Thread: Any one running Win7 yet?

The last major revision of the X Window System protocol was 1987. 1987. Don't get me wrong, Ubuntu is fantastic. But it seems as if developers are throwing thing after thing on top of old code. X needs another major revision. X11R7.5 was a step in the correct direction with the removal of some of this old code. But for the most part, developers should undertake a re-write and moderniztion of X. It lacks a professional touch normally seen with corporate window systems such as the one used in OS X.

Originally Posted by mini0991

The last major revision of the X Window System protocol was 1987. 1987. Don't get me wrong, Ubuntu is fantastic. But it seems as if developers are throwing thing after thing on top of old code. X needs another major revision. X11R7.5 was a step in the correct direction with the removal of some of this old code. But for the most part, developers should undertake a re-write and moderniztion of X. It lacks a professional touch normally seen with corporate window systems such as the one used in OS X.

Sorry, but this is bollocks

X is a protocol, it's age is utterly irrelevant
The TCP/IP protocol spec was issued in 1982
do you want the networking protocol to be scrapped for something else?

The "protocol" of designing a car with foot operated levers, a gear stick and a big wheel for steering is hundreds of years old - you want a complete re-write of the operation of cars?

X is one of the most actively developed projects in the free software world, with significant contributions from Redhat, Intel, Nokia, HP, Sun and Motorola
In terms of code refactoring, you can't get much better than x.org

But saying that
What's wrong with old code anyway?
It's not organic, it doesn't go mouldy

Originally Posted by Ynot

X is a protocol, it's age is utterly irrelevant
The TCP/IP protocol spec was issued in 1982
do you want the networking protocol to be scrapped for something else?

Actually, yes. TCP cannot handle out of order packets, it simply disregards them and asks they'd be retransmitted, and it seems exessive to send a "packet received" packet for every single data packet. I remember hearing about drafts for more efficient networking protocols, but TCP is so widely supported that replacing it won't be easy.

Originally Posted by Ynot

The "protocol" of designing a car with foot operated levers, a gear stick and a big wheel for steering is hundreds of years old - you want a complete re-write of the operation of cars?

When automatic car guidance is a viable alternative, or if an efficient neuro-interface alternative is developed, then sure. New technology means new possibilities, and new possibilities means you need to rewrite the old standards. Also, it's quite possible that someone just have a better idea.

Originally Posted by khh

TCP cannot handle out of order packets.

yes it can
each packet has a sequence number, and the receiver will reorder packets based on that number, but anyway...

Originally Posted by Ynot

yes it can
each packet has a sequence number, and the receiver will reorder packets based on that number, but anyway...

Really? Hmm. I guess I was misinformed on that point, then.

Originally Posted by mini0991

The last major revision of the X Window System protocol was 1987. 1987. Don't get me wrong, Ubuntu is fantastic. But it seems as if developers are throwing thing after thing on top of old code. X needs another major revision. X11R7.5 was a step in the correct direction with the removal of some of this old code. But for the most part, developers should undertake a re-write and moderniztion of X. It lacks a professional touch normally seen with corporate window systems such as the one used in OS X.

X uses modern code design, protocol for window handling hasn't changed much since the early 90s. Aqua is better integrated with everything, but that in itself causes problems. Aqua doesn't have network transparency, which is X's biggest asset.

The last major revision to UNIX was in 1982 and it's still the best OS out there by a wide margin. There have been minor revisions and lots of implementational upgrades (just like X,) but System V was the last major one.

Perhaps it's the implementation rather than the protocol that I should constructively criticise.

The implementation of X, used on Ubuntu for example, lacks professional touches. At times, when the system crashes or boots up, the title bar disappears off all the windows. Why does this happen? Also, there seems to be a lack of a de facto window manager. All these different window managers serve to just confuse. It's small things like that that need to be ironed out before Unix/Linux can become a true alternative to the more polished commercial Windows and OS X.

X does the window management, those other things are just decorators, big difference. And as for the title bar, again, that's the decorator, not X. Unless you work with the windows on a low level, people don't realize that the "Windows" on the screen, are not the only windows. Technically, almost everything is a window on all systems. Text inputs are windows, buttons are windows, choice boxes are windows... They all inherit the window base class.

I don't really see why Microsoft tried making something completely new with Vista/7. XP was good. It had it's little errors every now and then, but it was good.

They should have stuck with it, and just added on that instead of making all this crap.

I'm now running 7. All programs migrated w/o issue. Other than a slow start up I see no flaws (yet). This is what vista should have been, a clean build not an os stacked on a xp frame.

I've got Windows 7 Ultimate x86, upgraded from Vista. So far, it's much better. It's faster, sleeker, and all around a much better system, both in aesthetics and performance.

I had a BSOD from an nvidia driver but I think I installed the latter via windows update. Win7 wouldn't start afterwards due to this driver.
I uninstalled the driver after booting in safe mode.
Then I downloaded the driver from nvidia's site. It's now working well again..

I've got Win 7 Ultimate 64 shipping on my replacement Alienware machine (exchange system for my broken XPS M1730). Should be here in a week, and Windows 7 should run superbly on it