Microsoft has announced its upcoming operating system Windows 10.
Six Windows 10 features inspired by Linux
Multiple desktops aka workspaces
While this feature is being introduced i Windows in 2015 with Windows 10,
in Linux this, perhaps, dates back to 1998 when Kde 1.0 was released.
All the major Linux desktop environment support multiple desktop feature.
Task view aka window spread
Windows 10 boasts of a feature called ‘task view’. Clicking on the task view button brings up an array of running apps.
Window spread feature was introduced with the new age desktop
environments. Both Unity and GNOME have this feature. Pressing the super
key (Windows key) lays out all the running applications in GNOME 3.
Desktop plus online search
Windows 10 will have improved search.
Entering a search term in the field will result in either a file on the
local machine, an installed application or application available in
Windows Store or from the internet (to be opened in Internet Explorer).
Ubuntu has done the same with Unity Dash and lenses/scopes. When you
search for something in Unity Dash, it provides you suggestion in local
files, local applications, applications from Ubuntu Software Center, the
infamous Amazon search results, along with other results categorized in
various ‘lenses’. This includes search results from social networks,
Wikipedia and You Tube.
Borderless windows and flat icons
This is very minor tweak but the windows
in Windows 10 will be border-less and will have flat icons in Windows
Explorer. This results in a cleaner look
If you remember well, borderless windows were among one of the new features introduced in Ubuntu 14.04.
Convergence of mobile and desktop OS
Microsoft has promised better convergence across mobile and desktop devices with Windows 10.
While there is not a single mobile device out yet, Ubuntu was first to
foresee the need of convergence. It will be interesting to see how
Ubuntu Unity performs on mobile devices when Miezu will launch the first Ubuntu Phone later this year.
Windows 10 (finally) has a package manager
Windows 10 will be coming with a package
manager of its own. That means you can install applications via command
line in Power Shell. An image from HowTo Geek will give you a glimpse
of it:
As you can seem using the command Install-Package Firefox, you can
install Firefox in Windows. But as a Linux user, you know that package
management is an integral part of a Linux OS. It has been in Linux since
forever. One more Linux feature that inspired Windows 10.
This article is actually inspired by a post I saw on itsfoss.com
