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DRAM Makers Suffer Due to Lackluster Vista Adoption
quixote9 writes "We've heard conflicting estimates of how widely adopted Vista has been. Now comes some hard data. DRAM makers ramped up to meet the huge expected demand for more memory needed by Vista. Except the demand hasn't materialized. Now they're suffering. Alternatively, maybe everyone's cleverly hacked their Ultimate Aero Glass Vista to fit on their old PCs."
people are using Vista without Aero Glass?
/is/ possible my friends.
It
this isn't text
I think the OP meant DRM makers and not DRAM makers :)
It's been well acknowledged here that Vista sales are roughly only equal to XP over the same time measured. OEMs were already standardized on 1GB (not low end of the market) of ram prior to Vista and Vista does run adequately on a GB of ram. What did they think would happen? Most of the PC market has been riding the MS/PC roller coaster long enough to have a feel for the time to buy and will likely hold on to XP until mainstream support has ended.
load "$",8,1
If the RAM manufacturers are building up stocks of RAM that nobody is buying then maybe they'll start pushing the prices down further to make it more attractive. Then those of us who are using Linux benefit again from Vista's lack of adoption. :)
Maybe the people care more about doing work than how they look doing it? Eye candy is nice, but it's not necessary. It's not going to make or break a purchase in the way that productivity enhancements would, and even then, people make do with what they have. The more versions that get released of whatever software, the less incentive to upgrade as it gets closer to "it works", and less people will care about improving the software the further along it gets. Throw money in and then people have even more reservations!
Twinstiq, game news
I'm not saying this is good or bad, but DRAM sales may lag now, but eventually people will be moving to Vista when it becomes the sole option on new machines.
RAM getting cheaper is always a good thing, mainly because on 95% of most people's machines, the biggest performance bottleneck is RAM (or lack of) forcing apps to swap.
"You must be new here" "In Soviet Russia, Vista trolls YOU!" "Vista? Imagine a Beowulf of those!" "Netcraft reports Microsoft Vista DIEING!" I'll take the Cowboy Neal Option...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
"Alternatively, maybe everyone's cleverly hacked their Ultimate Aero Glass Vista to fit on their old PCs."
...or my first thing.
Or maybe people are just so used to their computer running so slow from malware/spyware/etcware that, when they upgrade to Vista (hopefully a fresh install), their system is just as fast as it used to be (minus spyware, plus Aero Glass = same speed on original amount of RAM).
[karma whore mode on]
Or maybe nobody REALLY bought Vista 'cause Microsoft is the SUX0RZ! and NOBODY likes them...and...down with MS!
[/karma whore mode off]
I paid $399 for Vista Ultimate. I thought it would net me beau coup geek cred. Now everyone's laughing at me!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Have you considered, maybe, that the reason these topics attract few posts is because there's very little disagreement, and thus little room for discussion? This does not make them uninteresting or "elitist".
Microsoft are attempting to deceive investors about Vista sales by cooking the books and showing asset transfers as profits?
Boy, would I be class pissed action if lawsuit I was an investor!
Nobody likes elitism....
f u nub
And almost every new computer comes with Vista. I bought a new laptop and it came with Vista and only 512Mb of RAM. Man was it slow. I suppose I could have gone out and put a couple of Gig into it but I just wiped it and install Ubuntu. It's real peppy now!
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Of course this was to happen! Microsoft showed its investors and key manufacturers that the OS release will be on par to its Windows 95 explosion, which everyone knew was not going to be the case. Times Square ads, articles, and lots of other forms of attention only brought a weak demand in the market. Windows XP was good enough, and consequential events like these show that.
However, I'm pretty sure that, as the article points out, this falling trend will reverse itself when back-to-school season starts and people need to upgrade their old machines to keep them running or up-to-date.
Haven't memory prices dropped every day since it were introduced?
I used to pay X amount for 256KB memory upgrades, the other day I paid similar for 1GB.
Maybe this is more to do with lifespan of memory than anything, changing design and automatically expiring themselves from the market.
I have just had to throw away a whoel gig of memory because I got a new motherboard, there was no chance I could have purchased another gig of the same and just expanded on what I had.
The newer fabs (from other companies) got my money instead of the established companies with older fabs.
liqbase
Then quiet down with your anti-elitism elitism!
I could be that I'm just showing my age, but it doesn't seem right to me that an OS requires a gigabyte of RAM to function. I know they say 512M is the minimum, but I wouldn't want to run with that.
The laptop I'm writing this on (Vista Home Basic) is currently running at almost 600MB used, with Firefox, Thunderbird and AVG running!
Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
you forgot ...in Japan!
and that in Korea, only old people read email.
Dude, Keep up with the memes...
Oh, look, something shiny!
"Piter, too, is dead."
Cheap RAM makes it cheaper to do my Xen deployments. I love being able to have dual dual core cpu's (4 cpu's total) in a box with 32G of ECC RAM. :) Now that's a server. I have recovered many U's of rack space using Xen and this sort of virtualization.
Since DRAM makers only "feel" the adoption obliquely (ostensibly through the PC maker demand for more RAM on newly sold boxes) this could be taken two ways:
1) Vista isn't being as widely adopted as has been declared.
2) Users are opting to buy cheaper boxes and disabling the heavy RAM features (automatically done by Vista if the system requirements aren't up to Aero Glass par).
It may even be some combination of the two. Now, I didn't go into any great amount of research as to the offerings of OOB PC manufacturers, however, I did note that Dell's website still does not offer XP in any flavor (although there was some talk of this eventually becoming an option). From this, I make the careful and qualified surmise that new Windows-preloaded PCs are getting Vista. Knowing the user base, it is unlikely that they are replacing the OS themselves.
As far as I know, most people's personal budgets are still a little tight, so it is likely that people likely to buy PCs from Dell (casual users for the most part) are going to opt for the cheaper models, which, upon a little further inspection, don't have the horsepower or the RAM to run full Vista rendering.
These really aren't "hard numbers". It is difficult to determine anything concrete with this indirect indicator.
Just use the RAM to store the Mars pictures from NASA.
Then it turned out that a ton of Vistas had been sold, at which point things returned to the usual "convicted monopolist" whining. Except, the number of sold Vista copies is hardly concrete. Microsoft will not say how many of these copies sold are actually retail. The bundled numbers mean nothing since they are inline with the increase in new PC sales. Oh wait, so many people complained that Dell started selling XP machines again. Also, MS isn't saying how many of those Vista licenses are free upgrades (used or not). Trust me, there are plenty of ways to game the system. Now we learn that the supposedly necessary mountains of RAM didn't get sold. Supposedly necessary? "Vista Ready" machines (This means running XP + UAC, basically.) require 512 MB. "Vista Premium Ready" machines have a minimum of 1 GB requirement, and many people are saying 2 GB or more are probably the necessary numbers. So, the amount of RAM isn't "supposedly necessary", it is necessary and it looks odd that DRAM numbers are not up if Vista sales are up. This said, it could be that this is why tons of people are clamoring for XP again, because they are finding their systems rather slow and burdened with low amounts of RAM.
'ton of Vista' doesnt delineate between retail vista and vista bundled with a computer, so far as ive seen. it also probably included all of those 'free upgrade' discs that went out to folks who bought a computer after october something. actually i wouldnt be surprised if it included all of those regardless of people actually sending in their coupons or not.
so 'tons of vista' could just be 'some vista' and 'some retail sales'.
also, customers accepting sub-par performance when a cheap and easy upgrade will solve a lot of problems is nothing new. xp with 128 mb? right.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
Fucking elitists need to get the hell off of slashdot.
