Re:Head of Oracle Linux Moves to Microsoft
by buzzrobot on Sunday April 03, 2016 @06:54AM
(#11415678)
The Windows desktop comes in last in any reasonable comparison with OS X and a modern desktop-oriented linux like Ubuntu or Mint.
The focus on backwards compatibility means, among other things, Windows is carrying around multiple ways to render fonts. None of them deliver sufficient clarity. In Windows 10, Cleartype does not affect "Modern" apps.
All the applications I use 90% of the time are available for Windows and Linux. Text in each is more difficult to read in Windows.
I find, on a Dell 27-inch 2560x1440 display,that I can see individual pixels in normal fonts from my usual viewing distance. Bold fonts are often smeary, especially at smaller sizes. Segoe UI looks acceptable in parts of the Windows interface. But, in apps that use older font rendering approaches, it's poor.
If you spend your days reading and writing, as I do, this is an important issue.
As a server OS it's not much better. I can't find a way to force a NTP sync; things that should be simple (creating a service with logon rights) takes 10's of lines of PowerShell; you can't use SSL with the core image because it requires IE, which is not included in the core image. Its full of little surprises which make it difficult to understand (.../windows32 == 64bit, .../SysWOW64 == 32bit). It takes 10 minutes to fully boot a Windows instance in AWS, which is mostly the result of how large it is, and the fact that it has to recompile its DCOM DLLs (or some such thing).
I know that no OS is perfect, but Windows has had years and years to mature and a company with billions of $$$ and thousands of developers behind it. I expect more.