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PC Magazine Editor Throws in the Towel on Vista
MacNN caught this incredible defection and loss of faith by a former Vista booster, PC Magazine editor-in-chief Jim Louderback, as he steps down from his position. "I've been a big proponent of the new OS over the past few months, even going so far as loading it onto most of my computers and spending hours tweaking and optimizing it. So why, nine months after launch, am I so frustrated? The litany of what doesn't work and what still frustrates me stretches on endlessly. The upshot is that even after nine months, Vista just ain't cutting it. I definitely gave Microsoft too much of a free pass on this operating system: I expected it to get the kinks worked out more quickly. Boy, was I fooled! If Microsoft can't get Vista working, I might just do the unthinkable: I might move to Linux."
The ultimate irony here - Distrowatch.com. It just kills me. I guess they must be fabricating the stats, just like Wikipedia and everyone else.
MICRO$HAFT WINDOZES R TEH DYIEING LOLZORZZ!!!!!eleventyone
Heh.
A silly AC writes:
Apparently there are more people reading Distrowatch with Vista than they are with Debian, ... The ultimate irony here - Distrowatch.com. It just kills me.
Vista owners are looking for a new OS. Why does this confuse you? If Vista is as bad as Louderback says it is, gnu/linux is the only upgrade option that will work. Large numbers of Windoze users looking at a site like Distrowatch is bad news for M$ and good news for software freedom.
I guess all this nonsense about Vista being a flop is far from true.
Visit the Vista failure log and wake up. M$ can't push Vista. It's SP1 won't fix things and I doubt they can come up with a new OS people will really want. They have gone too far down the digital restrictions path to recover.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I highly doubt he'd like moving to Linux then. And why is he shocked that *GASP!* a new MS OS come out and there's still not as much stuff for it as the previous OS which has been out for over 6 years now!? People keep forgetting the leap between 3.1 and 95.
Perhaps the news is that, since this person is leaving his job at a magazine paid for by advertising, he is finally free to tell the truth.
This is not to say that Linux or OSX or anything else is perfect. The problem is that Vista was billed as 'all new' and 'rewritten from the ground up'. It wasn't. THAT is was sucks about it.
A-Bomb
...whatever MS comes up with. We are happily running our apps and games on 2003 server or XP. I support and use Linux in the server room, but in the real world with the apps and games all running on Windows, desktops will stay where they are.
People keep saying this is the year for the Linux desktop because of Vista's failures, when most people don't care because XP and 2003 run just fine for them. They aren't looking for change from Vista or Lunix or anything else for that matter.
The [allegedly] slow adoption of Vista is not due to DRM; it's because the OS is a resource hog.
I had feeling that I can express in words like these after unsuccessfully trying to use LCD projector with my T60p running Mandriva 2007
I've been a big proponent of the new OS over the past few years, even going so far as loading it onto most of my computers and spending hours tweaking and optimizing it. So why, nine months after launch, am I so frustrated? The litany of what doesn't work and what still frustrates me stretches on endlessly. The upshot is that even after many years, Linux just ain't cutting it. I definitely gave the FOSS guys too much of a free pass on this operating system: I expected it to get the kinks worked out more quickly. Boy, was I fooled! If FOSS guys can't get Linux working, I might just do the unthinkable: I might move to Windows 2000.
only when another flagship OS has been released does its' predecessor seem somewhat stable and ready to use (Vista-XP) (ME-98) etc..
perhaps vista will take more adoption and glowing reviews when it's successor is announced/released?
Have a squat over at the hobo house.
Outside of that, I think it's silly to try and use overall numbers as a gauge of how successful it is as an operating system people LIKE. Vista's numbers are going to go up regardless, since almost all new PC's and laptops you buy will have Vista installed.
But it's clear that not everyone is happy with it. Check out a site like notebookreview.com, and notice how for almost every new laptop that has come out, there is invariably a thread or two about getting XP running on it.
It's forced me to make it my last Microsoft Operating System ever.
After being forced on to Vista by Sony - after unwittingly buying a VAIO which is stuck with Vista. I am totally fed up with it.
So far, I have found 3 features which are cool, and hundreds of issues.
Took me around 2 hours one day to edit the TNSNAMES.ORA file on my Oracle (dev) installation... until I worked out the trick.
My next Laptop will be OSX, next Workstation will be Linux - and I already run Linux (CentOS) servers.
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
I just cannot take anyone who's still on Windows seriously, really.
Well, I'm sorry if I was pissed off by a useless and pointless article, but I think I was nowhere near trolling. Please RTFA and decide for yourselves...
We all already know that Vista sucks since it was released. Is there something new?
And I always have both Linux and Windows in my computer and I use both.
Maybe I am only thinking on using less the Windows or maybe erase it if it becomes too clumsy, but not for now.
- a happy Vista user, for the record
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I've been waiting for stable drivers on a number of fronts and waiting for support from vendors like tivo and kensington. I don't dare upgrade to 64 bit, 32 is headache enough. WMP freezes for any video I load- have to use Nero showtime. iTunes 7 video is broken too. Everything else works great and I love the eye candy, but I give up.
He did say Upgrade Option - likely refering to people already using XP. Get a life, reactionary troll
Post install of Fedora 7, the only thing I spent time tweaking was KDE to get my perfect KDE look - this was on my primary desktop. How about you?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Indeed, I first thought the link was wrong, as it started saying he would leave his job there. Just in the next paragraph he wrote his frustrations about Vista. Coincidence? In any case, he mentions problems with power-saving modes. It is very bad that this doesn't work as any new motherboard should be supported by vista already. But I wonder if going to linux there will make his life simpler, I never even tried, and from what I've heard it is far from easy to get it working satisfactorily. Then again, linux is not made to be shut down in the first place.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
"I expected it to get the kinks worked out more quickly. Boy, was I fooled!"
Lots of people make the mistake of thinking that Microsoft is a software company. That's wrong. Microsoft is an abuse company that uses software as a method of delivering abuse.
My opinion. Maybe even partly a joke, maybe not.
I feel his pain. Vista has been a pretty big headache for me since I first installed it earlier this summer. I still can't get the machine to suspend properly, my Bluetooth dongle sort of works, sometimes the network adapters require a reboot before they will connect...
However, quite a few problems have been fixed in the past few months, at least for me. The slow file copy/move thing seems to have disappeared; after a few driver updates, no more BSOD or random restarts. Program compatibility is still an issue, and I'm going to need to keep updating drivers, because everything seems like it could use a little more work. Really, though, there isn't much advantage over XP. I'm mainly staying with Vista for the better multiple-monitor support, and the 64-bitness (including finally seeing all 4 GB RAM).
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Vista has actually become usable for me over the last few months. I got a free evaluation copy a few days before the release, and it started out rather poorly. Sleep mode kinda worked, with the mouse, or networking, etc not coming back after it went to sleep. I got random reboots until ATI finally released a driver that didn't crash my whole system.
Now it's pretty smooth sailing.
With that said, I'm still considering just going to Ubuntu. Vista is OK I guess, but there's nothing in it that's terribly compelling. I like the look and feel of it, but I prefer all the software available a click away with Ubuntu. (I'm no newcomer to Linux, the Vista box is my last Windows machine). Whenever the next Ubuntu version comes out I'll try it out on the workstation and see if sleep mode actually works. Then just run vmware for the one or two remaining Windows apps I can't live without.
AccountKiller
It's the same shit, different vendor/environment. While all the niggles this guy has with Vista P*ss me off too, there's countless more. I've never had to do so much configuring, disabling and registry tweaking on windows to get it to function without totally hindering me. But do you think I can get linux rolling along nicely on my presario laptop?
Nope. Networking is much better, but the sound card defaults to the SPDIF out (of which there is no physical connection) and X always insists that the best resolution I can manage is 1024x768 (not true!). Pleads for help, hours with google, etc come to nothing. Even Kubuntu which nearly works off the disc still has the sound and X issues.
Windows 2000 was close to perfect for me, but MS dropped the ball. Yes, it's good that they fixed various fundamental problems, but they broke too much in doing so. And Linux, even with the ease of Kubuntu, still has a long way to go.
MS-DOS anyone?
He has seen the light! He is Healed! Yey-yes, healed I tell you.
And I love it. I've never been huge on Microsoft, ran OS/2 for several years, and Vista was just so annoying and slow, it made the decision to switch to a Mac easy. Is OS X perfect? No, but it is much better, and it didn't take more than a couple weeks to get fully comfortable in the new environment, although I still find myself hitting the ctrl key rather than the command key for some shortcuts.
I don't understand why it would be 'unthinkable' for him to switch to an OS that *HE* controls, instead of vice versa (Soviet-style ;)). What real-geek, power-user, hard-hacking nerd wouldn't prefer an OS that puts them in charge of everything???
Unless it's because noone will pay him to shill for Linux like he was so used to doing for M$...
1) Quit magazine editor job.
2) Start using real OS, and see the light.
3) ?????
4) Profi... er, 'Ask for donations'!
(Captcha for this comment: "Perplex". Wouldn't ya know...)
I've not had any problems with it in the last few weeks.
True I am back to running XP. But that's simply because I like to play Battlefield 2142 and it doesn't work quite right under Vista and knowing EA they have no intentions of helping matters.
With the compatibility patch coming in SP1 I might give it another try.
I really did enjoy using it, problems with Battlefield aside.
His problem isn't the tweaking, it's the stuff he can't tweak. Like the network stack, and other issues. He even describes how he put in the hard time with Vista and put up with the tweaking.
:)
At least with Linux, once you've tweaked something, it stays tweaked -- For better or worse
Technology tips and tricks.
The motivation to try something else, if your current solution isn't working, should not be "unthinkable". Winston Churchill once said: "No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism"
This applies to whatever folly and ideal your "stuck" with whether it be Mac, Windows, Linux, Solaris or *BSD. If it's not working, change. You're the only thing stopping you from trying something different.
The first wisdom acquired when digging a hole is knowing when to stop digging; the first task you're faced with is deciding when it's deep enough.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
... and just waited to publish it until he was leaving PCMag.
As Molly Ivins said: "Ya gotta dance with them what brung you."
Louderback's job was to keep his advertisers happy and I'm sure that was a big factor in how he chose to color his experience with Vista.
Not surprising.
-S
Your post reminds me of why I decided to avoid PC magazine years ago, they did many things that annoyed me but the worst had to be the "free" cd of malware included with many issues.
I had Vista Home Premium up for a total of FOUR DAYS before I went back to XP Pro. Vista has a lot of warts, even compared to the initial rollout of WIN95/98, and XP.
My wife doesn't listen to me either...
Wait for SP2 before wasting your time.
Yes. After SP2, you can waste your time much more efficiently.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
The engineering computing* group at my company don't like Vista. I trust their opinion, thus I don't like vista.
-nB
* NOT IT, vastly different purposes in life. IT is about mainstream hardware, standard servers, only having to deploy 2-3 images across 90% of the company. Engineering Computing is about the other 10%. Almost as many images as users, custom hardware specs, support for *every* OS available, back to Win3.1 and across 17 different linux distros. If they say "no way" to Vista, then I'm sold on the opinion and won't touch it (incidentally, nor will IT for the same reason).
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
"As bad as Windows is, it works. Linux, yes even your great Ubunutu, still has a long ways to go."
Yeah, my OSX and the role my OpenBSD performs just works too. How come you assume if it's not Windows the only other choice is Linux?
All I can say, he deserves what he got.
;)
If you pander to just one operating system, as a supposed computer professional, your simply not up to the job in the first place.
A true, passionate PC user (and by that, I mean Personal Computer User, NOT just windows), you owe it to yourself to be up to speed on as much as possible. You should have at your fingertips either virtual or full iterations of Windows, Linux and MacOS.
The name of this magazine is "PC Magazine", to me, that means "Personal Computer Magazine" - of course, we all know the reality is that it's 90% windows based. (A personal irritation of mine is assuming that a PC is a windows box - akin to calling computer criminals hackers)
That the ex-editor should declare using Linux unthinkable is unthinkable in itself.
Lets hope the new editor has a bit more savvy, not that I care, I don't read computer magazines anymore, now I know why...
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
I also have him pegged as an idiot. A few weeks ago, for the first time, I picked up a copy of PC Magazine because it was lying around and I had nothing better to do. I open up to the article that interests me, one about bandwidth from US ISPs, and the first paragraph claims that a gigabit per second is 100 times faster than megabit/s and 1000 times faster than a kilobit/s. A little later on they imply that a couple hundred kilobits a second is a good speed for the New York region, when I occasionally get as high as 8 megabits/s. Even if they meant to say bytes they were still glaringly wrong, and I was left to wonder what kind of proof reading, if any, they did.
So I guess I'm saying I couldn't care less what this man has to say about his choice of operating system.
Evidently, the key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy.
Thank you very much, but Linux doesn't need "friends" who use it as a Horrible Fate that they'll threaten to inflict on themselves as a way to get Mommy Microsoft's sympathetic attention.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Really? Within moments of googling I found out that to do that you have to use the "fglrx" drivers on your model. I know that driver isn't open sourced, but you'd have to use a closed source driver in Windows to get it working as well..
Here are some relevant links:
Mandriva Wiki which claims compatibility with the t60.
Gentoo User
Ubuntu User w/ xorg.conf
I'd like to help you more, but I'm not a Mandriva user. Good luck with your problem anyway! Next time you buy a laptop, try and get something with easier Linux support.
I've been using vista ultimate since about a week before the general public release and I've never had a single instance of "That worked fine in XP - stupid vista." Every piece of software I've used, every game, every network utility, every driver has worked with hardly a hiccup. I may just be lucky so far but I really don't see what the problem is. I'm not overly impressed that vista is better than XP - but it's certainly not worse.
Actually, both Windows and Linux suck on the desktop (although Windows 2000 is okay, and KDE 4 should go a long way towards rectifying the situation on Linux). The only option for this editor is OS X, the world's best consumer desktop operating system.
(Unless you're into games).
Funny and close to the truth. ....
At the risk of destroying a good joke by examining the kernel of truth in it
Microsoft is a marketing company. They do marketing. That is their specialty.
When I worked at Intel I quickly realized that Intel wasn't an engineering/design company, but a manufacturing company. AMD might make a better chip but Intel could make their chips for less and sell them for more.
Geesh Jim, want some cheese with that whine?
I know what you're thinking. Did I forward 65,535 packets or 65,536 packets?
I read the editor of PC Magazine is unhappy with Vista. Not a good endorsement regardless how bad the content of TFA is.
You know we like to joke about signs of the apocalypse, but wow. I would almost look forward to that. Can you just imagine the Louderback articles we'd get with him on Linux?
vi v. emacs: The exciting new controversy
How to protect your children from The Gimp
Why won't anyone explain what GNU stands for?
However, it seems to me that it's likely that there are people who dislike Vista who've never even touched it, nor are informed about it. They dislike it because others, whose opinions they're willing to trust, do.
Tha'ts what viral marketing is all about ... trusted people influencing others. But it works both for you and against you.
...move back to XP. I still use XP on all of my machines despite having Vista licenses through my MSDN subscription. It works amazingly well, its stable and gaming is much better on it despite what MS claims. My two cents
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
That's kind of a reverse ad hominem. Just because he's the editor of a famous computer magazine, that doesn't make his points any less moot when accompanied only by moronic remarks and pointless jokes...
"As bad as Windows is, it works."
Well, apparently, it just doesn't work for everybody. Isn't that what the PC Magazine editor is saying in TFA?
I used to get PC Mag years ago, but stopped because I felt that the magazine was too biased in favor of MS.
I think all the big paper magazines around these parts have fallen for the same trap there. I gave up PC World, and later PC Pro, because their reviews of new versions of Windows, Office, etc. just seemed like sucking up to MS. That and the fact that in the latter case, they went to cover-DVD-only and more-or-less doubled the price, so I was paying more for a disc mostly full of junk and pretty much all of which I could just download if I wanted it than I was for a magazine that was half ads anyway. Oh, and the fact that most of their news stories were light on details, and those light details had been reported on the Internet weeks earlier.
The only point of still having magazines like this is if they can supply quality, in-depth reviews of products and industry analysis by people with the connections to find the material and the writing ability to report it well. If all they do is publish fluff reviews and sound-bite news, why on earth would I pay for that when I can read the same for free on-line?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Oh I'm sorry, you wanted an argument. This is abuse.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
In Windows if something pisses you off, you bitch about it and if you bitch loud enough and if enough other people bitch about the same thing, then in several months or a year (maybe) MS will fix it.
In Linux if something pisses you off, you can fix it yourself or contact the developer directly and talk about (or collaborate on) a fix!
Linux good
Windows bad
Wash in river, beat on rock, dry in sun, make clean!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
This article made my day. I have heard this happening all around me, but the media has kept on praising FUBAR OS. Let's hope that this is not the last time it happens.
It's very much a bathtub curve for MS operating systems as well. 95 and 98 were horribly unstable, some were okay near the "middle" (2000, XP), and now they're heading to DRM, making it as annoying for users if not more than daily reboots from the 9x days.
He has waited nine months, the question is how much longer is he willing to wait? Jim, why threaten to do the unthinkable? Be a man of action and just do it. I did almost 10 years ago and I'm not looking back.
I certainly know what you can replace your media center with. That would be KnoppMyth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KnoppMyth/. I certainly couldn't have created it if I was still on Microsoft's teat.
When the source is open, the possibilities are endless.
Why not just stick with XP?
... so I very much doubt that it's just a skin over XP.
I think it's a wholly new O/S, and getting new O/S's to a working state always takes many years --- look how long it took Linux, the BSDs, OSX and even Windows 3->NT->XP to become usable. That's why Vista is basically dead, you can't create new operating systems overnight (and 3 years is still "overnight").
Rather than being buried as it deserves, Vista may actually continue in its moribund state for another 5-10 years until it finally starts working as well as XP. Unfortunately, Microsoft has tons of cash and too much pride to throw Vista in the bin immediately.
It should have stuck with polishing XP, evolution not revolution. This misunderstanding about the lifecycle of operating systems is going to cost MS literally billions and billions in the long run.
I came to the same conclusions about a year back - except it was XP on my ThinkPad. Replaced XP with Linux, most of my pain went away. I am no MS hater. I have developed device drivers for Windows. Still own MS stock. But I am done with Windows as a home user.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people who claim to have expertise with computers are only pushing buttons at random and then complain when their systems don't work.
I have loaded Vista onto my newest laptop. Mind you this is installing Vista over an existing XP installation with which the system came. The system works great, admittedly it is a new Inspiron with a dual core Intel chip. The only issue is that I didn't uninstall the XP Powertoys before converting and now they won't uninstall, oh well.
Everything works better and faster than the original XP installation. I run, finally as a user rather than Administrator, I rarely get any UAC warnings unless I am doing an administrative task. I know that installers run with elevated privileges but I have not seen or heard of an exploit.
If you can't get Vista to run right then you are doing something wrong. Old or bad hardware (almost always the cause of BSOD) or old or funky software will cause problems but I haven't run any DOS or 16 bit windows software in many years. I run a mix of commercial and open source software, mostly for software development and web development.
If you like Linux, knock yourself out, but I have work to do. I need documentation, user interface standards and stable code.
Regards,
Chris
Otherwise all those driver issues that they had on launch would have been non-existent.
The number of issues for things that were stable in XP is far too great for me to believe they used the same codebase.
If anything, it's an XP skin on a far inferior operating system, IMO. And just about every single feature that's new for Vista
- Already exists in Linux
- Exists in third-party apps in XP
Why anybody would even bother with Vista in it's current state is completely beyond me. Shadow copies (ie file versioning), drive encryption... Heck, Beryl has an Aero theme that does all the things Glass was touting as new and innovation, and had it working before Vista was even released. Flip and Flip-3D are already available as Beryl plugins as well. UAC is just a very poorly implemented version of sudo.
Really, only reason people should be selecting Windows for home use would be gaming support. And Vista's performance metrics are so abysmal that you'd probably just want to stick to XP anyways.
They kept touting the reworking of the codebase as for security reasons, and I'll almost believe that because it SURE as hell wasn't to increase its performance. And even the super-high-end computers are running it.
I hear SP1 for Vista is going to be a supreme performance upgrade. Good, though it would have been nicer if they used the opportunity of rewriting the codebase to actually have slick and efficient code, though apparently Microsoft isn't in the business in designing anything slick from the ground up. Instead they'll apply patches and fixes to make it look like it runs slickly. Makes sense, considering they're a little more invested in the covering-your-ass part of the software engineering process than actually producing good code.
One of the nicest advantages of GNU/linux is that it rarely breaks things with stable upgrades. The only things that get broken in upgrades are usually new features, at least in my experience. Which is nice, it means that the projects involved are constantly moving forward, unlike Microsoft which keeps having to tackle the same types of problems over and over again.
IMHO,YMMV
Karma: Non-Heinous
By general users, i'm talking about every day non-computer-techy types ... like my wife, my parents, my in laws, and brother. All of them use computers, but for little more than looking up general info like movies and wikis, email, some gaming and word processing. My mother is the prime example, she is the least computer literate, and when things suddenly "change" on the screen, she freaks out thinking that she broke something. While i've convinced her that a random popups window are OK (for passwords) .. the fact that the whole screen in vista flickers and the background changes (the password overlay) really gets to her. My brother, wife and i can't get out games to play correctly (video drivers for my nvidia 7800gs play games like halo 2 with horrible graphic glitchs, and even some lag in games like oblivion that i didn't have in XP, Medieval II crashed on me at least once an hour...). That's not even mentioning how vista itself seems to take up more memory which slows down the games. My father who is a minister, couldn't get some of his old files to work properly (which he needs for work). The new office (2007) actually messed more things up for him than fixed, and i had to install open office for him just to get some of his old files to OPEN so that he could then use them in 2007.
In the end... It's not that i hate windows, it's that it looks like vista was not thought out to be easier on/for the user... instead it looks like it was just planned look better on paper (BETTER SECURITY! BETTER NETWORKING! BETTER ETC!). Now add in the fact that we have to pay a TON of money just to get this stuff on our computers and it still doesn't work properly? For my parents, i actually installed (k)ubuntu for them about a month ago (KDE). They went to linux because they told ME they didn't want Vista anymore, but they didn't have money to spend on another set of MS licenses just to go back to XP. Go figure... after showing my mom for an hour how to open a browser, and open up gaim to chat and how to go into her home folder.... i've actually heard her complain LESS than when she had XP.
Stories abound about how he was last spotted mongst the caves in the deserts of a distant planet called Tattooine...mumbling something about the Old Order...
These magazine editors and the like need to read their own columns before they submit them for publication. I've no doubt that 1-2 years ago, Louderback was touting Vista as the greatest thing since sliced bread, eagerly anticipating it's final release, encouraging everyone to throw out their obsolete 3-year old PCs so they could run Vista, and so on.
Allegedly? So are you saying that vista adoption is not slow?
Gotcha. So it's not selling slowly, but that's only because it's a resource hog. I guess MS have realised that what the consumer really wants is bloat, and that if they hadn't made the OS so greedy then no one would be buying it?
Or did you just mean that it is selling slowly, and that's because it does need too many resources, but that it's very rude of us to go around saying so. Perhaps you meant yes it's not selling, and yes it's bloated, but don't go around bad mouthing DRM?
The trouble is, really, that to pin Vista's woes (alleged, if you insist) on any single factor is probably a gross oversimplification. Vista's problems include patchy driver support, a confusing pricing scheme, the lack of any compelling "must-have" feature for the OS, the fact that a lot of people don't want to change from XP, dislike of the licence terms, fears of added expense in terms of new software and hardware that may be needed to run the damn thing.
The that fact that it's a resource hog isn't helping, either, and neither is the DRM (because like it or not, an awful lot of XP users also use P2P) and neither is the fact that it's had some scathing reviews, many of them from writers normally counted among the Redmond faithful.
Still, at least the resource problem will go away as machines get faster. I suppose if you had to pick a single cause that's the one that lets the OS still seem like a viable concern. Maybe sales will take off next year if and when XP really gets retired.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Yikes! Over at PC Mag, John C. Dvorak, Lance Ulanoff, and now Jim Louderback are mean-mouthing Vista, saying nice things about the Mac and threatening to jump ship to either Linux or Mac. That's PeeCee Magazine!!! The end is near, I tell you!!!
For a heavy Microsoft supporter, Macs are the unthinkable option - Linux is like the escape pod, cramped but familiar and you won't get as much merciless teasing from your compatriots.
P.S. - I too am a Linux supporter, and know "cramped" is a poor description of something that really is more free and liberating - but that's the intitial feeling Windows users get.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I've noticed something fairly consistent about the people I know who like Vista well enough to make it their primary OS:
They are the same people who have been M$ beta testers for a number of versions, and have always been "early adopters" all the way back.