"You idiots spent years screeching about how Vista was going to require jilliobytes of RAM so everyone was going was going to switch to Ubuntu."
Its hard for me to recall because Vista has been soo long in the making.. but I think thats back when they were touting WinFS and 1001 other features that never made it into Vista. I don't remember anyone saying there would be a mass migration to Ubuntu or Linux, but that it would be cost effective hardware resource wise due to these hardware requirements that Vista had been targeting.
"Then you spent March and April crowing about how only eleven copies of Vista were sold."
You clearly missed the issue. MS was touting that it had sold X million of licenses but licences are not copies, and didn't clarify what amount of that was pre-installed OEM that hadn't actually been put in front of a user yet.. get a clue.
"Then it turned out that a ton of Vistas had been sold, at which point things returned to the usual "convicted monopolist" whining."
This has yet to be clarified and even if it is true I believe its hardly relevant of the stability of the company. Their cash-cow after all is their office-suite and collaborative business products.
I'm not going to go any further because you're obviously either some Microsoft Fan-boy or some jackass that only keeps his head half-way out the window of reality.
So does that mean prices will drop soon to compensate for an oversupply? I don't think anyone would complain...
Insert Sig Here
Man, I'm pissed. I had this brilliantly snarky reply all typed up and then realized the article is about DRAM, not DRM. Damn you, demons of proper context!
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Since Vista came out, there seems to be lots of different reports coming out with its adoption, with Microsoft saying that everyone loves Vista, and it is selling at record rates; and lots of incidental evidence (some companies still offering XP as an option on new computers, only 300 legitimate copies having been sold in China, this DRAM news) suggesting that it is not doing very well. But of course, none of this is complete or non-biased.
So, can we really say how Vista is faring in the marketplace?
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Wait, Windows Cosmetic-upgrade-4-all-ur-$$$(TM) actually didn't sell like crazy? how can this be? But seriously, Vista looks shiny and all, yet it could not possibly reflect the memory requirements for it (It probably does, but it's like the division by zero jokes)
Except that Vista's coming preloaded on new boxes.
Now, you'd think that this would make people switch to Linux or MacOS, on just pissed-offishness alone.
And you'd be wrong.
Casual Windows users will use any operating system that is loaded on their machine. Warts and all. So the only way you're going to see adoption of Apple as the majority of desktops is if Apple starts playing the market and stops acting like a boutique computer manufacturer. And the only way you're going to see adoption of Linux as the majority of desktops is if Dell or Gateway or HP starts preloading it.
I know this is Slashdot and people here like to think that only the truly enlightened and bleeding-edgy use computers, but this is not the case. The geek squad is severely outnumbered by people who just want teh internets and to play that free solitaire game they downloaded. So, until Linux starts getting preloaded on new PCs or Apple starts to price competitively, MS has precisely nothing to fear.
Of course, I have a feeling this will be a long time coming, because I generally detect the attitude of "if Linux is too hard to set up for you, you must be a typical idiot" and "only the really cool people use Apple, but cool's gonna cost ya plenty".
No. MS is in no trouble.
Whatever, then. I'm building a new computer at the moment, so where are my damn price breaks with this glut of unsellable RAM on the market?
The licenses sold, claimed by MS, can be fairly accurate. After all, a sale by MS can still sit on the shelf of some retailer, or been force-fed to people buying new hardware. When it comes to licenses used, I'd rather take other factors into account. One would be hardware sales, but after all it's possible to turn off all those goodies, so I wouldn't call it the best possible indicator.
Personally, what I'd deem a very good indicator would be the sales numbers of the different licenses. I.e. how many of the "minimum" Vista licenses have been sold vs. some of the "useful" ones. We all remember WinXP Home and Pro, and how "useable" Home was. Generally, whoever got the "Home" edition of XP got it 'cause he couldn't get his PC without any license and tossing Home was cheaper than tossing Pro.
So it would be fairly safe to assume that a considerable fraction of those "force-fed" minimum licenses have been bought because there's no way to get the computer without any OS and the first command issued on the new crate was fdisk. So, pants down, how mand licenses of what level have been sold?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That's the point: dividing RAM sales by some FUD-driven fantasy about how much new RAM Vista users will need is stretching "Now comes some hard data" a bit.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
It's been well acknowledged here that Vista sales are roughly only equal to XP over the same time measured. ... What did they think would happen?
It's also well known that estimate is generous but only half of the expected value because there are twice as many computer users as there were in 2001. Worse for M$, XP sales were disappointing because they had 98, ME and W2K to compete with. That makes Vista a real bomb like ME.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - Vista is not selling.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Meanwhile, you are counted as both a sale and a seat of Vista. Have you started trying to get your money back for the Windows license you're not using?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yes, but does it run Linux?
msoft will gradually buy up the RAM (and write it off, or do dodgy accounting) to *make* it appear the RAM is moving, and then enable the pipelines of distributors to do dodgy accounting and reporting, but even if they do that, the stores that would normally buy the RAM but which are *not* buying the RAM won't be in sycn with the manufacturers' distributors.
Go Linux, GO!
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
In Korea only old people use Vista.
In Soviet Russia Vista uses YOU!
Two things:
1) How many "typical home users" follow that link?
2) Once the "typical home user" gets there to customize it, being that there are such a ridiculous amount of options, how many just turn back? The processor selection alone would probably give most non-techies a choice overload.
IT has more rigid specifications (budgetary among them) so the large amount of options is only sensible, but I wonder how many casual users have the tech acumen to make any of those myriad of choices without an impending feeling of buyer's regret.
My guess is that home users go to the home user selections.
because Microsoft will just stop selling XP, problem solved. That said, XP is the finest OS Microsoft ever released, but I haven't had the scratch to try Vista. I still prefer Linux, but XP is a vast improvement over 9x and a noticeable improvement to 2k ( if only for VSS, which lets you use el cheapo back up software reliably ). I still prefer a solid linux install for my desktop, but as much as I'd hate to admit it, Microsoft is, albeit slowly, improving.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
THOSE seem to be in pretty high demand.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I don't think it'll ever be the sole option on new machines.
:)
As we speak Dell offers XP, Ubuntu, and FreeDOS in addition to Vista. I don't see that stopping. Hopefully by the time XP doesn't sell anymore, GNU/linux will be a standard option.
Tharkban (It is a signature after all)
Or, maybe all those fuckwads who were screaming about "Vista requires 4GB of RAM to even run Solitare!!1!" were actually full of shit, and people didn't have to run out and load up?
Nah, that'd be pro-M$ bullshit. I must be a plant, paid by Bill himself to spread these lies!
The obvious reason for lackluster profits must have nothing to do with the market, overproduction, resources, or anything else. It's all Vistas fault.
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
people will be moving to Vista when it becomes the sole option on new machines.
It's already hard to get anything but Vista. With a choice between a six year old POS and a DRM nightmare, people are simply not buying. Well, Apple and GNU/Linux are doing OK.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Can't the Linux kernel maintainers correct this?
Linux should consume enough memory to be doing its fair share to help keep DRAM makers afloat.
How about a page swapping algorithm improvement for virtual memory? For example, once a page is swapped out, its in memory DRAM page is not eligible to be re-used again for some milliseconds. This would give that page a "rest" break between uses.
