Slashdot Mirror
First Look At Windows 7 On an Entry-Level Netbook
davidmwilliams sends in his IT Wire review of how Windows 7RC1 performs on an Acer Aspire One netbook. Summing up: it runs, it won't win any speed competitions, you won't want to play Crysis on it, and it's pretty OK for light-duty, everyday tasks. In related news, several readers have noted that Windows 7 RC1 is now available; one anonymous reader notes "This time, Microsoft was smart not to limit the time that it's available or the number of keys. It will be up for download until July, so there's lots of time to grab a copy."
Let's see how long until I can force it to crash, and then I can complain about it!
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
as many others type this in at the same time - but it sounds like it pretty much runs like all other netbooks - regardless of the OS.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
"This time, Microsoft was smart not to limit the time that it's available or the number of keys. It will be up for download until July, so there's lots of time to grab a copy."
But it STILL expires after a certain date, forcing you to buy it, or switch to another OS. Ticking time bomb.
I'm pretty sure Dell Mini 9 + OSX = breaking the license. Or has apple suddenly made an about face in this regard?
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Would you really call those specs "entry level", as in "the lowest specs available"?
Why don't they just make an operating system that is nothing more than a browser? No command line, traditional kernel, file system just a browser written in assembly and a SQLite database that stores all the browser settings and maybe a few small files like your credit card details on a small SSD.
If they do this, then maybe just maybe your "netbook" will be able to load the bloated sites of the interweb in 2 years time
Dos this version have the 3-app limit? What are the minimum memory requirements, and how much of that will be eaten by the OS itself?
I remember previous versions minimum requirements being enough to open paintbrush and wordpad...
Besides, those netbooks are not exactly known for their huge amounts of memory not for their easy upgrades...
The license agreement may not even be legal.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
I installed win7 when it was first released. Didn't play nice with existing xp networks and really gave no real functional reason to switch from xp. Once we can easily and seamlessly install any windows based software on linux windows will die. Frankly I'd guess part of the reason for win7 is simply to make that goal more difficult.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
Just breaking the license doesn't make it illegal. We've all seen unenforceable clauses in licenses and until Apple's license is tested in court, we won't know if the "Apple-branded" hardware bit is legitimate or not.
Of course, if you pirate a copy, instead of buying one that is illegal.
But if you buy a copy of OSX and install it on a non-Apple-branded computer, somehow I doubt that Apple will make too much of a fuss.
I didn't say it was illegal - I said it breaks the license. There are plenty of negative ramifications to being in that state that have nothing to do with legality.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
hehehehehehe
"However, at all times it was a stable experience, just increasingly slower as I attempted to do more simultaneously."
Phhhhwwwwbbbbbbttttt...............
i thought it was funny
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Such as?
This is the 7100 build so for all us leechers: nothing for you to see here, please move along.
If Dell won't sell me the Mini 9 without a Windows license and I don't otherwise use OSX or Ubuntu?
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
The one thing I really like about Vista is the sidebar, I find it pretty useful having currency converter, calendar and such immediately to hand. In Windows 7 they seem to have done away with it and made the gadgets stand alone such that they either obscure windows if set to always on top, or they hide behind them otherwise making them either annoying or useless depending on which setting you have.
As the performance tweaks in Windows 7 don't matter to me because my machine is powerful enough that I've not had performance issues in Vista nor noticed a difference with Windows 7 beta anyway and as I don't find the new taskbar worthwhile is there anything in Windows 7 that makes it worthwhile?
I can see Windows 7 being good for those who held on to XP, but for those of us who did switch to Vista and have had no problems with it (so all 3 of us then :p), and particularly those of us who liked the sidebar it seems a step backwards. I can't see the gadgets being worthwhile to anyone in their current incarnation - has anyone found them useful when they're only ever out the way or in the way?