They are also people who tend to get bored with OS-related arguments very easily, and are always ready to move on to something new.
Nothing here is meant to be for or against such people; it's just what I've observed.
Myself, I haven't even tried it yet.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
LOL... Windows 2000 is OK? There was a time when Win2K was preferable to XP, and that time was called "2003"... around about 2004, Win2K was seriously showing it's age, and they had finally ironed enough of the kinks out of XP that it made a pretty good desktop OS by that point. Not that I expect to convince an OSX troll, but I find it hilarious that anybody would still describe Win2K as a viable desktop OS option.
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
Let me start by saying that I'm no Microsoft fanboy. I can't think of one good reason to run Windows on my servers (<3 freebsd), but I do prefer it over nix/bsd for desktop use; I'm a gamer, and virtual machines are enough to give me my linux fix. I tried Vista RC2 very briefly and hated it. After my display drivers became so problematic that I literally could not see anything properly enough to even log in, I gave up.
However, I was building a new rig a few months ago and decided to give it another shot, only for DX10. In months of very heavy use (running games + movies + several virtual machines at the same time), I've been pleasantly surprised how decent it has turned out to be. The only problem I've had is widescreen not working in one game (which was achieved through an unsupported hack in the first place). The UI is significantly better, and I really do miss the improvements when I use my XP laptop for anything productive. Stability has been great, I haven't had any sort of entire-os crash at all. Drivers were exactly as they were in XP: visit site, download, click next a few times, reboot, done.
Maybe my experience is atypical, but I think the amount of criticism Vista gets is unwarranted; in particular, it really bothers me when people bash it when their experience with Vista comes from nothing but /. comments by users with equal Vista experience. Is it the best thing since sliced bread? No. Could Microsoft have done better? Very much so. Is it better than XP? Definitely.
Something being "unthinkable" never means that it is literally impossible to think about doing the thing in question. It always means that that to do so would be contrary to how you are indoctrinated to act.
Usually, this explains your behavior in terms of your virtuous upbringing. For many of us, spitting on the flag in "unthinkable". Sitting on the bus while an elderly person has to stand is "unthinkable". Throwing trash on the ground is "unthinkable". These are all things we are perfectly capable of imagining doing, but we'd never do because our moral training makes the contrary behavior second nature.
On the other hand, it is safe to say that calling something "unthinkable" in a technical context is usually a confession of simple narrow mindedness. Why should one accept one's indoctrination in a technical preference to be unquestionable?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I share Jim's experience with Vista and some of the pain. I very quickly realized that it was hopeless. I had to get a medium performance computer up and running on my network quickly. I bought it with Vista, set it up and found that the only things recognizable on the network were the interface to a print server and my fax machine! The rest of the computers, printers and access points were not findable. A quick trouble shoot indicated that I would have to download a network component for each of my XP systems, install reboot and hope. I did one but it didn't show either. I couldn't locate any shared printers via Vista and could only install one networked printer by hard coding the IP address. By the way there was an hours worth of updates to install on a new system, 20+. It also brought a 3.2 GHz Pentium with a gig of memory almost to its knees. Enough is enough. I installed Ubuntu and it immediately recognized my entire network. It took a few minutes to install the networked printers and I am off an running with no problems. Fortunately I don't need any Windows unique software on this system, Open Office and Firefox do the trick. I have been recommending to my clients to wait on Vista. I am now going to recommend that they wait until Vista is replaced or switch to Linux or buy a Mac. Frank
.... MS employs its pervasive "User Frustration Function" as a feature.
From the RSS feed I thought the PC magazine editor had given up on learning VI.. which would be tragic. Yeah the learning curve isn't the easiest, but once you stick it out you will be so much more productive...
Then I opened the article and discovered he had given up on Vista.. that's news? That's like headlining, "Undergrad student gives up on proving P=NP." Yeah so have a million other people. Tell me something interesting like the guy cooked all his meals, for an entire week, on the heatsink of a P4 while only drinking bawls. That would be news.
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
dude, what the hell!
I bought a new computer from Dell around the beginning of June. It came with Vista pre-installed. Now, I am not the worlds biggest Windows fan, but I have to say that I have had very little wrong with it. My only real complaint is that "City of Heroes" only runs in 600X800 mode on Vista. Everything else has worked quite well - in the same amount of time that I have had Vista on the desktop, I've run Linux on an older desktop and XP on an old Laptop. The Laptop has crashed 4 times, the Linux machine has locked up tight 2 times and Vista has given me the BLOD once.... All in all, I'm happy (I'd be happier if CoH would get it's Vista patch out, but at least it runs on Vista - Linux doesn't do it and the laptop doesn't have the graphics power).
http://timcol6.freehostia.com/
Vista is the abusive one to the world. Always causing trouble and hurting the people around them...
And what about us *nix and osx people? We're the "friends" .. the person you go to when you have troubles or just need to talk. Will we ever be "relationship" material? Will we ever just be USED by the abused one? (oh.. just to be used even once... we could show them how amazing we really are). God forbid they get seen using a mac or a linux box though! OMFGBBQLOLZWTF! What a horrible thought, what would the general society think?!!
But ... they always go back to the abusive one... *sighs*
Well, the post I responded to was talking about Linux and not other OSes so that might be why I only mentioned Linux.
Grow up. I run Windows 2000 at home, and Windows XP at work? Frankly, I find the two nearly identical in capabilities, with Windows XP having a slight edge in stability, and only minor issues differentiating them. What, in your experience, makes Windows 2000 not "a viable desktop OS option"? /frank
And the worms ate into his brain.
What doesn't work in Vista? Both my wife and I use Vista Ultimate and neither one of us have encountered the supposed instability or failures to work. Sure, I tuned down the interface to make it look more classic for both of us, and also turned off UAC, which I considered a failed attempt at security (only because it is so blasted annoying not because it doesn't work), but nothing just 'doesn't work' I say this as someone who uses Mac OS X as his primary desktop OS, using Vista only through Parallels/Boot Camp to use the occasional odd program or video game, and (Fedora) Linux as a server OS; it is not as a fascist Windows nazi that I say I have not encountered any problems... I keep hearing it is unstable and things don't work without substantiation as to what it is doing and failing to do. That is more troubling to me than the claim that it does not work...
I did exactly the same as this editor guy did.
I gave Vista 2 months (a record compared to all other IT guys I know)
It failed.
A short list of problems were;
Install was a nightmare
Wirless networking is a pain
Not playing DVDs consistantly
So after 2 months I thought I would give Ubuntu a go.
It's been great so far and to my suprise my father has followed me and is also running Ubuntu.
Yes I have had problems, but not so many as I did with Vista.
In my opinion, for a business desktop there have been no problem I have not been able to overcome with Ubuntu.
Wine runs the made for Microsft programs and there are GNU/Linux apps that are great.
Of corse thats just my opinion, and I wouldn't have tried Ubuntu if Vista hadn't been so bad.
Because you always need a smart fox!
I realized last night that I haven't used Windows since February! Not even Wine! More than that, the only time I've used it since 2005 has been for crossplatform development purposes (thanks to Qt, I can develop native Windows apps on Unix or Mac).
At home I am running FreeBSD 6.2, and have a Mac iBook I occasionally use. For work I have a Thinkpad running Kubuntu 7.04. The only come across two drawbacks for not using Windows: the Thinkpad won't wake up in Linux; and lack of proprietary Flash under FreeBSD. I expect both of these issues to be gone in the next six months. Unix is ready for the desktop. I wouldn't recommend FreeBSD to the Unix noob, but Kubuntu is far easier to install and setup than Windows (if you don't need a proprietary driver).
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I bought a Lenovo tablet with Vista on it, and couldn't be more pleased with it. The handwriting recognition and other tablet features that are only available in Vista are wonderful, and it has been stable and has so far supported software both designed for Vista and not. Lenovo of course loaded it down with crap, but after an hour or so of customization it behaves as I want it.
I know that even if Linux supported all the features of the pen tablet (the great handwriting support, shortcut flicks, overall pleasant integration), it can't support the art software that I'd use.
You can always install a LINUX compatibility layer into FreeBSD, in fact it's a standard option. Advantages: Working with FreeBSD will prepare you somewhat better for digging around inside the guts of OS X. Your platform is even more obscure than LINUX, which can stop a few attacks on your servers. Disadvantages: [insert academic kernel arguments here] [insert academic licensing debate here]
"I've been a big proponent of the new OS over the past few months, even going so far as loading it onto most of my computers and spending hours tweaking and optimizing it."
The fact that he actually went through the trouble of installing and tweaking it on so many machines makes me doubt that he was just bowing to financial pressure. This isn't a pro-Vista comment though; the fact that he had extensive experience with Vista and still found it unusable does not bode well for Microsoft.
They didn't lie. When they started Vista the started with a fresh file. They then copied and pasted the XP code and added the memory sucking parts. Finally they hardened the firewall by disabling everything. My question is why it cost five billion to copy and paste a file?
Thanks for making my point. It's good to see that the attitude is alive and well here on Slashdot. Sometimes I think that a lot of the hostility here is just posturing against the "norm". You know, like college students that go around telling everyone how hip they are because they don't watch TV or listen to "commercial" music. Is Windows the BESTOSEVAROMG!!! ? No, it's not. But it does what I need it to do with a little effort and it is supported by pretty well every hardware maker out there. I am not saying Linux is bad, it's just not ready for primetime. Any time a user needs to compile or mess with a text file you've moved out of the mainstream and the average Joe isn't going to want to do anything like that. Other people in this topic have said as much as well.
It is? Could have fooled me. The only time my 1GB machine slows down is when I'm running iTunes (downloading podcasts - and sharing my library with colleagues) along with my JBoss AS and have Eclipse deploying the application to the application server. I'd really like to see evidence of a memory hog scenario. Cons I've come across so far: 1. The OS doesn't tell you about Virtualization when writing to C:\Program Files\ and does it anyway 2. I keep needing to run installers (*.msi) from a command prompt opened as an administrator if windows doesn't run them as such automatically 3. Takes a good minute or two to shutdown (even when there are no updates to be made) 4. System restore points are huge and take up 4-5GB at times forcing me to run disk clean up after every update 5. Folder customizations don't persist (even within the same login session) 6. My games (which do require better graphics cards than the Intel Generic graphics card that I have - but ought to work with emulators) don't work That's all I could come up with off the top of my head right now. Apart from that, it's been no different than XP - Media Center Edition. I don't turn my laptop off unless I need to (for updates). Sleep mode is good, not great (slows down sometimes and takes a while to let me move the mouse or log me back in).
'tis but a scratch.
When a XP bug is fixed, chances are stuff gets better for the user or Microsoft.
;).
When a Vista bug is fixed, chances are stuff gets better for the **AA or Microsoft.
Priorities have changed a bit
I bailed on MS after windows '95 came out. It sucked. I have used only Linux since.
I suppose that sooner or later everyone will learn.
should really stick to their medication schedule.
damaged by dogma
That's not quite right.
Once you get the system working, if you leave well enough alone you don't do any tweaking, except as a result of other tweaking you are attempting.
So for the average user who Just Wants The System to Work®, their best bet is to have a Linux geek get their setup working for them, then keep that geek far from the system unless there's a real reason to mess with it
As long as somebody else is in charge of getting things working, Linux would win hands down over Windows in tweakless-ness. When you work on a Windows systems, you must deal with multiple agendas besides your own. When Microsoft sends you a security patch, it may have other goodies like a license change or a some shiny new "features" you were perfectly happy without. Same goes for driver and application vendors, who often act as if their little part of your system should be the center of your universe.
Although it's not perfect, if you get a Debian or Ubuntu system working the way you like it, the only thing you have to worry about is security patches, which you can take a la carte without being forced into some kind of Faustian upgrade bargain.
Overall, Linux or BSD get a thumbs up for the casual user or heavy duty OS freak. It's the casual tinkerers who are in for a miserable time, because they absolute had to have the latest kernel, and they forgot what a pain it was to get that one device working with the old one, and even forgot how they did it the first time around. I've done it myself, then looked back and wondered, "what the hell was I thinking? Everything was working fine until I decided to mess with stuff."
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I open up the one copy of PC Mag I have sitting by desk, and read Dvorak's column from 1998 in which he predicts that Windows 98 on a Pentium 2 is more power than anyone will ever need, and that WebTV will make home PCs obsolete.
Win2K SP4 lives on an old laptop of mine, and works just great. So I guess it's a viable desktop option for some of us. It feels snappier than XP to me, but who knows.
I'm not an OS X troll. I have a Gentoo desktop, a MacBook, a RHEL install, and the Windows laptop I mentioned, and they all get regular use right now for the big project I'm working on. For the average consumer, OS X is the killer, hands down.
Grow up? Er, what? I'm pretty sure it wasn't my opening remarks which went straight for "UR OS SUX!!1!"
In large part I also find them very similar (I'd say identical is pushing it, but I do fairly low-level programming so my viewpoint is probably biased), but if nothing else, the almost complete lack of support for Win2K within the past couple years is fairly damning.
What confuses me about your response though, is that you appear to hold XP in slightly higher regard. I can't figure out why you'd even bother to mention Win2K in your earlier post.
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
Thanks for making my point.
Ha! Read my journal, you'll see I'm no Linux zealot, I'm just somebody who's come to the end of the road with Windows.
Sometimes I think that a lot of the hostility here is just posturing against the "norm". You know, like college students that go around telling everyone how hip they are because they don't watch TV or listen to "commercial" music.
Jesus, but you get some woolly ideas in your head.
I am not saying Linux is bad, it's just not ready for primetime. Any time a user needs to compile or mess with a text file you've moved out of the mainstream and the average Joe isn't going to want to do anything like that.
The fuck you were. You were tarring the Linux community based on goddamn hearsay because it's a well-worn argument, you made no technical points. Why are all MS defenders such paranoiacs? Wait, they're not, it's just another gross generalization like you made. Weak sauce, buddy.
Other people in this topic have said as much as well.
What, you want a medal for being a lemming? Piss off, troll.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
History has repeated itself again.
Microsoft is too proud of Vista. The mentality of "you will use it and you will like it" is the fatal flaw.
This is typical of what happens when a product marketing group gets too arrogant and putting its own interests ahead of the Customer's.
There is no freedom in Vista. It is a the operating system equivalent of a fascist police state.
...whatever MS comes up with. We are happily running our apps and games on 2003 server or XP. I support and use Linux in the server room, but in the real world with the apps and games all running on Windows, desktops will stay where they are.
This all said and done, I am really curious as to what Vista has brought people other than a new look, Direct X and an annoying security model? Can anyone who has used both XP and Vista elaborate?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Actually, from TFA he's not really the PC Magazine Editor anymore. It looks like this was his final see-ya-later editorial. According to him, this feeling about Vista was nine-months in the making. I think that the statement says more about the magazine in that he waited until his next gig was secure before he felt that he could say this.
No experence with this so I cant say.
getting x configured correctly hasnt been a problem in years.
video looks excelent out of the box (slackware 11) and the fglrx installer is dead simple to run if you need it.
This has nothing to do with consumer desktop installations.
anyone doing this type of work shouldnt have a problem compiling the kernel.
most major distros maintain a repository of common packages and have built-in package managment systems.
If the package you need isnt available from your distro all you have to do to is su, configure, make, and make install.
heres a good place to start for games.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
XXX#######
I'm sure it works great. Until a few years ago, I actually had it running on a frickin' 90 MHz Pentium with a mere 96 MB of memory. If you disable a few services, it cooks right along as well as any old OS did for the day, and all that box did was serve up a few hundred GB of MP3s on the household network, so why touch it?
:)
But in this day and age, with what is presently available, saying it's a viable desktop OS is pushing the boundaries of credibility. It's like going to forum for car guys and saying a '62 VW is a reasonable choice as a daily commuter. Sure it WORKS, but realistically there are better options. It's a generalization that just doesn't make much sense.
I called him an OSX troll because of his opening statements, not just because he uses OSX, and not even because he stated an opinion which differs from mine. I've run several flavors of Linux, at times for as long as a year or two, but when I need to get shit done, I just come back to Windows.
Since I've spent most of my life as a programmer and I prefer to build my own machines, I haven't had any interest in the expense, lock-in of the Apple world. I've used 'em, even recently, and I just wasn't that impressed. I suppose that's not especially relevant, but since we're signing off with resumes...
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
Of course, like any new laptop, it comes with Windows Vista. Despite my misgivings about Vista, I decided to keep it for a few days before nuking it (and the 20GB of recovery partitions that Toshiba stuck on there).
Put simply, it is slow and inefficient, broken in a number of ways and seriously crash-prone. I booted it up; ran the first-time wizard; started Vista up and watched Explorer crash (and come up with the "Report to Microsoft" dialog). So, I rebooted the computer, thinking that maybe the Toshiba recovery needed a reboot to get things working. Explorer didn't crash after reboot, so I assumed everything was OK.
Later, I'm attempting to edit my network config for the static IP (DHCP is disabled on my router as I run a server, and the router lacks the "static DHCP" option). UAC comes up (about 6 times throughout this process), but on one instance manages to permanently hang the network settings window, requiring that I kill the process.
That's an annoyance, sure, especially as it is a new system with no additional software (except Toshiba's stuff). I eventually get the networking going good (though Vista still refuses to see the SMB shares on my Powerbook G4, even though it sees my PC's shares just fine, and my PC [running XP] sees my Powerbook's shares just fine). So, I go on the Internet and obtain Firefox (what, you think I was going to use IE7? You must be joking.), which installs smoothly and works flawlessly on Vista. I'm quite happy about this.
Later, I'm playing Warcraft over LAN with some friends over, and, in the middle of a game, Vista's firewall decides that it should start blocking Warcraft's communication. Keep in mind that I've been playing for, oh, 4 hours at this point, and Vista has given me no trouble. Suddenly, the firewall dialog appears in the middle of my screen, and requests that I block/unblock the program. Of course, I choose Unblock, and a minute later, Warcraft crashes (some kind of network failure in CNet.cpp I think). Odd, of course, as it had been working fine for 4+ hours, so I reboot Warcraft, and half an hour later, the same thing happens (firewall dialog, Warcraft crash, etc.). Evidently, Vista has forgotten that I wanted the program to be unblocked.
Frustrated, I go to edit the settings for the firewall, but Warcraft is already listed as unblocked. We play some more, for maybe 2 hours, and it happens again. Annoying, sure, but I can't do anything about it anymore.
Well, OK, that might be the fault of Warcraft (III) not being updated for Vista or something.
There are other problems: Vista will not go to sleep when I close the lid (probably Toshiba's fault, but XP, which I recently installed, seems to handle that just fine); Vista randomly loses an Internet connection sometimes on a wired Ethernet link; Vista's window manager takes up a lot of RAM (300+MB private bytes) and a constant 3% CPU usage on both cores (on a 2.0GHz Core Duo processor); etc. etc. Even my old Sony VAIO (whose harddrive suffered a major crash after 3 years of service) with XP SP2 worked better and had fewer random bugs/crashes.
Summary: I am extremely displeased with Vista. Microsoft had 5 full years to improve their operating system, and instead, they have something that's less usable, less stable and more bloated (7+ GB for a fresh installation?) than their aging Windows XP system.
Personally, I'm almost inclined to think that Microsoft is trying to drive continued sales of XP from Vista. True, I haven't given Vista much time -- there are some things nice about it, like the revised Start Menu -- but in that short time it has utterly failed to please me.
- An unhappy Vista user, for the record.
I had a big block chevelle once, one of the stering coupler (rag joint) bolts sheared off. I would drive the car with no problems for as long as a week at a time with no problems. It was a beutiful car, but at random times it would lurch to the left or right and try to kill me. Running vista is like that. Im on vista now and Im wondering if i'll be able to hit the submit button before a random reboot. Im looking up at slashdots url at the top of explorer 7 and wondering why it has a yahoo icon. It's the other little things that drive me mad, vista reminds me of trying to get the sound card to work on suse 5.0. When the bluetooth stops working for some random unknown reason and I need to plug in a usb mouse, the little recursive you need a mouse to check the search subdirectoy box to load the mouse driver forces a reboot. Vista is a rotten platform for vmware. I just bought my first mac because vista SMB file sharing is broken. Do you guys remember windows ME ? Back then you had a choice, win2k pro, or ME. No real choice now Microsoft has one O.S. and you can choose version 5 or 6. Im done ranting, I should be thankfull, I'll make lots of money supporting this turd over the next 6 or 7 years.
Annoying pearl-clutching twits. So somebody used terms that aren't nice and respectful, so what? Welcome to real life. I also noticed that there is still an air of arrogance and hostility amongst some Linux supporters towards people that are inexperienced with Linux
Golly gosh, really? Wow, how interesting that's only confined to Linux messageboards! Hope it doesn't spread! Haha. Yeah, exactly. "Why, I was at a dinner party last week and I overheard these PEOPLE, I mean they simply MUST have been linux users, saying the most AWFUL things about Steve Ballmer and a chair. Can you imagine? It was just dreadfully gauche. It's obvious that this linux is not the type of thing for people of good breeding."
LOL. Meanwhile, on the internet as in real life, people are mean to other people who ask them for things. Deal with it, or else have your butler fetch the smelling salts.
Hmm. Okay, you win on the wireless bit.
:)
Video? Many cards look clearer in Linux than Windows. Better antialiasing, with the ability to tweak it as desired. Able to tune xmodes precisely.
RAID controllers? 3ware cards work just fine, no recompiling necessary. But then, those are real RAID cards, as opposed to low-end Promise crap you can buy for $30.00. Those cards rely on software to do their RAID magic.
X software? Such as? Most packages the average user will want is a point-and-click away.
Games? Who needs games? But, since you ask, I have about 150 games installed. I've played only maybe four or five of them due to lack of time. If I feel like installing my collection of Windows game, I may just have to buy cedega and install the Windows games on Linux. But. thanks for your concern!
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
world's best?
well...
not everyone needs a fisher price computers; many find that they're happy with the real thing
not everyone can kid themselves that the slight mental deficiency that requires a mac is a lifestyle choice
now fuck off you stupid little man.
(Walks down the hall. Opens door.)
7 195969915
Q: WHAT DO YOU WANT?
M: Well, I was told outside that...
Q: Don't give me that, you snotty-faced heap of parrot droppings!
M: What?
Q: Shut your festering gob, you tit! Your type really makes me puke, you vacuous, coffee-nosed, maloderous, pervert!!!
M: Look, I CAME HERE FOR AN ARGUMENT, I'm not going to just stand...!!
Q: OH, oh I'm sorry, but this is abuse.
M: Oh, I see, well, that explains it.
Q: Ah yes, you want room 12A, Just along the corridor.
M: Oh, Thank you very much. Sorry.
Q: Not at all.
M: Thank You.
(Under his breath) Stupid git!!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-57207790
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
I'll probably never run Vista for the simple reason that good drivers for the 64-bit version will likely be as scarce as they are for 64-bit XP, and because a 32-bit desktop OS doesn't belong in the 21st century. RAM is getting cheaper all the time, and I'd like to not bang my head against that miserable 3.5GB limit.
Frankly, I think that MS should have pulled an OS9->OSX style switch. Total rewrite, no more legacy crap, with the new version running on top of 64-bit BSD. That would ease porting of applications (imagine an all-posix world!), given them a stable base, and provided a modern security model all at the same time. Hell, MS owns Virtual PC. They could have stuck XP in a virtual machine for free, for those people desperate to run old apps.
Alas, I'm sure that Microsoft won't learn a single thing from the Vista disaster, and proceed to carefully and methodically fuck up the next version of Windows just as badly.
And that's not the only one, several if not most are showing Linux use declining and OSX and Vista going up.
Why is gnu/Linux the only upgrade option that will work? If I was dissatisfied with Vista, I'd switch back to XP.
I think Vista was just rushed to be released to soon just like the Playstation 3 and a bunch of other products on the market.
1 0s ystems/vista_delayed_again.htmle ax/index.phpe ax/index.phpv er/column_gaming/index.htm
Consumers gripe and complain when companies release buggy products but complain when a company keeps delaying their product as was the case with Vista and now with the new version of OSX. XP machines are still running fine so what's the rush? They should have spent another year on it and made sure it was good to go before releasing early under consumer pressure.
I say shut the fuck up and let the company release when they think the product is ready to ship. Otherwise you get 360s with no built in HD player, bugs in Vista, 360s that overheat, understocked PS3s, and on and on. Granted the companies should have the balls to say "not till it's done" and should not release news of a release until they have the product shrink wrapped and on pallets.
references
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/21/23312
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/operating_
http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/04/12/leopard_r
http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/04/12/leopard_r
http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/15/commentary/game_o
This means one or both of the following:
1) As an editor he HAD to push Microsoft products for the ad revenue. When he couldn't any longer, they dumped him.