Just a thought. Hope that helps.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
or you could have tried injecting a little ReadyBoost flash, about $15 at Walmart.com.
I admire your attitude. Might you have a newsletter to which I may subscribe?
Haven't memory prices dropped every day since it were introduced?
In fact they have NOT. Memory is, more than any other component in your PC, a true commodity, and it can be a volatile one at that. Like the market for gasoline it can sometimes be open to manipulation in the same way, though the major players are less apt to participate in collusion as petroleum refiners are notorious for doing.
I distinctly remember an incident involving a fire at a major DRAM manufacturing facility which produced a step change downward in global production capacity--this at a time when demand continued to grow at a healthy clip. Prices spiked even faster, and with a greater magnitude by far, than fuel prices did when hurricane Katrina took out all that refining capacity (we are talking doubling and tripling of prices here). In another incident it wasn't a drop in supply but a surge in demand sparked by the first Christmas season with Windows XP-equipped PCs for sale--inventory dried up and DRAM prices doubled.
aybe this is more to do with lifespan of memory than anything, changing design and automatically expiring themselves from the market.
That can have an effect on DRAM prices actually, except that the effect is opposite to what is happening today: when new memory formats come out it usually fuels demand and raises prices. Demand instead has been flat and prices have dropped. The problem is overcompensation to deal with the release of Vista (they were trying to avoid what happened when XP came out). Memory makers are lousy commodity managers in comparison to how those who produce gasoline, grain, metals, etc and really botched up--but MS also botched up and made the problem worse:
* Vista missed Christmas--it was in limited, corporate-and-developer-only release until January. Not only did this mean the vista launch couldn't take advantage of the shopping season, it also meant that the shopping season for computers itself was blunted as shoppers turned elsewhere for gift ideas (why buy a PC with crufty old XP when spiffy new Vista will be out and pre-installed on machines within weeks?). No demand there
* Though XP needs a relatively modest increase in resource requirements compared to its direct ancestor Windows 2000, the vast majority of the first XP adopters were moving from the DOS-based line of Windows (95/98/Me) and of all things what XP wanted the most over DOS-based Windows was RAM. DOS-based windows couldn't even properly use RAM over a certain level and most machines got to a certain level and stayed there because performance was maxed out. With XP, an old Win98 box could be make quite usable for a cheap price by simply plugging in more RAM. This fueled demand, which raised RAM prices.
* XP has been out for a VERY long time, and between all the service packs, updates and the demanding games and applications released in the past 5 years the demand for RAM has increased gradually even as the base OS is little unchanged. As Vista was released the minimum requirements were already met by most PCs up to a year old. This wasn't the case with XP, where so many crufty old PCs running Win98 were not up to the task of running XP.
* Vista is not different enough from XP to matter - turn off aero glass and to the casual user you have XP with a new UI theme--not much immediately useful comes right to mind. When XP came out it was targeted at legions of 98 and Me users, and 98 and Me were great stinking piles of crap compared to XP. Vista IS meaningfully better architecturally speaking but these advantages are only understood by computer scientists and software engineers. Furthermore, in the cutthroat market of PCs most new PCs are equipped with the featureless "home basic" edition, and that is what most users see, and that edition is well served by existing memory configs.
DRAM prices are like rollercoasters--they might have started at the top and will end up at the bottom, but all these external forces introduce "waves" that go up as well as d
It's selling 95% as fast as new PC's are.
That and ten cents won't get you a cup of coffee.
In the PC world, people tend to just use the OS until it's time to scrap the machine.
XP is six years old ... don't you think there's demand for new computers?
Vista will be just as successful as Windows XP has been.
You know, I just pointed out that it's not doing half as well.
Apple people upgrade OS's every year or so because they have money to burn ...
They don't charge for OS upgrades up to a point release or so behind.
Linux people upgrade seeming daily... actually
Because they can. Unlike the Windoze time of the month, free software upgrades make things better. Applications don't mysteriously die in the GNU/Linux world.
With Vista bombing so badly, people looking for performance should be looking to the free software world. 2007 is the year of Linux.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I know it's a myth. It's only a joke. It's like joking about Jimmy Haffa being buried under stadiums. It is "urban myth humor", if you will.
Table-ized A.I.
How about we call this lack of acceptance "The Vista Effect", FTA it seems to be working well for Dell and HP, lol.
That comment, though, speaks volumes to my point.
What if I was new here? Would your comment be welcoming or dismissive to me, do you think?
Vista is the most absolute evil thing ever to walk the face of the Earth. I heard it eats babies on a regular basis, clubs old ladies when they try to cross the street, and keys every car it can get ahold of. Then, it rips the tags off all your mattresses, tips 12% at restaurants, and tells you to vote Republican.
Note: I haven't actually used it. But, I heard somebody on a random forum say something to effect of that, so it must be true. Remember, you don't need to cite your sources if people agree with you!
But thank God there are still systems for sale with Windows XP. I just bought a new laptop today (Lenovo) from an OEM computer shop here in town. I will avoid Vista with its hefty requirements and whacky security `features` as long as humanly possible.
Even before you responders get going, I have 2 Linux systems also. I have a specific need for Windows, so don't bash me.
No casual user WANTS to load an OS. Most don't know how, or if they do have a modicum of know-how, it is a concept that scares them shitless. "Double-click on the setup button" is mysterious and might as well be a different language to them.
Preload it or wait for the glaciers to advance for adoption.
If I "lack insight", why don't I go around to the installed user base of most desktops and utter these words:
Windows, Mac, Ubuntu, and see which one they don't recognize.
And there is your problem. Your tribe seems to lack insight into other tribes. Widespread adoption will not happen until this is corrected.
as the article points out, this falling trend will reverse itself when back-to-school season starts and people need to upgrade their old machines to keep them running or up-to-date.
The article's optimistic predictions for Vista was that it might make a difference in 2008. A billion dollars a month in marketing might make a few Christmas sales. How long the victims keep Vista is anyone's guess. It's buggy and restrictive and people don't like it.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
First off no one is going to vista if their perfectly capable graphics card doesn't receive vista support and therefore they miss out on aero. Second add to that all the other devices people have that aren't getting vista drivers. You want more people to upgrade, give them the drivers they want/need.
there is just the most miserable bashing attitude here at slashdot. it's taken for granted that vista 'sucks' and nobody is adopting it. well, I have installed it, and actually really like it. I personally know half a dozen people and in every one of these smug discussions on vista, there is one essential detail that always seems to go missing: They have replaced win32!
...but then we have slashdot, filled with gads of arrogant 'computer experts' that are going to 'stick with XP'. And facing facts here, the few kinks i've noticed in the new OS pale in comparison to the maddening and inescapable X11 or the stupid interface failures in aqua.
that's right. they've nixed that horrible old win32. the source of 90% of attack vectors, performance issues and development headaches. win32 has been a bad dream for the world since the internet broke and it's gone now. there should be dancing in the streets, fireworks or at least a collective sigh of relief.
vista also has a magnificent new memory allocation architecture, nifty cache options and though it is not winFS, it does have a fine update to the file system tNTFS, which is altogether more fine grained and robust.
It's just plain sad.
I wouldn't have expected to see a lot of interest in warmed-over XP systems. If you want the tech in Vista you probably also want the hybrid hard drive, DX10 video, integrated ReadyBoost flash, etc., that is still high-end.
=> Applications that need more memory become practical.
If every box has 4 gig, some things become possible in this larger market.
