I’ve been doing some thinking, and after having numerous conversations with some individuals who will remain un-named, I’ve come to the conclusion that some people are too wrapped-up around the computer system that they use, to the point where they could very well border-line on “fanboy,” and I feel that this is affecting the credibility of the tech community as a whole.

Example:

“John,” a PHP developer, switches his personal home computer from Windows to Linux, and he enjoys using Linux because of the advanced functionality that it provides to him.

Now, “Jim,” a long-time Windows user and Microsoft supporter, who has conversed with John for several years, criticizes John for his decision, stating that he is brainless and dim-witted because Linux is open-source, and that Windows is the only platform that matters.

John doesn’t care about using Windows, he’s comfortable on Linux and he gets more enjoyment out of his system than he did when he was running Windows, but Jim is unable to see that and continues to insult John for his choice.

What do you see wrong here? To me, I see this constant criticism as being petty, and shows that one is unable to look past their own needs. Just because you’re a supporter of one system doesn’t mean you have to hammer down on everyone else running a different system. Remember, we’re all just human beings sitting behind a computer screen. So what does it really matter what the person on the other side of the screen is running?

I’m not against any platform, I’m currently running Windows XP on two of my home computers, Ubuntu 7.10 on one notebook, and Mac OS X 10.5.1 on my MacBook Pro. They all serve their purpose, and at the end of the day isn’t that what really matters?

I believe that we should all try to contribute positively to the tech. community as a whole, enough of the “flame wars” and the un-necessary bashing.

Also, for the record, I never said that Windows sucks in my previous article. I stated reasons that I believe that Mac OS X may be a better choice for some people, and how overall it has a lower TCO when it comes to upgrading systems down the road. If you want to use Windows, Linux, BeOS, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, or hell even DOS, that’s up to you. It’s your choice. I’m not trying to force my choice on anyone, I merely posted my thoughts on the matter.

Wine on the other-hand, is a Linux port of (major parts of) Microsoft’s Win32 library – the core dependencies of the Windows development libraries, and more importantly, the win32 interface elements. With Wine, you can run many traditional C++ win32 executables on Linux, with certain limitations.

Mono’s biggest stumbling block is the GUI and .NET programs that use P/Invoke to call native non-managed win32 dlls – Mono is a pure .NET environment, and can’t handle them. But from the description above, that’s exactly what WINE excel at… So can’t we use WINE + Mono to make just about any .NET program run on Linux fresh out of the .NET compiler?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. Back when the Mono project was first starting out, the Mono development team considered using WINE to implement the System.Windows.Forms namespace of the .NET Framework (which is practically 100% native C++ unmanaged win32 code in .NET wrappers). But they made the right choice in deciding to not take the easy way and go that route, leaving the integrity of the Mono project intact and focusing on true cross-platform user interface libraries instead (the GTK# is now the UI Library of choice for cross-platform .NET applications).

But until the GTK# library becomes a more viable choice or the Mono “port” of SWF becomes more complete (see below), shouldn’t something like this be made possible? It certainly would be great to just type

$ wine win32_NET_app.exe --mono=/usr/lib/mono/

or maybe (depending on what app does the integration):

$ mono win32_NET_app.exe --wine=/usr/lib/wine/

And have Wine hand-off the .NET Win32 application to Mono, and intercept the P/Invoke calls to Win32 DLLs, replacing them with its own ported Win32 libraries on-the-fly.. That would be great, wouldn’t it?

Unfortunately, we’re not the people in charge at Wine or Mono and such an implementation would take some time and effort to get going – though it is our opinion that if such a thing is done it must be Wine that is modified and not Mono – in order to preserve the true cross-platform nature of the Mono project and keep it from the legal quagmire that is the Win32 library.

At the moment, the Mono team is working on a “port” of sorts for System.Windows.Forms which will let almost all programs written and designed for Windows run on Linux without a problem. Instead of porting the actual SWF controls to Mono, the Mono team is working on a “compatibility layer” of sorts that will render the controls on-the-fly, making it look more “natural” no matter what platform it’s running on.

In the mean time, we highly recommend developers consider using the (technically-inferior, compatibility-superior) GTK# UI library instead of SWF for your .NET projects (on and off of Windows); and end-users can install the latest dev copy of Mono to gain access to the SWF “ported” library to make those Windows apps work!