2) Same as the above, except pushing crap products finally got to him and he quit.
Wonder how many other well-known PC zine employees are getting fed up with being forced to push Microsoft's shit when they know it isn't worth the bandwidth bits or CD pits it came on.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I challenge anyone here to prove the parent is not absolutely correct. Have any of you turds even tried installing a wireless adapter in a Linux system? It's not possible without a second computer and a working network connection so you can download the latest Windows driver and the latest version of ndiswrapper, then dig through pages of message boards before you finally find someone who actually knows what they're doing and was able to post the correct command line litany needed to get the damned thing working. Not exactly the "click click click I'm done" experience of Windows. Yeah, Linux is ready for the desktop, alright!
lol... An long time Windows shill wrote an article about how Vista sucks and he might switch to Linux *after* ceasing his employment as a long time Windows shill. My money says he's shopping for a job to become a Linux shill.
Another happy Vista user?
Wow, a pretty aggressive reaction for a non-zealot. And I didn't say all Linux users now did I? I said some and I meant some. And what I said was true, like it or not the average computer user does not want to edit a text config to make their PC work. I am sorry that you can't understand English.
All through college there was a certain subset of my classmates that I labelled mentally as the "Microsofties." They were avid Microsoft and .NET fans but had never so much as used anything else, whined whenever they had to learn or use anything else (and often refused), tried to copy every assignment from someone else or get someone else to "help" them and hope they'll just do the assignment for them. They were terrible problem solvers, very stubborn, and I'll just say it not that bright.
I found out last week that 2 of the 5 or so of them are now working at Microsoft - I smiled. I wouldn't be surprised if the other 3 were too. You can keep them, Microsoft. Merry Christmas.
I work on the IT staff for the european division of a large federal agency. We have about 40K users in our enterprise. Recently we hosted a big decision maker from Washington who told us about the upcoming move to Vista, mandated for all PCs on the network, because "the security in Vista is significantly better. Significantly better." Fully two-thirds of all PCs in our enterprise do not meet minimum hardware requirements to run Vista. We normally refresh 25-33% of our PCs annually, but we're now looking at a mandate requiring us to spend money we don't have upgrading hardware to run an OS that will easily double the workload of the Helpdesk and the touch-maintenance folks in an era of severe manpower and budget cuts. Lest you think "well manpower cuts means less calls to the Helpdesk so that point is moot", IT was hardest hit. That is, we have a lower IT personnel / non-IT personnel ratio now. Not sure yet whether the deadline is going to give, or Washington will come up with the money to pay for it. How this staff handles it, however, will soon be Not My Problem anymore. Next month I'm being relocated to Washington.
I've been running Vista x64 on my laptop and main desktop PC. I've had zero problems since installing it (save getting a sound driver for my laptop, which I eventually did. This is due to HP/Compaq not releasing 64 bit drivers).
I have no problems resuming from sleep and connecting back to my wireless network (from my laptop). This has worked every time.
My primary desktop machine has been chugging along without any problems. I play all the games I used to with XP, can still do software development (Eclipse, C++ compilers etc), run Open Office, web browse etc.
File sharing works (I share files between my desktop and 2 laptops). My work laptop which is running XP has no problems connecting to my desktop (which is running Vista x64) for files and for remote desktop.
I find it weird that the guy went from touting Vista and installing it on every machine in his home to loathing it and wanting to switch to Linux. Sounds like there's an ulterior motive for his article (whatever that may be).
If I did have problems with Vista, I would most likely "downgrade" to XP. I personally don't believe Linux is mature and ready for the desktop. I like the ability to play the games I like and do all my development on the same machine without having to reboot into a different OS, or do certain things through a virtual machine (VMWare etc).
I love Linux for server based software, I have it running on my second desktop machine for testing out my server software. I had tried installing Ubuntu on it to run it as a desktop machine, but had numerous problems. I don't have the time and / or energy to muck about trying to get it to work, so I switched it to a server installation.
I couldn't imagine using Windows for running server software (DB, http server etc), and I couldn't imagine running Linux for my desktop machine.
I know that there's a lot of people don't have issues with this, but that is just my personal preference.
All of the other stuff aside, every router I've seen has the option to start DHCP leasing at a certain address. For home and small office, you can set it at 192.168.1.10 or similar, the router takes 192.168.1.1, and you have nine left over IPs for static computers, and the rest of the subnet for dynamic clients, which is more than plenty for even the bigger, smallish office. Then you can simply set your servers' IP's manually, and have it update only DNS servers automatically via DHCP, or if your ISP's servers don't change often, like most, you can set them manually as well. Of course, if your router can't do it, that's the breaks.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
but they aren't you. The real customer is the application providers/business developers.
In other words, most will buy whatever system that runs/plays the appropriate software, whatever that may be.
But this only corroborates your comment about the state equivalence....
"Windows XP x64 Edition" is 64-bit, and it works great for me on my laptop. It's actually not really XP - it's a non-server build of Windows 2003. Its Service Pack 2 was released in March, finally adding WPA2 support.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
I am the unofficial IT person for my family and friends and, if anyone asks me about upgrading to the newest version of Windows, I simply tell them to wait until MS releases the 1st or 2nd service pack. Unless you're running Windows ME, service packs generally make things much better...and therefore more tolerable.
But his Vista experience sounds awfully familiar to my Linux experience. Stuff not working, rubbish drivers, endless fiddling, funny quirks, inability to get on with the work in hand, etc. I can't defend Vista (it's rubbish), but I honestly think he's better off sticking with tried and tested XP - if he's after a smooth ride.
Linux is great, but as a 'hassle free' desktop OS it has a long way to go (imo).
I wonder if the poster's IP traces back to Redmond. I've now seen this post a number of times -- on articles that say anything bad or point out anything bad about Microsoft and Vista.
Maybe a certain VP has traded chair throwing for?....
I've spent almost 30 years in tech (started when I was 11 yo with a teletype, keep your friggin jokes to yourselves), and the last decent product MS made was called DOS 5.0 ! Even that was just playing "keep up" with the market. Anyone that says,"Microsoft made this or that great product!" might want to check again. They either bought it from someone else, aped their design, or hired someone else to create it for them. They are serious, old-school, "buy and conquer" business people, not dedicated techies. They would rather get paid a billion $s for raping customers with a pile of crap, than invest the time and effort into making a good product.
Yea, I know the mantra,"If they didn't have to provide backwards compatability for third-party hard/software, it would be a better system." Wake up. They DON'T provide backward compatability! They're just tacking new crap on top of old, and they break shit all the time! If your app from DOS or Win95 still works you're lucky, that's all. I've had several apps that broke on new OS releases,
just like they're doing with Vista, and XP before that, and NT before that. If you want backwards compatability, the only good way I can think of to do that is to run the old OS in a VM. That way you get the benefits of the new OS, and can run all your old stuff on the old OS.
I've talked about Linux with my family and friends, and they all bring up the same points: their games (or Apps) won't play on Linux; who cares about whether it's free or not, they just pirate windows and its' apps anyways. When I point out that Linux has very few (effectively none) virus or spyware weaknesses, they just say that they use (pirated) Norton. Why should they use GIMP when they've got the latest (pirated) Photoshop? Windows has built up an accepted culture of theft in modern society, and conditioned people to think that it's okay.
I used to pirate. I used to collect software and cracks and trade them with others. Then I found free/shareware programs that were really good, and I started looking for and using more of it. It felt good to not have to be afraid of getting caught with $80K worth of stolen software on my machines. I've gradually moved to using legit and free software, and it feels good. It wasn't quick or comprehensive, there are still apps we use that are proprietary, but they are getting fewer as I find freeware replacements.
MS has given us a fairly consistent (fairly F*ed up) computer environment for the last 20 yrs, yet it has also made thieves of most everyone I know. Has it been worth it?
No.
When you want something built, come see me. If you want correct grammar and spelling, get a F*ing liberal arts student.
... a few hundred million people who say "well, this Vista now is the very last MS wagon I'll jump onto, because I have to (bla bla), but the next time, I swear, (mumble, mumble)" etc.
MS doesn't care to have friends, fans or enthusiasts, a huge number of long term "for the last time" customers is just as good to them.
After all, a business model that works, some Jim Louderbacks notwithstanding
You might be happy with a seven year old OS, but most of us would like something a little more modern. Most GNU/Linux distributions have been through two stable releases since 2001 and each brought real improvements and features.
I don't begrudge your happiness but that kind of thing is short lived. Sooner or later XP users are going to join w2k, ME, 98, 95, 3.1 and DOS users who can't find new software or replacement devices that work with their OS. The non free software forces are working on new formats and devices that won't work with XP. If you wait too long, your work harder to transfer and your losses will mount. The waste of your time and effort is intentional and is the way the upgrade treadmill works. Those who think otherwise live in a fool's paradise.
Free software is the only upgrade that escapes the non free data trap and upgrade treadmill. The purpose of non free software is to make money for it's owners. To do this, the owners must keep users helpless and divided. Free software has a simpler purpose, to do what users want.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I'm not trying to extoll the virtues of Vista (that'd be pretty wasted on /., anyway, given the fairly strong Microsoft hate) or anything like that, it was more or less idle curiosity. I'm sorry to hear your experience has been poor, I really am, and I hope you either resolve the issues, or have a copy of XP sitting around.
I really don't think Microsoft is trying to drive sales of XP, though. They didn't have to do anything to accomplish that, they could've just sat around and XP would've been bundled with all the new computers. Easy money for them, why waste time and money developing Vista to accomplish the same amount (or less) of sales, if that were their goal?
what, you think I was going to use IE7? You must be joking. I don't really know why you wouldn't, to be honest (unless you like FF's addons, or you have concerns about security). I love IE7, and actually have it installed on my XP systems, too. Easily the best part of Vista, IMHO."16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
People so much in love and applauding vista forget about xp's beginnings which were fare more rocky. Then it was going from a non nt to nt kernel, a fare more radical step. Things took even longer to iron out drivers and all, from what I recall. Vists ahould take less time since they aren't moving that far up the tech ladder I agree, but this is the way it is. My frustration with vista is not having a good way to report bugs and see they have been reported. I like sun, I report java bugs and can easily find out if they exists already and read comments. I think if ms had an open bug system like sun it would do a world of good, especially if we could see what bugs they are targeting for releases. Maybe it exists somewhere but I don't know about it.
People should Analise what they need first and move after, what is the point to move to a new OS when the current one has proven to do the job just fine. Moving to Linux also might be as stupid has moving to Vista.
Funny posts!
Poor little windows users must feel so trod upon.
The only thing is Linux is ready for prime time. And users can run it dual-boot if they still need their wondows training wheels.
There is a really good GUI interface for configuration and the stuff isn't that hard. Really. The fact that Linux allows people to customize and configure doesn't mean they have to or have to know all about it. Microsoft hides that stuff from users and makes it hard to do your own configuration. There was another thread here about how all the ad servers slow down web page loading and it was mentioned there that Vista won't let you add offending sites into the hosts file. I did it on a Linux machine and an Apple laptop running OSX - and it was easy. now I don't have any more offending popups or ad junk and my pages load really fast - just with blank spaces where the ads would have been otherwise.
But people don't need to know how to do that stuff but they can if they want. Lots of stuff comes with step by step instructions. People can go with the stock setup - which right out of the box is much more secure and capable than windows - or they can *if they want* learn more and actually administer and configure their own computer. I will take the path of choice rather than have my hands tied by Bill and Steve.
But the windows crowd needs to take a powder. Their fav OS is getting knocked because it sucks. They need to accept that and get on with their lives.
The problem is that Microsoft Windows doesn't work like a real O/S. Real O/S's never crash. Not several times a week like Microsoft Windows XP, never. I haven't seen instability like Microsoft Windows XP ever.
My AT&T Unix PC never crashed. Apple OS X doesn't crash. Linux doesn't crash (since the 1.3 days). Solaris doesn't crash. My DEC Alpha running Turbolinux 7 never crashed (but that's bragging, I did the Turbolinux 7 port to DEC Alpha).
If you take that as hostility, fine, whatever. My computers don't crash (now that my work notebook has been upgraded to RHEL from Microsoft Windows XP).
If your time is worthless?
With Vista you have to pay a shitload of money + you have to spend lots of your precious time to get it working.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I'm starting to wonder at this point is... how much of the Vista hate is just hype-driven? ... [people] dislike it because others, whose opinions they're willing to trust, do.
No one hates Vista, it's just software. Only tools from M$ talk about "hate" when people have the nerve to say Vista does not work. That kind of talk makes me think you have a strange definition of "happy" when you say are a happy Vista user.
Trusting someone like Louderback is entirely reasonable. He's a M$ fan. He gave Vista nine months and worked hard to make it work for him. As Editor in Chief of PC Magazine, he has access to resources that should have made him happy. If M$ can't make him happy, they won't make you happy. It's a lot more reasonable than listening to some random dude from Slashdot who looks like astroturf.
There are clear risks and no benefit to Vista and it's hurting PC sales. Are you going to spend $300 and play application roulette for something with bugs the size of Manhattan? Are you going to buy a new computer with it? Few of us will. I'm not, unless it comes with gnu/linux on it. M$ fans are not because they can't be sure XP will work with it. You are going to have to produce a big list of cool stuff Vista does to convince even M$ users to migrate when other M$ fans have such negative opinions.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Those issues are directly connected. Vista is a resource hog because of it's DRM. It does a lot of pointless encryption and code checking because of that. Fancy-shinny windows don't take much for system resources, that can be easily seen on OSX and the OpenGL desktops for Linux.
I agree that your average user won't be doing this, but they could if they did a little reading. If I hade a pound for every user who's come to me about an error message that tells them EXACTLY what the problem is...
I'm not saying Microsoft Windows is bad, just that it's not ready for prime time. Maybe Microsoft will catch up to other O/S vendors in another 10 or 20 years. It's fortunate for them that they're a protected monopoly and they'll probably have that time.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You heard correctly, sir. Real men use Kubuntu because Gnome is a steaming heap of shit.
Actually, judging from what I've heard from people in real life, the reason Vista uptake is slow is because "it's crap because loads of stuff doesn't work with it". That's pretty-much the single reason I've heard - no-one has mentioned DRM, resource usage or anything. Everyone is saying that some essential piece of software or hardware doesn't work with it.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
That subject line should be sufficient to invalidate most of parent.
This is how Microsoft will fall- under its own mass. The fact is that Microsoft (ESR's Cathedral) can't keep up with the speed and robustenss of Unix development. I had a release of XP 64 bit version that crashed on the Dell it came with, but I had 64 bit Fedora Core on that same HW in a day. That's why the FUD campaign. I was a MS guy too, and then got fed up with being fed up. It took 1 year to convert, mainly the shell (console) commands versus Gui widget philosphy, and I don't run a MS anything now. I run OpenOffice for Office with some nagging stuff but thats it. No macro viruses, no virus scanners, no bloated adware. The fact is if you have a problem with linux, you google and someone out there has the fix already. It's faster than MSKnowlegeBase, and doesn't deny problems exist. The true power of a million+ users.
Redhat Linux has fixed the sound card problem (OSS/ALSA), and the new Fedora installer is slicker than snail snot, no HDD reformat it just finds your distro and installs without pain. And the GUI (Xorg) could do all those XGI 3D window effects even before Vista appeared. But people don't know that.
Mac OS (BSD) or a Linux will eventually surpass MS when people realize they are paying for a lot of nothing. Why pay as much for the SW as the HW? Most of the SW was written years ago. Linux advocates don't need to be preachy, they just have to mention how happy they are with no HDD reformats and no spyware emails.
I hate PC Magazine. I got a free subscription once from some kind of promotion, and I thought it might have been an interesting read for PC users, but actually the entire magazine is only about promoting Windows. Seriously, they should just call it "Windows Magazine" so that people will know what it is.
If driver issues were a problem, why Linux and not Mac?
If using too many resources is a problem, why Linux and not Mac?
If an intuitive OS is the problem, why Linux and not Mac?
Oh, because Linux is still a PC? Losing face is that much of an issue?
At least he was bright enough to see what a flop Vista is, now only if he was a little brighter...
One thing that surprised me was the 32/64 predictions. I loaded Vista, figuring I's better elarn it before my customers. Everyone said "Watch out for the 64 bit version" so I loaded the 32 bit version. It was a morass of problems, every bit as bad as he said. After a couple months, I decided to try a fresh build anfd picked 64 bit on the same machine. 1000% better. It still has some annoyances, but now it is an OS I can really use.
Perhaps at least aprt of the underwhelming experience with VIsta is the timidity of those trying it.
Vista 64 is OK. I'm not sure i'm a fan of the new memory management. I have 8 gigs of ram and do 3d animation etc. Vista loves to eat up all of the memory, and then when my apps need it, it slowly gives it to the app however it still triggers swapping as it does so. And it is frustrating and anoying.. not to mention SLOW.
The new file explorer UI is good, but it hides too much on its tree menu when you open a file explorer. Its hard to explain but it takes a few clicks to get to a drive, or to look through your "favorites".
The integrated search is very nice.
I'm not having too much difficulty with Vista. I'm liking it, although i have been feeling that file operations were slow... and now i noticed MS has an update that improves that dramatically. I dont like the DRM features, but none have been an issue for me yet.
The only real reason i'm running Vista is because XP 64 doesnt get enough driver support. Vista 64 has better driver support Otherwise i'd probably run XP 64 and install MS's desktop search addon...
The thing i dont like is the complete unstable nature of the PC DESKTOP. Suddenly things are quite messy, and i blaim microsoft.
Vista on a whole, usage wise... seems to work fine for the most part but... i'm not convinced that it is required.
If you install it... install VISTA 64.
"I gave Vista too much free pass".
I have to ask, "Well why the hell did you do that?"
You shouldn't give a good review to something that isn't working well simply because you THINK or HOPE it will be fixed in the future. Doing so is selling yourself out and isn't responsible journalism.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Since Louderback admits praising Vista, 'checking' would have only required that you RTFA.
to be brutally honest with the Mac fandom crowd, a hell of a lot more inexpensive than the Macbook
Mac fans are not disturbed by the fact that your cheap-@$$ laptop is only semi-functional.
Yup, I'm seeing the return to the situation we had 20 years ago: Mixed systems, consisting of Apple, MS and Linux.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Slashdot users in general are far more tech-savvy than the majority of computer users out there. Also, it is very easy for us Slashdotters to participate in conversations about operating systems and new technologies only with eachother. Because of this, we continually get a one-sided view of things and we have gotten to the point that there are rarely any good arguments between us anymore -- its always just a comment board full of Microsoft/RIAA/MPAA/yada/yada bashing instead of decent discussions about not only the flaws but also the positive aspects of the situation.
Home Users:
Many of the posts above claim that switching from Windows to Linux or MacOS has been a great decision on your part. I'm glad you have found the best solution for your personal needs. However, please do consider that an overwhelming majority of computer users don't even know (or care to know) how to change their screen resolution yet alone ever fiddle around with tweaking settings, etc. Keep in mind that your needs are much different from that of the average PC user. While switching away from Windows was a great alternative for many Slashdotters, it is simply not so for the average Windows user.
When I installed Vista for the first time I was very excited to see that I didn't have to download a single driver for my Dell XPS. I had installed Windows XP on it countless times (due to Spyware and viruses) and nearly every time I forgot to burn a cd that had Dell's networking drivers on it -- with Vista this would not be an issue anymore. However, this was probably the only thing I was happy with about Vista.
I found it to be very sluggish and the copy/move file issue is almost enough for me to delete this entire post and go on with my day. UAC will be nice someday but currently it is just another default setting that I have to switch after an install. The reworked network will come in handy when IPV6 comes around but I can see how the average user wouldn't give a hoot. The user interface is nice and a lot of the work that went on behind the scenes to make it possible also means easier development of future features, but it should be more than simply a 3d window switcher and translucent title bars. I certainly don't feel like the new additions to Vista warrant the price tag. In fact, I wouldn't spend more than $100 on a copy of Vista Ultimate -- I'd rather have a slightly thicker wallet and be running Windows XP.
Gamers:
I saw a number of posts about people having difficulty playing games in Vista. Although I'm not aware of the specific issues discussed in those posts, I'm willing to bet that they were caused by graphics driver issues which is out of Microsoft's control. If that isn't the case, the issues at hand were probably caused by the developers of the game writing code that relied on the fact that took advantage of unsupported effects of certain api. They never should have written the game this way in the first place and what it does is prevent Microsoft from rewriting parts of the operating system without breaking anything. (Much like how many popular websites use unsupported CSS hacks because they work but then complain when Microsoft or Mozilla makes a change to an unrelated piece of code that breaks the hack -- which never should have worked in the first place.) But back to my point, there is no current viable alternative to Windows for gamers that want to play any game off the shelf.
Developers:
I don't understand how anyone can program without a graphical debugger such as the one included in Visual Studio -- props to all of you who do and are happy about that. For me, the ability to easily step through lines of code as they execute, manipulate memory in real time, and change the order that code is executed has easily saved me from hours of otherwise tedious debugging (asserts and cerr can only do so much.)
Severs:
To be honest, I'm not very familiar with server technologies. Linux seems to definitely have a head-up on Windows in this market -- at least for people that just want to dev
What bugs me is that with every release, MS Windows gets slower. In contrast, each time I upgrade Linux, it gets faster. My laptop boots up to the login screen in 35 seconds. I type the username and password and then it takes 5 seconds to pop up a completely usable desktop - not a nice looking desktop that still doesn't work like all Windows versions tend to do. So, 40 seconds for a cold boot from the hard disk. What kind of super machine is this? A 1.3GHz Celeron M! Oh, well, what the hell...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
The OS being a resource hog is (at least in part) caused by the DRM.
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
I do the exact same thing. I used to pirate like crazy and still have a lot of pirated things, and still pirate some things; it used to be like an addiction. Having the latest and greatest, cracked and working just felt good, especially for free. The problem is there is a risk of getting caught, even if you are not a cracker or "supplier", and I never planned on using Photoshop CS2 cracked for commercial purposes simply because I find that to be "wrong" in some way.
After some time of pirating, I began to find a lot of freeware (Windows has so much) and a lot of free and open source apps as well. I would say it probably started with Firefox years ago (although IE is free with Windows, which I always pirated). Then I looked into switching from Outlook Express to Thunderbird, did that successfully and I am still very happy with Thunderbird (hope the new team does not mess it up). I started using so much freeware and free software; most of my software on my Windows partition is freeware or free software, and I have replaced commercial programs with free ones; for example, I have removed MS Office and put OpenOffice and I have removed Photoshop CS2 in favour of GIMP (I really think anything that can be done in Photoshop can be done with GIMP). This year I have really started to use Linux a lot, starting with Kubuntu, now Gentoo AMD64. I am hardly ever on Windows and when I am it is to generate an nLite Windows XP for a friend or myself, to play games, or emulators that are not on Linux (Project64) or that do not work well on Linux yet. Also my Skype phone does not work in Linux at all, and my PS2 controller to USB adapter only sort of works. I learn a new thing in Linux just about every day, and I love it.
My friends constantly ask why I detest using commercial programs. They say things like "Well, I'm not a programmer so why do I need open source?" or things like "Why use X when you can just download Y?" For example, GIMP over Photoshop. A lot of them use Firefox but they almost never use freeware, and really like downloading software off torrents and using cracks and keygens, etc. I thought the idea of cracking software was really cool at one point, and it still does prove skill to me, but right now I see no point (other than games and software with dongles, because having to put in the CD or dongle JUST for the protection is absolutely ridiculous to me). What my friends and people who pirate do not realise is that they are only perpetuating the problem of companies using 'better' protections on their software and soon software may just take forever and crackers will just give up, because if I were a cracker, I would never spend more than 24 man hours on a crack. The companies will not stop using protections until piracy goes down, and hopefully when it does, everyone who pirated will be using free alternatives instead anyway.
Now if the software was sold at a decent price then of course people would perhaps not pirate, but I see almost NO reason to pirate software (excluding games) today when there is almost ALWAYS a viable free (or free and open source) alternative with no strings attached. Yet, there are so many people out there willing to use pirated software (even for commercial ends) just because market share to them represents quality. It is a really bad situation, and it affects the open source movement a lot in my opinion. How can open source prove itself to be better than pirating the so-called 'latest and greatest' from X company to the kid out there with no money?
OK, I'll bite...
Macs are "Fisher Price Toys" because they use sub-standard hardware.