Looking forward- the new hardware could have 20 gig and that would support things like real time voice recognition.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
So what you're saying is that this 512 MB of RAM workstation I have Vista on is less functional than it was when it was running XP and 2k3? Oh, okay. Except for the fact it now doesn't hang for ten minutes when automounting a mapped network drive when the network is down -- oh and it actually kills applications that are hung despite what a driver might be pitching a fit about (Common with ASIO recording under XP -- in XP it just smashes against a wall and requires a hardware reset).
Given that all my tasks in Vista have largely remained unchanged except that it behaves better for me, I think you really haven't used Vista at all. It's not 'slower' (except in a perceptual sense due to the new dialogs for file copies, but I actually timed it against another 2k3 machine here and it was on par) -- and I haven't had an issue with RAM being available when I need to launch something intensive enough. These are the same arguments people used against XP at launch, even though it's been proven you can run XP in under 32MB of RAM if you disable the RAM check. Vista will work similarly if you go through the same hoops.
But hey, I'm glad you enjoy running your mouth based upon the concept of '512MB of RAM' minimum. If you want to see a real RAM hog, the FreeBSD box running KDE I have is pretty up there. So is the OS X 10.4 machine that I'm typing this on, which requires 2GB of RAM to even really comfortably multitask. Though despite its own speed and memory issues, I prefer OS X since it makes sense for my workflow. Vista just improved upon stability for the few audio apps I need Windows for and it's really not that bad an OS, just like XP and 2k3 weren't.
This IS, however, a large stumbling block for Microsoft.
There are two competing ideas on how to view Windows Vista.
Lens 1: Windows 2000. Windows 2000 saw poor adoption, at first, in the desktop market. Why? Because Windows 2000 broke a lot of compatibility with earlier Win98 apps and peripherals, items that might not have Win2k drivers. As the driver support improved and those programs and items continued to get older, eventually people switched because the business environment - upgrading from Windows NT - had switched.
Lens 2: Windows ME. Windows ME was Microsoft's "alternative" to Win2k: it was the "last gasp" of the 9x kernel. Instead of slowly bogging down, they fixed the minor bugs, so it would just die - irretrievably. Nobody wanted it, Win98SE was far cleaner and more stable, and WinME wound up in the trash bins. Microsoft's official statement on Windows ME: "Windows ME is not recommended."
Windows Vista combines the worst elements of the Win2k and WinME systems. It breaks easily, it's entirely user-unfriendly, it nags like there's no tomorrow, and there's a good chance the hardware you bought 6 months ago isn't compatible, let alone your favorite recreational/puzzle video game that you've been playing for years.
Our corporate stance on Vista: Nobody gets it except the developers, for at least two more years. Because that's how long it'll take for M$ to even begin to try to fix this piece of crap OS.
If it is an HP/Compaq machine, forget about it. They won't refund your money. Period. I spent *months* trying. Totally useless. Escalated it up the ladder, etc. No go.
Never again shall I, or anyone I recommend anything to (which are a considerable amount of people) buy anything from HP/Compaq. Ever.
Dell had no problem with it BTW.
OR MAYBE - MANY end-users are now starting to use the numerous tuning guides for Windows NT-based OS' that show folks how to trim off unnecessary services &/or other background processes, to lessen how much RAM is recommended or needed, as well as various registry hacks that aid in speed AND security?
: www.hexus.net/content/news/news_archive_month.php% 3Fmonth%3D200104+Alexander+Peter+Kowalski&hl=en&ct =clnk&cd=107&gl=us
(Easily done via native tools like regedit.exe, services.msc &/or msconfig.exe)
All done to aid them in conserving RAM (& thus lessening the "recommended amount" (which granted, is the bare minimum & the OS runs like a snail, paging like mad, if left in the default configuration (services that many users do NOT need left running, to which I am alluding to here))).
Personally, I've been doing that type of thing on oldschool OS like DOS/Win3x/Win9x & decided to one day back then, start hacking away @ NT's settings to see what could be done in the same capacity... NT-based OS' turned out far more flexible/reconfigurable, than any of the older MS' OS, in fact!
I've been using & putting out (publicly online) techniques like that since 1996 or so!
Proof? Well, I put it online in 1997 as "article #1" @ NTCompatible.com, the first & oldest one online afaik (started life with NTCompatible.com, as NT Gaming Palace, back in 1997 in fact):
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:1ZEbfhemlA4J
Salient quote proof: "Alexander Peter Kowalski over at NT Compatibel has updated his Windows NT/2000 tweaking guide." & pointing to THIS url -> http://www.ntcompatible.com/article1.shtml!
Though that's from 2001, the proof it was there, is that. Philipp over @ NTCompatible.com can substantiate the birthdate of this site if anyone's doubting this, & there usually is that - doubting thomas' abound online, so I have to "back up my bluster" ahead of time, bloating my post here.
(Yes, my article's no longer there anymore, but is on another site, but the proof it was in that URL @ that date is what I needed here (to back up my 'bluster', so-to-speak) remains online though (search NTCompatible on that page), & the idea's started to sail everywhere, since (entire sites are based on the premise now in fact)).
I also must admit that I didn't 'invent the settings', MS did! This is one of the reasons I never "went after other sites telling them to remove them putting out the same info." I had earlier. I don't own those settings (well, a few I wrote of are 'original thought' but, what the heck - every windows user should be made aware of this OS' families' flexibility in this capacity, no matter the source!)
Microsoft, rather smartly, designed well this way - leaving their OS very flexible!
Back then, I started messing with this stuff @ around 1992-1996 onwards, & "lo & behold", tuning the NT-based OS family from MS?
It works!
(And, just for this type of thing - saving RAM, cpu cycles, other forms of I/O as well (like to disk) & more, like better security (chopping off potentially hackable/crackable services, for instance)).
APK
I picked up an Everex laptop with a Via C7M processor. It came with 512MB of RAM, and with Vista. I never even booted into Vista, and I could care less how it ran. I verified hardware with a few Linux LiveCDs, then installed Debian Etch onto it.
The only change was a kernel recompile to 2.6.21 for the audio to work fully. It was that or a driver from Via, I chose the recompile. With KDE running I am only approx 80MB of RAM at idle and approx 130MB with Firefox running (not IceWeasel). I have not even gotten close to using my swap partition. But I basically use the laptop for ebook reading, some websurfing, and wardriving. So a lot of RAM is not needed yet.
Please, please let me know where you got the crack you're smoking.
... don't you think there's demand for new computers?
XP is six years old
No, not really. Unlike Linux, (I'm saying this because you're obviously a fanboy), 6 years ago, XP was pretty much a mature, functioning OS. Linux is still playing catch-up, hence the need for constant software updating. Believe it or not, no, there is NOT a good reason to upgrade to Vista for most people. XP works just fine. But, when I (and everybody else) buys new PC's, they'll come with Vista, and that'll be just fine, too.
Unlike the Windoze time of the month, free software upgrades make things better.
Yeah, assuming you don't have anything better to do with all of that time spent "upgrading".
2007 is the year of Linux.
Suuuure, it is. Just like 1997 was. And 1998. And 1999. And 2000. And 2001... Yeah, I'll believe that when I see it.
I don't respond to AC's.
It's those ReadyBoost guys. Vista would have required more than 512MB RAM if it weren't for them...
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
And here I thought it was beau cul, not coup. Often followed by belle guele.
