Is Vista a Trap?

logube writes "BBC has up an article about the trap of installing Vista in your existing desktop. Written by Tim Weber, a self-confessed 'sucker for technology,' this article is a good introduction to the pain and extra money required to get going with the newest version of Windows. See how you can spend an extra 130 british pounds, and still have no working webcam! Says Weber, 'It took me one day to get online. The detail is tedious and highly technical: reinstalling drivers and router firmware didn't work, but after many trial and error tweaks to Vista's TCP/IP settings, I had internet access. Once online, Creative's website told me that my sound card was a write-off. No Vista support would be forthcoming.'"

Comments

Re:Does Vista have anything we need?

[Rycross]

Nothing that you probably need. Its slightly better than XP. Not 5-years-of-development better, but slightly. For all the flack, FUD, and outright lies that Slashdotters fling about UAC, it actually is a good idea, and a step in the right direction for Windows.

throwing up my hands

[gelfling]

Every time there is news like this the fanboys shout 'you shoulda known' and
'get new hardware'. I have a better idea. Let's call Vista not an upgrade but a wholesale replacement of your computer and many of your applications. Most of your data will work in the new system but that's about it.

No - Vista is barely less of an upgrade than switching from XP to a Mac.

Re:throwing up my hands

[adolf]

I can set the volume using alsa-mixer, sure, but that's not the point: I can also route air traffic, compute particle physics, and map oil fields using alsa-mixer on an emu10k1. It's beyond complicated with this chipset, to the point that it borders on pedantically stupid.

Which is why I'd like to use the volume control on the Ubuntu desktop or taskbar or whatever-it-is. I think it may have worked at one point, but updates to something-or-other broke it. My situation is almost certainly complicated somewhat by the fact that I'm using the card's digital output for all audio, but that doesn't seem to present any particular complication to Certain Other operating systems.

But it doesn't matter, really. I gave up on it long ago. I've lost enough hours to making desktop Linux work completely, only to have largely unwanted software updates hose up the whole thing.

I don't even bother trying to run Linux on my laptop bare-metal anymore (the first time I closed the lid and the backlight stupidly stayed on, I could see where things were headed) though I do have a pretty functional install of Ubuntu working on VMWare under Vista.

And I'm not about to abandon my Gentoo mail and off-site backup servers for anything. But desktop Linux pretty much blows, these days.

I had a more consistant Linux desktop with Slackware and FVWM2, over a decade ago. One used to configure things, and they stayed configured: I used to tell people that the coolest part about Linux was that sometimes it was hard to make something work, but once you finally figured it out it would stay working indefinately.

But that's not the case anymore. It shames me to say that Windows is less of a moving target than a typical Linux desktop.

And all I wanted was a volume control.

See? Even Windows Users Benefit from Open Specs

[ewhac]

Once online, Creative's website told me that my sound card was a write-off. No Vista support would be forthcoming.

Interesting! Does this mean that we might start seeing Windows customers agitating for open hardware specs so that interested parties can pick up the ball dropped by the vendor and write their own drivers?

...Just like the Linux guys have been doing for the last <*cough*> years?

Oh, wait. You have to be "certified" by Microsoft to write a usable Vista driver. Never mind...

Schwab

Vista is great! (in a way)

[MartinG]

Okay, it's bad for the poor people who have to buy new hardware because they can't get vista drivers for their existing stuff.

But it means a good load of ebay bargains for those of us running open source operating systems with support for just about everything built in.

I haven't actually noticed the bargains happening much yet, but they will come. Just like last time shortly after Windows XP came out. Second hand USB stuff was going for next to nothing on ebay.

Re:A Trap for Idiots

[operagost]

Considering that Microsoft says a 1 GHz PC with 512 MB RAM will run Vista, he probably expected a working system.

I think Vista uses more RAM to display a window than my OS/2 Warp system used to run half a dozen apps (I had 8 MB of RAM on an AMD 486/40).

Re:A Trap for Idiots

[MaestroRC]

Umm, at least a baseline support for that hardware? For a company so prided on backwards compatibility, Microsoft sure has given the finger hardcore to a lot of people when it comes to Vista.

For comparison: I have an Apple iMac G3 400MHz with 768MB RAM and a 40GB disk happily running OS X 10.4. This machine also has a (nonupgradeable) 8MB ATI video card. Note that this computer, at this moment, is almost 8 years old, and runs Tiger like a champ. Sure, I don't get all the cool effects, but the key is I didn't have to do a damn thing to make it work, it just did, and it doesn't even attempt the effects it can't handle. I can browse the internet, use iTunes, type in Word, Excel, Pages or Keynote, check my email, and even watch DVD's. And you know what? It runs 10.4 FASTER than it runs 10.3. Given, it's still a bit slower than OS 9, but given the added capabilities of it and it still being useable in OS X, that's a pretty damn good trade-off.

Re:Does Vista have anything we need?

[sparkz]

http://www.dwheeler.com/blog/2007/01/07/#drm-nonse nse-hddvd

Nuff Said.

David Wheeler has got it all in a screenful. Why it doesn't do the content-providers any good, why it doesn't do the "consumer" any good, and why it's all a waste of time anyway.

All written in clear English.

One quote from the article: "I do not approve of piracy. I don't approve of murder, either, yet I approve of the sale of steak knives and cleaning supplies... and would oppose trying to halt their sales."