Oh, wait... they use the same stuff everyone else does.
It must be because they're so much more expensive than the other options.
Wait... they're competitively priced.
OK, it must be the silly one button mouse and the plastic iBook case.
Hmm... Macs come with multibutton mice, and the latest iMacs are made with glass and aluminum...?
Well, it must be that crash-prone non-multitasking OS that gets in your way, contains bloat, runs slowly, and sacrifices usefulness for flashy images.
Wait... we're talking about OS X, or Vista here? OS X is sleek and efficient, and is officially a Unix OS now. Aqua's just a flashy front end.
Welcome to 2007. This isn't System 7.0 on a Mac Plus vs. MS DOS on an IBM PC AT we're talking about here.
that was a beautiful post. Thank you very much.
sig sig sig siggy sig
To spread your generalization a bit further, ALL coders fit this mould. Businesses choose Windows because then they know who to sue when things don't work right.
Almost my story exactly. I started into computers with a shiny new Apple ][ and progressed up the tree. Now I am a systems admin on some pretty big systems.
I have been the resource for friends and in college ran a business on the side helping people with their Windows computers. I did the full run up through the different DOS versions, Windows 3.0, 3.1, 95, and XP. I didn't bother with Vista.
I switched to Linux with Red Hat 9 but now run SuSe 10.1. I run dual-boot with XP on a couple of systems and XP sees the light of day when I want to play some game. For any office stuff I either use Open Office or use Microsoft Office with Crossover Office. I never surf or buy anything online under Windows - that is just too risky.
I have a three-seat XP license and that was the last thing I'll probably ever buy from Microsoft. Linux is so much better for almost everything most want to do. It's the gamers and a few niche programs that are the only Windows draws. But for e-mail, surfing, and most office stuff, Linux and Open Office will do everything just fine and for free, with better security, and less headaches.
That's just how it is. People can even dual-boot if they need to keep XP around for those gaming sessions or whatever.
There is nothing keeping the Vista-abused from trying Linux but their own reluctance to try something new. If they don't want to, that's their problem. As for me, I am not helping anyone with Vista. I have no experience with it, refuse to pay $250 for the pro version, and my free time is now a lot more free. And I don't even have to make any excuses not to help them. With no Vista install, I can't walk people through setting up their network connections, restoring their registry, through menus, or whatever other things people have trouble with. It's kind of nice.
... just kidding :)
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
"The [allegedly] slow adoption of Vista is not due to DRM; it's because the OS is a resource hog"
I just ordered a new Dell. Limited budget so it's only got 1 gig of ram. It ships with bloody Vista! 1 gig of ram... Jesus. First thing that'll be happening when I open the packaging is I'll be slapping in my XP Pro disk, followed by an Ubuntu disk. (Sadly I don't live in an area that can get the Dell with Linux instead of Windows.)
I was in an argument with people just the other day over Vista. Someone was bitching about it, and some responded "Well don't use it, it's not like your forced to." To which I pointed out that actually, if you buy a new computer, you are forced too if you don't have install disks, which most people likely don't due to the shitty recovery disks you get with systems rather than real install disks. You're only LEGAL option is what? Go with Linux, or stick with Vista, or you can try and find a legit copy of XP somewhere.
So the person took a new direction and started saying how all those condemning Vista are crackpots, he bought up 9/11 conspiracy theorists and lumped the anti-Vista crowd with them... Classy!
Now this article, from Louderback... I mean here's a guy who was pro-Vista, has been supportive of MS etc... And he's saying he's done.
How much more is it going to take for the drones to wake up and realise that Vista is one giant clusterfuck, with innumerable problems, not to mention crippling DRM, and who knows what else under the hood. (Like the adware that Microsoft recently patented.)
OS wars will always happen, but it seems that the defenders of Vista aren't just fanboys, they're delusional.
I'm not trolling, I seriously want to know. I installed it but then went back to XP because something wasn't compatible, so, what's wrong with Vista? Everyone here says it sucks and it's the most horrible thing ever, but I haven't seen anyone say what they don't like about it. Could someone (or preferably a few people) enlighten me?
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
It is true. Take me for instance. I do media work with audio and video and there just aren't any Linux apps that come close to the polish and support of the commercial apps I use like Sound Forge, Vegas and Pro Tools. Sure, there are high end custom apps built for Linux at major studios, but that's another step up in the media business and the apps are supported right on site.
Is it me? Or are AC's not even trying anymore?
I'm actually an OS X fanboi. And while I agree with most of your anecdotal evidence, I must say that for me, WIndows XP does not crash. I suspect that 99% of the reason for that is that I don't expect it to actually do very much. When you don't really load much software on it, or use it for web surfing or e-mail, XP is stable.
Of course the fact that you have to treat it with kid gloves to keep it that way is likely the point.
Funny, I don't remember the last time I had a serious Windows crash and I haven't seen a BSOD in years. XP is stable enough for me and you can't blame the OS for poorly written apps that crash. If you think that Macs don't crash you are living in a bubble. My buddy just had to reinstall OSX and Pro Tools again last week because it was going wonky. That's all he has on the box because he wants to keep it a pure DAW and after a year he had to reinstall. Another friend of mine is a total Mac fanatic and he does casual support as a side job for Mac users. He's busy enough that he is considering quitting his day job and doing it full time. Every OS has problems. Your assertion that XP crashing several times a week is as disingenuous as you accuse me of being. As for Linux I haven't used it since last year. I installed Ubunutu on 2 PCs. I worked great and the other was a nightmare. I gave up after doing research for 3 days to try to get the sound working on a bog standard Asus mobo with built-in sound and NIC. The irony is that it worked just fine in Windows XP.
nneonneo: Wow, that was a hell of a read and, I'm sorry to say, very funny:) Though I imagine you were anything but laughing.
So I assume you're back on XP now:)
Well my disdain for it has no basis in experience, rather other peoples experience. However, my disdain for shooting myself in the foot with a shotgun is also based on other peoples experience rather than my own. Doesn't make it any less valid.
While some neophytes might base their opinion on no experience, the fact is I'd bet most of the Slashdot crowd know enough to know where the truth lies in regards to Vista, regardless of whether they've used it or not.
Look at the stats, it's not gamers and a "few niche programs" that drive Windows sales. It's business. The defacto standard is Windows and MS Office. That's the way it is now and most business see no advantage to jumping ship because of the investment they already have in Windows networks and applications. It's like how entrenched Apple is in the media business. I am happy that you want the flexibility that Linus offers, but you are a small minority. Most people think of their PC as the same thing as their VCR or stereo, they don't care how, they just want it to work. Also, it takes a very small effort to install a couple apps that will take care of malware and viruses, it's just that a lot of people don't. Windows is an easy and popular target. You can guarantee that as Linux gets more popular there will be people out there looking for exploits in that OS as well. If I need to get over my OS sucking people like you need to get over the fact that Linux is not the only answer and it's not ready for mass consumption.
I use XP as workhorse OS to do media production including multitrack audio and video editing. It's rock solid for me and if it wasn't I'd move on to something else because my time is money.
The thing though, is that XP isn't really a 7-year-old OS. It *would* be if Microsoft quit development on it, but they're continuing to patch it and add more support for it. I suppose you could call it a 3-year-old OS, since SP2 came out in 2004, and SP3 apparently is only adding support for more registration keys.
Calling Windows XP a 7-year-old OS is like calling modern Linux systems nearly 4 years old because the 2.6 branch was released in late 2003. Or that servers are running 6-year-old OS's because the 2.4 branch was released in 2001.
I bought 3 laptops for my family, two of them were Turion X2's one by acer, one by gateway, and a basic dual core pentium m system by everex. Anyway, the gateway had vista home premium, and the others had home basic. I upgraded the home premium system from 1GB ram to 2.5GB, and got the home basic systems up to a respectable 1.5GB of ram each.
Anyway, after hours of tweaking my gateway I still could not get the damn thing under 210MB Idle at startup with no startup programs running and all useless services turned off (and with XPSP2 I generally like it to be somewhere around 77MB usage max on a clean restart on mem usage considering no other programs are launched ar startup), and the interface, even though it resembled windows 2000 after I was done with it, was still very slow and unresponsive. The networking was a nightmare and didn't work 1/2 of the time, and NONE OF THE SYSTEMS WOULD SLEEP RIGHT! heck, 2 of the systems wouldn't even hibernate for me, and this is a preloaded system. Tech support at gateway, acer, and everex all assured me that it was a driver problem and that all of it was resolved in new drivers....which they hadn't been.... I got excuses stemming from microsoft, themselves, their vendors, driver writers, you name it, excuses, but no solutions.
So I went through updating driver and patch hell, sometimes installing modified xp drivers in attempt to get things working, got called a liar and many other nasty things on some unofficial vista support forums after suggesting I was displeased with the performance and suggesting that this cannot be just the driver's fault alone,
after about 3 hours of dicking around with things so far buried into the operating system I was beginning to think that it was like trying to get Xfree86 running in Red Hat 5 with a ATI radeon back in the day, and several system recovery's later after I screwed up the OS so badly it wouldn't boot anymore, so I threw in the towel and loaded XP on the two laptops that were going to my family members, and left vista on mine. I finally got it running almost decently, and ran it for two weeks and noticed that it tended to slow down at random times.
I found vista required the most work out of the box to make it even slightly functional-
I mean on other OS's, I don't have to surgically remove useless services, ei the windows "nanny", or interfaces which chew up ram to make something look pretty, or find odd versions of drivers which are broken in one regard, but possibly not another, drivers that weren't even made for the device I am using, but perhaps another made by a different vendor with the same chipset. Also it doesn't help that there are stumbling blocks built right into it because they assume that the user is completely useless, or the fact that they re-arranged all the important control panels, and replaced quite a few of them with useless counterparts. I finally gave up on my laptop and loaded XP onto it.
For those who are curious, I did go through a few headaches tracking down drivers for everything in XP, but i found that more often than not the XP drivers were bundled with the vista drivers, or at least the vista drivers somehow worked under XP. I have already loaded XP on 11 of my customer's laptops which came with one form of vista or another, and I have already run out of my little stockpile of XP Pro OEM liscenses I bought a years back... Perhaps I should snag a few more before they disappear.
I too used to pirate software but I am now proud to say that most of the software I use is Open Source, both within Windows XP & Linux.
In addition, because I have learnt to appreciate and understand software much better since using Linux for the 10 years I have done, the 4 or 5 commercial apps I do like on Windows (Alcohol 120%, Tag & Rename, XPLite, GetRight plus a couple of others) are fully registered to me, even though it would have been easy to use them Free Of Charge with a crack or keygen.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
And I wasn't talking about the Slashdot crowd (although I think the Slashdot crowd is too hard on Vista, but that's a whoooole different ball of wax), I actually did mean average users.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
"And users can run it dual-boot if they still need their wondows training wheels."
Or if they actually want to play games... I used Linux exclusively for 3+ years. I went back to Windows because I'm a gamer, and could never get this system to dual boot properly. I use race sims which would require my game to work, my wheel and pedals to work etc... It has nothing to do with "training wheels" and everything to do with functionality. I love games. That is STILL the one arena Linux falls over in. Yes, someone will list a bunch of games that run in Linux, and you know what? Most will suck. It doesn't run the games I WANT TO RUN. rFactor, GTR2, Battlefield 2 etc...
Please don't think I'm a Windows supporter because I'm not (well, read my other posts for this story) but to think that the only reason to keep Windows around is because you're a newbie is flat out wrong.
There's a difference between being a Microsoft supporter, and being a realist about Linux.
I've had a lot of XP crashes lately. Turned out to be bad ram. When that wasn't an issue I can honestly say, hand on heart, that for me, over five years, XP has been very stable. Certainly far more stable than 98 ever was.
I mean it's no Linux in it's uptime certainly, but I routinely have it up for a week or more (OO-ER VICAR!) and nine times out of ten I choose to reboot rather than a crash forcing me too.
He admits that he "put together" his own machine. Could that be why it does not wake up from sleep mode? Or why he's having so many other troubles?
I've found that the more someone messes with settings, the more likely they are to cause serious problems down the line. I have no doubt that this self-proclaimed power user has been doing plenty of messing around.
On the other hand, I have a brand-new Dell system which did not ship with Vista. I loaded Vista on it, and everything works perfectly -- including sleep and hibernate. I also have a two-year old Dell laptop which I loaded Vista onto, and it too works perfectly. The wireless reconnects after a standby in 15-20 seconds. Not great, but not bad enough to drive me to Linux.
His issues might have more clout if they were experienced by more people. But it seems to me that the only people "suffering" from Vista are the ones who are using unsupported hardware, or are trying to mess with settings to the point they break things. Oh, there's also the group that spreads FUD about Vista without actually trying it, regurgitating the FUD that others have already tried to spread.
Here's a conspiracy theory: Jim Louderback's new company is a geek-focused video-blog of sorts, professing the greatness of BitTorrent and other open-standard goodness. Could it be that this final editorial was an attempt to give him a little bit of geek street cred? Shame Vista and the geeks will come.
-David
Somewhere in my horrendously badly organized bookmarks I have a page bookmarked that was linked on here I believe, to a guy who got 2000 running on a machine with 32 megs of ram. If I recall the story, even Microsoft contacted him to find out how the hell he did it.
You're a troll and will probably not reply, but please, what can Windows 95 do that Linux can't? Aside from crash far more regularly that is.
I don't experience the frequent crashes in XP that GGP speaks of - but I wish it would because the longer it's up the worse and worse it runs. In 2 years my work desktop has shat down its own throat twice (not that surprising for a sysadmins desktop, they're like mechanic's cars) and been reinstalled. I would confidently wager that you could walk up to it (while it's on but gone to sleep), unlock it, start outlook, and print the first email you see inside of five minutes. I know because I tried exactly this yesterday. An XP machine can never keep up with me, and always leaves me with time to do a crossword / work on the Mac next to it while I wait for it to do things as stupid as populate the "All programs" submenu.
I had just received a new laptop yesterday and had been waiting to try out Vista. I'm already considering going back to XP for now (I have Ubuntu on other machines in the house, but my work generally requires windows).
It's a bit sad that they couldn't fix some basic issues. The main one I'm running into is copying files over the network is ridiculously slow (as in 100K/second) which I found out while trying to move files from my old laptop. I spent most of yesterday running around looking for "fixes" which generally meant disabling things like indexing and the whole microsoft search thing, but none of those seem to be working. I even tried installing some of the recent patches online, but nothing is speeding up the copies.
Oh well, maybe Dell will let me trade it in for a regular copy of xp again.
Microsoft Windows XP, from a site-licensed, corporate installed image crashed for me every couple of days or so. A very old RHEL does not on the same hardware - a Lenovo T60 notebook.
You guys change the rules so much, what is it now? The preinstalls are filled with crapplets - so buy another license and install the base OEM version, the preinstalls suck so I installed a version from work,
What does "rock solid" mean to you? Do you have > 1 year of uptime? No! But if you were running Linux or Solaris or something else like that, you would. A computer should never have to be rebooted. Ever. Anything else is inferior software.
Oh wait, Microsoft Windows is only stable if you never install any other software on it (you didn't write that, but plenty of other
I got a new laptop about a week ago, a Toshiba A200-AH7 for the record. Nice system, I must add; rather inexpensive, and, to be brutally honest with the Mac fandom crowd, a hell of a lot more inexpensive than the Macbook (2GB RAM, 160GB HDD, Core Duo 2.0GHz, etc. etc.).
You seem to have left out the most important difference: you can play Warcraft III on a Macbook.
Funny, I find myself doing almost the opposite. I switched to Ubuntu on my laptop (a massive hardware failure/power surge makes it my exclusive PC until the insurance sends a check) and at work (Windows XP) when I want to see the desktop I am hitting ALT+CTRL+D as opposed to SUPER/WINDOWS+D. Odd since I've been trained to do the latter for years now. For whatever reason WIN+D has become the keyboard short cut that I'm using the most. I surprised this has taken over that quickly since there are only 4 icons on my Ubuntu desktop compared to the 15-20 I've had on other PC's here at home and the gargantuan amount of icons on my work desktop (I've five folders that point to reports I have to complete each week, each folder holding about ten links to reports, plus all of the AS/400 connectivity icons I have like Spyview, IBM's terminal emulator and such).
Get your Unix fortune now!
I realize it was a spurious analogy. Fun though.:) But yes, you're probably right about average users.
The one actual friend of mine who was very excited about Vista... Well he installed it, only to discover his soundcard won't work. Nor are Creative planning on releasing a driver for it apparently, so he now has to dualboot XP to play games.
I mean I'm all for dualbooting, but two different Windows installs? Why bother? I mean he really has no need to run Vista anyway. I think he's mad.
If you want a good networking stack, you simply grab the BSD source and you're done.
Even Apple understands that.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Too bad he had to step down to make his real fealings known. So, the truth comes out. After all these years. Maybe if a few more reporters would step down, we would get some actual coverage rather than the paid for view.
I have no interest in running any Windows, as Linux and other OS's do everything I want and need. Gotta go boot into XP now to update the AV, Firewall, ad-blockers, security crap, and defrag the disk. Then back to Linux to get some real stuff done, like reading /. :-)
1011 1010 1101 1100 0000 1111 1111 1110 1110
Here's my advice for a new guy considering Linux.
1. DO IT. Linux is more stable, runs faster on lesser hardware, comes preloaded with tons of great apps that are nearly as good as, or better than their windows or mac os counter parts, and is totally free.
2. UBUNTU. This little OS has come a long way. It's got most of the latest greatest in it, it's easy to use, and you ALMOST don't have to use the command line anymore. Yeah, I don't know why it took Linux 10 years to get out of the command line, either, but it's nearly there now!
3. COMPIZ. The new compiz-fusion is awesome. If you are coming from the Windows world, you just upgraded big time. Congratulations.
4. WINE AND WINE-DOORS. Let's face it, there are still some stupid games or apps that don't have a good Linux version. Not to worry, utorrent runs in wine very well, as does firefox (with flash). It works well for almost everything I've thrown at it, except for Nintendo 64 emulators (joystick trouble) and Civilization 2 (Freeciv sucks, don't bother). I also like to use UltraVNC, because I HATE THE COMMAND LINE.
5. AVOID AUTOMATIX. Once gutsy comes out (the next official release of Ubuntu), you probably won't need it any way, and it does screw stuff up for some people (I was one of 'em!).
6. VIRTUAL MACHINES. Particularly if you have a dual core machine, you can have all your OSes at once, on different sides of your compiz cube. Virtual Machine technology is enabling new exciting things like never before. Also, if you still HAVE to run windows for something (I do about once a month, still), I recommend MicroXP. It's a hacked version of Windows that takes up way less room, and is very efficient as a virtual machine.
7. GET YOUR HANDS DIRTY. It was unnerving for about a week, but Linux is so infinitely configurable, get in there and get your hands dirty. You can have it do anything you want, and as such, there are a few disconcerting extra menus and command line procedures you may want to learn, but if you do, you will have much more power and speed then was ever possible on any version of Windows.
8. GET ON IRC and FORUMS. There are tons of people that can give you good advice on the freenode IRC, and also the ubuntu forums are useful.
9. TRASH YOUR NON-LINUX HARDWARE. I have an X-fi that I don't miss at all. Creative doesn't make drivers or open source their hardware specs? FUCK 'EM! I don't miss it at all, and Linux is completely worth the $50 sound card I didn't really need anyway.
6.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Vista is to XPsp2 as WinME is to Win98SE
I've experiments to run, there is research to be done on the people who are still alive.
I thought you used Kubuntu because if your OS is any other colour than blue, it threatens your fragile sexuality?
There are genres of PC games that don't exist on consoles.
I don't think we'll see Civ 5 on xbox, or NWN 3 on playstation.
Fung-fu games need controllers, strategy games need mouse+keyboard, c'est la vie.
I personally prefer mouse+keyboard FPSs instead of a controller, but I know many people disagree.
Frankly, one or two buttons, Apple's mouse is terrible. The shape is all wrong, uncomfortable to hold -- unlike their excellent ADB "teardrop" mouse from the pre-iMac days. Ditto about their keyboards!
Circumcision is child abuse.
Mac fans are not disturbed by the fact that your cheap-@$$ laptop is only semi-functional.
They shouldn't be celebrating either... his laptop is about as nice as theirs, with a significantly smaller price tag.
But most unfortunately, his operating system is "semi-functional".
Whatever. Obviously you aren't rational about this. I reboot when I install driver updates, but other than that the apps I use 90% of the time are SF, Vegas and Pro Tools and they are solid. In other words they don't crash, even when I push them. I can do 60 tracks of audio with no problems and render HD video with multi-track audio and effects and I don't remember a crash. Do I leave my PC on 100% of the time? No, but that's a personal choice and is more about power consumption than anything. If you can point me in the direction of Linux apps that support all the plug-ins I use and have the same power and polish I'll be more than willing to give them a try. As it stand there isn't anything that matches the applications I mentioned.
Yeah, with a shed-load of DRM built-in. Hollywood seems to think that they should totally OWN absolutely anything that can display their content. And Microsoft is now in bed with them.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I'm currently running Vista on a 5+ year old computer with a gig of ram and an Athlon XP 2700 in it. Vista doesn't have working drivers for either of the network adapters built into the board, nor does it have drivers for the AC97 codec on the board meaning I wouldnt be able to use the SPDIF output on the board. They don't even have reference drivers for the codec or the ethernet adapters. I really wish we could just put XP on this machine, but we can't get a key for it because Microsoft no longer sells them.
On top of the numerous missing drivers, it's running a Radeon 9550 which crashed the system about every 5 minutes requiring a hard reboot. Thankfully I updated the drivers which fixed this problem for the most part, but every so often it craps itself. If this is what ditching legacy support means, a giant fucking OS install and total driver incompatibility, then I'm not interested.
How do you make something that has a similar number of features to XP but takes up twice as much space?
SRSLY.
I realize that is a bit of a throw away line, but have you *ever* heard of anyone even trying to sue Microsoft because "things didn't work right"?
If someone did successfully do this, they'd end up broke in no time flat!
Ever stop to think
Let us all know when you get to the 1990's or something else more modern.
"But I wonder if going to linux there will make his life simpler"
I've used it for 8 years. Don't expect hibernate and sleep modes to work on 95% of the boxes you can assemble. At least that has been my experience for the many boxes I have put together. Apparently, it takes black magic beyond anyone writing code that follows the spec. The prior poster has one of the few exceptions - a Thinkpad.
I see this sort of comment flying around on here, unchallenged. As much as I love MS bashing, does anybody have any links to articles that verify this? Doesn't the DRM only come in to play when you want to watch HD-DVD or Blu Ray movies (or some Windows Media format)? How can it be sitting there chewing cycles at any other time?
Another poster on here insinuated that user's would not want to move from Vista to XP because they like to use P2P programs. How on earth does Vista prevent that?
-- The doctor said I wouldn't get so many nose bleeds if I just kept my finger out of there!
This guy makes a pretty good point. You don't argue for adoption of an OS by suggesting that people who use its alternative are children or idiots. Pay attention to the insulting diction grandparent uses. It pisses people off.
SRSLY.
That's like saying your car is as nice as mine, but the engine is only semi-functional. You pay a premium for OS X, but it's worth every last cent.
-- The doctor said I wouldn't get so many nose bleeds if I just kept my finger out of there!
Wonderful post, I agree with most of it, but why are games the special case? What makes them okay to pirate but all other software not?
Microsoft is decades behind decent O/S designers. I'm not at all a fan of the Macintrash, but I have to admit that what it has signed up to do, it does it with style and speed. Good going Apple! (and maybe someday I'll learn how to spell macintosh correctly) When you don't really load much software on it, or use it for web surfing or e-mail, XP is stable. Oh god! I have seen the light! I will dump my two Linux machines for 40 Microsoft Windows XP boxes so they have light enough load not to crash! Allahu-akbar!
(This is flamebait not flaimbait or flaimbate so please make sure you spell it correctly when you moderate this down Microsoft Fan Boys. Thank you!)
Even the mainstream media is saying it. This is Forbes' take on Vista.
DRM is bad, both for consumers and for the entertainment industry: something the entertainment industry is just starting to realize, but Microsoft is still fighting.In the meantime, the only advice I can offer you is to not upgrade to Vista.
http://www.forbes.com/security/2007/02/10/microsoI've seen similar sentiments in a lot of trade mags too, as well as many of the other complaints being aired here.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Agreed. I use debian/sid so I am regularly tweaking and upgrading but that is all part of using the unstable branch and I have a lot of fun doing it. Now that might make me eccentric in some people's eyes but I simply consider myself to be a computer enthusiast rather than just a user (I'm an old timer that remembers dos2 being released). My mother on the other hand is in her late 60's and started out quite computer illiterate so I have set her up on debian/etch. She installs the occasional application using apt-get but generally just uses the machine as I set it up. She has absolutely no problems with her setup and loves it. When she hears people say that using linux is hard she laughs at them and says "If I can use it anybody can". In fact, when she has to use winblows on other people's machines she hates it and says it doesn't make sense.