You are now offloading your desktop window-handling completely to a coprocessor instead of stalling the main processor like in all versions up to and including XP.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Now, I did uninstall it and load Ubuntu instead. But that wasn't because it was slow.
Once the video gets offloaded to the graphics card and the caching all moves to the memory stick, it uses LESS RAM than XP.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
You do the math...
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
They're not improving anymore...
Unless you're a Hollywood or Nashville executive...
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Some stats on vista:
t .osdetail.html - 4% (june 4, 2007)7 -05-30 - 1.91% (May 30, 2007)
http://boingboing.net/stats/awstats.boingboing.ne
http://w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp - 2.6% (may 2007)
http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php?date=200
Varies a bit by site, but even 4% is quite low...
Where's +6 Funny when you need it?!
Leave it up to Slashdot to misinterpret everything.
Maybe it simply means Vista is selling, but isn't requiring the ballooning amount of memory the hardware industry had hoped for.
Historically, there have been plenty of gluts in production... but blaming it on Microsoft is a pretty new excuse. But when you have a website which exists solely to bash Microsoft, of course it's going to be blindly (and gleefully) accepted as valid.
When you stand for nothing, you fall for everything. Zealotry powers, activate!
I for one welcome our new overlo... err.. nm, it isn't that kind of article.
"If the RAM manufacturers are building up stocks of RAM that nobody is buying ..."
I stopped right there because you all are forgetting that RAM goes into more than just general purpose computers.
Huh. hadn't heard about that, pretty good concept. of course you could do something similar with a mapped network drive in Win2k. which only needs 96mb to run. for win2k server. which will run ANY software currently out there for any windows product, unless it's AMD 64-bit specific (since Redmond decided not to release the 64-bit win2k patch they developed).
I guess people really like the pretty desktop theme.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
You idiots spent years screeching about how Vista was going to require jilliobytes of RAM so everyone was going was going to switch to Ubuntu.
The biggie for me was the jilliobucks of dollars. Due to security reasons I migrated 2 Windows 98SE machines and one Windows 2000 Pro to Ubuntu. The Windows 2000 pro got migrated because I just got tired of the search for drivers for every odd brand of thumb drive I stuck in it. The Vista and office upgrade price would have been much more than the older Thinkpad's value and would have been a major strain on the installed 20 gig hard drive and 512 Meg of memory. The cheap upgrade to Ubuntu and Open Office + Gimp was a simple decision. It was a no cost major upgrade. It fixed the driver issues, old version of MS office issues, and was pretty much plug and play for most hardware I plugged in. Being able to rip DVD's, Burn CD's and DVD's without buying more software was a plus.
I found relief from most of the demoware shipped with most PC's nowdays. I don't have to buy the full version to burn an ISO to CD or DVD or make an ISO. I don't have to buy the full version to do extended photo editing. I don't have to buy the full version to rip to MP3 instead of some other incompatible format.
There are cavits on the flipside, but they are minor such as playing/ripping DVD's with CSS, encoding and playing MP3's, wma, etc, but the fixes are easy to find and install. Wireless support, MTP devices, Flash, and some other items are a little more work, but worth the effort.
The truth shall set you free!
1 gig of RAM is similar under Vista to what 512 megs did under XP. As a result, since most new computers had been getting 1 gig of RAM prior to Vista's release, Vista itself would not be a reason to boost the amount of system memory in new computers.
So, since most people were already at 1 gig on reasonably modern machines, and older machines just didn't have the CPU and GPU power to run Vista well, there hasn't been a real NEED to upgrade. Many of us moved to 2 gigs of memory over a year ago, not for Vista, but for games and other applications.
(Though that is not strictly true. You can divide these up into independent components that could run in parallel on today's processors. On a cluster, you could also drop components that aren't needed on a specific node.)
On a normal system, I see no reason why the OS kernel should take more than a megabyte or two. In a distributed system, you might be able to get away with half that on a minimal node, although the average would probably be in the 1-2 megs region. Anything beyond that would probably function at least as well in userspace.
With the increasing popularity of kernel bypass mechanisms for everything from graphics to networking to disk access, the number of kernel-based drivers needed on a high-performance system is probably much lower than for a cheap, low-end machine. Thus, the kernel size would be reduced accordingly. I'd say you'd be able to cut a quarter of the kernel (code and data) out with sufficient kernel bypassing. On a normal system, then, you'd be looking at 0.75 - 1.5 megs for the kernel. Of course, by doing kernel bypassing, you're implicitly doing some level of offloading, which trims the values down even further.
The next major eaters-of-RAM would be the system libraries (eg: glibc), standard environments (eg: X11) and standard toolkits (eg: OpenGL). Hardware implementations of OpenGL are almost standard, and physical X11 terminals provided hardware implementations of the X11 client-side, which means that most of that is (or could be) built onto the graphics card. Not sure what you could do about glibc, but I'd have thought there'd be a way of putting some of the core, essentially static, code into hardware.
Linux with X will run on 5 megabytes of RAM. Subtract 1 megabyte for the kernel and 1 for user applications, you get 3 for what absolutely has to be in RAM for the software to work. If you can shove a megabyte of this into hardware, this pulls your requirements down to 2 for the system. In practice, almost nothing can actually run at any decent speed on such a system, but we're figuring out what the underlying requirements are, not what the running requirements are.
The system requirements would seem to be 3 megabytes for a running minimal kernel, system libraries and basic GUI. This is your OS, in the modern sense, capable of running anything Linux can run. It's the minimal, fully functional system. Your applications will obviously take vastly more than that, but they can use anything above the basic minimum. Additional libraries, facilities, etc, will also take more memory, but if they're all in userspace and do kernel bypass, they're part of the applications and not part of the OS. They're also going to be faster.
Linux might easily start with 64 processes. Most won't be running at any given time, so you don't need more than a few critical data tables in RAM to be able to swap the process. The typical user is unlikely to be running more than four heavy applications at the same time, and of those, you're very unlikely to have more than two actually alive at a given time. If an active process is given 64 megs to play with, you need 128 megs for active stuff.
All in all, any complete distro (ie: distro software + hardware used) that needs more than 256 megs of RAM for a desktop must be doing something horribly wrong. It is simply not reasonable to use any more than that. Of course, most distros DO need more than that in practice, because machines are not designed to offload or perform kernel bypassing. The CPU does all the heavy lifting, and that's expensive on resources. It's not technically the fault of the software, it's the hardware that is at fault, but really even if the hardware was present, not many software distros can - as yet - take enough advantage of the capabilities to run on a minimal box.
(A lot of the software exists for Linux, it just isn't supplied by anyone or utilized by anything.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html It's a plain-as-day numbers and percentages survey of who has what on their computer. The user base is obviously from gamers, but it's the closest we're going to get short of getting something like connection statistics on Google or something. The short story? Less than 6% have Vista. Out of 350k responses.
Oh how things have changed...
Engineering is the art of compromise.
What we have here is a typical misunderstanding of why Vista is a memory Crack Whore. System RAM has little to do with Aero other than if you fall below the bare minimum system requirements everything will run crapy. Just like every other OS since the begining of time.