While nearly half the RAM being consumed without actually doing anything useful may be concerning itâ(TM)s not actually a big deal. Microsoft claim that Windows 7 (and Vista too, but its success is arguable) pre-loads parts of programs it expects you to use
Really? That is the line they are selling? I don't buy it. Why can't the OS just focus on being a solid, stable, efficient platform for running applications and let me worry about which application I want to run. You would think that pre-loading anything takes additional time at boot up and I would rather have my desktop up in 15 seconds then have to wait for all this other stuff that Windows thinks I may want to do.
sigh
Limited support? Lack of drivers?
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
But can I still use the dll overrides in wine?
support
patches that could break things
legal issues should apple decide it is worth the trouble (and let me restate, it doesn't have to be illegal for this to come up)
those are what I can think of off the top of my head.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I just tried installing the rc with virtualbox on ubuntu 8.04 and right away I get the dreaded blue screen! You win again world.
On the second try, the install is going smoothly.
I'm not familiar with installing OSX on netbooks, but if Apple gets angry that instead of buying a >$1000 Macbook you get a $500 netbook and only pay them $129 for the license, they could start banning stuff like EFI emulators, checking hardware's serial numbers and vendors (an Atom CPU definitely means non-Apple hardware).
On a sligtly unrelated topic - if Apple knows the exact amount of Macs sold, they could use that number to limit the number of OSX installation DVDs.
hardware lock in like that is illegal in some areas even in the us the DMCA says that you can hack your iphone to put it on a other network.
Hold on, WTH:
- It takes 450-odd Mb of RAM to just sit at a clean, freshly installed desktop. I'm still running networks of machines that run on XP with 512Mb and suffer no appreciable performance loss (admittedly well-managed in terms of applications, but we run Office too).
- When you install Office 2007, it swaps like mad with 1Gb of RAM.
- It takes 7Gb of drive space to install.
That is *not* a comfortable operating system for a netbook, it really isn't. My XP laptop is about as powerful as that netbook (although mine is dual-core and has a much nicer graphics card) and yet it'll take all of the above amounts of RAM, for a basic Office install - but I have a ton of other crap installed and running (my current Opera session is taking 70Mb of RAM, for instance). So what you have is *not* a netbook but a run-of-the-mill laptop. However, if I was to try to run this on, say, an Asus EEEPC it's likely to fall flat on its face before you even start (4Gb flash, oops, bang). Where XP would be quite happy, I'd like to add (or at worst, a nLite CD would work). And that's before you even START actually using the damn thing to get work done.
Just off the top of my head, booting a Slackware CD, pressing "yes" to everything, etc. will get you into a full X-Windows environment with several window managers, thousands of apps, all in under 5Gb storage (most of that being silly stuff like gcc, KDE I18n, and TeX) and able to run in a few hundred Meg RAM. With OpenOffice, yeah you might get a bit of swapping went you first load but the point of netbooks etc. is the nice suspend options, and it sounds like it wouldn't be anywhere near as bad.
I know this is all based on a "blog-o-expert", but hell... it's obviously not suited to the task. Just like XP isn't really suited to the task. But it sounds like it does an even worse job. Yeah, with some tweaking you can probably get rid of a lot of crap but you're never going to be able to pare it down as far as XP, or any version of Linux.
So in the age of netbooks, where people are getting them thrown at them with their mobile phone contracts, MS's idea is to release (and thus force upon people) a new OS that doesn't really handle them at all unless you voluntarily soup them up and kill their performance/battery life. Good plan. I was seriously half expecting a special "7 mobile" edition at some point that would merge the CE and NT-based product lines for netbooks, seeing how that's the buzzword at the moment. In the absense of that, another growing OS is hardly a surprise. I'm actually pleasantly surprised that it wasn't a LOT worse than this. Vista upgrades were a really, really big deal and killed many an upgrade plan stone dead. This isn't in those realms, but it's hardly good news.
