I have to strongly disagree. I've been using Linux-based OSes intermittently since around the time 2.2 was released and have run some of my machines exclusively on Debian or its derivatives since 2004. It used to be a pain to deal with, particularly multimedia and WiFi drivers, but these days it's almost guaranteed that more will work out of the box on Ubuntu than does on a fresh Windows install.

My current laptop is 100% functional on Ubuntu 12.04 or newer with no messing around required. WiFi works, GPU works, SD reader works, etc. My home-built desktop requires a slightly newer distro to support accelerated graphics out of the box and still depends on binary drivers to get useful 3D performance thanks to its Geforce 970 graphics, but otherwise is also fully supported. Both of those require a pile of drivers to work fully even on the latest beta versions of Windows, some of which are very hard to find thanks to OEM-only components where the vendors don't provide standalone downloads. The closest I got in either case to going out of my way for Linux compatibility is choosing nVidia graphics over AMD, but in both cases I'd have done the same even for a Windows-only box because they simply had the better offerings.

I haven't been required to even go as far as dropping to the command line or editing a config file to get something working in years. The last time I had to do anything like that was back when VDPAU was a new thing and I was trying to get a XBMC running with hardware video decoding and HDMI audio output on a fairly new nVidia graphics card. nVidia's ALSA support was pretty flaky at the time so every kernel update required recompiling a few things to get sound back.

I still do tend to use consoles and config files to set things up the way I like them because I know what I'm doing and can get it done faster, but it's in no way required. If I was setting up a new PC for my grandmother I'd probably use Ubuntu rather than Windows because she could do everything on the internet exactly the same as she currently does but wouldn't be able to fuck it up by clicking on every stupid popup she gets.

And this is where anyone who knows anything should stop caring what you have to say.

Congratulations, you're still using an OS with known security problems that will never be fixed because it's been unsupported for over a year, after the end of support was dragged on much longer than originally intended because corporate users are terrible at planning ahead.

Also still using a 32 bit OS means that either your computer is an ancient piece of trash with <4GB RAM or you're intentionally using an OS that can never utilize your hardware.

Windows 10 actually does have P2P Windows Updates. It's limited to within a LAN so you won't be "sharing" your upstream with your neighbors, but if you have multiple Windows 10 installations on a network they'll pull already downloaded updates off of each other rather than going to the internet.

Probably nice for those getting screwed by their ISPs.

The criminalization of breaking DRM has nothing inherently to do with its implementation, nor did I say anything about a hypothetical one-play deletion.

I'm saying that something functionally equivalent to DRM is required for a rental or subscription on-demand service, otherwise it's purely operating on the honor system and I can't blame anyone for having no interest in that. I find these services to be a good value, so I have no problem with the tradeoff. I'm not paying the price I'd have to pay to buy the content, so it's not unreasonable to get less for it.

I dislike DRM like pretty much everyone else who isn't a content industry lawyer, but I really can't find much to complain about when it's used in the context of a rental or subscription service. How else are they supposed to ensure you can't continue using the content when you're not supposed to be able to anymore?

DRM on stuff I'm supposedly purchasing is another matter entirely, if I own it I want to truly control it, but if I'm renting it or paying for temporary access where it's clear from the beginning that I only have it as long as I'm paying I don't see a problem.

IMO anyone who knowingly chose to deploy new Java-requiring things in the last many years was not thinking straight, nor were any vendors developing new Java plugins or refusing to work on replacements for the ones they already had. It's not like the fact that the Java plugin is a huge piece of shit is news to anyone.

If someone was putting out new stuff that still required Windows XP or IE6 you'd rightfully call them incompetent. I believe Java is in the same category. It needs to go away and anyone who's doing anything that keeps it around needs a slap.

It's been a thing for a while, just connect two compatible systems with any old Thunderbolt cable.

Macs got it with 10.9 in October '13: http://www.macworld.com/articl...
Windows apparently got a driver from Intel to support it in April '14: http://www.engadget.com/2014/0...
I can find a bunch of questions about it on Linux but haven't found anything conclusive about support. It doesn't look like there's been much work at the moment, likely because Thunderbolt systems are few and far between aside from Macs.