System RAM is needed for the Super Fetch function, which pre-caches commonly used programs. So if you have tons and tons of RAM during boot up you'll notice your harddrive spinning like mad for an extra few minutes, and if you look at your free Physical memory (RAM) it'll steadly drop until you only have less than 100mb free. The end result is your favorite programs actually start when you click on the icon, no waiting for it to load. Vista may be a Memory Crack Whore, but she is a Crack Whore who can kick the habit any time she wants. If you don't have a bunch of extra RAM in your system the Super Fetch function does nothing and Vista ends up behaiving just like XP in terms of program start times. Since your average computer user is well... average, they simply don't know any better hence the lack of interest in buying up vast amounts of RAM. There is also a few other trip-ups as well, motherboard chipset limitations along with 32bit OS limitations. Quite a few motherboards won't properly work with more than 3gb of ram unless you are running the 64bit version of Vista which is hardly being run yet even amongst enthusiasts.
The whole thing boils down to too much concentration of hype and not enough on customer education. Just like RAID arrays, your average user will eventually see how fast his computer nut friend's rig does it's thing and it'll go mainstream.
For now I'm just debating whether to jump over to 64bit Vista to use that 4th gig of RAM that is currently dormant in my system.
2G (1Gx2 dual channel kit) DDR2 starting at $60 at newegg.
Suffice it to say that my next upgrade is going to be an extra 2G DDR2 instead of 1G, and I just might buy 4G and unplug the 2x512 installed. The limit is what my motherboard will take, not financial this time. The price of DDR2 has dropped to less than half what it was since Vista was introduced.
Thank you, Bill Gates for the help in upgrading my Debian box!!!
Tech Public Policy stuff
Nothing is swapped, necessarily. It's paged. A difference old-ways Gnu geeks wouldn't understand.
I built together a new computer 3 months ago, with vista in mind (i.e. all hardware selected so it is supported well), and bought a vista ultimate OEM to it. I have been using it for 3 months: there were no problems with the hardware, but still I could not get used to it: it is slow and really clumsy, after a while I disabled aero but still things where slow and annoying. Disabled UAC, got some hotfix to fix slow file copying/moving/deleting, but it didn't help.
Last week I bought an xppro OEM and reinstalled it on the machine. What a relief. It is just incomprehensible that this crap vista is being forced down everyones throat (most people that buy a new PC now). The arrogance of MSFT has reached new limits if they think they can get away with it.
If I were a dumb user and not able to reinstall xp myself, I would revert from windows alltogether in disgust and probably buy a mac now. Really, people keep telling that everyone will get used to it and will be using vista sooner or later since there won't be an alternative. I doubt it, I think this time they have gone too far and have overestimated there market power. This may well be the beginning of the end and cause further and larger scale defections towards Mac OSX and maybe also linux for some more advanced users. I cannot imagine that vista will really replace all other windows version, even with MSFT's power, this product is just too crappy even for them.
Most companies will wait till 2010 when the last commercial support for XP expires, and then who knows what is available in the market. I think there may be enough alternatives by then to being forced to 'upgrade' to vista in 2010.
I can't tell if you meant the machines of 95% of some number that is "most people", or, somehow, only 95% of each machine that belongs to most people.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
No, there's still another difference between th...
/.POST IS CURRENTLY BEING WRITTEN.
UAC HAS DETECTED THAT A
CANCEL OR ALLOW ?
(Lameness filter : I'm not yelling I'm giving it some retro-terminal look. You insensitive clod)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I have a hard time selling computers with Vista loaded. Most customers react the same way when playing with Vista; eye rolls, sighs and shoulder shrugs.
Consumers spurned DivX, why shouldn't they spurn Vista?
Maybe end users aren't that dumb. Maybe they recognize the value of DRM and WGA? Of course Microsoft will view this as a PR problem and throw a billion dollars at a Vista advertising campaign. Microsoft won't recognize the fact that legitimate users don't want to be treated like criminals.
All Windows users I know dislike WGA. Who wants to called a thief after purchasing a computer? Are there any slashdot Windows users that actually like the fact that WGA is running?
As evidence that absolutely means nothing, this year I've upgraded two desktops and a laptop to XP from Vista (speed issues). I upgraded four different XP desktops and a Vista laptop to Kubuntu (laptop owned by me). So far, no requests to go back to Windows. I wasted four hours of my life fixing the printer problems caused by a Microsoft/HP automated update to a XP Media Center Edition computer (Both companies blamed the other). If Ubuntu had better HP All-In-One support I probably could have upgraded that family as well.
Food for thought,
Enjoy.
It's just the normal noises in here.
Yet Windows still dominates the desktop market.
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
I put vista on a new machine and a lot of the negative observations and assumptions about it seem to be crap, maybe by people that haven't installed it but repeat the "they" comments, as "they say it's a memory hog"
I ran xp with 2gb, and now vista. Vista with this configuration is a lot snappier, loads and boots faster than xp with the same apps I run, gaming and all. Admittedly I did turn off the system restore which really needs going over unless you like the sound of hard drive maracas.
Maybe it stinks in 1gb, but so did xp for what I run. From what I see most people doing new builds are going 2gb anyway and many are up to that right now on current boxes.
the trouble is that most of the upgrades to vista are gonna be people buying new computers, those who are going to upgrade the software on existing computers probably have a decent computer to begin with. i'm certainly considering the upgrade, in due course, and am currently dual booting XP and ubuntu on a system with 2 gigs of ram.
what i'm saying is that most people considering the upgrade will already have the hardware to cope with it.
Blazing Spiders
I like feeding trolls!
Firstly, monopolies aren't illegal. In fact, they're beneficial in many cases (think economies of scale) until they start doing silly things, like, pushing their (potential) competitors out of the market and inflating prices. Monopolistic practices are illegal, but the attitudes towards monopolies themselves depends on the current climate of political opportunism. Remember (OK, none of you remember the 1930s) that the Sherman Antitrust act was originally used to break up unions, not business trusts.
Microsoft can't "force" anyone to upgrade - and if the discussion on /. is any indication, they aren't. About the only thing they can really do is stop spending R&D money on 12-year-old operating systems.
But in light of this, all you have is "the iPhone is going to sux!11!". Bravo. That will show 'em.
But, in light of the fact that everyone who cares already upgraded their computers (RAM included) for Vista, all you have is the "Vista is dud!1!1!"
You'll recall this classic line from people who already own a version of Windows, people who just bought a crappy computer, Mac fans, and Linux fans in:
Vista might not have the magic sparkle that Windows 95 and 3.11 had, but calling it a "dud" is still a tad premature. Besides, today's Apple, Inc. really does excel (tm) at two things: marketing, and repackaging existing products into shiny vertical-monopoly boxes.
DATABASE WOW WOW
Jilliobytes... is that anything like Jiggawatts?
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
The slashBS has one advantage though. It means that no one will see the truck that hit them. It also means that OSS has no incentive to improve. So let the hate continue. It's not going to hurt MS any, and it just might end up teaching a certain crowd humility.
Anonymous memory, on the other hand, is a much more relevant metric. That's the amount of memory processes have malloced and are currently sitting in physical RAM, rather than on the swap device. That's the kind of memory that the kernel can't just choose to "forget" to make room for new anonymous memory, unlike block caches. If the physical RAM is full and there are no block cache pages to evict, it has to write an anonymously allocated page to the swap device in order to get a new page. (Provided, of course, that there are free blocks on the swap device) That practice alone takes on the order of milliseconds (including head seek time), and it has to be done once for each page to be evicted.
