Windows 8 has been unveiled, OSx is Roaring, and Ubuntu is trying to create a Unity. These new OS’s give us a peek at the future, but what does it really say?

Over on ZDNet Ed Bott wrote a nice article on Windows 8. I’m not going to go into it in detail, but the Article and the screen shots got me to thinking, what is the future of the Operating Systems in general? Ubuntu and Windows have come up with new GUIs, and they are different. Geared toward simplifying navigation, are these becoming too simple? Are we getting to the point of making something that a fool can use, and only a fool will use it?

I am not against change, as long as there is a good reason for it. Making a GUI more user friendly is not a bad thing. The big problems I have with the way Ubuntu, and now Windows are going about it though worries me from a support standpoint. How much more difficult is it becoming to find the deep areas that those of us who do troubleshoot machines use? How much more training will we need? How will this affect how people use the OS in a business environment?

The OS that has changed the least in GUI appearance over the years is Macintosh. The basic layout, and where you find things has been essentially the same going back to its beginning, with just some upgrades to that classic look and feel. Apple boasts about how easy it is to use a Mac, and from an OS standpoint, they are right. You don’t have to learn a new GUI with every update. You have your bar up top which allows for the classic drop down menus. They added the dock at the bottom, but you don’t have to use it.

Unity, the new look kills off the classic menu structures to get at your programs. It takes more clicks to find something that is not docked. The more elegant look actually becomes more complex. When you log into the OS, you can choose to go back to the Classic look, but it is not prevalent on how to, although it is simple if you know where to look. Still, the more complex sets of clicks to find an installed program can be a big hindrance to acceptance. Also realize the look doesn’t add anything to security.

Windows 8 poses a bigger question. With it being meant for touch screen, although you can use a mouse and keyboard, and the look and feel being more toward Microsoft’s phone OS, how is this going to complicate finding files, finding software you install? The desktop space is a premium but, as we all know, you put too much there it becomes hard to find what you are looking for. Also what about software that is not on the desktop? How about file exploring especially if you are on a network where items are kept on multiple network drives?

These questions, and where the companies want to steer the computing world are really what will shape the future, and also cause problems. Too much change at once is not good, and change for its own sake usually causes more problems than its worth. Only time will tell what the answers are but, from first glance, it seems as if making the look the same across all platforms is happening, and from there, maybe you get into a situation like Chrome OS, where it is basically a browser, and nothing is kept locally. If that is the case, you can port your GUI look across multiple devices easy, but then who owns your information since it will not be stored locally? Its something to think about.

I have an Android phone, and I enjoy it. I don’t care for the iPhone. That being said, Apple has one huge advantage over Android.

The Android Smartphones are popular. The work well (for the most part), and are reliable (again for the most part). The open development community for apps has produced some great free applications, that you would have to pay for on iOS. There is a drawback to Android though, and it is something that by all rights should be more of a strength.

When you look into the world and history of Operating Systems, you see a bloody trail over security. Which OS is more secure, which one addresses security problems the fastest, etc. The Open Source community has always claimed that because more people can look at the code, patches can come out faster, and in the Desktop arena this definitely seems to be true. In the world of Smart Phones though, this “advantage” is lost.

The problem is not directly Android or Google, or the Open Source community. The problem is in Manufacturers, and even more so on the carriers. There is a process for patches and updates. Google writes an update, tests, sends to the manufacturer who tests, approves and then sends to the carrier. Android is so customizable, and on so many different manufacturer’s phones that this process has to happen for each model, each customized OS, and each carrier.

Now we are getting into a situation with this long protracted system of updates. Holes being found in the systems are there for months, possibly years before a patch gets pushed out. In this age of phone upgrades every 18 months, of more mobile applications for smart phones, more people banking and shopping off smart phones, and the upcoming Near Field Communications, updates for security need to happen a lot faster. The risk of more and more identity theft is growing, and the slowness of the pipeline is maddening.

Now add on that every manufacturer has been customizing the Android OS to try and differentiate itself from the others. How many more security issues can this raise. How many of the mods are creating security holes (we won’t go into other issues these mods cause)?

