Out with Windows 8, In with Linux

 

Abstract:
I attempted to put users on Windows 8 which came pre-installed on a new computer, but after some time they came back and requested Linux be installed on the PC and Windows 8 to be erased. Factors for the decision were mainly the confusing user Windows 8 interface, with extra and un-needed flashy content as well as bandwidth hogging from Windows itself.


Windows 8 has been out for a while, and I had seen bits and pieces of it. There were complaints about the new user interface but as with any change, there is resistance. Recently I helped some users purchase a new Dell PC which came pre-installed with Windows 8. I decided to leave Windows on it because they run a few games that I was not sure were supported natively on Linux. A month after installing the PC, they brought it back asking for Linux to be installed on it.

Windows 8's interface is not good for a desktop. This is probably the number one complaint, and now that I've seen it for myself I understand why. Desktops don't have touchscreens, so the user interface with tiles doesn't make much sense. Not only that, but the tiles that are installed don't provide much value other than looking flashy. They don't need to know what the weather is like around the globe in various random cities, which is one of the tiles that is installed. It's just way too much for a home computer where all we really need is an applications menu that is easy to navigate. Unfortunately, Windows 8 does not offer this.

It almost seems like Microsoft went to the far extreme to change the interface, and just went too far with it. How are users going to know they have to mouse to the corners to find a menu or options? After showing them to mouse to the lower left corner to get a basic "apps" menu, they started to get more accustomed to the interface. But, does the apps menu need to be so large? We find ourselves doing a lot of scrolling to find the apps we are looking for. Windows 7 got the start menu right, with the scroll bar and basic applications list. But Windows 8 went to the extreme with large icons and continuous horizontal scrolling which makes it very counterproductive.

Once the users were able to open the apps, all was mostly good as the apps themselves had not changed, only the Windows interface to get to the apps. The problem was finding where to go. Again, Microsoft went to the extreme in simplifying the interface, almost to the point of a device. In order to get to settings, the users must mouse to the lower right corner this time and wait for the right side pane to pop up. There seems to be too much focus on getting rid of elements on the screen, to the point where the users have to go looking for them now. So many elements are hidden that it almost looks like a kiosk system to me. Again, this is not good to hide these elements by default. Especially on a desktop system which typically has plenty of screen area nowadays with 20 inch and larger monitors as commonplace. We don't need these big flashy buttons and "tiles", we just need a simple structure to navigate.

The issue that finally pushed Windows 8 out the door entirely was the amount of bandwidth that it consumes by default. The users have a finite Internet plan and after the usage jumped up significantly, I had to help pinpoint what was using up all of their monthly bandwidth. It turns out that for whatever reason Windows 8 connects back to Microsoft and downloads a lot of data. What is it downloading? I'm not sure. But after opening up the ethernet properties, just after the PC is booted up the data download bits start counting up like crazy. While I worked on the PC, it had already downloaded about 1 GB of data in an hour. After doing some research I found that the culprit is the BITS service (background intelligent transfer service). Normally this service downloads patches from Microsoft and offers features like bandwidth throttling and others in an enterprise environment. After stopping this service, the downloads stop. But, once Windows is rebooted, the BITS service will re-enable itself and start back up automatically, even after turning off automatic updates in the Control Panel. I have never seen a sevice re-enable and start itself like this. It seems that Microsoft really wants this service to always be running, and downloading whatever data it is requesting. To me this is not giving the user the option to disable it, and in this case, for a good reason so as not to eat up montly Internet usage. After searching the Internet for a solution to the Windows 8 BITS bandwidth problem (and there are a LOT of articles on it), it was decided to scrap Windows 8 entirely. The users didn't want to take the risk of having their bandwidth eaten up and extra fees tacked on to their monthly bill. Even if I were to disable it now, future Windows updates may re-enable the service and if we don't remember to disable it again the same problem would come up.

In the near future I'll be disabling UEFI Secure Boot on this PC and installing CentOS 6 Linux, which is what the users are already using on their other computers with great success. With Linux, I can stop the update service from running (PackageKit) and I don't have to worry about it getting re-enabled. I also know the user interface with CentOS 6 (Gnome 2) won't need to include flashy content. In fact, Gnome 2 should be blazing fast on this new computer. Should we have tried upgrading to Windows 8.1, which is famous for putting the full start menu back on? Maybe. It's about a 3.7 GB download and may have helped with the user interface, but it would not solve the bandwidth hogging problems. I get that Microsoft wants to innovate and pave the way for future operating systems, but they still don't get that they must give the end users options. Taking features away and not allowing for them to be put back is not the way to go. I'm not saying open source has done it right every time either, as Gnome 3 has demonstrated the developers can take things away just as easily. Hopefully Microsoft and the open source community will learn from these mistakes.