Rumor pegs Windows 9 release for next year, Windows 10 as a Cloud OS.  

At the end of the road I see Linux Mint for the 'real' desktop user. It is a beautiful system for us traditionalists. This is my Mint desktop with the Start menu opened.

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It is Mint Mate 14. I have Cinnamon too, but I prefer Mate.

I am a big fan of Mint too. Just wish it ran my work software...

badrobot, post: 3788, member: 124 said:

Great! I am running Linux Mint 15 KDE on a laptop. And incidentally, Linux Mint 16 «Petra» RC mate + cinnamon
has just been released which I may try soon.

I know there are new releases. But I am too lazy to install the new stuff all the time. The setup takes too much time. The Nadia release works well - what more can I ask for.

I also never make the updates because that cuts off my VMware Tools which I then have to reinstall. Another pain in the neck.

bigseb, post: 3630, member: 98 said:

Until the rest of the world gets decent internet support cloud is out of the question. In SA - due to the really terrible state of our internet accessibility, reliability and pricing - a cloud based OS would be an absolute disaster.

Absolutely.

Google trying to make headway with Chromebooks, but it will never fly. Cloud OSs are nothing new. They haven't been popular to date.

Now that I've had this Nokia Lumia WP8 phablet for a week I can definitely see more reason why MS is heading in their direction they've taken. It has surely simplified my life. All devices synchronization. I realize one can perform this with a mix of devices and OSs, but it's a PITA. e.g. Buy a different device then spend time to get it to sync. Then I'll bet you can't get it to sync 100%.

Bottom line is that it's about products and services today.

The rumors always seem to threat a cloud os, but they (and all others for that matter) must know that it would be suicide in this day and age of metering and capping ISP's. There is no way I would touch it....i'd give up completely if all I could do was have a cloud OS.
It's worrying enough just making sure I don't get near the monthly cap, I couldn't imagine having to do the majority of everything else that way too.