"A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist" - Sir Humphrey Appleby
and my windows 2000 machine doesnt crash.
neither does my windows xp machine after cleaning it out.
and hey! my os was free too! aint freeware great!
Life happens OUTSIDE of your house and away from a computer.
Indeed it does. But much of our life, emailing friends and looking at web sites, is spent in front of a computer - and it's that time that I speak of.
As someone who does a lot of outdoors things and watches hardly any TV, I know where you are coming from... but between work and home most of us face the inevitable need to spend a significant portion of our week at a computer.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I guess this is a YMMV scenario, because I also have 1GB of RAM, and things slow down all the time for me.
For instance, right now I've got AIM and FireFox going, and my RAM usage is up at 530MB (that's a bit high IMHO but I'll leave that to another discussion).
Things aren't slow at the moment...but wait until I get a few more tabs open in FireFox, start up uTorrent, etc.
Sometimes under moderate load, the mouse stops responding completely. I've *never* had that happen in XP. Why? I don't know. I thought Vista was supposed to be better about I/O than XP?
Most of the things that were supposed to be better in Vista just don't work like they're supposed to, it seems.
Honestly? Linux is looking better and better.
I totally agree since I too came from heavy Linux/UNIX use back into Windows some time ago (at work). The thing is on the WM front, since a Windows user doesn't really understand what that flexibility is good for it doesn't really help them (at first).
I think for the Windows user switching it's more a matter of feeling cramped in the app set, coming from Office to a less integrated set of tools, or at least less polished.... that and other apps they are used to, and not understanding how much they can get aith apt-get equivilents for free vs. buying commerical software.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
My experienced with Vista isn't extensive but I've seen enough, LOL!. Apologies. None of the machines I have currently will support it's massive needs anyways. Because of that fact, I'll probably never have it. Buying a new PC isn't an option right now. There no reason to buy new since they work. My machines will support XP though and that meets ALL my needs. I finally understand why my parents hung on to Win98 fo so long.
After seeing so many people complain about Vista I've actually started taking serious steps at migrating to Linux and building some competency using it. It leaves a lot to be desired sometimes when you have problems compiling programs that need all these dependencies? If MS really listened and researched properly before forcibly deploying this new OS; I don't think there would have been so many defectors. It's the beginning of the end for Microsofts dominance as a trusted software solutions provider.
Those are both nice posts. Many thanks, The Bungi. You are allways like a breath of ass. Have you ever said anyting nice to anyone?
Now for a significant distinction. I don't hate the software, I hate it's owners because they are a bunch of evil and abusive people like yourself. The software is second rate, but it came for all sorts of places and is just a tool, like The Bungi.
I have not submitted the Vista failure log because it's a log, not news. I do submit individual items and many of them have been published. The log strings them together to form a compelling picture of failure that anyone can review and comment on. Show me something wrong and I'll correct it.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
What? What are you talking about? EVERYTHING crashes. MacOS X does (rarely). Linux does (I run 600 servers full bore all the time, yup RHEL 3 and 4 and a few on 5 - though I do get high uptime on them, of course I've seen crashes, on every single kernel I've ever run!).
Be realistic. Honestly, I've not experienced Windows XP crashes that often. Usually once a year, it crashes bad enough to warrant a reinstall - don't know what's up with that). It certainly doesn't crash a couple times a week.
sloth jr
I do not think it is really okay to pirate games but the fact is you cannot test out these games at the store to see if they are really worth the $50 and now $60 they are going to be. $50 is a lot of money in my opinion (even though software is often hundreds or thousands). I have purchased games when they are at a decent price even if it that means waiting till they are (often years from their release date).
Maybe what stores and online stores should do is give a demo. In the store, they should have every game's demo installed on a PC (this really would not be very hard, even a newbie at a PC could do this), and no company should not make a demo of their game in my opinion.
I know they are already doing this with Vista's game explorer but I hate Vista anyway. I know the game sites often have demos but these should be linked directly from online stores. And the downloadable demo should be playable without installing, it should be available as a zip (I absolutely hate installers, because you lose almost all control of what it will do).
The reason stores keep their kiosk mode browser on the laptops and PCs is because they do not want customers to find out how lousy Vista is. And same for the game stores, which have Vista's game explorer going all day. This is a kiosk app as well and they are not selling Vista but Microsoft could easily sue for misrepresentation.
Perhaps a free game demo (including free, and free and open source games) package manager would be a good idea? Hmm... *goes to make one*
If software companies (including game companies) are going to survive when open source is taking over, the only way to do it I would say is to provide store (including online store) demos. Then people can make an informed decision, whether it is to blow $50 on a game they might not like, or hundreds on software that is completely garbage (Windows Vista). When you get a car, you test drive it, don't you? Same should be for software.
I think I am going to demo (real demos, not downloading from "illegal" sources) new games from here on out and then decide if I am going to buy them, but maybe only when the price is under $30. $30 is a little bit unreasonable to me even, but it is much better than $60 or $50. It saves time and disk space and possibly DVDs/CDs.
Truthfully, I am addicted to Crack Attack, KPoker, Dopewars, and Same GNOME on Linux now. Great games.
Let me make a suggestion, Mr. Louderback: could it be because you didn't do your damned job in the first place? Instead of taking an objective approach to Vista, you climbed on board its bandwagon without having any valid reason for doing so. In the process, you dragged a lot of your readers into OS hell. This is inexcusable.
Development is programmable; Discovery is not programmable. (Fuller)
Calling Windows XP a 7-year-old OS is like calling modern Linux systems nearly 4 years old because the 2.6 branch was released in late 2003.
Don't you wish M$ had anything that new for you? Still, there's no comparing the two, because there's no branch of free software that's ever kept from the public.
M$ is completely outnumbered and outclassed anyway. If M$ put the same kind of work into XP as free software authors put into their work, XP would have become Vista by 2003, M$ would be releasing Win7 and you would have a vast choice of file systems, window managers and programs for every purpose. Non free software does not evolve the same way free software does and much of Vista is really code that goes all the way back to DOS and early Windows. That's why exploits for the newest systems always go back as many versions of Windoze as the AV community cares to report. The non free way of doing things has been over a long time. Vista may really be the last version of Windows.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I would have said your definition for Windows was more applicable to Macs. For Windows I would put it at something like: For users who don't want to spend time looking at other options (which in its own way is similar to your definition).
To be fair, XP rarely crashed for me.
I'm currently using SUSE. After my 1st install (on an old, slow computer) I liked the reliablity of it, but wanted something faster. Putting SUSE on my main PC (which has been working pretty much non-stop with XP) I wasn't at all impressed. It was failing constantly for no obvious reason. I re-installed and the system has been FAR more stable, although it has still crashed on occasion.
Win 98 crashed frequently for me. (Previous computer) Win 95 and NT 4 in college both crashed non-stop. Win 3.1 crashed fairly frequently for me. At work I used 1st 2000, then XP, both of which have been very stable.
Before I tried SUSE, I used (and loved) Red Hat. RH never gave me a minute of trouble. I tried Puppy Linux but wasn't impressed. (It wanted to scan my HD for some reason when starting from CD (taking several minutes), if installed it might be better)
I'm going to try D*mn Small Linux, Fedora and Ubuntu soon. For some reason with nothing running but Kopete, Kate and Firefox SUSE keeps getting bogged down on a 600 or 1800 AMD chip with 1GB of RAM. I'm a 3-4 lines of start bar windows user (admittedly mostly explorer windows and notepads, but still) and SUSE isn't giving me XP level performance.
XP seems to have gotten a lot right. While I think the new interface looks like it was designed by Duplo (lego for those who might eat normal lego bricks) once you make it look like 2000 / 95 and spend 30 minutes changing minor interface annoyances it works fairly well, and has for several computers I've used at work.
The command line is getting steadily more powerful, although it probably could use a redesign. Windows Scripting Host, hated as it is can be considered a replacement command line if you need more power.
Is it me? Or are AC's not even trying anymore?
They never had much to work with but now they have nothing left but harassment and distraction.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Another "me too" on the good feeling one gets from having legal machines. I haven't used an MS product on my home workstation in many years - - strictly Linux. Although I must admit that I use rdesktop and VNC to remotely manage MS servers at work. The Citrix client for Linux is pretty spiffy these days. I'm a Centos fan and $upporter and just can't get over the sheer versatility and power that can be had from current Linux distributions in general. I love the looks on the faces of Windows dudes when I use Yum to pull down new software or updates on the fly. OpenOffice is outrageously good, regardless of being free. No more pirated MS Office for me. It's just the right thing to do, not to mention fiscally satisfying. And family members don't ask to "borrow" installation disks anymore, either. :)
It's only funny until someone gets hurt. Then, it's hilarious.
I have been using Vista for the past 6 months on all new hardware, with the exception of my Audigy 2 ZS sound card. The biggest problem has been drivers that support all of the features that the XP drivers had. Most of the hardware manufacturers are just getting caught up with vista drivers for their current product lines, let alone their legacy models.
I would not recommend Vista to the average user, XP is definitely the way to go. That being said, I really like Vista now that I have it tweaked (turned off UA, etc.) and have drivers for all of my devices. One of my only remaining annoyances is that Vista seems to randomly change the folder view from a file listing to one of their context listings for photos or videos.
Well, the famous one is A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection by Peter Guttman; which goes into great detail.
Its not really the DRM, so much, as it is all the "features" (cough cough) that supports the DRM, especially how Vista encrypts alot of traffic crossing the system busses...and how Vista checks the "tilt bits" many many many times per second. All this needless "housekeeping" slows the system down.
You should see how long Vista takes to boot up and run on a Sempron 3100+ with 512mb of ram...
Ye Gods, it's so damned sloooowwwww...
DaveCBio brags:
I reboot when I install driver updates, but other than that the apps I use 90% of the time are SF, Vegas and Pro Tools and they are solid. In other words they don't crash, even when I push them. I can do 60 tracks of audio with no problems and render HD video with multi-track audio and effects and I don't remember a crash. Do I leave my PC on 100% of the time? No, but that's a personal choice and is more about power consumption than anything.
In other words, you boot your computer daily and use if for fancy audio and video work. It rarely crashes while you do this. That's nice, but I expect better and can never, go back to working that way.
I expect better than one day uptime and all the benefits that brings. Instead of booting my laptop, I open the lid and it wakes up. All my work is right where I left it spread across 54 well organized virtual desktops. I can comfortably work on five major projects at once and never forget what I was doing with any of them.
I can't help you with non free video and audio formats but cinerella and audacity are first rate editors. I do not know if they can do everything you need because that's not the kind of work I do.
I'm happy things are working for you but that's more a testament to you being able to work around technical limitations than a story of how great Windoze is.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
That's because /. has nothing left but loons like you ranting from your parents' basements. The inmates are running the asylum.
Enjoy the slow, steady decline into irrelevance.
why do companies (who have a profit-driven bottom-line) choose MS products over free ones?
Legacy and that little thing called a Federal Court Proved Coercive Monopoly.
Despite these things, more businesses are choosing free software. IBM, Google, Chrysler, Lowes, and others have all begun a radical shift away from M$ and have saved themselves all sorts of money and heartache.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Go here to find out how to (most likely) fix your suspend problem. Read the comments there before trying anything - I highly reccomend the advice about using dpkg-divert instead of mucking with too many scripts. If after that Hibernate works but suspend doesn't, add a "-f" to the s2ram command in *pause for breath* /usr/lib/hal/scripts/linux/hal-system-power-suspen d-linux
What does this button d$#%* NO CARRIER
You probably forgot to uninstall Nortons crapware.
What?
Well, Ubuntu is poop brown for a reason...
I don't know why but the sleep mode on my vista doesn't work properly. If I leave the computer for a few hours it goes into sleep mode but I can't wake it up again.
If I didn't trust other people's opinions I would believe that the world is flat; that the continents of Africa, Antarctica and South America don't exist (I've never seen them); and millions of other things.
Really, you go through life having very little proof *personally* of the things you believe. Most of it you "learn" (ie are told and believe) by other people. Knowledge is *social* - it belongs to a population, not any one individual. If others know that Vista is garbage, and I listen, then I know Vista is garbage.
I am anarch of all I survey.
I understand the frustration with Vista, but come on, switch to Linux?! I've used all three versions of Linux, and I'll never use it again for two primary reasons: 1) Doesn't run Internet Explorer, and ) Not enough wizards to get stuff set up.
Don't even get me started on the lack of a Linux version of Weather Bug.
Evil is the money of root.
Move over Java... the new sandbox environment of this decade is the Win32 API running inside a virtual machine on linux or OSX. What software _doesn't_ work in such a setup aside from 3d games?
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
That's because /. has nothing left but loons like you ranting from your parents' basements.
/. has nothing left but loons like you ranting from your parents' basements. With me as sole exception."
I'll correct this for you:
"That's because
Oh no, wait, that's why you posted as AC; so that we wouldn't know the identity of you, as being doomed to live in your parents' basement forever.
A few message boards? Why not stick to the Ubuntu boards? The people there are generally very helpful and not arrogant. They are also usually correct in their advice, unlike the windows boards I used to read, where 12-year olds were pulling really bad advice out of their asses.
Sent from the iPad I found in your car.
But this has nothing to do with Linux in and of itself. It seems the ultimate solution in your case would be to persuade your favorite game developers to develop cross-platform.
Who hasn't had many issues with Vista.
That said, it doesn't offer much over what XP did, except for a few new icons, better integrated search, widgets, and "Aero" which sucks anyway.
But it works fine. I have an nVidia graphics card for which drivers are quite good. ATI cards (i had one earlier) and I did have some lockups with that, but ATI is notorious for bad driver support, and so I swapped to nVidia. I have a Creative X-Fi card, an HDCP compliant monitor (Dell 24" sweetness!), and a USB Keyboard/Mouse. Everything works just like it did with XP.
I admit, I'm kind of an early adopter. Some things annoyed me constantly, like the User Account Control (UAC) and I turned off almost immediately. I run as "Administrator" on my PC. Sleep doesn't work worth a damn, and will always lock up my PC if I try it (It's a custom build though). Didn't work that well under XP either, for that matter.
The issue with Vista or XP or Microsoft on the desktop versus Linux isn't really the issue here. It's a suite of products that Microsoft offers as a complement to their OS which makes Microsoft on the desktop a reasonable business case for most folks. To be sure, not all folks -- I am not going to try and kid you here. Linux has a lot of benefits, so does Mac, but in the end Microsoft development tends to be cheaper and easier to support than any other software deployment for large organizations.
And why do a lot of people have Windows on their PCs at home? "I use it at work." It's not an uncommon answer, and if you can step away from the Slashdot bias (I know it's tough, but try), ask average, every day users why they have a Windows PC at home. That will be in the top 5 answers. That, and Windows PCs are pretty cheap too, and only idiots buy pre-built Linux PCs because frankly, you can get Windows for $25 and format it with Linux ANYWAY. Few people buy Linux PCs for their kids to use, because there are almost zero educational games for Linux. Dell gives people the option because it is pure profit for them to do it -- it's only changing a standard image that the PC you are buying is getting rolled out. Very easy to do, and costs them nothing. You actually wind up paying a premium because you lost out on a copy of Windows for $25 that you could have kept for some other purpose.
I digress though... Windows PCs in the enterprise are generally the norm. Office in a corporate environment is also a 'norm'. Now add to that Sharepoint, which is now Microsoft's fastest growing product, BizTalk which allows for rapid software development without any coding whatsoever (it's all graphical coding) and allows business managers to make changes to 'software' without requiring a developer. Then there is IIS which is probably MS's best product. Other software like Softgrid, SMS, Project, etc... these are all tie-ins to IE, and a Windows based desktop.
If you move to Linux on the desktop, you lose all of those options, and there are no quick fixes to find replacements. Want software to manage and inventory your entire enterprise, roll out patches, software, and lock down workstations for different users? SMS+Active Directory are pretty easy and pretty cheap, and work on Windows only. Is there an equivalent for Linux or Mac? Probably -- but then you lose out on something else, like say, Sharepoint Server which you really could use for your document management, or BizTalk where you wanted to let your managers change business logic on the fly without a developer.
See, the way Microsoft beats Linux and Mac on the desktop is by pushing it through on the corporate side. If we want Linux or Mac to take over the desktop, then they need to offer a SUITE of products. Mac will frankly *never* take over the desktop because it's a closed architecture and they are the only ones who sell the hardware. For a lot of companies, that's like dealing with a mafia and they won't have it. Linux has a great shot, and with the "Click and Run" technology coming out I'm very excited to see the future of Linux as it draws closer
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
I used to have a better sig than this, but I got tired of it
it's because the OS is a resource hog.
:(
I use Vista on my new computer. Faster computer boots slower than my slower XP computer!
Oh well. I also like it for some of the things that I do, and not worrying as much about security as I used to, but I also avoid many of the things that are potential security risks, so still worried
Worried about installing software too, and I just use the computer for what it's best at.
That's what keeps me using Vista. If you keep trying to optimize and make it what you want, you will become increasingly frustrated to the point where it is not worth keeping. Really a sad statement. Of course it's a good business strategy. Vista is bad like Windows 3.1 was bad? If so, the next version will make people want to upgrade, as long as the beta reviews are positive. Did anyone dump ME for XP? If Microsoft didn't build a new Windows, XP is still good enough even now, so there's no point for Microsoft to actually make Vista better. Why compete against yourself? Vista is a new concept and is expected to have problems. Good enough to sell, and earn something to develop the next version, which we hope will turn things around. Work hard, Microsoft. Vista sucks and I want to replace it. But we're on to you too so it'll have to be a real step up, or else it'll be relegated to a virtual machine.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
But will it? Last time I checked you could only put so much RAM in a 32 bit machine.
No sig today...
While I agree with your analysis that OS X is worth every last cent and your analogy on the parent, I would disagree with your analysis on price; OS X itself only sells for about $130, whereas the only version of Windows you can get for that price is either an upgrade, or a severely hobbled version that can't even begin to stand up against OS X. The bulk of the cost of any Mac comes in the worth of its hardware; the best available for the price you're paying. As Steve Jobs himself has said, Apple refuses to sell crap. Nice comment, though.
99% of the networking problems I see on a day-to-day basis are due to Norton. ...along with "slow systems" and a host of other "doesn't work" problems. Uninstalling Norton is like a breath of fresh air to most machines.
No sig today...
And to be fair, the AT&T Unix PC I had in the mid-80's was much, much more stable. It crashed once when I was trying to make it crash, but other than that, it was 24x7 for as long I had electricity.
And also to be fair, the Mac Powerbook Pro I now have feels like a tank in comparison.
Ugly UI, walking-barefooted-on-broken-glass feel, and dead slow - that's my opinion of Microsoft Windows XP. I had no idea how fast that machine was until I upgraded it to RHEL. The command line is getting steadily more powerful, although it probably could use a redesign. ? It looked pretty much unchanged to me from DOS 2.0, but I won't accept anything less powerful than zsh for a command line so even if I missed something, it still looks like a toy interface.
The best job I ever had was in the 1980's when I was evaluating hardware and software (O/S + Ada Compilers) internally for TRW. I had all kinds of cool stuff dropped on my desk (we were looking hard for a cheap Intel/Unix solution) that I made work, so it's not like I'm afraid of or inexperienced with different environments. It's only with Microsoft Windows XP that it was like Vini, vidi, vomiti -- I came, I saw, I got sick to my stomach.
You'd think that and you'd be wrong I've been running Vista since January and for the first several months I was short several drivers and somethings like my sound card barely worked (actually for the first two weeks I had to use an onboard sound card since Creative released their first version on Feb 14th.
Its August and everything on my PC runs, I have an insane amount of USB devices and theres a driver for all of them to give some examples a USB Bluetooth 1.1 dongle I bought for £9.99 3 years ago made by a small company called Desma has a driver, my Belkin USB wireless stick has a working driver from planet64.com, my web cam (Creative Live) which had a horible 32bit XP driver (crashed alot) works really well in Vista x64, a 5 year old Medion laptop had a driver which autoinstalled it wasn't the medion driver but the thing works perfectly my Cannon and HP printers work without a problem, along with any avermedia card that was two years old or less when vista was released.
I ran Xp x64 most of my stuff worked and I was a big fan of Xp x64. You do occasionally come accross software which won't work correctly (Doom3, the original Myst) but for the most part applications (BBC's iPlayer) refuse to work because its Vista not because its Vista x64. One tip is not to pay attention to the Vista Capable sticker on devices three days ago I came accross my first incompatible piece of hardware, it was a D-Link Wireless stick. Manufacturer's are still making a difference between "Vista Capable" and "Vista x64 Capable".
Thanks for all the great comments. I'm even happy that someone remembers something I said on ZDTV five years ago, now that's the memory of an elephant.
Why care about networking and wireless? Because it's the lifeblood of my computers. I share tons of stuff with my other computers at home, and I like to see them actually working together. Music, video, files, etc, all run off the network. The XP machines are up automatically, while Vista takes forever. And the made for Vista notebook I've been using is the worst of all of them.
As to the Mac... I didn't have space to get into the sleep problems that our 20" iMac suffers through - like why doesn't it actually go to sleep reliably, and why is the fan so loud. Guess I shouldn't have purchased one of the last PPC iMacs, or maybe I should just buy a new Mac every year...
FWIW, I didn't leave because I was sick of pandering to Windows, or any of those other suggestions. PCMag has always been, and will continue to be independent. The editors there make the best decisions about products based on their voluminous knowledge and experience, not because of advertisers. Witness the strong Mac-based reviews recently, for example.
jim
Actually, his laptop works fine. His OS does not.
My couple of XP boxes love falling off the network, forgetting how to connect to other boxes, how to start the NIC in under 2 minutes. Sleep mode sort of works on the laptop, it worked just once, long long ago on the desktop, never to work again.
It ain't just Vista that's broke.
And I can find "udippel" in the phone book?
The guy clearly got fucked in the ass by a Microsoft employee when he were a kid or something.
The funniest thing is that despite being anti-Microsoft, I'll wager Microsoft consumes his every thought at almost every moment. I bet he can't even log into his computer with out thinking about Microsoft.
And the best bit is that twitter, being an unashamed anti-MS troll, probably does more to scare away people from GNU/Linux and FOSS than any person I've met on this website, purely because all the pure bigotry he spouts every time he opens his mouth.
throw new NoSignatureException();
Story is this:
"A guy's pc he built himself doesn't work well with Vista".
Clearly a sign we should all switch to Linux, for the end is nigh for Microsoft.
throw new NoSignatureException();
I bought a new laptop because my existing one needed to go into service. I'm naturally disinclined to use something unproven but I was given no choice (I reckoned that the hardware mattered more to me so I went ahead).
Anyway, to cut a long story short - I will *never* use Vista again. I had Vista "for business" but it is better named "AGAINST business" for the following reasons:
It doesn't work. This was on a Sony VAIO SZ4, so-called "Vista ready". Well, it wasn't. Frequent lockups, a gazillion popups ("you have moved your mouse - allow/deny?"), running like a slug, taking forever to boot up, I could go on. If I hadn't used Beryl on Linux I could have suffered under the delusion that Vista is just heavy on the machine because of graphics but Beryl proves it can be FAST and pretty if you code properly.
It is extremely chatty on the Net. I logged traffic emanating from this machine that I most certainly did not authorise. I spend a good hour or so disabling all the phone-home features that somehow default to the suppliers' preference and there was still plenty going on in the background. Sorry, not in my backyard, not with IT *I* paid for and not with bandwidth that is under *my* contract. If you want to hire my computer, go ahead and sign a contract, otherwise it's simply theft (that's what spam is as well).
DRM IS A MAJOR, REPEAT, MAJOR THREAT TO BUSINESS STABILITY AND RESILIENCE. Analyse how DRM works: the chain from origin to output has to be 100% functional for you to reach your information (that's why the word "chain" is so appropriate here). That has a few obvious implications and I can't believe that so little is made of it. Tell me where I'm wrong here:
- if any component in the chain fails, access to any DRM "protected" resource is impossible. I may be wrong here, but AFAIK that means the MTBF of such a chain is the lowest MTBF of the components involved, divided by the number of components. That makes failure not a probability, it makes it a certainty.
- it puts serious barriers in the way to fast recovery from problems.
