currently, my OS road-map is linux until 200x when longhorn is released. longhorn just looks too damn cool to not use it. am i right in thinking windows will leapfrog linux by that time?

since MS stole the idea of a m eta-data based filesystem from freebsd(which was later stolen from ms by the evil apple in the form of spotlight) shouldn't that functionality effectively be a cut and paste procedure?

now for the bad part, a hardware accelerated GUI. linux is in deep enough shit as it is in terms of video card driver support. making the GUI(or at least the good part of it) dependent on that would make noobs have one of the two experiences on their first boot in linux

a) WTF? this is UUuuuhglaaay. i was ripped off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (if the GUI is "tier 2" (as microsoft calls it, t2 is CPU accelerated like xp, tier 1 is hw accelerated like lh is, supposedly))

b) "error, error, error,errror" (If the gui is tier 1)

either one isn't good.

hypothetically, assuming that in the near future nvidia, and especially ATI get off their asses and do something about linux drivers then is it possible to actually implement that kind of transparency effects in linux? I'm talking about kde here, and gnome. i know that the fluxbox users would take longhorn, throw it on the ground and take a crap on it.

as it is, KDE has no "real" transparency in the kicker, the knosole and etc. however, the menus have real trans so maybe its a feature not a disability. however, the cool thing about longhorn transparency is that its different in each part, like the text is not transparent, the bg is only like 10 percent, the border is 80, and so on.

now, opengl. i dont know much about ogl and dx9, other than doom3 uses ogl and hl2 uses dx9. both have awesome graphics, so ill assume equality.

thinking about it, i guess it is possible for a hw accelerated desktop cause apple did using opengl(version 1.4 i believe, the latest is 2.0) and quartz extreme.

throughout much of my post i was "thinking out loud" so my conclusion is, its possible that by 2006 we could have longhorn like features in linux.

the three major features of longhorn IMO are

aero-looks-transparency and crap
avalon-presentation system-hw acceleration
winfs-metadata driven filesystem

your thoughts?

Moved: This thread is more suitable in General and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

I KNEW IT.

Your "Future of Linux" boiled down to a "Windows vs Linux" - they all live in here. If you knew it, why didn't you post here in the first place?

it wasnt meant to be a windows versus linux thread. we all know htat ms worked its ass off on longhorn cause they are afraid of linux. will htey succeed or can linux catch up in time?

it was my second choice, at least i didnt put it somewhere completly random.

Ya and M$ has done it's best to appease the Morons at the RIAA........and trying to play music CD's, or movies, or DVD's in Longhorn will be all but impossible unless you have specific permission from "Redmond"...........So If you want to give up control of YOUR PC to Bill Gates, then by all means go ahead............

nuka_t - unfortunately you made the cardinal error of mentioning Windows and Linux in the same thread. That means that by tradition, charter or somesuch these threads always turn into Win vs Lin.

Not your fault, but it happens. Longhorn does look nice and I'm sure that since I work in an MS environment and we are partners with MS we'll have to run it. At home, however, I'll stick with Linux.

after seeing ^^ post i realised my mistake.his post is neither true nor does it have anything to do with whether linux will have a hardware accelerated GUI in the forseeable future.

oh well....

Longhorn won't lure the real linux user as it's everything the real linux user doesn't want. It will be heavey - really heavy. You are going to have to have serious hardware to just run the OS. It will be more restricted than ever and linux people want freedom. Longhorn can be either the same thing again repackaged as MS has done in the past with OS's, or something really new. If it is really something new and a departure from what has gone before, it will have problems with making that transition, so it's likely to be buggy for a start.

Also if it's a change then legacy software may not run. The place for linux in 2006-2007 may be as a real alternative to longhorn. Linux compatibility with existing windows software is getting better all the time. By 2006 it's just as likely that linux could be more compatible with older software than longhorn is.

But really, when talking about the gui. Of course linux can have whatever gui someone decides to put on it. Remember tho that many linux users already complain that KDE is too heavy

The filesystem. Well, we have yet to see if MS includes this and whether it works. But lets face it, linux and kin have always been ahead on pluging in filesystems, so you know that somebody will add something similar to linux if people want it. It's worth remembering that linux got to where it is now quicker than windows. By copying windows? Maybe in some cases, but MS copied plenty over the years as well

With longhorn maybe MS hopes to stop loosing more people to liinux or apple, but it is a two edged sword and it could make them loose more users if it is too heavy or doesn't work well or requires that you upgrade your PC.

They need the revenue and they survive in a high growth market. Thet high growth market is slipping and money is getting short and people really don't need to upgrade like they used to. I still have several 6 year old PC's that are more than adequate to do the work here. Even my main box is 4 year old vintage and it can do everything needed. The only push for upgrades now is something like Doom3, but even if I upgrade to a current machine, which will run all the games for the next couple of years, that PC would likely not run longhorn very well if at all...

And you will have to pay a lot for longhorn I would think. MS will really need the revenue by then, so they will need to price longhorn carefully. They need lots of sales, but they can't give it away. They also need to convince people to buy it, and they have had their troubles with XP already in that area. And people have less real money all the time, and they will need more hardware, and maybe more software...

I think MS has a hard road ahead even without linux to worry over.

BTW I didn't understand the video support thing? Nvidia drivers for linux are already good and getting better. The 24/32 bit colour thing and transparency may be a limitation in XFree, I don't know, but to me it's a little trivial as transparency is pretty for a moment, then quickly a pain in the arse and I switch it off to see properly

Linux people mostly want a PC that works, not necessarily one that looks good but is crap to the core

I agree with amosf. I just want to add that my opinion of a good OS has little to do with what it looks like....it's all about the programs running within it. If Longhorn recommends a 3gHz cpu just for the OS, that doesn't leave much room for the apps.

I will be sticking with XP pro for my windows OS, and I want to one of these days have Windows Faded off all of my computers and go 90% linux, and 10% Mac.. Windows is okay, but it seems that everytime there is a new release it takes up more HD space, and more processor to run it. XP is slow as hell..

Just so facts are being dealt with, current suggested minimum system requirements for Longhorn alpha is an 800mhz processor and 512 MB ram.

But everything is going up.
Check TurboLinux 10 F at Pentium III 1.0 GZ, 512 MB RAM, 5 GB hard drive.

I think choices are important.

Hmm. The reviews I have seen suggest 3-5gig CPU with maybe dual core to have any hope of running the fancy new features... And lets face it, if you don't run the fancy new features, what's the point in running longhorn at all???