..::B:R:A:D::..

So do good things really come to those who wait…and keep waiting…and waiting…or does it simply provide opportunity for your competition to either catch up or surpass or perhaps get even further ahead (depending on the particular situation). Anyway, I saw that Paul Thurrott updated his The Road to Windows “Longhorn” 2005 page on his site SuperSite for Windows. I occasionally check out the site to see what new garbage Mr. Thurrott is blabbing about and to see where Microsoft thinks it’s going. I also like to see what the “other guys” are up to and I must admit I like to see what new technologies might be around the corner (or usually what technologies they bought or ripped off of other people).

In this last update I noticed two things that made me laugh. In a subsection ironically titled “Powerful, Reliable & Secure” (that wasn’t one of them but it’s funny enough) it shows a dialog box prompting the user to, get this, enter an admin password to install an application! What, are you serious…you have got to be kidding me! After all the CRAP the MS fanboys brought up in the past stating that nobody will ever use Linux (or most UNIX like operating systems) because to do admin (root) tasks, such as installing an application, you have to enter a password. They all said users just won’t stand for such a thing! I would then comment back telling them that they should open their eyes and realize that one day MS will learn from its past security mistakes and probably implement similar functionality (and call it a “new” feature)….so here it is…I TOLD YOU SO!

The second thing I noticed was their “new” feature they call “hot patching”. This will enable Windows to update things other than the kernel or drivers without rebooting…IT’S ABOUT TIME!

Finally, take a look at the recommended hardware specs for Longhorn…which will likely increase as the actual release gets closer. This is where I feel Linux has a real opportunity to make a move. Well, obviously Linux is just a kernel and does not “need” a GUI installed which tremendously reduces its hardware resource dependence. But that’s not really what I am talking about, sure that’s great on a server but what about the client. Not everybody (or companies) are going to want to “have” to upgrade their hardware.

Work is currently being done to work on Gnome Memory Reduction! To be able to deliver a fully modern, innovative, and productive interface with a much less hardware requirement would be a big boon. Then again…on older machines you can always run one of the smaller footprint interfaces anyway (once again showing the power of choice and diversity!)

By the time Longhorn is released (which is scheduled for sometime in 2006, probably not until 2007) hopefully all the new X server technologies will be up to speed and ready for real use…and hopefully able to used reasonably on lower end machines (in addition to being able to be turned off…).

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 20th, 2005 at 7:37 pm and is filed under Other OS. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.