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Windows8

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  Windows8 visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2012-11-02 08:41 -0700
    Re: Windows8 Brad Eckert <hwfwguy@gmail.com> - 2012-11-02 11:12 -0700
    Re: Windows8 visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2012-11-06 09:05 -0800
      Re: Windows8 Jason Damisch <jasondamisch@yahoo.com> - 2012-11-12 07:10 -0800
        Re: Windows8 stephenXXX@mpeforth.com (Stephen Pelc) - 2012-11-12 17:27 +0000
      Re: Windows8 visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2012-11-21 17:48 -0800
    Re: Windows8 visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2012-11-07 20:44 -0800
    Re: Windows8 Jason Damisch <jasondamisch@yahoo.com> - 2012-11-12 07:15 -0800
      Re: Windows8 Brad Eckert <hwfwguy@gmail.com> - 2012-11-12 07:59 -0800
      Re: Windows8 "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2012-11-12 07:55 -1000
        Re: Windows8 "Ed" <invalid@nospam.com> - 2012-11-14 20:04 +1100
          Re: Windows8 anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2012-11-14 17:01 +0000
            Re: Windows8 "Ed" <invalid@nospam.com> - 2012-11-18 11:14 +1100
              Re: Windows8 anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2012-11-19 14:25 +0000
                Re: Windows8 "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2012-11-19 08:09 -1000
                  Re: Windows8 anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2012-11-20 09:55 +0000
                    Re: Windows8 mhx@iae.nl (Marcel Hendrix) - 2012-11-25 10:56 +0200
                      Re: Windows8 Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-11-25 16:46 +0100
              Re: Windows8 Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-11-19 16:21 -0500
                Re: Windows8 Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-11-19 13:46 -0800
                  Re: Windows8 Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-11-19 17:05 -0500
                    Re: Windows8 "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2012-11-19 12:14 -1000
                      Re: Windows8 Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-11-19 14:30 -0800
                        Re: Windows8 "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2012-11-19 12:53 -1000
                      Re: Windows8 Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-11-19 17:44 -0500
                        Re: Windows8 Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-11-19 14:52 -0800
                          GC (was Re: Windows8) Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-11-26 11:44 -0500
                            Re: GC Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-11-26 11:44 -0800
                              Re: GC Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-11-28 06:35 -0500
                                Re: GC Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-11-29 11:58 -0800
                                  Re: GC albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2012-11-30 01:46 +0000
                                    Re: GC Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-11-29 21:14 -0800
                    Re: Windows8 Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-11-19 14:42 -0800
                      Re: Windows8 Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-11-19 17:56 -0500
                        Re: Windows8 Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-11-19 15:14 -0800
                          Re: Windows8 Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-11-19 18:45 -0500
                            Re: Windows8 "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2012-11-19 14:18 -1000
                            Re: Windows8 Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-11-19 16:18 -0800
                          Re: Windows8 Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-11-19 19:01 -0500
                      Re: Windows8 "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2012-11-19 12:58 -1000
                      Re: Windows8 Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-11-20 02:23 +0100
                        Re: Windows8 anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2012-11-20 10:48 +0000
                          Re: Windows8 Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2012-11-20 07:56 -0800
                            Re: Windows8 anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2012-11-21 15:03 +0000
                          Re: Windows8 Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-11-23 05:58 -0800
                      Re: Windows8 Mark Wills <forthfreak@gmail.com> - 2012-11-20 02:13 -0800
                        Re: Windows8 Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-11-20 08:57 -0800
                          Re: Windows8 "David N. Williams" <williams@umich.edu> - 2012-11-20 16:56 -0500
                        Re: Windows8 mhx@iae.nl (Marcel Hendrix) - 2012-11-25 11:20 +0200
      Re: Windows8 rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-11-14 16:36 -0500
        Re: Windows8 "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2012-11-14 12:12 -1000
          Re: Windows8 rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-11-14 17:46 -0500
            Re: Windows8 "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2012-11-14 13:12 -1000
              Re: Windows8 Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-11-14 18:12 -0800
              Re: Windows8 rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-11-15 13:55 -0500
                Re: Windows8 RR <freedomspyder@gmail.com> - 2012-11-15 16:03 -0800
                  Re: Windows8 rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-11-15 21:54 -0500
                    Re: Windows8 RR <freedomspyder@gmail.com> - 2012-11-15 19:26 -0800
                    Re: Windows8 Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-11-15 19:27 -0800
                      Re: Windows8 Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-11-16 17:45 +0100
                        Re: Windows8 Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-11-16 09:10 -0800
                          Re: Windows8 Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-11-16 22:34 +0100
                        Re: Windows8 Andy Valencia <vandys@vsta.org> - 2012-11-16 18:06 +0000
                          Re: Windows8 Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-11-16 11:09 -0800
                            Re: Windows8 Spam@ControlQ.com - 2012-11-16 15:18 -0500
          Re: Windows8 visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2012-11-15 00:19 -0800
            Re: Windows8 "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2012-11-14 22:55 -1000
            Re: Windows8 albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2012-11-15 12:20 +0000
              Re: Windows8 visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2012-11-15 08:32 -0800
              Re: Windows8 kenney@cix.compulink.co.uk - 2012-11-16 04:51 -0600
                Re: Windows8 stephenXXX@mpeforth.com (Stephen Pelc) - 2012-11-16 13:46 +0000
                Re: Windows8 visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2012-11-16 08:12 -0800
    Re: Windows8 the_gavino_himself <visphatesjava@gmail.com> - 2012-11-29 00:16 -0800