Since when has lack of drivers been a legitimate negative ramification of OSX? I'm not trolling--serious question. I've been a user since X.0 beta and can't recall a single "lack of driver" issue. That's not to say the problem doesn't exist, only that they are so far and few between that it isn't even worth mentioning.
Some of us don't care? :)
Seriously, if I pay Apple for a copy of Leopard, I'll damn well use it wherever I please - with the full understanding that it is unsupported.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Really? Try running OS X on a non-intel or with something other than a broadcom wireless card. it will shit all over itself.
To run os x on the aspire one, you have to swap the wireless card, the touchpad drivers are a pain and sleep doesn't always work.
Could everyone please sign up to the Save Vista campaign. Like Hummer like Chrysler, like Edsel, Vista shows the might of full-sized American industrial production. Itâ(TM)s a monument to everything that makes us great. We can't let it be trashed for misguided corporate attempts to suck up to latte sippers.
Say No To Seven! VISTA VISTA VISTA! All the way!
http://rocknerd.co.uk
I don't know if 1GB of RAM should be too little for an OS and MS Word.
I'm on ubuntu, using 871 MB of RAM atm, with firefox using a whopping 16% of my total 2 GB (= 327 MB).
My systems runs ok, but I guess it'll get a lost faster if I kill fi
Now that I've switched away from windows after getting stuck with Vista, it's so annoying that the next release by all accounts is actually going to be passably good (though is that astroturfing?).
It's annoying because Windows is like a wife-beating husband. You live with it for years and years of pain, disappointment and broken promises, but just when you think you're ready to leave forever they turn around all smiles and sweetness.
I'm tired of MS's patent crap. I'm tired of the DRM. I'm tired of the FUD. I'm tired of mediocre product after mediocre product. I'm tired of their high prices. I'm tired of them stacking the ISO. I'm tired of embrace extend extinguish. I'm tired of fixing other people's computers from malware. I'm tired of the overwhelming OS storage footprints, and everything else they do to ruin computing for everyone. I'm tired of the whole company and I wish everyone would dump them forever.
But just as people begin to consider it, they give you a bouquet of flowers.
Will this ever end?
I tried one of the win7 betas but gave up quickly because I could find no working network driver for my onboard NIC. I installed the new RC on Thursday and the OS is an absolute dream. It feels light years ahead of everything I've ever used, and the streamlined interface has forced me to re-evaluate my insistence on turning off new features to make it work more like win95. You should give it another shake - my compatibility issues have been very minimal.
As for your comment about Linux replacing Windows when the application support is there, I think it's going to take more than that. Windows' sleek UI and excellent vendor driver support save the user time worth more than the entry price over its lifespan, plus Microsoft offers tech support for its products. With Linux it's inevitable that an end user will be forced to do something at the commandline, and realistically that's a huge time sink or maybe a deal breaker for the average user. This is just my opinion but Linux just feels like it is eternally playing catch-up, and by the time they're 60% of the way there Windows will have jumped forward to an entirely new era. Linux gets better every single month but it's never been on par in terms of the holistic computing experience - drivers, software, productivity, and even freeware are all in better shape on Windows, so that's why I've stuck with it despite trying many new Linux distros from time to time.
Speaking of Visio diagrams... this is a serious question for the ones how actually use it... does it still hog the registry hive with a myriad of keys making the system notably slower?
I haven't used Visio since I got introduced to graphviz. Dia works for the fringe cases that graphviz doesn't so really... what does Visio have that is so "needed" ?
Well summed up post.
linux cannot replace windows until you can install any common program with a few clicks of the mouse (no compiling, no searching apt-get for the right repository, no manual dependence checking)
It would also help if linux had real wireless support, not hacks like ndis wrapper
OS X doesn't even support Apple's own floppy drives.
So you've installed OSX on a wide variety of non-apple hardware?
Dell won't sell me the Mini 9 without a Windows license
In what country? In the United States, three out of four pictured Dell Inspiron Mini 9 configurations have a "Customize with Ubuntu" button.
