And then the problems
started.
I'll spare you the details, but suffice
it to say they weren't the usual stutter-starts that occur when an OS
has been released prematurely. No, this stuff was “Everything is
hanging in the balance” serious. I rolled up my sleeves and got to
work, keeping my super-talented brother on speed-dial.
At first I
assumed the problem was with me — I'm as fluent in coding as I am
in German or French. Put me in a roomful of natives (or open a terminal)
and I'll eventually get my point across, but it won't be pretty.
As the trials (and days) wore on, I
began to wonder if something wasn't seriously messed up with this
release. That's happened before, and with Ubuntu's stubborn
insistence on a tablet desktop (which is crap on tablets and worse on
PCs) it could be that their development eye is so far off the ball
they've forgotten how to cover the basics.
But when, after various re-installation
attempts for Ubuntu and Windows
7, I was greeted with this screen . . .
. . .
my brother began to wonder if the problem didn't originate with “our
friends in Redmond.”
Maybe,
maybe not. All I know is:
a)
right now Windows 7 is the only OS that installs successfully on my
PC.
b)
Windows 8 is Microsoft's “closed” OS — i.e., Microsoft is now
emulating Apple's method (to dubious effect, of which I'll say more
later).
c)
Windows 8 monkeys with the host BIOS. In other words, if you install
Windows 8 on a machine — or get a machine with Windows 8 already on
it — Windows basically breaks into the BIOS and changes the locks
behind it, so that Windows 8 is the only OS
that will run on that machine.
Microsoft
isn't the only outfit that can monkey with a BIOS, of course. As my
friend, who did time as a BIOS engineer, is fond of saying, “Firmware
ain't that firm.” But I'm not a hacker. I doubt I even qualify as a
geek. Opening up the BIOS and putting it back together so it does
what I tell it to — I'd have an easier time performing that
function on my cat.
Besides,
“User Error” is still the likeliest cause of my troubles. For now
I'm stuck using a functional-if-disagreeable OS, and contemplating Microsoft's
larger market strategy. The whole experience has got me wondering.
Why would Microsoft lock up the BIOS? More to the point, why would hardware manufacturers consent to this? Anyone who buys a new PC hoping to install something else on it now faces a hacker's challenge, which the manufacturer's End User Licensing Agreement strongly discourages. I studied Hewlett-Packard's EULA this week, and they aren't threatening patent infringement lawsuits — yet. But as my screen message amply displays, the component manufacturer is keen to let the user know this is certainly a possible scenario.
This
antagonism toward the consumer is baffling to me. It's hardly putting the best foot forward with potential customers. For
Apple to sell their closed and externally controlled environment they
had to have a product that made the consumer swoon. Windows 8 ain't
doing that. Sales for their OS aren't just hurting, they're having a negative effect on the hardware that hosts it. Meanwhile, closed systems are losing
momentum precisely while “open” systems like Android are taking flight.
But
secondly, just consider the ironies of my situation: I only bothered
myself with a PC because it could run Linux simultaneously with
Windows, which accommodated my household Apple products. If I am now
forced to align myself with a closed system, whatever would possess
me to take up with the company that pulled the rug out from under my
feet?
Anyway,
I've already put the money down, so for the foreseeable future a
Windows 7 user I shall be — which ain't a bad OS, frankly. Who
knows? I might just finally give Halo a spin. New mantra: contentment in
confinement.
All I'm saying is, any OS that bears down hard on the dilettante coder cannot be a good thing.
1 comment:
Couldn't agree more.
I use Xubuntu as my main box. I have a Windows XP downstairs I got from someone who bought a new system, which is our main, shared workhorse system. My daughter has the one Windows 7 laptop in the house.
Work recently got me a MacBook Pro, which I'm enjoying because the mousepad accepts most of the gestures you use on an iPad/DroidPad, getting past most of the egregiousness of standard mousepads. I find I almost never need a mouse.
But the closed system thing does abraid the soul. I refuse to use iTunes. All apps I've put on it bypass the app store. Winamp finally stepped up and made a mac version. So, save for the OS itself, I'm not using Apple apps on it. I'm a rebel baby.
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