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#17413

Paul Rubin wrote:
> What you want is an automated way of tracking the references to Joe,
> so you can free the memory once it's no longer needed, without having
> to manually remember what lists Joe might or might not be on.  This is
> basically what GC is.  If you've never used it and you deal with
> dynamic data, give it a try; programming becomes ever so much easier.

Programming becomes much easier, because you no longer care.  There are 
at least two widely used techniques to allow the "no longer care" way, 
one is GC, the other is automatic reference counting.  There are pro's 
and con's for both.  Objective-C (as used in iOS) is probably the most 
widely known example of automatic reference counting, the advantage is 
that all memory allocation and freeing is synchronous with the program, 
and thus predictable.  A GC run is not predictable, and one reason why 
Android is perceived as "lagging" are the GC runs.

You however *can* have real-time GCs, but probably not in Java.  
However, real-time GCs do some things which are quite similar to 
reference counting, they do need to know what actually is a reference, 
and do need special extra operations for assigning a reference.

A GC run is also polluting the cache, as it looks through a significant 
portion of the memory of an application.  You don't want that on a 
modern CPU, you want spacial and temporal locality.  An implicit, but 
synchronous freeing of the parts you don't need any longer *right when 
you stop needing them* is giving you that.

I'm for automatic memory deallocation, as it reduces the burden of the 
programmer, but IMHO, reference counting is the more Forthy way.  GC is 
the Lisp way.

-- 
Bernd Paysan
"If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself"
http://bernd-paysan.de/

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#17430

Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> writes:
>Objective-C (as used in iOS) is probably the most 
>widely known example of automatic reference counting, the advantage is 
>that all memory allocation and freeing is synchronous with the program, 
>and thus predictable.  A GC run is not predictable, and one reason why 
>Android is perceived as "lagging" are the GC runs.

Overwriting a reference can cause an arbitrarily long lag (consider
freeing the last reference to a large interlinked data structure,
e.g. a large tree).  Yes, one could use techniques like those used by
real-time GC to distribute that lag.

>A GC run is also polluting the cache, as it looks through a significant 
>portion of the memory of an application.  You don't want that on a 
>modern CPU, you want spacial and temporal locality.

GC is pretty good on spatial locality, especially copying GC.
Reference counting is not so good on spatial locality, but may be good
on temporal locality; and for cache pollution it's much worse: it
dirties (writes to) the referenced cache line every time a reference
is copied or overwritten, which means that lots of cache lines become
dirty and have to be written back to main memory later.