Excellent! The top speed of Windows 7 is 7.9 rather than 5.9. That a 34% increase.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
All the positive media hype notwithstanding.... 7 will receive the same response from the user community as did Vista. Bloatware... just not suitable for Netbooks.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Lets see...
* Spend $50-60 on a 2 gig ram chip.
* Spend $200+ on Windows 7 (Netbook Version)
* Spend $40-60 on antivirus.
* Spend $200 on Office
* Limited to three applications.
After buying a Netbook PC.
OR
* Spend $50-60 on a 2 gig ram chip.
* Download and install Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.04.
* Stick with Open Office and still handle most Office documents.
* Unlimited applications.
After buying a Netbook PC.
Hmmm... tough choice there.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
That's fine - I just wouldn't call running unsupported software that may or may not work with your hardware "win". I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, I just wouldn't characterize it as the best alternative - as the OP seemed to do.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
take my gadgets off the side bar and let them "float" in vista as is. Than Again I have a dual monitor setup so I got plenty of real estate for such things. I found the side bar to be obtrusive and when i wanted to click on a folder or something the sidebar would be in my way.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
It's obviously been a while since you used Linux. Pretty much any software can be installed with a few mouse clicks unless you're using a specialised distro - in which case you presumably know what you're doing.
I'll use ubuntu as an example. Nine times out of ten, you simply choose 'Add/remove programs' from the Applications menu, select your software and watch it install. If, perchance, the software isn't distributed by Canonical, you simply click on the .deb package in Firefox and it'll install automatically. Finally, some software - particularly browser plug ins and codecs - will install themselves automatically on demand
This is all very much easier than software installation under Windows or OSX.
Good point. Not sure why your post wasn't marked informative but the guy going on about outdated floppy drives was. In any case, as evil as it may seem that Apple makes the hardware AND the OS, you've highlighted the primary reason "it just works". Good luck to all those budget-minded OSX users putting OSX on their cheapie Dells!
Seriously, if I pay Apple for a copy of Leopard, I'll damn well use it wherever I please - with the full understanding that it is unsupported.
And you can damn well do exactly that without a problem, Apple won't come after you because as long as your hackintosh simply stays exactly that: you personal OS X toy, they don't really care that much.
Apple have said time and time again that they don't care about what individual users do with OS X. Only when shady businesses like Psystar start selling Apple clones they call in the lawyers.
Maybe we should invent the concept of a "package manager" just for you.....wait...they already exit, damnit. Many Linux distros already have very good dependency checking done for you automatically, those which don't tend to be in distros not aimed at the newbie. With a package manager it's like a single store where you use the built in search engine to find what you want, tick it and search for the next package. When you're finished "shopping" a single click to apply the changes and another to confirm and they all get installed......oh yeah, and you won't have to reboot either. That seems much easier to me than having to install each .exe individually with plenty of reboots.
Not to mention the package manager keeps track of EVERY package on your PC (as long as it was installed via the package manager) as well as the core system itself, so updates are a one-click deal. With Windows the Windows updates system only does WINDOWS updates, nothing else. You have to do every application separately, which means a LOT of clicks, with a LOT of different GUI's to interact with to stay updated.
I've been a full time Linux user for a few years and have never needed to compile anything. I do sometimes have to use the command line but not for everyday common user level tasks.
As far as wireless support is concerned, this gets better by the week. This is not the device driver devs fault, blame the proprietary vendors, many of whom are enticed by Microsoft to make sure their hardware ONLY works with Windows. Even then, some drivers supplied by vendors are shit too, depending on the version of Windows & service pack.
If you're gonna compare Linux with Windows at least use a version of Linux that's not a decade old.
If you're using the 32-bit version of Win7, try the WinXP NIC driver. That's what I had to do for my 3Com 3C905C, and it works OK. That may work for 64-bit Win7, but I don't know.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
How is driving to a store easier than using Synaptic? How is having to find crap like the VB runtime (manual dependency checking) so simple?