- NONE of the components in this chain is of a long and trusted heritage. I would be very interested to meet the person who is willing to entrust his entire corporate infrastructure to a Microsoft + hardware vendors beta test. As it happens, it appears many are prepared to do so - it's going to be interesting to see anyone claim off insurance when it goes wrong.
As for that laptop, I solved the problem with installing Ubuntu, VMWare and an as yet unused OEM copy of Windows XP (I don't use unlicensed software). Works for me, stable, and less of a worry re viruses (I have been using Openoffice.org for a year now as it works under Linux AND Windows).
Vista? No way. From what I hear from others it has proved quite a sales push, but for Windows XP licenses, Macs and Linux. Given the amount of talent MS has hired I take that as the lowest return on investment ever.
They can keep it.
Insert
Well, the famous one is A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection by Peter Guttman; which goes into great detail.
And is mostly FUD, resulting in people believing things like this:
Its not really the DRM, so much, as it is all the "features" (cough cough) that supports the DRM, especially how Vista encrypts alot of traffic crossing the system busses...and how Vista checks the "tilt bits" many many many times per second. All this needless "housekeeping" slows the system down.
Vista only does this when you are using DRM-encumbered media. It does not do it at other times.
If so then it wouldn't be informal, would it?
I've already conceded that I misread wooloomooloo's post, he's explained what his point actually was, and we moved the discussion on from there. If you're still trying to defend his honour, I suggest your zeal may be misplaced.
Pardon my pointing it out, but that isn't the wording that was actually used. Since you like looking things up so much, try typing "straw Man" into Wikipeadia.
You haven't held back from such aspersions so far - why start now?
Look: I don't actually have a quarrel with woomooloomoo, and this little squabble we're conducting seems to hinge around whether or not there exists an informal usage of the word "allegedly". I suppose I could point out that English is a living, evolving language, and that words are frequently used in ways that are not found in the dictionary; and it might be interesting to explore the logical contradictions inherent in seeking out a definitive list of informal usages. We could even try and take the conversation back on topic and talk about Vista's (alleged) flaws and to what extent Jim Louderback's change of heart could be taken at face value.
Sadly, fascinating as that all sounds, I have some drying paint here and I feel I really ought to go and keep an eye on it.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Sure, see below. You can also easily verify most of this yourself.
Unfortunately, no.
Far be it from me to pretend to be able to answer that question. You'll have to ask Microsoft ("what where you thinking!?"). However, here are some pointers that may be of use:
A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection, the article has references to the relevant specs/documents (by Microsoft) used to implement Vista DRM. Specifically about CPU resource consumption see here:
This seems to be regardless of whether any *DRM'ed* content is currently playing. Think of what this means for (laptop) power consumption. Apparently this kind of stuff is active when any kind of content is playing, at least through Windows Media Player. Also see this article for example:
You can test this easily enough for yourself (well, if you are unfortunate enough to own a machine running Vista, of course).
So now the question is, do you still call it "bashing" when it's actually true?
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
strangely enough, the only one of whom I know that he had problems had a thinkpad. Back to black magic again! I tried power saving modes in openbsd once, it was fun because turning off the harddrive would work nice, but turning on the harddrive when accessing them was impossible: since they were turned off, the system would give an I/O error instead of coming to the idea of turning them on.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
My AT&T Unix PC never crashed. Apple OS X doesn't crash. Linux doesn't crash (since the 1.3 days). Solaris doesn't crash. My DEC Alpha running Turbolinux 7 never crashed (but that's bragging, I did the Turbolinux 7 port to DEC Alpha).
You are either lying, or have never used any of those operating systems for any length of time.
"Yes, someone will list a bunch of games that run in Linux, and you know what? Most will suck. It doesn't run the games I WANT TO RUN. rFactor, GTR2, Battlefield 2 etc..."
Yes, that is a good point. Before you switch to linux, you have to do a bit of research to see whether other users have gotten your favorite games working. It's a mistake to install linux if you have a must-have app that isn't going to function.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
"I am not saying Linux is bad, it's just not ready for primetime. Any time a user needs to compile or mess with a text file you've moved out of the mainstream and the average Joe isn't going to want to do anything like that. Other people in this topic have said as much as well."
Primetime for _whom_? From what I have experienced so far, there is a Linux distro that is suitable for
1) Programmers
2) Web + Email basic users who have someone else to do the install for them
3) Many power users
What's left is basically the hardcore gaming addict who simply must have the ability to play one particular game, and other classes of power user depending on application. Web + Email basic users can buy an Ubuntu dell.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
I'm referring either to production kernels in the case of Linux, or production/vendor systems. And yes, my ancient 3b1 never crashed except on the occasion when I tried to make it crash. That is fact.
It is true that I haven't had much experience with Mac OS X, so strike that from the list if you wish. At any rate it hasn't crashed for me so far and by this point Microsoft Windows XP had already crashed a couple of times, so I don't think I'm too far off in assuming OS X is more stable.
Google me. I've made no secret of my usage of those systems throughout the years.
As a person that has Vista, and have seen NOTHING wrong happen in the past 7 months, I can pretty much see from this troll bait of an article what I have known all along, that you are pretty poor editor that has just become sick of your job. Put out a absolutely asinine bash Vista article, and somehow all the open source kids and Mac drones will elevate you to "cool" status, so they will read what drivel you put out at your new dotcom job.
PC Mag has become thinner, full of more fluff, and cost way too much.
im sure it will hit the magazine deathpool fairly soon.
Vista users are unhappy because Yahoo Chat doesn't work. Really. YC works on W98, XP Home, and works great on Mac. You can't make voice work because of DRM.
I work for a nonprofit and end up fixing computers for a lot of volunteers. These volunteers bought a shiny Dell or Gateway to talk to their kids and grandkids over the internet and thought a new computer would help them do that better. HaHaHa.
With Vista, you log in, navigate through a heirachical menu with about 7 clicks to get to your group, check it, and get only text. The audio is disallowed because Yahoo didn't run it through MS DRM.
With the Mac (Mini), you log in, Yahoo lists your chat groups, click on one, and you're blabbing like it's a cell phone.
Ah, the Slashdot display system will trash this comment, but if you get it, ponder the design philosophy between W and Mac. And you won't come back because of it, so I'm just spitting (Slashdotting) in the wind.
I've never been able to buy a license of OSX for $130. I've been able to buy upgrades for that price though.
OK, then Linux is not ready for prime time for people who require certain commercial high-end apps. But I doubt these are the majority or mainstream. Nag the maker of the software if he doesn't think there is a market on Linux for professional audio.
The average user however, which you mentioned yourself earlier, has a lot of well-polished standard software preinstalled and well integrated on any desktop distro. I'm doing private Linux support for computer illiterate people, and they seem to be very satisfied with with the software selection and functionality. I have not managed to switch any power users yet however, because these already have a concept of an operating system (Windows) and don't want to learn a totally different concept (Linux).
Want to hear the voice of GOD? cat
Google me. I've made no secret of my usage of those systems throughout the years.
If you've never seen Solaris, Linux or OS X crash, you can't have used them very much.
... and the last decent product MS made was called DOS 5.0
.Net support).
While this might be a popular sentiment on slashdot, it is utter crap. I'm no MS fanboy, I'm typing this on a mac laptop and I run linux servers at work (and at home).
You are telling me that the windows 2000 family of products (2K, 2K3, XP) are not "decent"? And Office (particularly the Exchange/Outlook combination)? And SQL Server 7+? And Visual Studio?
Strangely there don't seem to be anthing on the market that can compete with Exchange+Outlook for groupware. There also is nothing to compare to MS Office on features (Open Office is ok, but let's face it, it isn't as good as Office). And SQL Server is a solid if not particularly spectacular product. With Visual studio, one might debate the relative benfits of features like intellisense (and 2k5 seems to have dropped the ball in a few ways) however Microsoft has consistently produced one of the fastest, most standards compliant C++ compilers out there (yes they have gone a bit off the rails with wanting
Remember your criteria was "decent", not amazing. FUD is always detestable.
meh
The comment about buying a new Mac every year comment is equally disappointing. Had he purchased a 1st gen Intel iMac, he'd be using it for a total of two or three years, easily. I'm still using a G4 tower, 7 years on. Sounds like he let a little of his PC bias slip in with this comment.
OS X itself only sells for about $130, whereas the only version of Windows you can get for that price is either an upgrade, or a severely hobbled version that can't even begin to stand up against OS X. The bulk of the cost of any Mac comes in the worth of its hardware; the best available for the price you're paying.
Apple is a software company. Steve Jobs has said so several times. When you buy a mac, you're buying software, and the hardware it runs on. The $130 OS X price tag is for upgrades only, since you are not allowed to run it on any hardware that didn't come with a mac os license originally.
Great post. What I don't get about it all is why do governments and industry rely on this crap when there are other, more stable options available? Why doesn't the most sensitive and secure stuff run on proprietary government OSes, to prevent hacking and malware altogether?
Why should any new customer be expected to "remember" to uninstall anything???? This mentality is everything that is wrong with the Windows-centric world.
But you don't have to actually have a previous version of OS X to install said "upgrade". For $130, you get the newest version of the OS on CD....Period! It isn't an upgrade, because you don't have to have OS X installed for the "upgrade" to work (or at least not up through X.49, but that may change). So in effect, you are getting the "full" OS (even if it is able to be licensed on non-Macs...yet).
No Linux isn't quite ready for prime time. I've been using Ubuntu for the past year and while it works, there are some major gripes I have about it and linux in gerenal. First and foremost, while I understand the concept of "free software" I despise the contempt that is shown towards the little non-free software on linux. Everyone whines that X program is not available, but then you complain that the company didn't make their software open-source. That is why even Macs will see far more software than Linux ever will. Linux will always be using software that is trying to be the commercial stuff.
Until the linux community understands that there is value in non-free software it isn't going to reach the masses. I want to install software that is not in a add/remove panel without having to search all of the four corners of the internet hoping to find a how to guide (Songbird, Picasa, Acrobat Reader, etc.) I want firefox to understand that I have realplayer installed and not default to mplayer or totem (both of players suck, half of what I want to see don't play).
And yes, while I am capable of installing a piece of software from a terminal window, I should not have to. The software should be wrapped up ala OS X and be as simple as click and drag, period. Until that happens, the OS the average computer user is not going to move into linux. They will just put up with Vista, XP, or go but a Mac.
Actually this still exists today in a special form. If you are running a MacBook/MacBook Pro and your battery goes down to 0% charge, Mac OS X will copy the entire contents of your RAM onto your Hard Disk. You can take out the battery, put a fresh one in, and press the power button. A few seconds later you are now back up and running, network connections and all after totally removing all power from your system, no restart required. The only source of power inside the notebook is the battery keeping your computer's clock ticking.
Vista is full of very useful softwares... that make it very slow. I have a new Vista laptop, which become slower and slower every time I install a program as most will run in the background by default. There is no easy way to get ride of this.
Sure many problems also happen when using linux, but from my experience, softwares on Linux only do something when you need them, and the overall experience is a much faster Desktop.
The fact is that Nortons and MacAfee will make your computer dog slow. Configuration is a total PITA. And need to be replaced with something else. I believe that the manufacturers should handle the problem, but they aren't, for obvious reasons. That leaves it up to the customer. They have two options, either remove the software themselves, or don't buy the product. Naturally, I would prefer the latter, but to each his own. It's nothing to get excited about. When it comes to computers, we are still in the Model T age. To achieve decent performance and reliability you still need some expertise. You still gotta get your hands dirty. Computers won't be ready for prime-time until doing things like installing software is no more complicated than putting food into the refrigerator, or a tape into the VCR. The Mac comes close. Metaphorically speaking, most peoples' computers are left with the clocks flashing 12:00 AM.
What?
mmm... but then I'm not arguing about the meaning contained in the word; I'm arguing about the information the speaker intended to convey. That's why I'm talking about "usage" rather then "definition".
OK, I suppose the question to ask here is "intended by whom?" Certainly the compilers of the dictionary intend that I should draw the inference as defined in the dictionary. However they are not the ones speaking, and my belligerent bar-room friend may intend me to take a different meaning.
No reason at all for any specific instance, at least not assuming we ewre both there and have substantially the same information to draw upon. But I think you have to allow the general case that words are frequently used in ways that are not found in dictionaries. Otherwise you might find yourself obliged to assume that every nine-year-old who said "wicked" actually meant "morally bad in principle or practice" which clearly is not the case. This is what I mean by an informal usage: one that is not in the dictionary, but is nevertheless part of the language.
But if you once accept the notion that informal usages exist, then the only way you can tell me that no such use of "allegedly" exists is by questioning my interpetaton of events at which you were not present. At which point, as I say, it's hard to see how we can sensibly advance the argument.
That was civil enough. I'm quite happy to discuss language if we can do it politely.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
On a side note, XP ran on 64Mb.
It's hard to stand up in the face of what must be incredible pressure and say enough. It really is a sad commentary that for fear of pissing off Microsoft, whose software pisses the rest of us off everyday, you can't voice a dissenting opinion.
The real truth is, if every agrieved MS owner joined the mother of all class action lawsuits for all the wasted time, MS wouldn't be worth the electrons in the trading machine. But of course you gave up that right when you clicked the Licence Agreement...
> I suppose it depends on how you define "rarely".
/? and look at all the junk that pops up. Something called the "command extensions" was added in 2000 iirc. If this is turned on all the commands take a lot more arguments and are more useful. There's still some stupid problems. Find is like grep, but no regular expressions. FindStr can use expressions. If you want to count the number of lines an expression occurs on you have to pipe FindStr into Find /c (or into a text file, open in notepad, ctrl-end, ctrl-g for line count). I don't kow if there's any mid/copy/slice/substring equivalent other than the for command, which lets you manipulate strings, awkwardly. If you want more convenient power, there's the scripting host, but that's closed to packed in Perl than a Unix shell.
After growing up w/ DOS 5 and Win 3.1, once every few weeks, given 3.1 was a several times a day problem. DOS by itself was rock solid. At work XP seems more stable. The only time it crashes is when corporate pushes down some random un-asked-for, untested patch or I make some error programming. (Protected memory my ***)
> It was certainly flakey about suspending and waking up.
I never had problems with suspend and resume on XP.
> Ugly UI,
I agree that the new UI looks bad, but looks are largely a matter of personal aesthetics. You still have the old UI (95ish) which I think looks ok. The "silver" look some people use doesn't do enough to make the foreground stick out, but that's just one color scheme. Mac on the other hand with their one title bar showing at a time, always at the top seems functionally bad, perhaps OSX fixed that though. I haven't used a Mac in a while. There are way too many annoying UI tweaks you have to undo when you 1st get on XP. Turn off the underline hiding for alt keys. Turn off file hiding. Turn on showing full paths so you can see where you are.
> walking-barefooted-on-broken-glass feel,
Not sure what you mean by this one. XP never seemed painful.
> and dead slow - that's my opinion of Microsoft Windows XP.
I never had speed problems on XP. Speed issues are one of the reasons I'm going to dump SUSE.
>> The command line is getting steadily more powerful, although it probably could use a redesign.
>? It looked pretty much unchanged to me from DOS 2.0, but I won't accept anything less powerful than zsh for a command line so even if I missed something, it still looks like a toy interface.
The command line for XP is still made to be backwards compatabile back to 2 or 1. (minus a few commands that have been removed involving changing drive mappings, now handled with an interactive util called DiskPart) The next time you're on an XP box, open a DOS box and type for
I disagree. People who care are generally able to swap out an OS like they're changing socks... and there are options many people would consider equal to (or greater than) OSX freely available for that laptop.
My point is you're stuck with the hardware you buy, not the OS. Swapping out the engine on a car is closer replacing the motherboard and processor.
When I've spoken to people at microsoft, about zero percent have been drones. They're all smart. The problem is the culture there is all about protecting the crown jewels... not about producing the best product. I saw that over and over in the Pocket PC... they crippled it to keep it from potentially competing with the Tablet PC, and to keep it as an annex to your *real* computer.
So whatever they do with virtualization, they won't change the basic OS radically the way Apple did, because once you make the jump to using a virtual machine for your applications there's nothing keeping you in Windows any more.
I eventually get the networking going good (though Vista still refuses to see the SMB shares on my Powerbook G4, even though it sees my PC's shares just fine, and my PC [running XP] sees my Powerbook's shares just fine). ... just like mixed Windows 98SE / Windows XP network I had years ago.
So, I go on the Internet and obtain Firefox (what, you think I was going to use IE7? You must be joking.), which installs smoothly and works flawlessly on Vista. I'm quite happy about this. Watch out for SP1. ( netscape is dead, so firefox is next one to get molested by M$ )
Later, I'm playing Warcraft over LAN with some friends over, and, in the middle of a game, Vista's firewall decides that it should start blocking Warcraft's communication. Warcraft is the Blizzard's game. It is an rival company that sells software. Some measures must be taken. Keep in mind that I've been playing for, oh, 4 hours at this point, and Vista has given me no trouble. Suddenly, the firewall dialog appears in the middle of my screen, and requests that I block/unblock the program. Well, Vista is hog, and it needed 4 hours to hook up with M$ software monopoly central to get the command to pop up the requester.
Frustrated, I go to edit the settings for the firewall, but Warcraft is already listed as unblocked. We play some more, for maybe 2 hours, and it happens again. Annoying, sure, but I can't do anything about it anymore. Did You try to kill the firewall service.
Oh wait, it's Vista
Well, OK, that might be the fault of Warcraft (III) not being updated for Vista or something. Umm... one taught comes to me. No, it can't be... But there is no other explanation!
Maybe Warcraft III is blacklisted ?
Well, OK, that might be the fault of Warcraft (III) not being updated for Vista or something. What happened with backward OS compatibility ?
Oh wait, it must be Blizzard's fault.
There are other problems: Vista will not go to sleep when I close the lid (probably Toshiba's fault, but XP, which I recently installed, seems to handle that just fine); Vista randomly loses an Internet connection sometimes on a wired Ethernet link; Microsoft has nasty habit to change programing policies, giving software / hardware driver developers hard time.
Vista's window manager takes up a lot of RAM (300+MB private bytes) and a constant 3% CPU usage on both cores (on a 2.0GHz Core Duo processor); etc. etc. Vista is hog. Even if You try to switch off the window manager, it will probably just suspend part of it to swap file.
I switched from 98 to XP in late 2003. I had never updated it. Never liked it really. I took years for software developers to find workaround for bugs in Windows XP. It works fine NOW.
Windows 95 beta was Microsoft's peak of creativity, and their OS matured with Windows 98. Downhill started with Windows 98 Second Edition.
Downgrade Your laptop to XP SP2 if possible, until proper liter / tweaker for Vista becomes available, or switch to the next best ( Linux ).
I've achieved excellent performance with zero tweaking now for more than 15 years with Mac OS. The problem is defining performance, however. For me, I get stuff done, and spend zero time maintaining my computer and its settings. No spyware, no adware, no virus protection or system doctors, no defragmenting, nada...I use it then I walk away. For others, performance deals with building your own computer and over-clocking stuff, all-the-while tweaking, tweaking and more tweaking, only to realize they've not actually accomplished anything.
Microsoft Windows (all flavors) is the primer gray of computing, just like my neighbor's '72 Nova. "Someday" it will be painted....cherry red.....someday.....
Yes... the theory and the implementation are at a bit of a disconnect... but time and time again, that's the reason I've heard from business managers as to why they want MS software. It's not a matter of "How can I afford to sue MS?" but of "I don't even have the option to sue thousands of individuals!"
*hefts clue bat*
If you'd actually read Guttman's paper (which you clearly haven't) it talks about the fact that all the stuff needed in hardware to support Vista's DRM crap causes higher costs for manufacturers and reduced hardware performance.
Pirate Party UK
Actually, that's "veni, vidi, vomui". But nice try.
Pirate Party UK
Well, on my Athlon64 3000+ with an 6800 LE Ubuntu can't be installed from the live/install CD they provide since once it enters graphical mode nothing happens at all...
;D
So much for not graphical installers, Debian worked fine (and I only needed the OS to read Solaris UFS and write OS X HFSX+ so old packages didn't bothered me aslong as the kernel where 2.6.16 or newer.)
I assume Vista would get its installer running on my machine
I'll keep that in mind, thanks for the correction.
Biggest problem here is that Vista uses new hardware drivers so it will not work with older hardware unless your hardware vendor releases a new vista driver (unlikely in most cases and much-delayed in others), a third-party driver appears (rare) or some other driver can be substituted (very rare). The next biggest problem is that vista cannot reliably run a lot of older win32 software and forget completely about win16 or dos software. These two things are significant limitations for many business users. Microsoft should have worked a little bit more at improving the compatibility of vista with existing hardware and software.
Just another example of your infantile waffling. You're a pathological liar who can't keep his stupid lies straight for more than three days.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
The only purpose of an O/S is for managing resources - disks, network connections, process scheduling, etc.
The only purpose of a GUI is for facilitating user access to a computer. I do not care for "flashy" GUIs, they only tend to get in the way of getting a job done. I do not care for GUIs (or any computer program) that think they are smarter than the human behind the keyboard/mouse. They are not.
Two or one button mice are suboptimal. Xerox/PARC spent a lot of money doing research into human/computer interfaces and settled on a 3 button mouse. There was a good reason for that.
I also think putting a completely useless BIG key like CAPS LOCK (does any idiotic software rely on that now-a-days?) to the left of the "a" key without giving the user a chance to fix it is stupid.
But I digress, let's go on
If Microsoft Windows works for you, go for it. More power to you. I prefer something different and more flexible and something that is under my control (Mac OS X comes close, but this machine is definitely going to my wife when I get it configured and locked down).
Yes, it is due to DRM, because DRM makes Vista a resource hog.
Part of Vista's mandatory DRM means that if you run anything resembling a media application, it polls the screen TEN TIME A SECOND to make sure you're not running a screen capture utility - regardless of the media license.
10 Times a Second.
That's DRM. That's resource hogging.
It is an upgrade. If you don't think so, go find me a system where you can install it on that did not originally come with some version of Mac OS/OSX.
I run one of these same simulations too (rFactor), and so I also still need to dual-boot.
It isn't a case of needing training wheels--Linux is simply not an option for the niche gaming/simming stuff I do. At least for the immediate future.
At the same time, Windows has become very much marginalized to only gaming, niche hardware (and support utilities) and the occasional gaming related application for me though. I've moved the rest (video, music, office, browsing, mail, 3DO and GFX work) over to Linux, and I don't see myself ever going back again for any of the mainstream stuff.
Which leaves me looking toward Vista as only a future "gaming only OS," and not much else. And at the price MS is asking for retail versions, I can't help but notice that consoles--even the late model "expensive" ones--are offering some real-competition now.
Vista might become an option for me someday. But it'll probably only be if the price goes DOWN (or if I already have other hardware in my possession which will run it reasonably well).
I'll still buy a couple of copies of XP I imagine...but then I think I'm off that bandwagon for good.
I should have been more clear in my original post. The only Windows upgrade you can get at or below that price is the "home" upgrade, which is usually one of the most limited versions. None of the business quality, full upgrades that Microsoft offers are anywhere near as conveniently priced as $130 (you can rarely get them for less than $200, which is my opinion is way overpriced, especially for software that is as low in quality). My comment about the bulk of the Mac's cost being in hardware is also true; you would be very hard pressed to purchase a raw computer without an OS for much less than it costs to purchase an equally powered Mac.
Oh! GLEE ... M$oft is releasing their vaunted new OS ! ... Rush right out to get the latest ! ( Day 1 ) ...
Hmmmm ! Lot of my old reliable programs are " not compatible with Vista "
Cruise around trying to find " fixes " ! ( Day 2+ ) ...
Ok, finally figured out the "UAC" ( User ... "Ask if he really wants to ..." Control )... Now, if I really, really ( Really! ) didn't want to ... then why did I ask in the first place ! ( gloom ! ) ( Week 5 ) ...
Found certain programs "balky" installing under Vista. Turning OFF "UAC" (temporarily) allowed the install to procede unimpeded. Turning "UAC" back ON, after the install, produced not a whimper, and the program ran flawlessly ... Go figure ! ( 2nd Month )...
Now comes the "Real Story" - Was offered an "update" for a "Volcano Watch" live video program. ( The program was now offered in HD. ) " NO! says Vista, this program has not received the "Seal-of-Approval" from M$oft ! and I ( Vista ) am NOT going to allow you to install it ! " ... Ok, says I, we'll try the "Turn OFF UAC ploy " ... " NOPE !, NOPE !, I still am not going to allow you ( dumb user who purchased me in good faith ) to install this "non-approved" program because obviously you fail to realize these programs MUST receive the M$oft "blessing" before being allowed on the system! " ... ( end of story ).