I beg to differ. Some very popular games are also very CPU-bound. GTA V, Kerbal Space Program, and Project CARS are three well known titles I can think of off the top of my head that run a lot worse on the Phenom II X6 1045 (2.7GHz hex-core which I overclocked to 3.5GHz) in my secondary gaming machine than on the i7-4970k (4GHz quad-core, not overclocked) in my main desktop. Both machines have SSDs, 32GB of RAM, and GeForce 970 graphics so the CPU is the only significant difference.

AI and physics simulation still lean heavily on the CPU. Here's some benchmarks from Project CARS (which just came out last week) showing how important CPU performance is when simulating 30 cars on the track: http://pclab.pl/art63572-29.ht... (article is in Polish but numbers don't need translation)

That's certainly a good idea, though I'd imagine that a lot of the software vendors involved wouldn't bother. I mean the betas for Vista were publicly available for over a year before its release. I ran them intermittently throughout that time and filed bugs or posted on company forums where possible, but most of the responses I got were along the lines of "we don't support beta operating systems, we'll start working on Vista support when it's released".

Vista -> 7 was a mostly painless transition aside from a few apps that stupidly have maximum version checks and refuse to install on a new OS no matter what, but then the same thing happened with Windows 8 and Server 2012. The vendors who tend to cause these problems just don't care. I have more than one vendor right now that still in 2015 insists that we disable UAC. Fortunately we've found that we can install it with UAC disabled and then immediately turn it back on, but this is the level of incompetence we're dealing with.

We're basically stuck in a never-ending cycle of stupid when it comes to specialty business software. Businesses don't upgrade because their vendors manage to do dumb shit that breaks when you upgrade things, and the vendors don't have any incentive to fix it until a lack of availability forces their customers to start upgrading.

If it was only working because it depended on a bug or internal data structures that it wasn't supposed to be playing with, it wasn't "perfectly working" ever.

I can write a program that does a lot of things horribly wrong but works on Windows XP because it tolerated a lot of bad behaviors, which won't work at all on a more modern system. Is that Microsoft's fault that I wrote it wrong?

How many user-level apps were writing to system directories without reason all over the place in XP and prior which "broke" when Vista stopped letting them do that? Not a single one of those are anyone except the developers' fault.

AC is correct, I do not care at all about the embedded key and would happily delete it if possible. I want to use the separate retail Pro key that I have, but the Windows installer insists on using the embedded key that is of no use to me unless I go way out of my way to convince it otherwise.

You missed the point.

I'm trying to do a fresh install of Pro. The laptop has an embedded key for non-Pro, which I have absolutely no interest in.

Windows "helpfully" jumps right past the key prompt in the installer when it detects an embedded key. Because Microsoft is Microsoft, for some reason though there is an upgrade facility I can't even give up and just put my key in to upgrade the non-pro install as it's not an upgrade key.

And let me tell you, trying to install 8.1 Pro on a Lenovo that shipped with regular edition 8 is a test of patience. The installer *really* wants to read that key and is not easily convinced to ignore it and let you enter the key that you actually want.

Every single last-gen console was hacked wide open. 360 and Wii will happily run arbitrary code just as well as the PS3. Last time I checked the Wii was still a purely software mod, no hardware required. Xbox 360 requires hardware unless you have an old console that hasn't been updated in years, just like the PS3 now that both have patched their major security holes.

First,

I'm not sure what consoles this guy has been playing, but cheating is rampant in pretty much every popular console game. Some kinds of cheats may be harder to implement on consoles, but they always find ways to do it.

Second, all his rig does is monitor USB inputs. The same USB inputs I can fake using literally the same Arduino hardware he seems to be using for his prototypes. Any kind of macro-based cheats would be trivial to implement on USB-capable microcontrollers. One's cheat program of choice just has to change from sending fake inputs directly to the OS over to passing the same input commands out to a simple piece of hardware which then sends them right back as USB HID inputs.