>I'm for automatic memory deallocation, as it reduces the burden of the 
>programmer, but IMHO, reference counting is the more Forthy way.

I don't see that at all.  A DUP of an address will increase the
reference count and thus become an expensive operation.  Also, given
the lack of type checking in Forth, how do you know that the DUP
duplicates an address and not just something that looks like one?

Conservative garbage collection fits ok into Forth.  If you want it
more Forthy, I think the way to go is to be less automatic.  You still
want to avoid the problems of ALLOCATE and FREE, though.  One
promising approach is region-based allocation, but I have yet to see
that promise turned into a useful region allocation library for Forth.

- anton
-- 
M. Anton Ertl  http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html
comp.lang.forth FAQs: http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/faq/toc.html
     New standard: http://www.forth200x.org/forth200x.html
   EuroForth 2012: http://www.euroforth.org/ef12/

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#17431

On Nov 20, 10:48 am, an...@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl)
wrote:

>
> Conservative garbage collection fits ok into Forth.  If you want it
> more Forthy, I think the way to go is to be less automatic.  You still
> want to avoid the problems of ALLOCATE and FREE, though.  One
> promising approach is region-based allocation, but I have yet to see
> that promise turned into a useful region allocation library for Forth.

Any references or papers?

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#17465

Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> writes:
>On Nov 20, 10:48=A0am, an...@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl)
>wrote:
>> =A0One
>> promising approach is region-based allocation, but I have yet to see
>> that promise turned into a useful region allocation library for Forth.
>
>Any references or papers?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Region-based_memory_management

- anton
-- 
M. Anton Ertl  http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html
comp.lang.forth FAQs: http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/faq/toc.html
     New standard: http://www.forth200x.org/forth200x.html
   EuroForth 2012: http://www.euroforth.org/ef12/

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#17500

On Nov 20, 3:48 am, an...@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl)
wrote:
> Bernd Paysan <bernd.pay...@gmx.de> writes:
> >I'm for automatic memory deallocation, as it reduces the burden of the
> >programmer, but IMHO, reference counting is the more Forthy way.
>
> I don't see that at all.  A DUP of an address will increase the
> reference count and thus become an expensive operation.  Also, given
> the lack of type checking in Forth, how do you know that the DUP
> duplicates an address and not just something that looks like one?

I agree with Anton --- this isn't going to work in Forth because the
data on the stack doesn't have any tags to tell us what it is ---
there is no way to distinguish between integers and addresses or
anything else.

If you want data with tags, then use Scheme or Factor or some such
language. Those are good languages for desktop-computer programming.
Forth is for micro-controller programming and only incidentally also
runs on desktop-computers --- therefore Forth doesn't have the
niceties of Scheme etc., but only has what works on micro-controllers.

> Conservative garbage collection fits ok into Forth.  If you want it
> more Forthy, I think the way to go is to be less automatic.  You still
> want to avoid the problems of ALLOCATE and FREE, though.  One
> promising approach is region-based allocation, but I have yet to see
> that promise turned into a useful region allocation library for Forth.

I'm not planning on supporting GC in Straight Forth --- I might have
something along the lines of this region-based allocation though.

In regard to closures, I have heard it suggested (over on
comp.lang.asm.x86 or alt.lang.asm by BGB) that they be stored in the
heap and GC'd. I will do something similar in Straight Forth. In this
case, it is easy to know if they are still in scope or not (when the
function that created them dies, they all die). This isn't the entire
closure function --- that is compiled into the dictionary just like
any function --- this is only the small piece of code that calls the
closure and gives it the pointer to the parent function's local
variables. They don't have to be stored on the heap (BGB is only doing
that because he has a heap and GC already, because he is writing a
scripting language), but they can be stored on the locals' stack along
with the locals. That is my thinking anyway --- I haven't yet
implemented this --- I'm still working on low-level stuff.

I think that Elizabeth Rather's idea of using PAD is very bad. There
is too much chance that you will be using PAD and will call a sub-
function that also uses PAD, and you will get your data overwritten.
Simplistic ideas like this may work in her novice class where all of
the programs written are small enough to fit on the chalkboard, but
your code has to be more robust than that if you expect to write
actual programs. This isn't the 1970s anymore.

