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Microsoft IT Linux Technology

You Can Now Install Microsoft Windows Calculator on Linux (betanews.com) 102

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Earlier, Microsoft released the source for Windows Calculator. And now, that calculator app has been ported to Linux by Uno Platform. Best of all, it's insanely easy to install as it is packaged in Snap format. "The good folks in the Uno Platform community have ported the open-source Windows Calculator to Linux. And they've done it quicker than Microsoft could bring their browser to Linux. The calculator is published in the snapstore and can be downloaded right away," explains Rhys Davies, Product Manager, Canonical.
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You Can Now Install Microsoft Windows Calculator on Linux More

You Can Now Install Microsoft Windows Calculator on Linux

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  • Hallelujah! (Score:5, Funny)

    by GoJays ( 1793832 ) on Friday October 16, 2020 @02:34PM (#60616140)
    This was the only thing holding me back from switching to Linux for many years.

    Other calculators just don't equate at the same accuracy as the MS Calculator. My life is now complete.

  • Calculators? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by chthon ( 580889 ) on Friday October 16, 2020 @02:40PM (#60616156) Journal

    bc, dc, ipython, octave?

    And I could always install them on Windows...

    • Re:Calculators? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Friday October 16, 2020 @03:32PM (#60616298)

      Meanwhile in the Microsoft boardrooms the discussion is ongoing:
      "What else can we do to make users hate Linux?"
      "Maybe if we put some of Windows applications on Linux, that might work."
      "Smithson, that's brilliant! A $20 Bed Bath and Beyond gift card bonus for you!"

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • "It looks like you're querying the git-refs in order to find a common ancestor of topic and feature branches in order to discover which bozo screwed up the build, would you like help with that?"

      • They made it worse in Windows 10, where you have to select between standard and programmer mode, and programmer mode apparently does only int math.

        I assume they ported this newer, shittier version.

      • The next one will be the original Notepad.

        The editor that can only handle CR-LF line endings....

    • octave

      Yes, we need to design a ball point pen that can work at zero gravity for millions of dollars* instead of just using a pencil.

      *Note that isn't actually a true story, but the suggestion to use Octave instead of the windows calculator certainly reminded me of this common tale.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by vyvepe ( 809573 )
      Good options. I also like rmaxima and ghci as calculators.

  • Makes sense, (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Friday October 16, 2020 @02:43PM (#60616170)

    that a Canonical rep is waxing all orgasmic about another Snap-only package for Ubuntu's increasingly Android-like ecosystem. I wonder if it will eventually be force-installed and made difficult to remove the way Chromium has been.

    • Exactly ^^^

      The first thing I did was look for the Debian instructions and stopped when I got as far as

      $ sudo apt update
      $ sudo apt install snapd

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Canonical does seem quite religious about their snaps. We had a partner ship with them on a device, and now all the people working on the device are gaga about snaps. They have power point presentations about how their project will be awesome because of snaps! When suggesting other distributions might be more suitable, they reject it becuase they don't have snaps. And yet they are not able to articulate why snaps are a good thing, they just accept that they're good as dogma. People who used to be decen

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by t0rkm3 ( 666910 )

        I honestly can't believe how bad the performance of the Snaps are.

        I have three boxes, all identical, running NixOS, Arch, and Ubuntu. The Ubuntu box is perpetually out of memory, MS Teams crashes continuously, and at 16GB RAM, it is perpetually at 95%.

        Same workstation, build, serial=($ubuntu_serial + 3), running NixOS and nary a problem. Same for the Arch box.

        The reason that I installed Ubuntu in the first place was to support PA GlobalProtect, which doesn't work properly with Azure AD authentication (at le

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nyet ( 19118 )

        I love that they insist on installing to /snap, which isn't even configurable.

        Canonical is filled with complete incompetents these days

      • Canonical does seem quite religious about their snaps.

        I kinda wonder if they're pushing snaps so hard because package maintenance has become so labour intensive and is so often a shit-show. It was for that reason that I was initially in favour of snaps and flatpaks - package management has become so complex that Linux now has its own version of DLL hell. I was willing to live with the wasted disk space until I started hearing about performance hits. Canonical forcing the issue was the last straw - it's far too much like the Windows experience that caused me to

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nyet ( 19118 )

      Snap is trash.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by thedarb ( 181754 )

      Only once you have to buy your Ubuntu from your phone carrier.

  • Pointless (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 1s44c ( 552956 ) on Friday October 16, 2020 @02:49PM (#60616184)

    I have calculators, loads of them.

    I'm not messing with the train wreck that is SNAP.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by tap ( 18562 )

        It runs on a Windows 10 instance inside a qemu emulated machine. That's no so bar.

        But qemu is packaged with snap. So you'll need at least 32GB to run it.

  • But when can be get Clippy?

  • Porting a calculator is faster than a browser. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Friday October 16, 2020 @02:57PM (#60616210) Homepage
    Who knew!?!
  • The version of Windows Hearts that was on Windows 7 is so much better than any version I've seen on Linux so far. Port that. :)

    • Re:Hearts (Score:4)

      by chill ( 34294 ) on Friday October 16, 2020 @03:04PM (#60616234) Journal

      Space Cadet Pinball from Win XP

      • I killed a lot of time on that when I had an XP laptop. A whole city was just outside my door and... there were still times when I just couldn't find anything else to do, LOL.

        If only we could also bring back the music service I had on that machine, before Yahoo bought it and killed it. I was even willing to accept that I might sometimes have to re-download a track because of the DRM glitches; but then tracks started becoming unavailable for download--there's a version of Istanbul/Constantinople by TMBG th

  • Anyone have multiplatform reverse Polish notation calculators that they recommend? Something with a long visible/scrollable stack and paper trail would be great.

