@qqq @OpenStars before wow64 introduction, wine required 32 bit process and multilib to run 32 bit code, requiring 32 bit opengl/bulkan implementations
But it is possible to run 32 bit code in 64 bit process.
Wine in wow64 mode enforces 64 bit process to use only lower 32 bits address space and thunks 64 bit libraries via wine nt syscall interface to loaded 32 bit PE binaries. No multilib or even 32 bit process support required, 32 bit instructions executed as is. Also this allows using machine code translation layers (like fexemu) exposing native calls with same syscall interface.
wow64 maybe still limitted because it does not allow calling native libraries directly and increases overhead. win32 TLS code is using same fs segment register as linux 64bit TLS and workarounds may have bigger overhead, than using multilib

@Mwa @NONE_dc *uninstall

@Evil_Shrubbery note that HDMI is even more proprietary than android. IIRC some new HDCP version is impossible to implement in FOSS drivers

@Evil_Shrubbery @MyOpinion having android on hmd not so bad if this android is not locked. But people keeps buying deadly locked devices from meta/bd, that dies if you don’t give it internet access

@NONE_dc looks like pipewire moment :)

@Natanox @NONE_dc when i installed windows 7 beta first time, it was impossible to make my realtek audio work with it at all, all drivers failed to start…

@Zwiebel yes :(
Or use some automatic kernel update scripts.
For me, it’s better if i update kernel/grub manually, than do some automatic update and find system not booting anymore. But most users prefer automatic update, which sometimes may fail on some systems

@VinesNFluff @westyvw but win9x still using dos drivers, so it is dos application. 32 bit dos application running on untouched dos system. Yes, it implements full 32 bit OS

@Breve i prefer spending couple hours to configure (and half-a-day to rebuild packages) to update my home linux system every half-a-year than using windows. And it seems, there is no windows alternative for non-IT-professionals now because every distro is broken. I still may recommend linux mint as windows alternative, but not sure it really will be better that windows because it’s ubuntu based and will catch all ubuntu bugs.
Also, most binary distros build mesa with nouveau enabled, which breaks it. It links lingbm to glappi, which causes dependency hell. Also it adds some slow nouveau call to winsys implementation even if you do not have nvidia, shich causes big slowdown. And linked-in nouveau code in libgallium increases memory footprint This only should be used when you relly use nouveau, but most people replace it with binary blob or not using nvidia at all…

@Breve @_carmin this is because distros use autogenerated grub configs, and using rootfs for grub.
Whan maintaining grub manually on separate or EFI partition, nothing breaks. You only need edit grub config every kernel update. For x11,wayland, etc only solution is some source-based system (gentoo for example) where you decide what to build and what to update. In other cases expect unwanted breakage becauseyou cannot stop binary distro from bringing unwanted changes

@shuro I XP have better hardware support because it targets workstation and home systems, while 2000 mostly targets servera. And it was released 2-3 years later

@shuro it seems, support of this laptop was added after win2k release. Anyway, usually we not expect hardware to work out pf box on windows (at least before win10 which downloads drivers automaticly). Without downloading drivers it requires windows version released at least after hardware was made

@shuro supporting formats and hardware out of box never was good side of windows. But 12 years ago i used some PC which did not require installing any driver on windows 2000, EVEN TV TUNER worked out-of-box. None of linux live cd was capable to run it’s sound and network card and there are no drivers for tuner and 3d acceleration on this pc. Network and sound required building some kernel modules, disabled by default

@shuro i do not think browser-based statistics is good. Anyone who do not want different from elsewhere will set windows UA and breaks this statistics. just imagine, how may bots may set windows user agent not being running on windows

@Diplomjodler3 @drq win7 is shit, really shit. It renamed “My computer” to “Computer”…

@shuro @teft this was last version that not broke interface consistency.
And not’ it was not stable. It was buggy like any OS at this time. But at least they found how consistent desktop interface should look.
I like how internet explorer 5-6 seamlessly turns to explorer windows and back. How everything looks good using system theme
Or menus and system dialogs, easily extendable by custom modules, registered in registry. Or like internet explorer, using gdi is drawing very fast when launched with RDP even with slow internet connection… Imagine something like this in wayland, which only operates pre-rendered bitmaps, it’s just impossible now. And where developers cannot use one toolkit that usin system theme and extending system settings of kde/gnome for 3rdparty app is just impossible.
And all of this runs good on 32mb ram.
Even now both windows and linux modern desktops are long far way from this.

@shuro @lritter what this unknown desktop os?

@drq @linuxmemes Even nt5.0 was shit, but it’s interface was really good. Later microsoft lost interface consistency. First is enabled/disabled visual styles, and second it dotnet interfaces, looking completely different This is enshitification :)

@asudox it is missing basic OS feagures. Initially it was OS, but now it’s just firmware for google devices, not OS.

@asudox android even cannot share folder between 2 apps with different signature. It cannot be called OS.