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#17424

On Nov 19, 10:42 pm, Paul Rubin <no.em...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
> Doug Hoffman <glide...@gmail.com> writes:
> > Could you show where in my example that the bookkeeping gets to be
> > error prone?  Or would you consider it a trivial example?  If trivial,
> > that trviality is sure darn useful.
>
> Well, I was speaking generally rather than toward your specific example,
> and I don't really understand your example, but I think it involves
> dynamically allocating a string buffer so the string can be resized.
>
> Let's say the string is someone's name ("Joe Smith") and Joe is a member
> of a club so his name is on the club's membership list, so you have to
> keep that string allocated as long as Joe stays a member.  But if his
> membership lapses, he is taken off the membership list, so maybe you
> want to FREE the memory when that happens.  On the other hand, perhaps
> Joe won the Member of the Month award in November 2003, so Joe's name is
> also on the "November members of the month" list which is a permanent
> list, so in that case you better NOT free the memory just because Joe is
> no longer a member.  Start adding some indexed data structures sharing
> fields that might or might not contain Joe, structures that are
> themselves being created and deleted on the fly, and you can see how the
> bookkeeping can get weird.
>
> What you want is an automated way of tracking the references to Joe, so
> you can free the memory once it's no longer needed, without having to
> manually remember what lists Joe might or might not be on.  This is
> basically what GC is.  If you've never used it and you deal with dynamic
> data, give it a try; programming becomes ever so much easier.
>
> I think in the embedded realm, it's probably less of an issue, because
> there's less dynamic data involved in that sort of code.

Surely the solution is for the object representing Joe to know when
*it* can safely destroy *itself*? This implies (at least to me) some
sort of reference counting in the Joe object. But at least everything
is centralised within Joe, rather than scattered about around the
application program.

This is how the GC object in .Net works. It doesn't destroy anything.
It's asks the objects themselves to destroy themselves if they can
(all objects have a "die" method). In .net though there's also some
magic going on behind the scenes; objects (somehow) know when they're
no longer in scope and will kill themselves when the GC touches them.
I.e. they can still kill themselves correctly, even if not explictly
set to nothing or sent a .die message.

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#17433

Mark Wills <forthfreak@gmail.com> writes:
> Surely the solution is for the object representing Joe to know when
> *it* can safely destroy *itself*? This implies (at least to me) some
> sort of reference counting in the Joe object. But at least everything
> is centralised within Joe, rather than scattered about around the
> application program.

How can the object know when a new reference is created, other than by
scattering refcount increments all over the program?  As Anton says, you
even have to increment the refcount after a DUP of the address.

> This is how the GC object in .Net works. It doesn't destroy anything.
> It's asks the objects themselves to destroy themselves if they can
> (all objects have a "die" method). 

That's called a "finalizer" or "destructor" and such things can be
called by a GC, though there are pitfalls.

> In .net though there's also some magic going on behind the scenes;
> objects (somehow) know when they're no longer in scope and will kill
> themselves when the GC touches them.  I.e. they can still kill
> themselves correctly, even if not explictly set to nothing or sent a
> .die message.

That doesn't sound like magic, if .net uses ref counting.  The compiler
just generates some code to decrement the object's refcount when it
leaves scope.  C++ and Python also do that.  They can't outright kill
the object because some pointer to it might have been created while the
object was in scope.  Alternatively the compiler could (sometimes)
statically notice if no pointers to the object have been created, and
kill the object on scope exit in that case, or even kill the object when
the last pointer to it goes out of scope.  I think these type of schemes
are examples of "region inference".

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#17443

On 11/20/12 11:57 AM, Paul Rubin wrote:
 > Mark Wills <forthfreak@gmail.com> writes:
 >> Surely the solution is for the object representing Joe to know when
 >> *it* can safely destroy *itself*? This implies (at least to me) some
 >> sort of reference counting in the Joe object. But at least everything
 >> is centralised within Joe, rather than scattered about around the
 >> application program.
 >
 > How can the object know when a new reference is created, other than by
 > scattering refcount increments all over the program?  As Anton says, you
 > even have to increment the refcount after a DUP of the address.