There comes also the second relevant metric, namely the number of pages that are in "active use". It's one thing to have to evict a page of anonymous memory that's just sitting there (due to it being allocated by a mostly inactive process or being an unused part of libc's .data segment or for any other reason) -- that's OK. It's another thing if the only pages left are in active use, ie. if it is very likely that they will be used again in only a few timeslices. That just means that the owning process will have to wait for it to swap in again the next time it runs. When you're starting to get a large active set of pages, less RAM will also be available for block caches, which means more disk access for the filesystem's sake as well.
You're in big trouble if your active page set grows larger than your physical RAM size. That's what you call thrashing -- when every next time slice means that the running process will just waste it while reading its relevant pages back in from the swap device.
When people talk about that Vista takes a lot of RAM, they usually don't mean that it sucks up the block cache by prereading likely blocks into it. They mean that it uses a large active page set, for things like textures, metaprogramming data structures, and so forth. Any way you look at it, that's not a good thing. It may be argued that the advantages of using the programming frameworks that actually do increase the active page set like that outweigh the disadvantages of having to buy more RAM, but noone can argue that it would be better if they just used less memory.
Vista came out and the whole world did not run to the nearest PC corner store to buy a new PC, everybody just chugging along wherever they are in their PC's natural life cycle, upgrades just continuing as per the usual rate.
Let's collectively all act wildly surprised.
The majority of people will probably switch to vista, but it will happen when they feel its time to upgrade, not "at the moment vista is released" (Especially in light of the fact everyone including the non-technical crowd is well aware - quite possibly even over-worried with or without justifiable cause about - the potential rigors of immediate post-release adoption). And that's without mentioning that this round linux and MacOS present viable alternatives to a bigger slice of the crowd than they ever did.
If you are on the MS marketing group (and I seriously doubt any such people read slashdot), I have an old wall-street adage for you:
"Never buy into your own hype".
So people will just go on buying new computers, and at some point their percentage will outweigh that of XP. As things always were. Nothin to see here, move along.
-
...was a lie.
Gamers aren't moving to Vista *yet* because graphics drivers aren't really up to snuff (though they are getting better and better with every release).
Microsoft has forced Vista users to use the "Games for Windows Live" system.
This is a "service" which forces users to pay a monthly subcription fee just like Xbox Live.
Microsoft is also making sure that some of the newest DX10 and even DX9 games are only "Games for Windows".
Correct me if I'm wrong, but does anyone actually want this service?
this is something that used to be free. Now microsoft wants gamers to pay for something that uhh, used to be free.
This is why gamers won't switch.
This, and the piss-poor untested TCP/IP stack in vista.
This only makes me wonder more why mainstream publishers aren't going after Linux more. Thank you ID Software for doing the right thing.
They're using their grammar skills there.
There is reason to believe that there are 1000 million PCs in the world and 200 million new ones are being produced each year. Even if folks were willing to switch to Vista, it would take five years and nearly a trillion dollars would be spent on this Vista foolishness. That might make sense if there were a real benefit to Vista. Consider the alternative scenario. Instead of junking 200 million PCs each year, migrate them to GNU/Linux and they keep running. This migration will either quickly double the number of PCs running in the world or slow down the migration to Vista as being unnecessary. This is not like going from a Pentium I to a Pentium III or some such upgrade. Current PCs are mostly Pentium III and better, working very well. It makes more sense to migrate working PCs to Linux than to chuck them and go to Vista with unnecessary hardware.
People know their PCs are good enough because of what they can do with XP. They will not be fooled. When XP is no longer supported in 18 months, the world will be overrun with malware as the XP machines stay on-line. Folks will have to migrate to GNU/Linux.
M$ itself admitted that Pentium III or so was good enough for clicking and gawking. See http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/exhibits/365.pdf
A problem is an opportunity http://mrpogson.com
Everyone thought the peons would buy Vista in record numbers, and this would require massive outlays for new graphics cards for everyone.
Never happened.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Where the hell have you people been, DRAM prices are at the bottom now . If anything, DDR2 is going to go up as manufacturers switch to DDR3, just as happened with plain old DDR once upon a time.
And no, DRAM isn't "always at their lowest". Here's a clue; go to dramexchange and check their handy graph at the upper left-hand corner.
If you're out to get some DDR2, today is the day to shop.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
In Soviet Korea, Vista uses old people?
No offense, but you're presenting both Linux and Windows in a quite unfair light if you're touting running as a non-admin the main advantage. I ran as a non-admin for the last 6 months I used XP, and it worked fine. For some things, like certain control panels, I had to start up an Explorer window as Admin and access them from there, which is slightly less secure, but I closed that window as soon as I was done with it. Most programs worked fine and installing using Runas was never an issue. Never mind that Vista's UAC provides most of the advantages of Linux's default style in its default configuration, and can be adjusted to do more (for example, by requiring a password like Ubuntu does for root access). To head off anybody who read somebody's claim about UAC or used a beta build or something and based on that thinks UAC prompts way too much/for silly things/is too annoying, I challenge you to find any regular action in Linux that doesn't require root privileges where in Vista UAC prompts for it. They even made it so that things like Admin-owned files on your desktop can be modified or deleted with just user permissions. Most user-space programs can be installed without admin privileges, even (same as Linux... unless you use a package manager or install using the default destination in most makefiles). It may not be the default, but it's dead easy to set up.
Additionally, the whole hidden extansions thing makes me wonder when you last used Windows. Yes, that "feature" is still enabled by default (and is the first thing I turned off) but the extensions do show as you download the file (as in, "X% of ABC.ext") and suggesting that it runs without prompts is total BS. At a minimum, Windows tags the file as downloaded and won't run it without throwing up a propmpt stating that the file was downloaded from the web, that this type of file can harm your computer, and that you should only run it if you trust the source. Also, don't forget that the icon will almost certainly be wrong. Oh, and they will be seeing "the extension" when they normally wouldn't expect to! It would take a fairly impressively dumb user to continue thinking that file was an image... and while I know there are people that dumb, the only way Linux is any safer for them is that nobody bothers to try socially engineering Linux users.
Then again, I suppose people don't like being told that they are too easily engineered into installing their own malware and that on Linux it will look out of place. That's mostly what it boils down to, though (and the issue of always running as Admin... which is one of the main improvements in Vista).
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
I annoys me to hell I have to reset the setting , "start in system tray" after every damn minor update, why does the stupid update
reset my settings, i dont friggin want it to start, i dont care if the first instance takes 3s vs 0s, respect my damn config settings, dont
be a royal marketing ass. Oh and apple, recode itunes using REAL windows/gtk apis perhaps, ive seen XUl/flash run faster interfaces than itunes.
How about a "donotstartinsystemtray.txt" file!!!!
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I am a Linux advocate and have been using various distros since 2000, primarily Slackware. I have been seeking a solution that "just works" and doesn't have beef with non-free software. Ubuntu is the closest thing I have found, but it is awfully, terribly, horribly, SLOW! I have tried it on several different hardware configurations and it doesn't get any better. I found that I spend 90% of my time on Linux trying to tweak it to do what Windows does by default. Also I experience constant stability issues even on Debian stable. (That never used to happen) Linux distros seem to be a house of cards these days. I never worry if my Windows box is going to start properly. So.....I have sold out. I purchased Windows Vista Home Premium. Granted, it's not a speed demon, but it runs fairly well, is very stable, and life is simple again. Now, I just "use" my computer. I'm sure I will eventually encounter DRM issues and all that, but I'm tired and I just can't fight the fight anymore. It's just not worth it as I'm not experiencing Linux's purported strength anymore. When someone takes all the little disparate pieces of a distro and actually turns them into an cohesive operating system, I will try again. But for now, I'm am blissfully ignorant.