  • And? (Score:2, Funny)

    by DaFallus ( 805248 )
    I can stick a needle up my urethra too...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Maavin ( 598439 )
      Are you sitting there all day to make comments like this? I mean, regarding your nickname?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by troff ( 529250 )

      But now you don't HAVE to. You can let the idiots at Uno Platform, Microsoft and the Snap system developers stick a needle up your urethra FOR you and at no extra cost, you get to run Microsoft code, Snap and systemd to follow the needle!

  • The Windows Standard Calculator cannot even adhere to standard math operator precedence! Try this:

    3 + 3 * 3

    Windows Calculator: 18 (Wrong!)
    Linux Calculator: 12 (Correct!)

    What else is new? They can't release any Windows updates without creating new bugs! Do you really want to trust Excel??? ;^)

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I just tried this with the MS calculator on Windows and got 12.
    • That's not really a fair comparison, because most pocket calculators will also give you a result of 18 from that set of inputs. If, on the other hand, you switch the mode from "Standard" to "Scientific", you'll get the correct answer of 12. This holds true not only for the UWP app on Windows 10 but also the various versions of "calc.exe" dating all the way back to Windows 3.1.

      • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

        by rstanley ( 758673 )
        How can the Windows "Standard" calculator really be "Standard" if it can't adhere to "Standard" math operator precedence. The same hold true for any calculator. There is nothing about "Scientific" that changes these simple standards.

        Linux calculator programmers have no problem understanding this simple concept.

        • Standard means "same as a standard calculator".

          For that sequence of inputs, a standard calculator would give you the same result because a standard calculator processes equations as a series of single discrete steps, not as a single ordered operation.

          The latter is what scientific mode is for.

          Stop being daft.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by guruevi ( 827432 )

            In calc.exe however, you can put in the entire operation at once. With pocket calculators you can do only 1 operation and it will give you the result right away, so you are really multiplying 6 with 3.

  • Easy to install (Score:3)

    by xonen ( 774419 ) on Friday October 16, 2020 @03:29PM (#60616286) Journal

    easy to install as it is packaged in Snap format

    No, easy to install is make ; make install

    How many alternate universal package formats do we have now? Probably enough for a xkcd 927.

  • My 30-40 y.o TI-36 solar still does everything I need it to. Granted, I was a math major when I needed to calculate complicated shit like partial differential equations but, guess what? Once I got my useless sheepskin I use it for basic add subtract multiply divide, with the occasional square root thrown in.

    I'm assuming they added more bits for precision but, for me doing taxes and stuff, my 30 year old calculater does just fine.

    Then again, I went to college before TI infiltrated the market so all c

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Wargames ( 91725 )

      My 30-40 y.o HP12C is still working fine; battery has never been replaced, work great for adding up all the bills.

  • I can finally turn off that old 486 I've been keeping around so I could use calc.exe

  • I have Emacs (Score:3)

    by nagora ( 177841 ) on Friday October 16, 2020 @04:17PM (#60616446)

    The calculator in that can do basically everything I need - and a lot more. And I don't need Canonical's garbageware Snap for it.

  • Reboots, updates, whatever (Score:3)

    by Snotnose ( 212196 ) on Friday October 16, 2020 @04:41PM (#60616520)
    So does this mean my Linux box will reboot every few days to update the calculator?

  • I prefer Microsoft Calculator Plus from the old days, but it's a native Windows application, not a Windows Metro, or "UWP," app.

  • Getting a 'Linux' calculator on Windows would be more newsworthy.

  • And they've done it quicker than Microsoft could bring their browser to Linux

    I guess that's a joke?

  • Does anyone ELSE avoid Snap? (Score:3)

    by pecosdave ( 536896 ) on Friday October 16, 2020 @06:03PM (#60616786) Homepage Journal

    I avoid Snap because I want tidier, smaller packages instead of 400 copies of the same libraries on my system. I understand the appeal of Snap, but in concept it's the opposite of efficient and every bit the equivalent of "just copy it to every directory until you hit the right one".

    I use KDE Neon, so I pretty much have to remove Snap support as soon as I install the OS to keep from getting flat-packs.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nyet ( 19118 )

      I knew as soon as I snap was hardcoded to use /snap that snap was designed by morons for morons.

    • I avoid Snap because I want tidier, smaller packages instead of 400 copies of the same libraries on my system.

      I praise container formats and support them for avoiding the DLL hell equivalent of wanting to run current and up to date software without waiting for the blessing of the distribution maintainer to correctly sort out their dependency, and if having additional copies of the same libraries on my system is the cost of up to date software, then sign me up twice.

      I avoid Snap because it's slow as molasses.

      • But surely it can't be *that hard* for a package manager to keep multiple versions of the same library on the system, can it?

        • It's not hard. It's time consuming. And when you consider the sheer amount of software in a distro repository there's often quite a delay between software being released, and ending up in the repo, especially if that software isn't popular.

          Containers are great for that.

  • You have to switch modes if you want both decimals and hex numbers. So dumb.

  • 4+3/8=0.875 ???

    Switch to scientific mode:

    4+3/8=4.375 (correct)

    Now I know one reason why kids have trouble with fractions ...

    • That's deliberate. The calculator on Windows in its default mode acts like a simple calculator that doesn't perform multiple operations at once. If you RTFM you'll see that it says that scientific and programmer mode both honor PEMDAS while this note is absent on default mode. Here's the excerpt from the help file in W7 [imgur.com].

      Simple mode doesn't actually accept multiple operations at once, but rather just displays the order you input them in as a quality of life feature.

  • ehm... well maybe.... someday when it makes sense.

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