Maybe it's worth mentioning that BDUP, QDUP, MFDUP, and RFDUP
for multiprecision stacks, and $DUP for the dstring stack, don't
suffer from this problem with the respective garbage collectors
used in forth-gmpfr and dstrings:

   http://www.umich.edu/~williams/archive/forth/gmpfr/
   http://www.umich.edu/~williams/archive/forth/strings/

They're designed so that only dropping the deepest references on
the stacks causes an object to be marked as garbage, unless
there's a reference held in a variable of the corresponding
type, whereupon storing into the variable is what causes
marking.

They all use the same mark and sweep model, which AFAIU is
inadequate for the kind garbage collection being considered
here.  But the bookkeeping is fairly efficient for objects the
size of multiprecision arithmetic or dynamic string types.

-- David

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#17543

Mark Wills <forthfreak@gmail.com> writes Re: Windows8

>On Nov 19, 10:42pm, Paul Rubin <no.em...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>> Doug Hoffman <glide...@gmail.com> writes:

> This is how the GC object in .Net works. It doesn't destroy anything.
> It's asks the objects themselves to destroy themselves if they can
> (all objects have a "die" method). In .net though there's also some
> magic going on behind the scenes; objects (somehow) know when they're
> no longer in scope and will kill themselves when the GC touches them.
> I.e. they can still kill themselves correctly, even if not explictly
> set to nothing or sent a .die message.

In iForth you can have CREATE .. FORGET> .. DOES> .. , where FORGET>
is your (optional) ".die method". It is triggered by FORGET being 
executed. You can 'force' a FORGET> part on any word with <xt> 
IS-FORGET> name (e.g. for vectorizing words or BYE). As long as you
don't do anything silly directly from the command line, any action 
can be properly undone or cleaned up. 

In addition to this, words can also subscribe to init (bootup) and 
exit (BYE) chains.

-marcel

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#17282

On 11/12/2012 10:15 AM, Jason Damisch wrote:
>> Refresh and Reset
>> ... The refresh option is especially useful when you find your PC acting
>> slow or buggy. In a one-click or one-tap move, you can refresh the PC
>> without changing any of your files, Windows Store apps, or personalization
>> settings.
>> ... you will lose any desktop programs since those are not synced with
>> your Windows Account.
>
> Why can't they just write an OS which works correctly most if not all of the time?  Could it be that the very idea of garbage collection is fundamentally flawed?


Just like any other area of business, they sell what they think will 
sell best, at least in the sense of making them the most money.  If they 
thought that we would prefer an OS that has fewer features and gives 
less trouble, that is what they would sell.  But their experience tells 
them that what sells cars, food and computers is flash (with a lower 
case 'f') color and sound.  It's all about the look and feel (again all 
lower case).  If they don't continually update that to make people think 
they are getting something new and different they won't be able to sell 
so many and continue to make money.

If someone gives the customers a better alternative, a *real* 
alternative that is fully usable by the same people who are currently 
buying Windows, then they will switch.  Look at all the Linux users! 
They don't use Windows because they have an alternative.  But for many 
who don't know so much about computers and don't *want* to know so much 
about computers, Linux is not much of an option... at least in their minds.

I've recently acquired several extra desktop machines.  I'm going to 
install Linux on one of them and give it a try.  Otherwise I will be 
needing to buy a new laptop which will be... (ominous sounding music 
plays)... Windows 8.

I took a look at some laptops in the store and asked the attendant if 
the unusual looking display is just a store display or if that is 
Windows 8.  He said that is the new Start menu, the entire computer is 
"icon" based (wasn't it always?).  I didn't see things like "control 
panel" or "connect to".  I wonder how you make it work...

I like to compare computers to cars.  At one time every car had it's own 
user interface, all somewhat different.  With time they migrated to a 
common look and feel to an extent.  But it took legislation to mandate 
the current PRNDL on automatics and break on the right, gear shift on 
the left for motorcycles.  I wonder if they will ever legislate computer 
interfaces... lol.