Yes, Apple has to go through the same sort of pipeline, but Apple has only piece of hardware (with different chips for GSM or CDMA) and just the carriers to deal with. Its a much shorter pipeline, and Apple can cut a carrier off from future iPhone releases if it wants to. Android needs to come up with something similar soon, especially with all the malware that has been coming out for the platform already.

I’ve been a fan of Ubuntu for a number of years. Over the last month I’ve been playing with version 11.04 which has unity. So here is my take on it.

Being one of those who is a tech person, and always wants to find a way to hook new users onto Linux, I was really curious as to the new Unity interface that Ubuntu was putting out. Could it be something that brings Linux to more people? The answer I found is no. At least not yet.

Unity is a slick looking GUI. It is lacking though. First, there is no menu scheme, access to any software is done off the new launcher bar. This wouldn’t be so bad, except to find any software not tacked to the bar, you need to really go digging. the applications window that you get to can get confusing, and won’t show you everything without at least 3 mouse clicks, and even then things can get missed. Yes, as you get used to a new layout, it becomes more natural, but this is a big deviation from what most people know. Its not intuitive, and really needs a lot of refining. While on the login screen you can switch to a classic mode, for someone new to Ubuntu and Linux, it again isn’t intuitive.

The other issue I’ve run into is with a customized dual monitor setup. Unity doesn’t seem to like it too much. I’ve had nothing but problems with that setup.

The underpinnings are fine, and yes if you know how to replace the GUI with Gnome or KDE, 11.04 is a solid system. Unfortunately for a version that is supposed to be for the everyday person, the Unity interface has a long way to go.

A person I know recently wrote a nice little blog piece about how Windows 7 is a Crossgrade. They made some really nice points, but missed the mark on a bunch of others.

First off, the statement that you do not “own” your copy of Windows is correct, this statement is also true of OSX. From the EULA for OSX, “The software (including Boot ROM code), documentation and any fonts accompanying this License whether on disk, in read only memory, on any other media or in any other form (collectively the “Apple Software”) are licensed, not sold, to you by Apple Computer, Inc.” This is why its called Licensing, and while even the GNU Public License allows one to modify the source code, there are still restrictions as to what you need to do for distribution otherwise you have broken the agreement. This is not inductive of owning the software itself.

The next thing is about viruses. I do not deny that Windows has more Malware made for it than any other Operating System, but in this case its about security through obscurity. The people who are writing the majority of viruses now seem to be doing it for money, a way to get personal information and sell it. The best and easiest way to do this efficiently is to target the weakest link, which would wind up being the end user. The majority of end user machines run Windows software. Now to be a bit more fair, Apple has finally started recommending that its users get some sort of anti-malware protection. As a matter of fact there was an OSX Botnet that was found to be active last year. Heck even Linux has a botnet which winds up distributing Windows Malware. So much for that argument.

Apple did a great thing with the $30 upgrade to Snow Leopard, and yes it has Windows beat on the price point there. Microsoft did have some good short term deals when Windows 7 came out such as special student pricing and family packs, but it does cost a bit more to go to Windows 7, and in the long run for an everyday user, it would be more efficient to get a new machine. Of course last year there were a number of companies that would send you Windows 7 for free if you bought a computer from them, a free upgrade from Vista.

Finally, is Windows 7 perfect. No it is not perfect, but it is better than prior versions, and is a step in the right direction. Nobody gets it 100% correct (Snow Leopard shiped with an old version of Flash with a major flaw), but they try. Honestly Microsoft’s OS is closer to Linux than Apple’s in my opinion, considering how much more guarded Apple is about allowing people develop for it. Speaking of Linux, I do use Ubuntu, and I love it. I would love to see more people use it, but I know that comes with some risks and more chance for it to become scrutinized more. I look at Firefox and see what could happen to Linux if it became more mainstream. Linux, I feel,  first needs to become more homogeneous so people don’t have to worry about what flavor of Linux they get.

There are pluses and minuses to every OS out there, and not everyone is going to agree on everything, but at least look at things logically and thoroughly first.

