Windows 8

[Jay Vaughan]

> Ive been playing with it at work and it I really like it.

I had a play with a Windows 8 tablet PC here in Vienna a few days ago, as well as the same machine booting Unity's tablet effort, and it was in both cases really seamless and pleasant, although the legacy apps are a near total fail for Ubuntu, less-so for Windows8.  

The new-school apps on both platforms are fantastic.  i.e. stuff that was written, literally, in the last year or so.  Legacy apps on both have their quirks.  I look forward to similarly-motivated apps to be launched for the platform, but I do actually wonder whether, in Windows8 case, having 'legacy Windows-style' stuff alongside the new-school design isn't more akin to what Linux users, also, are going through, with things like the Ubuntu Unity snafu, et al.  

Then-again, Ubuntu on a Tablet is awesome in many fine ways, even though its irksome(*) as hell to pull up a "mouse-based" app without having anything but the Tablet around, and for a new gen effort would also provide another step away from the WIMP hegemony.. time will tell.

(* On Tablet, for example, Blender is rotten, Inkscape .. usable.. Ardour .. surprisingly difficult, although it could be usable on Tablet ..)


There is one amazing thing about both Win8-tablet, Ubuntu-Tablet, also: open filesystem.  After a few years of Apples' mores being my rules, its nice to be able to plug in things containing things, and then just open them.  Opening files on an open (i.e. no media restrictions) tablet is a wonder - at long last, FileManagement returns .. heh heh ..

;
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Jay Vaughan