Rick

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#17283

On 11/14/12 11:36 AM, rickman wrote:
...
> If someone gives the customers a better alternative, a *real*
> alternative that is fully usable by the same people who are currently
> buying Windows, then they will switch.  Look at all the Linux users!
> They don't use Windows because they have an alternative.  But for many
> who don't know so much about computers and don't *want* to know so much
> about computers, Linux is not much of an option... at least in their minds.

It isn't just a matter of how much you know about computers, it's what 
software you need to run. Right now, for instance, the only usable 
accounting software is Windows-only. So, even though I love my Mac, it's 
set up with dual-boot to Windows so I can run Quickbooks and Quicken 
when I need to.

> I've recently acquired several extra desktop machines.  I'm going to
> install Linux on one of them and give it a try.  Otherwise I will be
> needing to buy a new laptop which will be... (ominous sounding music
> plays)... Windows 8.

It's quite possible to buy a discounted, legal copy of Windows 7. Just 
google for it. Win7 was/is a pretty good system (as Windows versions 
go). I would recommend continuing with that rather than wrestling with 
Win8 for now.

Cheers,
Elizabeth

-- 
==================================================
Elizabeth D. Rather   (US & Canada)   800-55-FORTH
FORTH Inc.                         +1 310.999.6784
5959 West Century Blvd. Suite 700
Los Angeles, CA 90045
http://www.forth.com

"Forth-based products and Services for real-time
applications since 1973."
==================================================

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#17284

On 11/14/2012 5:12 PM, Elizabeth D. Rather wrote:
> On 11/14/12 11:36 AM, rickman wrote:
> ...
>> If someone gives the customers a better alternative, a *real*
>> alternative that is fully usable by the same people who are currently
>> buying Windows, then they will switch. Look at all the Linux users!
>> They don't use Windows because they have an alternative. But for many
>> who don't know so much about computers and don't *want* to know so much
>> about computers, Linux is not much of an option... at least in their
>> minds.
>
> It isn't just a matter of how much you know about computers, it's what
> software you need to run. Right now, for instance, the only usable
> accounting software is Windows-only. So, even though I love my Mac, it's
> set up with dual-boot to Windows so I can run Quickbooks and Quicken
> when I need to.
>
>> I've recently acquired several extra desktop machines. I'm going to
>> install Linux on one of them and give it a try. Otherwise I will be
>> needing to buy a new laptop which will be... (ominous sounding music
>> plays)... Windows 8.
>
> It's quite possible to buy a discounted, legal copy of Windows 7. Just
> google for it. Win7 was/is a pretty good system (as Windows versions
> go). I would recommend continuing with that rather than wrestling with
> Win8 for now.

I guess that is good if you just want the least pain... except that I am 
not using Windows 7, so I would still have some pain with that 
transition.  The real issue is I don't want to pay Microsoft for the 
privilege of using their old software on top of paying them the 
mandatory fee for buying a computer.

I need a laptop and I would like to be able to buy one without windows. 
  Turns out that is not an option unless you want to pay someone else a 
premium for the privilege.

Rick

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#17286

On 11/14/12 12:46 PM, rickman wrote:
> On 11/14/2012 5:12 PM, Elizabeth D. Rather wrote:
...
>> It's quite possible to buy a discounted, legal copy of Windows 7. Just
>> google for it. Win7 was/is a pretty good system (as Windows versions
>> go). I would recommend continuing with that rather than wrestling with
>> Win8 for now.
>
> I guess that is good if you just want the least pain... except that I am
> not using Windows 7, so I would still have some pain with that
> transition.  The real issue is I don't want to pay Microsoft for the
> privilege of using their old software on top of paying them the
> mandatory fee for buying a computer.
>
> I need a laptop and I would like to be able to buy one without windows.
>   Turns out that is not an option unless you want to pay someone else a
> premium for the privilege.

