Slashdot Mirror
Windows Vista - Not So Bad?
Shantyman writes "ZDNet has a counterpoint to the negative impressions of Vista's Beta 2 going around. Entitled Vista Beta 2, up close and personal, Ed Bott writes: 'I've spent the last three months running beta versions of Windows Vista on the PCs I use for everyday work. February and March were exasperating. April's release was noticeably better, and the Beta 2 preview - Build 5381, released to testers in early May - has been running flawlessly on my notebook for nearly three weeks.'"
"eating their own dogfood"
1) Dog owners eat dog food in an effort to understand the dog.
2) Microsoft developers use Vista everyday in an effort to understand the end-user.
3) Microsoft proudly labels the above practice "dogfooding".
So, according to Microsoft, end-users must be dogs.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
It doesn't matter if Windows does a good job or a bad job. People will have to take Vista regaurdless of how good or bad it is.
Slashdot might not as well cover how good or bad Vista is because in Vista and OSX are closed source OSes. Users have no say in how good or bad a proprietary OS is. So we might as well not deal with it.
I Personally wish that people would stop consuming, and giving creed to closed OSes, and no, OSX is not an Open OS. I don't care how like BSD it is.
Oh No.. How is sony now supposed to install their secret rootkit DRM into your computer now if it has to ask permissions??! /The correct answer of course is that Vista will come with this DRM already installed.
I've been following the development of this whole "Vista"-thing, especially the opinions of people and the features it has. Now, here are some of the things I've noticed:
Positive
a) Apparently, Microsoft is actually making an effort to make this a release of their OS that is reliable.
6 points for effort, results remain to be seen.
b) The UI looks nice, stylish.
4 points for design.
c) They've added features (on the UI) that remind me of WMs available to Linux / Unix.
9 points for looking at a user's community and taking out some of the good elements.
Total: 19 positive points
Negative
a) They're not doing anything special. It's not like I'm getting really excited about this release or anything because it's basically just WinXP with elements thrown in from the Linux community.
-4 points for sucking at originality.
b) Microsoft is trying to get credit for things they did not come up with. Come on, I mean, the whole security system? That has been around on Unix-like operating systems since the dawn of ages. Linux and Unix users alike have been securing their systems like this back when Microsoft employees were still trying to make fire with sticks!
-12 points for being retards, falling behind and bragging once they start catching up.
c) Up til now, I haven't really heard of anyone really running it and thinking "Wow, this is a system that is totally filling my needs!". All I hear / read is that people get it up and running (after a painful process that includes stabwounds to the mouth. But let's put that aside for a second) and then "get used" to it. Even experienced users have to adjust in ways they never wanted. Now, that's not a good thing when you're marketing a subsequent release of a product. And all they do to help you? Dazzle you with a thousand glittering sparkles on the desktop.
Sorry, -10 points for forcing people (again) to live in Microsoft's own little world.
Total -26
Which basically totals to a score of -7. That's not too bad, but do realize that I haven't even touched the surface on this. There are more things that I like, and things I (already) dislike about this release of Windows. Sorry Bill, I'll just stick with my sexy FreeBSD release here. It's been kicking your ass since 1993 (at least) and it probably will for the coming seventeen millenia.
SuperJim, the pantsless superhero in search of lost binaries, signing off!
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Userfriendly? Sure it is, unless you aren't computerfriendly!
/me to a classmate on FreeBSD
Is that with or without daily reboots?
That word you keep using.. I don't think it means what you think it means.
10.3 is what I have install media for. 10.3 is what came with this machine.. when it was purchased new about 2 years ago. 10.4 is barely a year old, afaik.
I don't know that 10.4 does this any better, I just have more experience with 10.3, so that's what I was describing.
Apple users do not need to have a persecution complex. I was merely stating my observation that more often than not, I am dissatisfied with shell file copies on large files, especially when networks are involved, and that OS X appears to be no exception when it comes to exhibiting this problem.
Obviously shell file copy performance can't be the only dimension of the merit of an operating system or else everybody wouldn't be so awful at it after so many years.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
It's a BETA, and it was released three weeks ago! Duh!