuff is a sure way to kill a technology. There needs to be a balance. I use Linux extensively now, but I don't want to compile friggin kernels for new hardware and software. That is so totally lame, I can't even describe. Moreover, when you open a configure for a kernel, there's so much friggin options, you got to be insane to go through each of them and figure out if they are needed or not.

I really enjoy Ubuntu, because - it's usable for dummies, it's stable and it does the job. I don't need a friggin kernel compile to watch a DVD movie or do my daily job, which is to write code. I value my time nowadays. I love that you can always get to the very bottom of it, if the need arises, but I want to do that almost never.

Moreover, the stupid complexity, completely non-standard GUIs, different source distribution packages and so on, is the very reason why Linux is so irrelevant nowadays. Don't think about geeks and servers, think about general population, and software market.

Imagine you're a company. You have a product. It would be cool to support all OSes. You have a budget X. What do you do? Spend 100% of the budget on Windows to get 99% of the users happy, fix all bugs, add features. Or spend 70% on Windows to get 70% okay with a software, and 30% on stupid source distribution packages, non-standard GUIs, etc. etc. Which results in cross platform GUI toolkits that never, ever really look native to either Windows, Linux, or Mac? Although, heck, there is not a single piece of software in Linux world that looks native to Linux.

Anyway, after all this hard work you get what, 70% of users happy? And 2% geeks pissed about compilation, who should actually be overjoyed because they have a Linux native executable.

Ubuntu was doing EVERYTHING right, except for putting on a stupid next-gen, non-standard, non-usable GUI on top of it, which will kill the distribution yet again.

They were approaching the point where average Joe could install it on his computer, and everything worked out of the box. So there was a hope that people would choose Linux more, and software vendors would see an actual benefit of providing Linux native applications.

I want Linux to succeed, but hardcore stuff is the single BIGGEST mistake why it is not succeeding! Even price of "FREE" is not enough to offset that.

[ludi]

I started reading the first sentence, #&^@% a text BLOB, rant about WOW. Skipped to the end to read a few words, noticed Linux, and only then forced myself to read the whole thing. Arrrghhhh PAIN!!!

There's got to be a LOTR joke in here somewhere. How about: "Speak, friend, but use 'enter'."

I kill me.

[Flatland_Spider]

Now with the threat of Kiosk-style OSs, and the forseen demise of the desktop, we are entering a world of over-simplicity. I love to use my brain to figure things out. I don't like the fact that I can figure out every option in the Wii setup menu in about 1 minute.

That's a good thing. User friendliness has come a long way from the days of magical incantations. Manufacturers are realizing people don't read the users manual, and anything that isn't blatantly obvious is going to generate support calls and a negative user experience. People have other priorities then messing with fussy electronics.

Most people don't need more then a kiosk.

I am not fond that our choices are becoming more limited. Linux is great, but limited proprietary support, and the open-source drivers for GPU's lack some functionality. Then again, if there was full proprietary support for things such as Netflix(which uses Silverlight), or other content delivery services, many things in Linux would be closed off, because companies would not want to release their proprietary source code. Computers used to be fun for me, such as setting IRQ, DMA, and I/O jumper on hardware, and editing configuration files to make games run at their best.

Nostalgia got the better of me a couple months ago, and I loaded up DOSBox. That lasted all of five minutes.

All that was a pain in the ass back in the day, and I'll gladly let the OS deal with that stuff. I'll take my modern Unix with a nice X server, and get my hit of nostalgia by opening a terminal emulator. It's all the good parts of the old operating systems with the bad parts excluded.

Proprietary support will come. Linux enthusiasts just need to keep being vocal about support and voting with their wallet. Also, third party programs don't need to be open source (it just helps).

I used to brag about using Linux, and now many people use dumb-downed versions of Linux, without appreciating or even being aware of what goes on under the hood. I suppose you could say I take pride in bragging rights. (Oh, you use Windows? I use Linux. What, never heard of it? It's pretty cool.) Now, it's(You use Linux too? Ubuntu? Really? Wow, I love to compile things. Oh, lol, you don't know what compiling is? Your missing out. Too bad. haha.) Ok, maybe there are a few things that non-techie mundanes still miss out on. But seriously, computing used to be a hobby, now it is a necessity, which to me, sucks. I'm all for change, but don't take away the good old days. Leave those options open for me, please.

Ha! You're being an elitist, and you're upset the source of your elite power is becoming mainstream. If continue being an elitist switch to Linux From Scratch, or you could pick up Minix, Haiku, or a BSD if you want to run something a little more obscure. Then there is the option to write your own OS.

Think about it. You could write your own OS, and you would be totally elite. Don't release the code, and no one else will use it. You could be like, "Hey, I use an operating system that I wrote myself, and no one else uses because I don't release the code. What do you use?" They'll be like, "I use the Apple small-iThingy.", and you can be like, "That is SO pedestrian. I use an operating system that I wrote myself, and no one else uses because I don't release the code." Wouldn't that be awesome?

Technology is still exciting. You just need to be into servers, embedded stuff, or security. Personal computers are a mature market, and it's entering the period where the last little rough edges are getting smoothed out.