Try googling 'laptop no os'. Quite a few results, such as this one: 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856119067

Cheers,
Elizabeth

-- 
==================================================
Elizabeth D. Rather   (US & Canada)   800-55-FORTH
FORTH Inc.                         +1 310.999.6784
5959 West Century Blvd. Suite 700
Los Angeles, CA 90045
http://www.forth.com

"Forth-based products and Services for real-time
applications since 1973."
==================================================

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#17287

"Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> writes:
> Try googling 'laptop no os'. Quite a few results, such as this one:
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856119067

Looks nice but I don't think it's a laptop ;-).

There are some nice Chromebooks (OS from the evil Google empire instead
of the evil Microsoft empire) coming out at low prices.  Maybe it's
possible to run a standard Linux distro on one.

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#17304

On 11/14/2012 6:12 PM, Elizabeth D. Rather wrote:
> On 11/14/12 12:46 PM, rickman wrote:
>> On 11/14/2012 5:12 PM, Elizabeth D. Rather wrote:
> ...
>>> It's quite possible to buy a discounted, legal copy of Windows 7. Just
>>> google for it. Win7 was/is a pretty good system (as Windows versions
>>> go). I would recommend continuing with that rather than wrestling with
>>> Win8 for now.
>>
>> I guess that is good if you just want the least pain... except that I am
>> not using Windows 7, so I would still have some pain with that
>> transition. The real issue is I don't want to pay Microsoft for the
>> privilege of using their old software on top of paying them the
>> mandatory fee for buying a computer.
>>
>> I need a laptop and I would like to be able to buy one without windows.
>> Turns out that is not an option unless you want to pay someone else a
>> premium for the privilege.
>
> Try googling 'laptop no os'. Quite a few results, such as this one:
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856119067
>
> Cheers,
> Elizabeth
>

I'm not sure what you mean.  This isn't a laptop.  When I did the 
suggested search I didn't find much.  I've done this search before and I 
find none of the linux machine vendors are very competitive on price. 
I'll look again and see what I find.  Thanks.

Rick

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#17307

Companies like http://www.xoticpc.com will custom build with ubuntu and perhaps other linux distributions.

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#17309

On 11/15/2012 7:03 PM, RR wrote:
> Companies like http://www.xoticpc.com will custom build with ubuntu and perhaps other linux distributions.
>

Custom is great, but can I afford it?  That's the problem.  I paid $550 
for my current laptop with a 17" screen.  I can get a much better PC now 
for around $600 to $750 with 8 MB of RAM and a decent CPU.  I haven't 
seen anything like that for under $1000 with Linux and some of them are 
over $2000!

Rick

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#17310

try https://www.system76.com/ in Denver

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#17311

rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> writes:
> haven't seen anything like that for under $1000 with Linux and some of
> them are over $2000!

Dell has a few, all rather low end:

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/laptops#!facets=80770~0~1791343&p=1

They used to have some nicer ones.  I still use an old Lenovo Thinkpad
that came with Suse Linux though I actually run Fedora on it.  It was
great to buy a laptop without Windows.

Web searching "linux laptop" finds a bunch of other nice machines,
though they tend to be as expensive as (or more than) windows machines
with the same hardware.

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#17332

Paul Rubin wrote:
> Web searching "linux laptop" finds a bunch of other nice machines,
> though they tend to be as expensive as (or more than) windows machines
> with the same hardware.

Most OEMs have a contract with Microsoft that goes "per machine sold", 
regardless if it's sold with or without Windows.  Some taiwanese OEMs 
did or do sell low-end machines with their own Linux (Acer e.g.), 
apparently circumventing something in Microsoft's contract, but you have 
to install your own Ubuntu, Mint, OpenSuSE or Fedora, because Acer's 
Linux is really bad.

Asus tried the same when they started their netbook line, and the 
consequence was that Microsoft lowered the price for Windows XP on a 
netbook to mere $3 - if all units are going to be sold with Windows.  
AFAIK, they even undercut the pirated Windows in China ;-).

-- 
Bernd Paysan
"If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself"
http://bernd-paysan.de/

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