Now I could probably rant about some "conspiracy" within M$oft whereby they have found a way to insure software destined for their OS MUST receive their "Seal-of-Approval" ( Don't know if there is some kind of "fee" involved here or not. ) but that would be sheer speculation without a shred of evidence. ( Won't stand up in court, folks ! )
What I do know, is that the "new" Vista OS is "buggy", makes demands of the software to be run under it that often cause the programs to generate "warnings" ( Will Robinson ) like " Vista has changed your color scheme because certain elements of a running program are not compatible, and will change your color scheme back after the program ends. " ( Which slows things down and sometimes, depending on the program running, doesn't ever happen ... )
Settings for specific window layouts seem to change arbitrarily from "Lists" to "Icons" to ... ( I never know what the window will display and often end up changing it back to what I'd like it to be ! )
Some programming that worked together under XP ( in this instance a "video capture driver/software and a video editing software program now mysteriously DON'T ! ... And I'm, frankly, getting tired of having to circumvent Vista in order to do those things I was accustomed to being able to do under the "old" XP OS ! ...
In short, Vista has some visual "pizzazz" that is indeed impressive, but the problems caused by the "UAC" far offset these "niceties" ! I'm now running XP on a second machine and anxiously await the first ( perhaps of many ) "fixes" to come out of Redmond ! ( What's that ??? ... a rumor of yet another "NEW" OS in M$oft's pipeline ... )
I think you missed the main point my post sought to make, and I didn't word it as well as I should have; the hardware, not the software, is where most of the cost in purchasing a new Mac comes from. Purchasing the same hardware on the open market without an OS would cost nearly as much as an equally powered Mac. Also, the only Windows upgrade you can get for less than the OS X upgrade are the 'home' versions, whereas OS X's upgrade is their only, but best version, the equivalent to Microsoft's business versions.
The only thing is Linux is ready for prime time. And users can run it dual-boot if they still need their wondows training wheels.
Ready for prime time? Then I have a question for you. If I wanted to produce a commercial product that runs on Linux, to enclose in a box, shrink wrap and distribute to shelves at Office Max & the like, how would I do it?
How would I
- Handle the different distributions-- does it need to run on everything or just certain major distributions such as Ubuntu, Red Hat, Debian, etc.-- and how do I come up with that list? What steps do I have to take in the software in order to insure it will run on all the qualifying distributions?
- Handle the different versions-- including future versions. Should I compile everything statically because I can't be sure what versions of shared libraries will be available? Carry copies of the shared libraries I need with the package and install these with my program?
- Handle the different GUIs? Which should it run on?...
In essence, I need to know exactly what to put on the outside of the box where it says "System Requirements", and how to insure that those are in fact workable and saleable.
It seems to me that if Linux is ready for prime time there must be clear answers to these questions. There is an army of salespeople out there who work at brick & mortar stores that average people go to to get their computer equipment and software. These stores & salesmen make their living from margins on commercial computer products, and in order for them to get excited enough about it to sell their customers Linux and be able to continue that living, they need all those add ons-- and developers who make a living selling such software addons like games & business utilities need to know just how they would produce an equivalent Linux package.
So, if Linux is really ready as you say, I presume clear answers to these questions have been arrived at within the Linux community, and I'm just ignorant. Assuming that is the case, can you enlighten me?
Vista forced my Dell 8600 laptop to run it's fan in stage 2 of 3 instead of 1/3 that XP does, somewhere CPU use was too high, no matter what I turned off (Aero etc) - on battery or powered.
:/
The interface isn't for me, I couldn't possibly care less about a fluffy 3D interface, I've never used XP's Luna theme and I've been using XP since 6 months after release, I need a functional fast operating system with clever powerful features, I don't 'watch' my OS I use it to get stuff done.
Another reason why I don't want Aero is I do a hell of a lot of RDP'ing and you can't get Aero over RDP.
I would find switching from Vista classic (or XP classic) to Aero, to classic to Aero when switching in and out of my RDP sessions to be very disorientating.
ALSO Aero seemed to offer no real actual benefits to usability, sadly I have to admit after using Mac OSX that the whole expose thing is surprisingly awesome and convienient, that operating system truely makes a mouse user damn near as powerful as a good keyboarder (wow!)
Aero's flip 3D however was ridiculously bad at actually saving you time and effort.
The widget thing / bar on the right was stupid, it should be like Mac OS - it's there, when you need it, hidden and very easily accessable, NOT a bar stuck on the side (auto hide or not, Mac OS wins that)
The search functionality wasn't as good as locate32, I think in file names, not in contents, if I want my CV I search for *resume*.doc on all drives and I'll find it because I memorise the file name (admitedly locate32 isn't native to XP)
Therefore overall Vista didn't offer me anything that honestly helped me.
I used a full retail version of Ultimate and manage to re-produce a bug where connecting to a VPN would instantly blue screen it too (fully patched)
I dislike the smaller 'stylish' min / max / close buttons at the top right, I like them square and easy to find.
Did I mention Windows Explorer sucked? I spend 80% of my time in it, managing files, doing 'stuff' and it's hard to explain but there was a lack of 'lines' and dividers and bars, the data was hard to take in quickly because the interface looked,... weird I couldn't do things quicker with that, the line showing left pane / right pane sucked.
I think (don't quote me) it forced that silly task pane on as well, which is on in XP but disable-able - I don't think you can in Vista (don't quote)
I disliked the breadcrumb style address bar in folders at the top of explorer, admitedly just today someone found a home made patch to disable it but it's not a stock option in Vista and wasn't available when I tried it.
When all is said and done, I would STILL use the thing if someone just made a shell replacement that made it look absoloutely 100% identical to XP classic mode but with a Vista 'engine'. I don't hate DX10 nor do I detest the search, I can always use my own, I don't have to use flip 3d but I do CONSTANTLY use Windows explorer and I need it looking nice, simple and clean to do shit fast, - I felt hamstrung
>10 Times a second.
It's a computer. Checking something at 10Hz gives a computer "ceons(1)" between each check.
(1) Ceons: Computer Eons, they're like eons, but for a computer and much shorter.
but seriously. 10 times a second - just isn't that often.
Recently, my dad and I both upgraded our computers to relatively top of the line hardware. I kept XP, while he upgraded to Vista. My experience with XP is that for my purposes, it's a relatively mature platform and things tend to Just Work with few problems, and I was curious to see if Vista offered any advantages. The short answer is no. Though Vista works fairly well most of the time, I have experienced random crashes. Driver support for older hardware (especially printers and scanners) isn't very good, and many of the changes seem like they were made just for the sake of changing things. It's also pretty damned annoying to have a pop-up asking you for permission to do every little task. The graphical bells and whistles are slick, but that kind of thing doesn't appeal to me. I'll keep XP until all the new games start requiring Vista (my computer is a glorified gaming rig)--hopefully by then the service packs will have worked out most of the problems.
For all the people who love to hate Windows, all I can say is that I only see two good reasons to use it: video games and Visual Studio, and that's enough for me. When Linux can compete in these two areas, I'll consider switching.
*hefts clue bat*
Good idea. There's a quiet room over there you can go into to beat yourself with it.
If you'd actually read Guttman's paper (which you clearly haven't)[...]
Actually, I have.
[...] it talks about the fact that all the stuff needed in hardware to support Vista's DRM crap causes higher costs for manufacturers and reduced hardware performance.
When you're not using DRM-encumbered media, no DRM (encryption, "tilt bits", whatever) is being applied. Ie: no "performance degredation" in normal usage.
Higher costs ? No-one makes you buy DRM-capable hardware. Further, if you *do* want to use DRM-encumbered media, those "higher costs" will apply across the board to any capable device since they *ALL* have to support these restrictions to be licensed.
IMHO, the only "new" OS that someone who is presently running Vista is looking to install on their PC is Windows XP. "Making the Switch" is much more intimidating for people who are not as experienced (The majority of those presently running Vista.)
Many new laptops that are coming with Vista Basic or Vista Business installed no longer have XP Drivers, Sony is especially guilty of this with their VAIO laptops. I expect all major manufacturers to stop supporting XP and providing XP drivers on their laptops by the end of this year.
My router is very old (BEFSR41 from Linksys; hardware revision 2) -- it has been in my house almost since we got high speed internet 7+ years ago. My new D-Link can do it (and it has wireless, and some rather fancy firmware options & features) but it has a bad habit of dying when large amounts of network traffic pass through (e.g. when using Bittorrent) -- that might be something in the configuration, but my Linksys has never given me problems (aside from a lack of functionality). I do already have the router set to use 200 as the starting DHCP address (I don't think I will ever need 50+ DHCP'd devices in the near future), and I use .100+ as the static addresses.
Thanks for the tip. If I can figure out how to make the D-Link stop crashing under high load, I will certainly be using it :)
It's summer and I have nothing better to do than to reformat my computers :D
In all seriousness, though, I love Macs (I have two at home, a Powerbook G4 and a G3; the place where I work uses Macs exclusively, and Parallels only when Windows is really needed), but I'm a student who is not so keen on spending large amounts of money. My laptop works (well, after I get it reformatted and have XP installed on it, dualbooted with Kubuntu).
You say "couple hundred". The place where I bought the laptop is running discounts right now -- over $300 discounts on many computers. My laptop has 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD, an integrated GMA 945 (blah blah, it sucks), and a 2.0GHz Core Duo processor. It cost $899 after discount.
The cheapest MacBook there is $1199, discounted (Apple _refuses_ to give discounts more than $50), has 1GB of RAM (expandable to 2; my laptop goes to 4), has 80 GB HDD (mine has twice that); has a Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz (yes that is better, but a number of reviews have pegged the Core 2 Duo's performance at only about 5-10 % faster than the Core Duo, hardly worth the extra $300).
Mac OS X Tiger blows Vista out of the water; I am using it presently and it is a real pleasure to use. However, paying $300 more for less memory & hard drive space, and a marginally better processor is not nearly worth the OS improvement. Sorry to put it so bluntly. The next laptop I get will be a MacBook Pro, for sure, but for now, this Toshiba is what I am going to use.
Hell yeah I'm on XP, and it is working marvellously. Funny, sure, but it confirms what I have suspected about Vista -- it sucks.
Oh, and did I forget to mention how much Vista tries to sell stuff at you? Upgrade advisor ("get Ultimate now! it's so much better!!"), "friendly" remarks to buy antivirus software and/or install 60-day trials (blame this on Toshiba); offers to buy Microsoft Office; crapware installed everywhere (Toshiba's fault), etc. etc.
I seriously can't remember liking XP too much, either, but after Vista, XP is quite welcome.
Windows has become a legacy plugin for us. I work in a small automated equipment manufacturer where a majority of our software development takes place in Windows and all of our products run Windows, yet we are almost entirely an Apple shop. Our setup for everyone is a 24" Dell FPD and a Macbook with wireless keyboard and mouse. Development takes place in Windows 2000 running on the phenomenal Parallels 3.0. Because of 3rd party hardware and legacy software, our product runs on Windows, specifically 2000 pro. A brief foray into XP was cut short when a customer had to replace a vision board in their $250K machine and XP required reauthorization. Try talking a Malaysian tech through the process of calling an 800 number and reading long sequences of characters to someone at an Indian call center, when the equipment is not connected to the internet and is separated from the nearest outside line by an airlock, all the while the downtime is costing them $10,000/hr - all held hostage by a company that thinks we're ripping off their $200 software.
On the server side we're running samba, svn, apache, everything but the kitchen sink on Suse, ~500 day uptime so far.
So as long as we can keep using downgrade licenses and deploy 2K, Microsoft will keep getting our money, but if we're ever forcibly migrated to XP or God forbid Vista, we will finally have to face the fact that Windows in not an industrial O.S. and we'll have to port to Linux.
The first windows 'Update' that vista performed for me, after getting a company laptop with it installed on it, 'Lost' the program files for Roxio. ??? The 'Next' update fixed it.
Yay that it was fixed... BOO on Microshaft for pulling my laptop out of HIBERNATE while I slept, updating itself and then crashing 3 of my programs (purposefully left open when the laptop was PUT into hibernate) as it shut down and restarted improperly. WTF? Glad i had the fucker plugged in to AC or I wouldn't have had a working laptop that morning.
Well... just the other night... Microshaft does it again... pulled my laptop out of HIBERNATE, updated itself and fucked Roxio again. At least this time the program files are there... still won't run.
Oh yeah... where the fuck to you find information on how to UNINSTALL programs that don't show up in add/remove programs anymore?
What kind of retarded feature is that?
There are only a few things I like about Vista and I won't even mention them here because the rest of this pile of shit just pisses me off everytime I run into it.
This laptop actually has great batter life... if you run something that doesn't hog resources like Vista does.
I can't believe how crappy this is... *sigh*
I can't believe I'm actually going to type this.... "I wish this laptop had XP installed" ARRRRRRGH!
(too many non-compliant proggies I have to use for work that don't run under linux *waaaah*)
p.s. The first time I read about it... I thought.. "How neat.... holding the control key down 'locates' your pointer for you"
I NEVER thought that I would be using the feature all the time to BRING THE FUCKING POINTER BACK INTO VIEW!!! yeah... the mouse arrow just freaking pissadears for no fucking reason MAKING you use the control key to 'locate' it.
What kinda fucking moron shit is this that someone would say... "Oh... it's good enough.. ship it"
*sigh* *sigh* *sigh*
>> You still have the old UI (95ish) which I think looks ok.
> Is that the one with greyish stuff? I think they call it "classic" style? I would agree with that.
Yup, classic mode is what I was talking about. There's two classic modes to activate, one for the too-large everything and blue-green color scheme, and another for the start menu / bar.
> The only purpose of an O/S is for managing resources - disks, network connections, process scheduling, etc.
Agreed, but apart from phoning home (which I can't say I care for) how does Windows break this? By packing in things like Paint, Notepad, Wordpad etc that on any Linux CD would have 10 - 20 similar apps on the CD that do the same thing? You can choose not to install these helper programs when you install Windows, but the fact that by default, certain functionality is on almost all Windows machines is a good thing in an office. (Although, being used to my menus and built-in shortcuts, "smart" menus that hide options bug me to no end, as do half the "friendly" features like IE hiding error messages from web servers.)
> The only purpose of a GUI is for facilitating user access to a computer. I do not care for "flashy" GUIs, they only tend to get in the way of getting a job done. I do not care for GUIs (or any computer program) that think they are smarter than the human behind the keyboard/mouse. They are not.
Well, the last line is debatable given some of the people I work for. The "don't login as root" rule of *nix is more of the same, protecting a user from themself. (Admittedly also protecting them from malicious code, but still holding you back, although there's often not much to keep you from logging into root anyway.)
> Two or one button mice are suboptimal. Xerox/PARC spent a lot of money doing research into human/computer interfaces and settled on a 3 button mouse. There was a good reason for that.
The default MS mouse is 2 buttons and a scroll - wheel which also functions as a 3rd button. We have several mice around work (on Windows) with more buttons added (and used). This is mostly a matter of keeping down how much the average user (who doesn't want to have to learn) has to keep track of. By having a default simple system with the ability to add on, MS has the best of both worlds,... for their target audience.
> I also think putting a completely useless BIG key like CAPS LOCK (does any idiotic software rely on that now-a-days?) to the left of the "a" key without giving the user a chance to fix it is stupid.
Fix? As in disable? I think there's a registry key for disabling keys. With the game FF11 you had to use it on the start key or accidently brushing it would crash the game. Not at all intuitive for average users, but do-able.
I have my own list of keyboard annoyances. I like the standard 101 and 104 key keyboards, so anything that messes up the home/end/ins/del/page up/down (rotating and mixing around on Dells, pushing down on my parent's PC) or moves the \ key (above enter please) ticks me off. When I use a laptop I carry a full-size usb to plug in. Little things can quickly become major pains.
>> I haven't used a Mac in a while.
> The default interface isn't all that much different than Microsoft's except that it's prettier by default
The old MacOS I dealt with (no idea what version) I'd have considered sub-Windows. I'm reserving judgement on OSX until I play with it, but I don't know when that will be. The biggest problem for those computers was the power. Shutting off was easy from a menu iirc, but turning it on required recognizing that a generic button with a triangle at the top of the keyboard was the ONLY way to turn it on. I have no idea why they didn't use the usual 1 inside a 0 symbol appliances use.
> The mouse cursor has a tendency to become invisible and it can take a long time (> 5 seconds) to figure out where it is and move it. At least Microsoft Windows XP doesn't have that problem.
Some Window
Would you mind explaining what Vista is capable of doing that XP isn't?
User shells whether they be command line interpreters or web browsers should be considered as part of the user environment not O/S environment, but that was a Unix innovation and in my own college O/S design class the shell I had to write as part of my O/S project was considered part of the O/S (though that's certainly not how I coded it!) At work, XP can be slow with network access. Which even Solaris has trouble with sometimes. My comments were aimed at a network performance critical app, like WoW. It's much more playable under Mac OS X than Microsoft Windows XP on a wireless notebook. (It's a game, I'm not going to experiment with various varieties of desktop machines to get it right. It either works and is fun or it isn't). Then again, I'm a programmer, so I need to be on the same platform as the people I'm developing for. I suppose that's always going to be the case. Cross platform development has always sucked and it works out better for vendor lock-in that it stays that way. Although probably slower and less powerful than Perl, The four letter p-word. Who needs Perl when you have `xemacs -batch'? I won't argue that Windows is better than *nix on technical merits, I really don't think it is, but it's not unusable either. This goes back to a post I made previously, perhaps. For me, it's like walking barefooted over broken glass. The current manager I work for is someone I totally respect. I'm in a group that primarily does all its work cross-platform on Microsoft Windows XP and targeted at Solaris/Linux using engineers. I was granted an exception initially to do my work on Solaris. In the meantime, I spent extensive off-time doing Microsoft Windows appreciation exercises. Executive summary - I hate using it. Solaris/CDE (an environment I despise with a passion) works better for me. As much as I hate it, I can still get my work done. I wish I could use Solaris & KDE but that is not an option. Perhaps that is the same feeling many people have towards Microsoft Windows. Computers are tools. If they don't help you get your job done, they are worse than useless.
Linux is FAR from being ready for primetime. I can pop a Windows XP disc into my laptop, install it and everything "just works".
I tried the same with Ubuntu. First of all, my NVIDIA graphics didn't work so I downloaded and compiled the drivers *exactly* the way that the instructions say. Yay, NVIDIA graphics work...but wait when I reboot, it fails to load X11 and seems to have broken itself.
The next problem I had was audio. This system uses a standard HD Audio chip, yet apparently there is still no support for it in Linux.
The next problem I had was my wireless network adapter didn't work (no drivers for it) and on top of that, error messages kept *repeatedly* popping up in textmode (which I am now running in because X Window has broken itself). Yes, I fucking know you don't know what kind of hardware that is, stop fucking showing me that error message.
So at this point I have a copy of Ubuntu installed that 1) has no graphical interface, 2) has no sound and 3) has no network connectivity (which it continuously bitches about).
From this experience, Windows works and Linux looks like a complete piece of shit. When Linux can "just work" in the same way then, and only then, will it be ready for primetime.
I hear ya. I had to move heaven and earth (read: argue for an hour and a half with a clueless MS fanboy) at some mom and pop computer shop to just get 2 XP Pro licenses for my inlaws (since they were runing illegal copies and they were being hounded by the WGA crap MS pulls). Their computers are not the newest, so they won't run Vista and they refuse to buy new hardware. So it's either Linux or XP for them. Since they looked at me sheepishly when I mentioned Linux, I opted for XP (since they were already used to that). Microsoft is really shooting themselves in the foot with Vista. Remember the whole Windows 95 upgrade rigamarole(sp?) ? They can't pull that shit off again. 2 to 4GB for a workstation that only does simple office stuff and web browsing? Puhleeze.
What happens when you are dealing with a home video or recording?
How does Vista knows it is non DRM encumbered media?
How about a CD for which the authors or publishers do not give a rat ass about DRM? How is Vista going to know it does not need to waste cycles to check that?
Your baseless defense of the indefensible is frankly tired and futile.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Now would be an ideal time for OS-X to branch out to generic non-Apple hardware. I know there's a 0% chance of it happening, but still...
If the price were similar to current Vista prices, I'd drop Windows without a second thought. I don't think I'd be alone in this. The ONLY think keeping me from going OS-X is that I'd have to buy their way-too expensive hardware too.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
THe point was that you are forced to upgrade by your software provider.
The balance of power has shifted from the client to the provider. Any industry in which this happens is sick and needs urgent remediation.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... please refrain to share your opinions about it.
You only need to compile stuff nowadays if you are installing some niche application, for most stuff (and here keep in mind that popular Linux distros count applications in supported package repositories by the thousands) you use a graphic package manager.
For most mundane tasks you can do all clicking buttons (like if that was intrinsically better than a clear configuration file, as a person with user interface background I can tell you categorically that GUIs are not better). This nonsense about having to fix configuration files all the times is getting quite tired frankly.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
If you make a statement "the stuff isn't that hard, really", you should stop right there. You're not any better than those who claim "Vista isn't that bad, really".
I don't like to label myself, but let's say I'm a photographer/graphic artist and a casual gamer. I don't need to point out the games, so I'll move onto the artistical side.
My favourite mouse, Logitech MX500, has seven buttons, with the three default, back/forward and three customs, which I use in Photoshop. The only support for these extra buttons in Ubuntu was a tutorial of how to customize the xorg.conf to use back/forward-support to the file manager and browser. What the hell? This is the great hardware-support Linux boasts with? I'd like to use my less than 5-year-old mouse, rather than a 20-year-old dot matrix printer, thank you.
Well, after the configuration, when booting up, X announced to be broken. With my skills, I had to reinstall the whole OS from scratch because I followed the guide.
So yes, I don't think Linux is ready for mass-adoption. I'm not an idiot with computers, either.
I'm sorry. I must have misunderstood. I thought playing back media IS "normal usage" for a desktop computer.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
Actually that $130 is for a new software license. Apple doesn't sell upgrades for OS X, iWork, iLife (and probably others).
So yes, it is an upgrade, but unlike the Windows world, it is also a full install. I understand you are disgruntled because you want to use OS X on cheap PC hardware (or you want to buy a Mac without paying for OS X being installed), but that doesn't make your post correct. You are playing word games and not looking at the issue objectively.
I'm sorry. I must have misunderstood. I thought playing back media IS "normal usage" for a desktop computer.
Media != DRM-encumbered media. That's the problem.
Why do you need to? Its all just a Linux kernel, with X most likely installed. All the closed source Linux developers (MIT with DrScheme anyone?) seem to have no trouble.
Maybe I should ask the guys at DrScheme-- their web site shows 4 different downloads for Linux i386-- Fedora Core 6, Debian Unstable, Ubuntu, and Ubuntu Feisty, not to mention an x86_64 version. Looks like they had to create 5 different builds depending on which Linux platform you have. How did they arrive at those? Will those cover Red Hat, SUSE, Slackware, Gentoo, etc., or are some distros not supported? Can I use an existing package manager format such as rpm, or do I need to resort to some other thing as a least-common-denominator (tar perhaps)?
How would you handle different versions of Windows? What if 2000 didn't have something you needed? Since we're talking about boxed products I assume you'll be putting this on a CD or DVD. Since CD's are pretty spacious, even today (Ubuntu fits on one CD with many programs preinstalled) there really shouldn't be any problem with static compiling.
There are essentially two, or perhaps three, different versions of windows-- the 95/98/ME core, the NT/W2K/XP/Vista core, and possibly 64 bit (which I'm not really familiar with, so that's just a guess). Most programs don't even support the 95/98/ME core anymore, and programs written for the NT family will for the most part run on any of them. Yes, there can be issues with available dlls or other dependencies, and yes, some software will include them or things like a certain version of DirectX that may be needed. My point is not that a Linux package should somehow not need this sort of thing, but simply that I am wondering if such handling is well defined enough so an existing commercial software shop that might consider producing a Linux package could readily determine what steps are necessary to insure compatibility with the OS.
If what you say is true then now that Dell is shipping Linux PCs, I would think we should start seeing some shrink-wrapped Linux software on store shelves here and there (beyond just the OS itself). And, given all that I would agree that Linux is in fact, "ready for prime time." I just haven't quite seen it yet, so am looking for some clarification...
You can order a Dell with XP - just hop out of the home-market models and into the business lines. Price points are similar, options available etc.
I sysadmin a small dispatch company with 2 debian servers, 4 xp clients, and 2 vista clients. They are all media centre pc's with the same hardware. The vista machines make you feel as if you are browsing your OS while wading in molasses.