Sun could (and did) do it with Java, so why can’t Microsoft just swallow the pill already and provide real support for the .NET Framework on all operating systems? Yes, that includes Linux and Mac too. It’s ironic, because the .NET Framework has so much potential as a platform with its unique multi-language structure, nifty features, excellent libraries, (relatively) well-performing output, and darn-good innovative technologies like LINQ coming-up and XAML already here. Yet Microsoft just doesn’t realize that if they truly want .NET to succeed, they’ll have to bite the bullet and stop pretending that only officially supporting Windows won’t make users leave Linux/Mac/BSD/Whatever and buy licenses for Windows instead.

Now, that said and done, it’s interesting to note that in past Microsoft has been much more kind to Mac OS and its users with regards to Office, MSN Messenger, even to some extent the .NET Framework, Silverlight, and just about everything else than they have been to Linux and the rest of the world – despite Mac OS’ relatively low market-share.

Obviously Microsoft doesn’t view OS X as a threat (whether they’re right or not isn’t the question) and therefore feel comfortable enough to release several otherwise Windows-only applications, platforms, suites, etc. to the Macintosh domain. Be it Office or Internet Explorer (yes, the failure), Microsoft has always pretended Linux and its share of the OS Market simply doesn’t exist. Technically, that’s not wrong: Microsoft has its own OS to push, and if it sees Linux as a serious competitor and tries to force users looking to take advantage of other non-OS Microsoft solutions to use Windows, that’s their right and their call to make.

But with .NET, what Microsoft just doesn’t seem to realize is, they gave up the privilege of releasing Windows-only binaries when they declared .NET a cross-platform development package. While it may be unfair to compare Sun’s Java along with their own OS (Solaris) to Microsoft’s .NET and Windows because Solaris was almost never targeted as a home operating system (until Jonathan Schwartz came up with that wonderful idea), it does beg the question: why is Microsoft so unwilling to support Linux, OS X, and BSD in their quest for cross-platform programming?

Look at it this way: how much time, money, and resources (programmers and otherwise) would it take from Microsoft to port a fully working and 100% compatible version of Visual Studio .NET, the Windows Controls, and C#/VB 2005 to OS X and Linux? The answer: not much… relatively speaking of course.

People won’t switch to Microsoft Windows just because of the .NET Framework. Sure, people already using Windows may not be comfortable leaving Windows because their .NET programs won’t comfortably run on any other operating system, and Windows developers may feel a little bit locked-in if that’s all they know (to put it mildly!), but that’s about it. Let’s face it: Microsoft is only hurting .NET developers and end-users alike by locking them into the Windows platform. While this may seem like something that Microsoft excels at doing and has tons of experience with, in this case it’s just absolutely illogical and insensible seeing as it’s not winning them any Windows licenses nor doing them any favors with the developer crowd (yet Ballmer’s “Developers, Developers, DEVELOPERS!” comes to mind…).

To be brutally honest, Mono and MonoDevelop (the .NET Framework and Visual Studio IDE equivalents for Linux, respectively) are complete crap – compared to the Windows versions that is. While Microsoft may “endorse” Novell’s project, that’s nothing more than a political statement, a strategic business move, and a (quite pitiful) attempt at making the .NET Framework look more cross-platform than it really is(n’t). Sure, Mono is (kinda) great, but it’s absolutely no substitute for a full 100% compatible port of Visual Studio and the .NET 3.0 platform to Linux, created and maintained by none other than Microsoft.

Microsoft needs to wake up and realize that they’re not gaining themselves any favours by ignoring the fact that there is a sizeable amount of the Linux userbase willing to adopt Microsoft solutions so long as they actually work. If Microsoft can’t release a Linux-compatible version of Silverlight, how the hell can they label it as a “Flash killer?” What about Windows Media Player 11 and the WMP codecs? Since WMP 11 shipped, Firefox and Opera plugins to add WMP functionality to their browsers was broken. Microsoft may have solved it for Firefox, but what about everyone else?

The bottom line is, Microsoft doesn’t understand the definition of the word “standard.” While that’s fine (for them) when they’re ignoring standards set by others, it’s not OK if they want standards they define to be adopted unanimously by the rest of the computer industry as well. That’s just not what a “standard” is. In order for something to be a standard, it has to just work… Everywhere. Yes, Linux too. We want to be able to just drag and drop an application compiled on Windows (no, not a console application, a real application) to Linux, OS X, BSD, or Solaris and just have it work.

