Comment by klingonopera | Hacker News Reader

Comment by klingonopera | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Thanks for this. I must've shrugged it off initially for using the "IoT"-buzzword (who are they selling too?).

Reading up a bit on it here[1], and again, I'm appalled. I don't want to waste time and money cherry-picking Windows versions. There's IoT Core, Mobile and Enterprise, and then there's Enterprise LTSB, apparently with year codes too, what gives?

Nah, all this time and money wasted doing that can be invested in making the jump to Linux, because unlike Windows, chances are, that that will be indeed just a one-time investment. Linux also has a plus of making ghosting hard-drive images much easier, since there are no licensing issues to consider, and therefore could also be done completely offline (PCs are hooked up to local network for remote VNC connections, but are blocked from the Internet).

It may be wishful thinking, but I hope that just like servers are 99% running Linux, the same may one day be said for industrial applications... looks like I'm on the front line, lock and load!

[1]: https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/86c34...

Linux is not a one-time investment unfortunately since the software landscape is constantly changing. For people who are invested this is generally a good thing. There are more distros that you’ll run into in the wild than editions of Windows easily which is doubly true in the embedded space.

In the enterprise where Red Hat and Canonical dominate licensing is becomes an issue again when you use their paid offerings.

So don’t get me wrong. I want people to switch to Linux but we gotta be realistic that it’s not a panacea.

Yeah, but try to get a Windows XP version running nowdays. You have to reinstall every 30 days or so, because of the activation shut-out. Windows 7 improved on this by ways of nagging instead of shut-out, so I thought we were on a good path here. And when those activation servers go down... what then?

Linux? I'd just treasure that one (non-licensed) ISO I used, and that's it. Once I got a working setup, it could probably run for a century. EDIT: ...or at least until 2038 ;)

EDIT2: It's also not really an embedded system, it's a control PC. Embedded PCs are those in ATMs, BK's product screens, running car washes, what we have are full-fledged PCs that just happen to be operating test-rigs. These of course have fail-safe shutdowns (run by actual embedded hardware) if that PC hangs or faults, but they're not actually intended to be embedded.

Granted the IoT buzzword naming is confusing. Windows 10 IoT Enterprise is simply the good old "Embedded" edition which is fundamentally Windows 10 Enterprise with a price-tag. LTSB means that they have a specific version of Windows 10 that they will support for a long time. For embedded applications, that is perfect.

IoT Enterprise is basically the same as Enterprise LTBS.

From the link I posted above: "On the technical side, the Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSB is the same as the "normal" Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB. But: Not on the licensing term side."

...whatever's truly true and factual in this case, I don't know, but I'm simply pissed that there's ambiguity about this. And that's just one of the reasons I avoid Windows 10 like the plague.

There is no ambiguity. Just call your Microsoft license seller and get a quote.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com