So why can't the 4GHz dual core with the 2 gig of ram make that horrid hack of code even allow you to browse the desktop smoothly?
vista makes me cry
Supposedly Vista is selling like gangbusters in China... can anyone verify?
> but binding a web browser as part of an O/S is stretching the limits,
... I'm not going to experiment with various varieties of desktop machines to get it right. It either works and is fun or it isn't).
I used to feel that way about networking built into *nix when you had to use a 3rd party WinSock with Win3.1, but now I've come to appreciate anything and everything built in. IE might not need to be as tightly integrated as it is, but I don't mind it shipping with the OS. (And if notepad ever didn't ship, tossing me to edlin I'd be livid) The big thing is that whatever is included by default should be over-ridable. If anything, IE built-in makes this easier than ever. Use it to download the latest versions of all the apps you prefer, including another browser.
>> At work, XP can be slow with network access.
> Which even Solaris has trouble with sometimes.
The problem we see is that, you'd think after accessing a share once, further accesses would be much quicker. Within a 5-10 minute period they usually are. There's a few shares that produce problems though, that seem to do the whole connect-from-scratch with each access.
> WoW.
Agreed, so I've taken the easy way out, consoles. FF11 was great on the PC, and usually ran well, but I like being able to use Yahoo, check e-mail etc while I'm playing. (FF11 requires constant full-screen, anything that pops up crashes it)
>> Although probably slower and less powerful than Perl,
> The four letter p-word. Who needs Perl when you have `xemacs -batch'?
I haven't used emacs much. I mentioned Perl because it's a generic popular language. While I prefer emacs to vi, at home I've always drifted to something as close to notepad as possible. When I edited from a text screen in school pico was my favorite editor. (The closest to edit from DOS). I haven't used Linux as much more than a standard user, so I don't have much experience on what's best for this or that. (Just a vague feeling that a lot of it is a matter of personal taste) My primary criteria for selecting apps tends to be what's the most like whatever I use in Windows. Not the best criteria, but a useful place to start. The Gimp is NOT a good substitute for Paint. (Not that it probably tries to be, but there needs to be a better known low end art program for those in a hurry)
>> I won't argue that Windows is better than *nix on technical merits, I really don't think it is, but it's not unusable either.
> This goes back to a post I made previously, perhaps. For me, it's like walking barefooted over broken glass.
I guess I don't have this feeling because I'm so used to it that there's no painful missing functionaliy. I may pick up the same view later, but probably not until I spend most of my time on something else for at least a month or so. With the current environment at work, that's not happening anytime soon. You can't miss what you haven't gotten used to.
> I spent extensive off-time doing Microsoft Windows appreciation exercises.
Ack, sounds like a painful training class by someone who isn't exactly a "power user". All I can suggest for enduring Windows is
a: go through EVERYTHING under control panel, tweaking away
b: tweak the start bar
c: tweak tools - options in a regular explorer window
d: download TweakUI and play some more
e: check and see if any new useful short-cut keys have been added to the OS or preferred utilities
f: make a folder under the start menu with everything you need quick access to and assign keyboard shortcuts so you don't have to deal with the menus
g: download half a dozen *nix utilities that have been ported to Windows
h: toss everything from the start menu that you'll never need
But you've probably did this within the 1st day of getting a Windows machine.
> I wish I could use Solaris & KDE but that is not an option. Perhaps that is the same feeling many people have towards Microsoft Windows. Compute
Apple's Mighty mouse, which comes with all new desktop Apple PCs, has 4 buttons...they are customizable in their functions.
Left click, right click, middle click, and "squeeze".
Laptops have one button, but you can left and right click with it. Right click by holding two fingers on the pad and clicking...or tapping with two fingers on the pad.
Desktop mighty mouse has a scroll ball which allows for 360 degree scrolling. Laptops have the two finger scroll, where you can drag with two fingers to scroll.
I don't know what versions of Windows you've been running, but all Windows "upgrades" are a full install too, they don't require anything from the old install for anything. The upgrade CD contains everything you need to run Windows. They copy over your old settings and program files if you want, but this is optional.
Of course, they do want to make sure you own Windows before upgrading. That's why it scans the disk when you try to install it. If it doesn't find Windows, it will then just ask you to insert the CD for the previous version of Windows to assure that you own Windows. Having to have the previous version installed to use the upgrade is simply false. It will then happily install to a blank harddrive, I believe it will even offer to wipe the harddrive for you if it isn't blank. I even know a "secret" CD key to turn a Windows 98SE upgrade disk into the full install disk (effectively disables the previous version check), but that's beside the point.
It does seem that Microsoft has you jump through all kinds of hoops that Apple does not make you do, and that is true. That's because Microsoft has to make sure you are qualified for the upgrade, and not installing a Windows upgrade on some PC that never has run Windows before. They have to do this because you can get a PC anywhere, and not all of them come with Windows. On the other hand, Apple has it easier, they know that if you are running a Mac you've already bought Mac OS/OSX so you're good to go. So I ask again, find me a piece of hardware to install OSX on that did not originally come with some version of Mac OS/OSX, and I won't consider it an upgrade.
I, for the record, am so sick of my brand new Sony Vaio VGN-SZ650N $$$$ laptop with Vista that I'm ready to throw it through the window. However, Vista is all that the stores sell laptops with these days and I needed a new laptop ASAP. I've only had the machine for 1 week now, so keep that in mind...also I was on vacation, so I haven't tested it with all my programs yet.
It's just the little things so far that have driven me nuts--though I'll admit it's probably 80% Vista-based crap and 20% or so Sony-only crap.
-One of the first things I noticed is that I bought a laptop with a 160 GB hard drive, but of that only 100 GB were free for me to use. Recovery partition? Really? Wonder how I'd access that...there's not another "hard drive" as if I had 2 partitions. Guess I'll figure that out later.
-Slowness...here's an example:
I hibernate the computer, I open the computer back up, hit a key....wait 2-5 minutes, see the screen flash 3-4 times, sometimes with stupid Vista logos etc but usually just flashing for no good reason. Finally I can log in.
I scan my finger/type in my password. Wait 2-5 more minutes, see the screen flash some more, Google Desktop crashes, the screen resizes so that there's an inch of black space on either side, no wireless network automatically connected even though there's one I told it to connect to. At about 5 minutes or so I can actually start using the computer, though I'm sure that something else is running (only a handful of things were not removed from startup) because the stupid thing that replaced the hour glass is going and nothing is responding.
Is this what you'd expect from 2GB RAM, Core Duo 2 T7500, Nvidia dedicated graphics, hybrid hard drive system?
Also annoying:
-I put a DVD in my drive and realized that Vista didn't recognize my drive at all... first trip to the Vaio support page. Great. Got that working by editing the registry! Already! Apparently there's some issue with Roxio crapware stealing my DVD rights when it's removed.
-Every time I rename, copy, delete, install, etc a file... EACH time a dialog box appears that says I have to confirm this operation, even though the ONLY option is confirm and this DOES NOT require me to put in a password. You can't even imagine how many times I've hit "Confirm" while stripping this computer of all its preinstalled crap and getting my important data/programs on here. I'm sure I can prevent it somehow, but why the hell would they make Vista this annoying?
-Grand Theft Auto San Andreas was actually skipping on here, even though nothing else was running and I had the laptop on its highest performance mode, while my 5-yr old Toshiba could play that game without ANY trouble at all. It had dedicated Nvidia graphics also and could easily heat a small room, but it was significantly faster than this setup with Vista! (I used it up until 2 weeks ago when it finally died of overheating).
-Shear amount of crap software that came with Vista...also a Sony issue, but anyways...it sure looks like every company got in on the party on here, but everything was an annoying trial version. The level of NAGGING by Norton and Acrobat got so bad that I just plain removed everything with either title and replaced with my own software. I'll admit I added Norton Ghost later, but obviously that has nothing to do with their trial crapware.
-I already crashed explorer...by double clicking on "Computer" (aka My Computer). At least this only happened once so far. Only other things running were Google Desktop and Firefox.
-After uninstalling Acrobat and all its minions, I still can't get Firefox to automatically use Foxit instead...yet another issue to work out.
-I once accidentally clicked a link to a mailto form (but I dont have Outlook on here) and it opened a bunch of IE windows, one every second or so until I killed it through the Task Manager... which was particularly interesting considering I was using Firefox.
-Vaio automatic updates icon on the Taskbar links only to
Alright, so which distribution would you put on a Sony Vaio VGN-SZ650N laptop, and do you really think that it would work correctly? It has a hybrid hard drive system and a hybrid graphics system (there's a mechanical switch), which I would have to get full use of while in Linux. I've had the laptop for about a week, and I'm dying to get rid of this crap Vista, but driver issues for the above hardware are going to be a nightmare! Sony won't even give me XP drivers for it. Anyways I just may return it within my 14 day period because of how annoying Vista has been and Sony's lack of even XP drivers... but I will miss the occasionally-decent performance and 3.75lb laptop so much if I do.
I better qualify that as networking over LAN. Networking over WAN doesn't seem to work as well, probably because it's still (relatively) new technology on the mass market level. It's probably better to come up with two different interfaces for the two because something that makes sense on a local trusted LAN is generally stupid over a WAN. Microsoft made that mistake with ActiveX. Stupidity has few limitations, Apple OS X seems going down the same road. If it had as large of an install base as Microsoft Windows, it would have a similar number of problems.
Even a model as simple as trust LAN don't trust WAN breaks down when you're wireless and accessing a public "hot spot". Much, much more design is needed in this area. My primary criteria for selecting apps tends to be what's the most like whatever I use in Windows. Not the best criteria, but a useful place to start. Well yes, I consider that axiomatic. My own personal hostility towards the Microsoft Windows UI would be reduced a lot if there were a magical menu item to select that would give me both global emacs keybindings and change the big key to the left of the "a" key to be "control".
Not completely though. Microsoft Word is terminally brain dead. Framemaker was much, much easier to use, more powerful and understood emacs key bindings. Of course, Microsoft Word is just an application not the O/S. I spent extensive off-time doing Microsoft Windows appreciation exercises. Ack, sounds like a painful training class by someone who isn't exactly a "power user". All I can suggest for enduring Windows is
a: go through EVERYTHING under control panel, tweaking away
b: tweak the start bar
c: tweak tools - options in a regular explorer window
d: download TweakUI and play some more "Hold on right there cowboy", installing 3rd party stuff is taboo.
Yeah, I did most of that (except for the downloading part, as that was strongly discouraged).
But no, the exercises weren't anything to do with formal classes. It was just me trying to grok an alien interface. I'm neither married to a single computer language, nor married to a specific O/S and I'm always willing to look different ones (even though I've worked most of my adult life to help make a Free Unix-alike system). I tried to find something I liked about Microsoft Windows XP, spent over half a year at it and finally gave up installing a corporate RHEL on the desktop machine I was using as a foot rest and on the notebook they gave me.
You obviously are no relation to the Greased Weasel that Linus seems to like so much (laugh, it's funny), but you are also obviously intelligent. I've enjoyed this discussion. btw, My former advisor in college was James Kajiya, a most brilliant man who taught me many, many important things that continue to bias me to this very day. I heard he was working for Microsoft at one point, but I don't know what he's doing now.
-sb
With Mac OS X, you can take any hard drive (hell from a PC if you want) and slap it into a Mac, then boot the computer up from the CD, then install the OS onto the computer. In the past, it never checked for old version, but I think that is changing. With all the different builds, and the transition to Intel macs, I think you have to have some sort of previous version for the latest build. BUT, you can still run at least (to my best recall), OS X.3 from a CD with no previous OS.
I have done this two or three times already. A hard drive is a piece of hardware, no?. I've purchased hard drives (or swapped hard drives from spare pcs) and installed Mac OS X on them. It is safe to say that Maxtor hard drives and hard drives from my PC didn't have have OS X originally installled on them.I think you are confused. With Windows, they sell two very different versions of Windows XP. You can buy a "full" version and an "upgrade" version. "Full" versions work on any hard drive (like OS X) and cost a lot more. I know this because I had to buy WinXP for the PC I built. "Upgrade" disks, while indeed having all the info of a full version, only work on machines that have a version of Windows on them already, and they cost less.
Actually, they sell 3 versions that I know of. There is an OEM version too, which is like the full version but is tied to the hardware and can't be moved to another computer once you install it (and also lacks support and such). And no, you can install the upgrade disk on a blank computer, at some point it will ask for you to insert the disk for the previous version of Windows to verify that you qualify for the upgrade, that's the only difference from the full version. It's really no different than the Mac, except that for OSX the fact it's on a Mac is already good enough so you don't have to dig out your old disks. I can see how people can get confused - a lot of recovery disks aren't going to be recoginized by the Windows upgrade disk, and there are a few other gotchas too (you can't upgrade 2000 Pro to XP Home, for example).
With all the different builds, and the transition to Intel macs, I think you have to have some sort of previous version for the latest build. BUT, you can still run at least (to my best recall), OS X.3 from a CD with no previous OS.
I would guess they do that to annoy the people trying to get OSX up on some generic hardware. I see little reason to do it otherwise.
I have done this two or three times already. A hard drive is a piece of hardware, no?. I've purchased hard drives (or swapped hard drives from spare pcs) and installed Mac OS X on them. It is safe to say that Maxtor hard drives and hard drives from my PC didn't have have OS X originally installled on them.
*sigh*. I guess the "and runs it too" was implied. I can't drive anywhere with just a set of tires.
For more info on Vista's idiotic approach to DRM, I heartily recommend this writeup. Anyone who hasn't yet read it is doing themselves a grave disservice.
Oh hell yes. I did, my brother did, and we ended up convincing the parents to do so as well. 95 was archaic and byzantine, 98 was pretty good, but ME was an absolute fucking mess in so many ways. Formerly stable programs started lagging (when they weren't crashing randomly), and the desktop was a chaotically unpredictable disaster (to the point where I was sure I had to have somehow been on the receiving end of my first virus since the DOS days - nope). Oh, and while all versions of Windows in those days would start lagging like fuck after a few hours' uptime, ME seemed even worse in that regard.
When I saw XP for the first time at a friend's house, I took a few minutes to mock the "prettyification" of the taskbar, but made mental note to consider an upgrade. Once I did, I was amazed at how stable shit was. It took a year before my first blue-screen (and that was hardware related). Now that I've upgraded my machine, I can run 24/7 for two months without real slow-down (with lots of lovely CPU hogging aps going in and out).
Upgrading from 3.1 to 95? Kinda required after a certain point. 95 to 98? Pretty good. 98 to ME? Stupid. ME to XP? Sublime. XP to Vista? From all that I've gathered, it seems like it'd be even worse than 98 to ME. No thanks!
I had not done any research myself so I would love verify this information myself. However, we the users must use simple logic here. I have used Windows Vista -- free beta version distribute by MS before the lauch, and I would like to point out few things. I installed the beast on my trustly old Pentium 4, and it run very nicly, infact I was able to run most of my hardware -- including Canon printer -- 1996 product! Nevertheless it is lot to be desire. How much "hard drive" space is being used by windows vista to prevent users to make a copy of the OS? How much internet bandwidh it uses to copy verify it is a legit OS -- and how much for patching the "OS". How much rams it needs to run "3D Arrow GUI"? This one I can answer and you can verify by MS site (note I didn't use $) Over 256MB just for Video Cards!!!! And 2 gig of rams must be on the mother-board!
Where is the link to the orginal article ? PCMAG has removed the article.
You really wait 2-5 minutes? Bullshit. Go buy a MacBook, those are computers for dumb hippies with no sense of time.
Thanks for making my point. It's good to see that the attitude is alive and well here on Slashdot. Sometimes I think that a lot of the hostility here is just fear of anyone who dares go against the "norm". You know, "I'm not a racist, but I just think life was better when they had their drinking fountains, and we had ours. Change is frightening, and I can't handle it. Thankfully I'm pretty good with discrediting any opposition."
Is Linux the BESTOSEVAROMG!!!? No, it's not. Are you a complete fucking moron for spouting off the tired and played-out "EVAR OMG" garbage? Yes, you are. But back to Linux: it does what I need it to do with a little effort and it supports pretty well every hardware maker out there. I am not saying Vista is bad - evne though it is - it's just not ready for primetime. Any time a user needs to wait five minutes for a modern top-end computer to boot up, you've moved out of the mainstream and the average Joe isn't going to want to do anything like that. Other people in this topic have said as much as well.
And how do you expect to defend the honor of your chosen operating system by being a whiny bitch?
Really, if I had to choose between AssholeOS and WhinybitchSD, with the knowledge that I'd end up being surrounded by either assholes or whiny bitches as a result of my choice, I'd be installing AssholeOS in a heartbeat.
There I was, in the real estate office. Before me lay the rap sheets of two houses. The one, oh Christ it was magnificent. The other was none too shabby, but the first one, twas a bargin, in a beautiful, civilized neighborhood, with more bathrooms than I could count on one hand, an indoor, full size pool, and--
That's when I noticed that my apparent "dream house" was painted blue. And that... that started the spark of a flashback in the very center of my consciousness. Joey Harkinson loved his blue house. He was also the biggest bully in 6th grade, bar none. No matter what you had, Joey had something better. Even the bacteria in Joey's asshole was better than the bacteria in your asshole. Oh God. Memories of all the horrible names he used to call me flooded my mind, and his house - his blue house... his blue house...
THAT, my friends, is why I chose to live in this lovely two bedroom, one and a half bath puke-green colored hut in the ass end of Atlanta. Never mind the drive-bys. Never mind the neighbors blasting rap music and hollering about Michael Vick at all hours of the night. Never mind that it was more expensive than that other house - at least people who lived in puke green houses never made fun of me >: (
Ready for prime time? Then I have a question for you. If I wanted to produce a commercial product that runs on Vista, to enclose in a box, shrink wrap and distribute to shelves at Office Max & the like, how would I do it?
How would I
- Handle the different distributions-- does it need to run on everything or just certain major distributions such as Vista, XP, 2000, etc.-- and how do I come up with that list? What steps do I have to take in the software in order to insure it will run on all the qualifying distributions?
- Handle the different versions-- including future versions. Should I compile everything statically because I can't be sure what versions of shared libraries will be available? Carry copies of the shared libraries I need with the package and install these with my program?
Additionally, it seems that my pants fill with shit whenever I see the word "Linux" on an internet messageboard forum. What should I do about this?
In essence, I need to know exactly what to put on the outside of the box where it says "System Requirements", and how to insure that those - and my underoos - are in fact workable and saleable.
It seems to me that if Vista is ready for prime time there must be clear answers to these questions.
Actually, I was just correcting the mis-information you were spreading, but believe whatever you want. And besides, it's not that hard to run OSX on (some) PC hardware - I've done it myself, though I have little interest in doing so beyond the novelty factor.
I really don't think you understand. What I'm saying is not that the jerks' houses are blue. I'm saying that the jerks are the real-estate agent trying to sell you the house, and they're scoffing at your color choice and telling you you're a child and an idiot for even wanting that house.
SRSLY.
> Not completely though. Microsoft Word is terminally brain dead. Framemaker was much, much easier to use, more powerful and understood emacs key bindings. Of course, Microsoft Word is just an application not the O/S.
I don't particularly care for Word either, but in my case that's because I have no need for it, except in viewing what other people send me. I'm not in any sort of a PRish or manager-ish job, so notepad is good enough for me, and e-mail for everyone else. Large amounts of data? Format in a text file and attach to e-mail. If you get into Word or Excel XP will be painful, if only from opening them with each file if you tend to close what you're finished with.
>> d: download TweakUI and play some more
> "Hold on right there cowboy", installing 3rd party stuff is taboo.
3rd party depends on where you work. At my last job, anything went. At my current job, it's more structured (gasp, actually buying licenses for software!) but TweakUI is a gray area. One one hand it's not installed by default, on the other it IS an MS product, offered for free. Of course given that it's just a friendly front cover for registry and ini settings, you can look it up, see what's inresting then look up how to do that manually.
> I tried to find something I liked about Microsoft Windows XP
Most people who like XP probably came to it from 2000 or 98. Compared to those OSs, XP is an improvment, if only for minor touches here and there in the pack-in utilities. Minor things like ctrl-g for goto line or list line number in notepad make a big difference. If notepad automatically told you what line you were on like most other editors half of that would be pointless but... you take extra functionality where you find it. Compared to earlier versions, every new Windows adds something. (I think anyway, after what I heard about ME I never tried it. Not sure what it added besides problems) The question is whether the new features are worth the bloat and new errors.
For people coming to XP from MaxOS, I'd expect it to be annoying, but do-able. Max has always been advertised as the easy computer, so power (of the OS) doesn't mean much here.
For people coming from *nix, the loss of the rich command line would be a problem. (Although there are and from at least 3 on always have been alternatives, if only disgusting ones involing a batch file that calls a gwbasic that writes a second batch file called by the 1st after gwbasic. At that point you were pretty much better off using basic as your shell.) Windows took a hit when it "became" the OS and quit packing in a language, but as soon as the web became popular it was largely moot.
> I've enjoyed this discussion.
Ditto. It's nice to talk to someone with an opinion based on practicality over psuedo-religious beliefs.
> btw, My former advisor in college was James Kajiya, a most brilliant man who taught me many, many important things that continue to bias me to this very day.
If you mean
http://research.microsoft.com/users/kajiya/
he's certainly made a name for himself.
I presume by ini settings you mean the equivalent of ~/.[something]rc files. OK.
The registry seemed like very bad engineering to me. Every so often I'd get ominous popup windows saying such and such program is attempting to modify the registry, allow or ignore. (Never of course, giving a clue as to what the registry actually was). I presume it's some kind of machine global, world writable database file based on other things I've read. That's really asking for trouble when you design things that way. For people coming from *nix, the loss of the rich command line would be a problem. (Although there are and from at least 3 on always have been alternatives, if only disgusting ones involing a batch file that calls a gwbasic that writes a second batch file called by the 1st after gwbasic. At that point you were pretty much better off using basic as your shell.) Windows took a hit when it "became" the OS and quit packing in a language, but as soon as the web became popular it was largely moot. That, would be me. And yeah, loss of the command line is kind of like a show-stopper to me. I love being able to program in the command interpreter. I ported the Adventure Shell to ksh (a Unix shell, usable a login shell written in shell script, yes I tested that), I wrote a BASIC interpreter that had more features than the BASIC that started Microsoft off to fame and fortune in ksh, I once wrote a shell virus that kind of got away and proved most difficult to eliminate (oops)
I can see how real shells might be intimidating to some people, I just can't live without one. Anything else seems toyish. But that's OK. My wife can bang on GUI buttons and stuff, but I will teach my sons how to do shell programming.
I suppose we can all thank Microsoft that previously relatively slow interpreted languages that used to be somewhat awkward to program in now run more like greased weasels since the hardware has gotten so much faster to keep up with Microsoft Windows. If you mean
http://research.microsoft.com/users/kajiya/
he's certainly made a name for himself. Yeah, that's him. Brilliant man, though wrong about the future of Prolog.
Okay, good point - it was late, and I'm only about half-coherant when fully rested anyway.
Regardless, I think pretty much any real estate agent is guaranteed to be at least a little bit sleazy, by the very nature of their profession. So, it's still a stupid reason to end up in Atlanta.
INI files are files with a .ini extension and the following form inside
;s or 's at the beginning of a line indicate a comment line.
l ogies/management/powershell/faq.mspx#EKB
[Section1]
Key1=Value1
Key2=Value2
[Section2]
Key3=Value3
[Database Info]
Server=1.2.3.4
UserID=Joe
Password=xyzzy
To understand the registry, I expect you'veused explorer with it's tree view of files. The registry looks like that. It's a giant tree of directories called keys and "file" like items I just call data. Find a reference to one, use start run, type in regedit and hit enter and you're in. Hop down the tree and follow the instructions, adding, changing or deleting data and adding / removing keys (folders). There is NO undo. The registry is partly stored, and partly dynamic. The stored parts are split over several different files. Random tweaks are bad, but it's very powerful. (ie, MS made WAY too much depend on it.) It is world readable, although certain sections can be protected.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/256986
Ack, I forgot about the programmer's last resort on Windows... although you'd be mad to do anything with it. Pretty much every DOS and Windows version comes with DEBUG which lets you make programs in assembler. I'd rather go out and buy something personally.
Speaking of shells, MS is working on a new one. It's long past due.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/techno
Also, while MS bloat may be requiring faster computers, sadly, so is Linux. When I tried Mandrake ~ 2 years ago (or was going to) on old hardware, I couldn't run the default install program on the CD. The OS would technically run on the machine, but the installer needed twice as much RAM as the box had. SUSE doesn't like older machines either.