A year ago, we published a 5-page article commending Microsoft for the .NET Framework’s ease-of-use, power, and aesthetics; while concluding that all it needs to become the only programming language desktop-developers would ever need was improved multi-platform support. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened, and judging by Microsoft’s release of Silverlight earlier this week, it’s not going to happen for a long, long time. So please Microsoft, can you do something about it?

After two months of crazy bug-hunting and hundreds of rounds of scenario testing, EasyBCD 1.51 is finally out. If you’re in a really big hurry, go and get it – if not, read on. EasyBCD 1.51 is a very major change from 1.5. As a matter of fact, if it wasn’t for the fact that it would completely ruin our release schedule, this release would have been dubbed EasyBCD 2.0. It’s that big.

What makes EasyBCD 1.51 so special is the switch in purpose and technique. In the past, EasyBCD was only a bootloader modification tool that let end-users configure the Windows Vista bootloader, and EasyBCD 1.5 added support for “profiles” that could be used to boot into Linux, BSD, & OS X. Not only does EasyBCD 1.51 add support for several other operating systems, but also it goes a step further. A very big step further. Now, if there is anything that Vista’s BCD bootloader can’t boot into, EasyBCD 1.51 comes with its own additional bootloader that can boot into it. It’s called NeoGrub, and you’re going to love it.

Besides the fact that EasyBCD 1.51 is now the most powerful bootloader on earth, ((As a matter of fact, the only bootloader on the planet that can boot straight into Vista, Linux, Mac OS X, SkyOS, BSD, FreeBSD, and every other OS you can imagine!)) it’s still the number 1 most versatile tool for modifying the Vista bootloader, used by everyone and anyone that care to make their lives easier ((Including guys at Google, Microsoft, and more!)) with tens of functions and lots of time-saving features. EasyBCD is now supports booting into Windows Vista/Longhorn Server natively; Legacy versions of Windows via NTLDR; chainloading into GRUB, Darwin, Lilo, FreeBSD Loader; and natively booting into Linux, Mac OS X, BSD, ReactOS, SkyOS, and many more from the all new NeoGrub bootloader!

What is NeoGrub? Good question. It’s an implementation of GRUB built for Windows. EasyBCD installs NeoGrub first, then hooks into it upon request. It’s built upon the excellent work of the GRUB for Windows project, boot it’s now directly integrated into Windows Vista’s BCD bootloader. Basically, it’s a way of booting into almost any operating system with little to no configuration required. The documentation will be up soon is now up, and you can read all about EasyBCD there.

As always, EasyBCD is free. We hope you enjoy it, and our excellent technical support team will be more than happy to help you with any issues you might have with EasyBCD and/or configuring your multi-boot system. (And donations are freely accepted for this non-profit program!!)

Product Link: EasyBCD 1.51 Download Page

Screenshots: EasyBCD 1.5 Screens

Documentation: EasyBCD Documentation Home 

Download: EasyBCD 1.51 Setup

The idea is simple: Linux isn’t always the best non-Windows operating system. Windows is excellent and unbeatable for quite a few people and tasks. But neither is perfect. Almost exactly 10 years ago, a team began to search for a fix. In 1996, Linux was unusable for anyone but the most technologically ‘gifted’ and Windows 95 wasn’t anywhere near as complex as Windows today.

Originally called FreeWin95, the project had a decent idea, but terribly organized, implemented, and coded. Two years later, the dos-clone kernel was dumped, and the real project began. It was called ReactOS, and this time it was for real.

ReactOS is a 100% Open Source (mostly GPL) rewrite of the Windows Kernel. At its heart, ReactOS is an initiative to create an open-source project that is fully compatible with the all Windows NT-based drivers, applications, and services.

ReactOS is a project intended to bring together the power of open-source, the usability of Microsoft’s Windows, and most importantly the immense driver and application database available to Windows users into one operating system that can distributed free of charge and licensed at will. ReactOS is a true community-driven initiative to make a better operating system, and it strikes at the heart of the corporate OS world by appealing directly to the users of Windows, theoretically providing the very things that Microsoft advertises Windows as being excellent for – without the price tag and with greater flexibility.

But ReactOS is much more than just a GPL Windows-Clone. Rather, ReactOS takes the Windows code a step further by stripping it down to the bare minimum – leaving a kernel that is (supposedly) fast, light, clean, and powerful with a more stable user interface with greater flexibility where implementation is concerned.

This review of ReactOS will not revolve as much around usability, stability, or features as much as it does on the core concept and the development cycle. You can see NeoSmart Technologies’ ReactOS Screenshot Tour for a quick look at what there is to see.