Windows 7 is coming later this year. Ubuntu is on 9.04 with the next version due out later this year. Mac has Snow Leopard coming out later this year. Then there is Red Hat, SUSE, and many other Linux flavors around. Has the day of the OS come to an end? The obvious answer is no, due to software that is written specifically for certain OSes. The answer is also yes because so much of what people do is done through Web Browsers and e-mail clients.

The OS is always going to have some relevance to the world, especially in the business world, where apps have to be created to run on the OS. Windows has different API calls than Linux or Mac. Most software companies will only write a piece of software for Windows, which limits peoples choices on what OS to use. Of Course, Linux has WINE and Mac you can load Windows in a virtual machine (same on Linux). So, unless the OSes all start using the same API (Which Mac and Linux are getting closer on cause of Mac’s Unix underpinning) calls, there will always be fragmentation and less choice.

The answer is more toward a yes on the home front though. Most home users are basically doing e-mail (Webmail can be used), Surfing the Web, and doing Word Processing (There are web things such as Google’s word processor). Course the gamers will have to watch out on what OS they use, but overall, all of the above items can be done on any OS rather easily.

So the real answer is that the OS choices will still be around, but for those who don’t need a lot, you can get a free OS that will do what you want. For the corporate world though, the OS still does matter, at least until all the apps become web based. Then all bets will be off.

So at Tech-Ed yesterday, it was announced that Microsoft plans on releasing Windows 7 in time for the holiday season this year.

The question is what shape will it really be in, and will it be worth it. A lot of good has been said about Windows 7 since its beta came out. Requirements of systems are known also at this point, including needed a minimum of 1 GB or ram 2GB if you are going to use XPM.

Speaking of XPM you do need to make sure that your processor supports the hardware virtualization for it. Both AMD and Intel have software that will check your processor and let you know if it can support XPM.

As it is, one of the online DJs I know did his show from a Windows 7 machine last night, and running the software for DJing in XPM mode worked great for him, which does give some hope that  Microsoft got it right.

Yesterday was the release of the latest version of Ubuntu Linux. I had been running 8.10 on my laptop for a while and felt that I really needed to do a fresh install of it, since the last few releases I used the upgrade option. I had prepped the night before by transferring all my documents and any files I didn’t want to loose to one of my desktops. Then, once I got home, I started the install.

Now mind you my laptop has some overheating issues at times, is on its second hard drive, and can be a pain, which is why I don’t keep important items on it for very long. Upon starting the installation I found the initial screens to be simple, and informative, allowing for you to breeze through this portion of the setup. Then comes the first of the cosmetic changes, the loading screen, which instead of just dots going across, now reminds me more of a Cylon eye bouncing back and forth.

Considering I did not choose the advance install, the next thing to deal with is the 7 questions. This is the area that I either was impatient on time, or my machine really did lock up(and I could not tell you if it was my machine or the installer that caused the problems) but it took me 3 times of going through the install to be able to get through all the questions to do the setup.

Simple items such as time zone, how do you want your partitions, do you wish to keep your prior version, all nice simple and easy. So far things were going overall smooth, and the experience was one that most any user could deal with, even the nontechnical. Total time with the small issues I had to get the system loaded up was about an hour, but if I hadn’t had the locking issues it should have only taken around 30-45 minutes. Once loaded, there were a set of initial security patches, but again it was nothing compare to what we deal with in the Windows world.

I’ll go into software, installing, networking (including Wi-fi), and other things I find out about it in a later post.

Ubuntu, and Linux in general, have come a long way in ease of use, ease of install, availability, and whether or not a normal end user can use it. Desktop Linux’s biggest drawback to becoming mainstream is honestly the community. They do a great job in maintaining the OS, but seem to be overzealous when it comes to helping out end users, which I might add is one of the low to no cost things they brag about. This sort of intimidation is one of the biggest reasons why Linux as a whole is not accepted in the mainstream. The easier experience we can give the nontechnical with Linux, the more of them that will consider using it, and thereby the more chance that the software companies will write more software for it. Course more mainstream brings other problems, which I’ll cover again at a later time.

So Linux mavens, start flaming me if you wish. I’m just giving an honest opinion.