The more I know, the more I know I don't know.
On my XP box, its using 152meg, and thats not even talking to any one or any extensions/extras.
350 for firefox here and 210 for itunes and 110 for thunderbird.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Bull.
Instead of blaming all of world's ills on Vista, let's look at the real reasons:
1. Desktop power users are still mostly on 32-bit machines where you are limited by the available address space. I've gone through three laptops during the last four years and they were all 2GB machines. Even though I'd like to buy one with more RAM I can't. (Yes I know about the Windows 3GB switch but that has its problems on the desktop.)
2. Regular users are perfectly happy with what they have. Their machines work well for browsing, email, media playing and file sharing so they see no need to update to a new computer with more RAM.
Dejan
Windows dominates the desktop market because M$ has flooded it and people don't know anything else. The domination has absolutely nothing to do with quality. The quality of all M$ OS's is deplorable compared to OSX and Linux - serious security flaws, instability, viruses. The general computing population has had the wool pulled over their eyes by M$ and accepted these failings as "normal". Meanwhile, M$ laughs all the way to the bank. Do you think they could give a rodent's behind about the consumer? They could care less - we are simply income, nothing more.
maybe offtopic... but maybe true ;)
ok, so how do you compress the window partition and setup a dual boot. Please send me instructions,
OK,
1 use the disk utility in Windows to Compress the hard drive and clear free sectors This moves everything to the first part of the drive so stuff doesn't get lost in repartitioning.
2 Make a backup of your data. Repartitioning has been known to trash a Windows install. It has never happened to me yet. Your milage may vary.
3 Use a Ubuntu CD to boot the computer. Follow the prompts to repartition and install. Do not use the option to use the entire disk as that will remove Windows.
4 Reboot and enjoy. Some Windows installs have a hidden boot partition, so 2 Windows partitions in the boot menu is normal. Use the first windows item to boot Windows. There may be more than one Linus boot item, the other one is for recovery (safe mode). Use the first Windows or First Ubuntu boot item for each OS and you should be fine.
The truth shall set you free!
At the bottom of the page are two graphs that compare Microsoft's various units against Google.
What you failed to notice that that the SECOND graph shows Microsoft's profits / losses in every division (including the huge losses in the home entertainment sector).
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
> Our good friend SCO specialized in POS systems.
:-)
For a minute there, I thought you were saying that SCO made Point Of Sale systems.
When I put 500M RAM in my machine, I thought I was way ahead of the curve, but now I'm falling behind.
I usually run CentOS on my machine so I can play with the system at home, without worrying about toasting the real servers.
When I put CentOS4.4 on, it seemed slow, but the best I'd seen for serious speed was doing Gentoo starting with Stage 1 and static compiles. It flew, but I'm not patient enough these days to get it where I want it. So I use Annvix on my server systems and test with CentOS. When I installed CentOS 5 I knew I had really fallen behind. It drags. So yesterday I decided to get a system that would be snappy for normal day to day use. Something that wouldn't embarrass me to let someone use. And, I have a partial solution. Slax on the disk drive, copy2ram and 1G of swap. I've butchered it a bit, but I'm running the OS and apps from memory and it positively screams in responsiveness. There are other Live CD candidates I could do the same with I suppose, but Slax is so easy to modify and it supported my dual head system with absolutely minimal interaction.
I hate to have a system where I need to reboot to work with the stuff that I deal with professionally, but for now I'm happy to have a blazing fast system for most purposes and a (slow) full blown server install, virtually identical to what we have available at work.
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
Maybe serious users don't want their interfaces looking like Playskool on acid...so the first thing they do is switch to Classic. Seriously, Microsoft needs to stop hiring the Sesame Street Art School rejects they use to design their UI's...
I didn't comment on the quality of Windows. I was referring to the slew of stories about Vista currently and all the faux geeks getting their panties in a wad... oh Office 2k7 isn't getting used by somebody... oh RAM that was supposed to go to Vista isn't getting sold.... I've been using Linux since 1.2.13 and the Mac OS since the Original Mac came out so I don't need lessons on them. Microsoft provides a product that works well for a lot of the population, if it didn't, they wouldn't have their position and I know about the Anti-trust suit etc etc ad nausem... Look at it this way, RAM will drop if supply stays high, just like it did in 95/96. Hell, I remember how happy I was when I maxed out my 486DX/33 at 36 megs for under $100. It mad all my operating systems run crazy fast. OS/2 felt like it was the future.
"Alternatively, maybe everyone's cleverly hacked their Ultimate Aero Glass Vista to fit on their old PCs"
Yup, it's called running with beryl. I tried it on a gentoo system running on a PII450, 512MB of RAM, and a PCI Radeon 7000 (literally, the worst 3D capable card I could find 8-). Beryl got about 25FPS, and it was no good for higher bitrate video playback (but, the PII would barely do this with a 2D desktop...). Otherwise, top would show maybe 10% "extra" CPU usage from beryl if I was actively wobbling windows around etc., and maybe 1-3% extra otherwise. Apps loaded in the same length of time and seemed to run the same. I got the same result with a PIII866, including frame rate -- apparently the card was just too slow to get good framerate. On a Athlon XP 2200+ w/ Geforce4MX 440 and on a Dell notebook with Celeron M 1.4 and i915, beryl by default runs at refresh rate (i.e. 75fps if the monitor uses a 75hz refresh) but I got about 90FPS if I let 'er rip. Even videos could be smoothly jiggled around 8-).
They have to choose to save or open it first. That dialog shows the full filename AND the file type. Furthermore, the fact that it's even asking if they want to open the file without just displaying it should clue tham in that it isn't an image.
That has nothing to do with what I said. If the user is expecting the file to be an image, they are NOT going to expect a dialog asking about running downloaded SOFTWARE.
Wow, when was the last time you used a system with a preinstalled copy of Windows on it? The question isn't whether it comes with image software, it's which software will end up as default. Then there's Picassa (which is both widely advertised online and bundled with lots of software) and Irvanview (which is perhaps the most widely used of those little hobbiest freeware programs you mentioned, and one of the easiest programs to get friends to install because it is simply fantastic at what it does). Then there's the various programs that come with every digital camera in existence and for some reason people actually go ahead and install them.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
We all are discussing the pro and cons of Vista's DRAM policy
The high system requirements are generally lamented and MS is
faulted for wanting a mountain when a mole-hill would have done.
These hardware requirements may be bad for us the end consumers,
but it is i think a cleverly thought out paradigm change that
the brains at MS have tried to accomplish.
You see the talk of the town is no more about an impending Google OS,
or the latest online app, rather the talks tend to be focused more on subject like
is your PC capable of handling vista?, did you see the HD video in the media center?,
the interface of aero is really good looking, my Vista Ultimate has video wallpapers etc.
Hence the general user is discussing these frills if you can call them so,
and in the process they are re-focusing their idea of computing back to a desktop
windows based model and suddenly Google with its colored boxes for design
and the slow AJAX for technology is not as shiny anymore
If google wants you to login to see your contacts, Ms wants you to see them in your
sidebar. If youtube wants you to see compressed flash videos, Ms wants you to get
addicted to HD-Video by showing off color/tint reference images in HD. If you miss
serials or movies on TV why watch them online bent over in your chair,rather watch
them after recording them with a remote in your hand.
And suddenly the internet is not where computing begins and ends.