File/Folder layout

Yup, this is a killer. Windows over the time has been built up of hack ontop of hack, and it’s file structure has changed several times, but with every change the older folders have been left for legacy applications. In OS X, GNU/Linux and BSD operating systems file locations are some what sensible. /etc for config files, /lib for libraries, /home for homes, /bin for binaries. It’s all placed in logical places.

Application Support files / Install

Windows has no single way to install and setup applications. Installers are not standardised and usually make a mess of the system. There is no one location for start up applications and every time you want to install or remove an application you must use a software vendors application, trusting them to clean up their mess.

Support files for applications are scattered throughout the system and it makes backing up a programs setting is fairly hard. It is slowly improving with Local Settings and Application Data, but still fair from perfect.

Standards

Microsoft can’t even follow their own standards, so how are developers meant to. Microsoft event’s a new standard for each problem they run into, and don’t even bother to look at existing standards to improve on.

EEE

Which brings me to my next point. The good old EEE – Embrace extend and extinguish. The wiki page explains it quite well, and even provides examples :>

DIrectX
Well fuck you DirectX.

Shell / Command Line

Oh dear god. The current standard shell is absolutely use, and has barely improved since DOS 6. Oh well, at least we have tab completion now. YAY! The good news is PowerShell is looking pretty cool. Shame PowerShell isn’t supported on Windows 2000.

Dodgy Virus Protection

Windows has protected once again. To slow down virus they have limited our connections and removed our telnet. It hasn’t stopped viruses, although it has annoyed the hell out of us.

Requirement to have a virii scanner

An operating system that suggests you run a virus scanner is flawed. All that should be required is security updates every several days, not a whole new product by a third party.

5000 versions of the same product (ultimate ect…)

Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Business Premium, Ultimate. This makes maintaing computers an absolute bitch, and just silly. Provide one operating system for all computers. Eg OS X .

NTFS not being an open standard

This really isn’t a Windows annoyance, but an announce if you aren’t using Windows. NTFS standard needs to be open so other operating systems can read it.

Updates

Windows is excellent at updating every 3 hours, not to mention updating even when automatic updates has been turned off. This is quite annoying for me, and people that just want to turn off their computers. Instead they have to wait an hour just install a simple update.

Warning Messages

If you ever download an application on Windows Vista or 7, you’ll have just under 8 warning messages to click allow to, and due to this, all users become quite jaded towards the messages, and completely ignore them.

Unrelated Note

On an unrelated note, I would like to see Windows have a unified way to saving application data, and sandbox each applications. When applications want to use other applications data files the OS throws up a warning message asking if the program can have control over those files.

So I moved from Gentoo (awesome distro, on a crappy kernel) to FreeBSD (awesome distro on an awesome kernel). So far I’m loving it. I’ve started to move away from bloated software as well like Openfire and basically anything else that runs on JAVA (eww).

At first IPv6 (tunnel with HE) seemed hard to setup on FreeBSD, I done little bits, but fell into a few pit holes along the way. When I look back it seems so simple.

First problem I found was that IPFW was blocking IPv6 traffic. Simple solution is to do,

00400 allow ip6 from any to any

The other issues I found was examples were a bit misleading in guides as to rc.conf setup. This is what I ended up with.

ipv6_enable=”YES”
ipv6_gateway_enable=”YES”
ipv6_router_enable=”YES”
ipv6_router=”/usr/sbin/route6d”
gif_interfaces=”gif0″
gifconfig_gif0=”218.214.124.179 66.220.18.42″
ipv6_ifconfig_gif0=”2001:470:c:411::2 2001:470:c:411::1 prefixlen 128″
ipv6_defaultrouter=”2001:470:c:411::1″
ipv6_ifconfig_vlan2=”2001:470:d:411::1/64″
rtadvd_enable=”YES”

218.214.124.179 was the IP address of where my tunnel came in.
66.220.18.42 is the server IPv4 address.
2001:470:c:411::1 is the server IPv6 address.
2001:470:c:411::2 is the client IPv6 address.
vlan2 is the interface I want IPv6 on.
2001:470:d:411::1 is an address from my routed IPv6 /64

Once you have this, reboot and you should have working IPv6 that announces to your LAN. Surprised me that all the configuration can be done in the one file.

For those interested, here is glasshouse.internaluse.net rc.conf

ateway_enable=”YES”
hostname=”glasshouse.internaluse.net”
keymap=”us.iso”
linux_enable=”YES”
sshd_enable=”YES”
firewall_enable=”YES”
firewall_script=”/usr/local/etc/ipfw.rules”
ifconfig_em0=”up”
cloned_interfaces=”vlan2 vlan3″
ifconfig_vlan2=”inet 172.27.2.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 vlan 2 vlandev em0″
ifconfig_vlan3=”inet 172.27.1.2 netmask 255.255.255.0 vlan 3 vlandev em0″
ifconfig_vlan2_alias0=”218.214.200.17 netmask 255.255.255.248″
ppp_enable=”YES”
ppp_mode=”ddial”
ppp_profile=”people”
dhcpd_enable=”YES”
dhcpd_ifaces=”vlan2″
named_enable=”YES”
mysql_enable=”YES”
lighttpd_enable=”YES”
inetd_enable=”YES”
jabberd_enable=”YES”
dovecot_enable=”YES”
saslauthd_enable=”YES”
sendmail_enable=”YES”
ntpd_enabled=”YES”
apcupsd_enable=”YES”
jabber_pymsn_enable=”YES”
transmission_enable=”YES”
transmission_download_dir=”/mnt/storage/incoming”
samba_enable=”YES”
enable_quotas=”YES”
check_quotas=”NO”
ircd_ratbox_enable=”YES”
ipv6_enable=”YES”
ipv6_gateway_enable=”YES”
ipv6_router_enable=”YES”
ipv6_router=”/usr/sbin/route6d”
gif_interfaces=”gif0″
gifconfig_gif0=”218.214.124.179 66.220.18.42″
ipv6_ifconfig_gif0=”2001:470:c:411::2 2001:470:c:411::1 prefixlen 128″
ipv6_defaultrouter=”2001:470:c:411::1″
ipv6_ifconfig_vlan2=”2001:470:d:411::1/64″
rtadvd_enable=”YES”

$ sudo pkg_add -r vnc

and then ran it with this command

$ vncserver

On first start it’ll ask you to supply a password to protect from strangers controlling your PC. To VNC you need a VNC client like tight vnc for windows or vncviewer, the address is ipaddres:1 (some times you might have to replace the 1 with the number it reports back in the terminal when started, but usually its 1) . It didn’t really look to pretty. I dediced to pretty it up with gnome, though the steps should be the same for kde.

$ pkg_add -r gnome2

After that finished I had to tweak the ~/.vnc/xstartup file so that the right window manger and that started. Comment out twm and xterm and add this to the end of the file.

gnome-session &

Then kill the vncserver and restart it :

killall Xvnc


vncserver

And you can login into your nice gnome desktop. I decided to osxify my desktop by following a ubuntu walk throughbut it doesn’t have anything that stops you doing it in other operating system. It can be found at http://www.supriyadisw.net/2006/09/ultimate-ubuntu-dapper-look-like-osx .

And here is my current desktop, I need have a nice OS X type wallpaper but decided to go with one of mine.

 Desktop - C:\Documents and Settings\Michael\Desktop

to…

 Desktop - Z:\Windows\Desktop

There are a few I didn’t change such as start menu and program, basiclly use your common sense, oh and as always, make a backup of your registery first. When you login you may be a “Incorrect Function” error or something along those lines, just ignore it, still works afaik.