Last time I bothered with trying to dual boot (for games, 2 1/2 years ago), practically nothing was supported. Had to find all the drivers by manually looking for them on the internet (in Ubuntu, since the network card didn't work in Windows) and the wireless never worked at all. The experience was such shit, I wiped the partition and now only use Windows at work, where due to the shoddiness of the OS, the anti-virus makes it unusable for an hour a day.
I would not agree to that. Having been on Ubuntu as my primary desktop for 9 months now, I can say that there are no reasons for loosing any time. Maybe you should remove those critic's goggles and approach Linux with a more open mind. Because your commentary stinks of prejudice.
The only item that keeps me coming back to windows are some of the applications.
In any case most of things are done via the browser nowadays, so I don't really care about the OS much.
As for drivers?I have 2 proprietary drivers on my laptop: nVidia and Broadcom. Both were installed like a charm via one click. I mean it takes longer on Windows to update those things.
That is absolutely not true. I use as much of command line now in Linux as I do on Windows. I have people using my computer that are as computer illiterate as they get.
Oh phulease... Most support is done via the OEM channels, MS's consumer support is basically crap.
Now MSDN Premium was named Premium for a reason.
I will give you other items such as:
- broader support for drivers (more useful and useless options)
- more software(freeware or otherwise)*
- a more unified look and feel
On a sidenote, if you like holistic experience you probably will LOVE Apple products. They don't get much holistic as Apple Mac's.
* - though I have not had issues with not finding software that I or my, computer illiterate, family members needed.
What are you a microsoft salesman? Or did you miss e17, kde4.2, or gnome with some translucency effects running composite. These are sleek, are they not? As for support, you do know you can buy support from any number of companies for linux: redhat, suse, ubuntu, etc. I really don't get this statement.
As for the rest of your comment, yes, linux plays a lot of catch-up. BUT, I argue that any OS with 1% market share would be playing catch-up as well. Remember also that linux has innovated quite a few things. All those more powerful command line tools you get in Windows Vista and presumably 7 is Windows playing catch-up to unix shells. All that flash and sleekness you see in Windows 7 and in aero is Windows playing catch-up to OS X, but in fact the composite managers in linux have more eye-candy and cool effects than anything in either windows or OS X (e.g., when I close window, it bursts into some short-lived flames, it's awesome!). So every company and organization copies from each other, it's not just linux doing it.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
It's supposed to kick you off every two hours starting then, and then it will hard-expire in June.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
You must not use OS X much, if at all. To install a common app you drop it anywhere on your hard drive. That's it.
To remove it, you delete the app. That's it.
Granted there are some apps that have an actual installer but they are few and far between.
Boot up time is not bad, but it's not five seconds. My Eee 900A does 10s from grub to desktop, and we ain't playin with no 'start services after the desktop is visible' crap.
The article says "....if your netbook uses a solid state hard disk then space may be more of a premium." It does. Most any linux distro will fit in under 4GB, with all the bells and whistles preinstalled: office suite, image editing, games, you name it. SSD drives are a must for laptops, certainly for me: I carried around a 2.5" HDD with my netbook for a week before it died of unrecoverable disk errors. By taking up so much storage (and CPU and memory), Win 7 is cutting itself out of the netbook market.
In a couple years Moore's Law will perhaps take care of that problem, but for the moment linux has a clear edge on netbooks. That edge will almost certainly continue to hold: Microsoft will probably never be able to match linux for size and power. This year, the battleground will be netbooks, next year it will be smartphones. With these kind of performance numbers, Microsoft is better off keeping XP alive.
As for me, I would like to see a good OS come out of Redmond, for once. If and when I get a desktop machine again, I'll probably keep a windows partition (or at least a VM) around for games, but Win7 is off the table until then.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
I tried one of the Windows betas, but I gave up because it was buggy. I installed the new Ubuntu RC, and it was an absolute dream. It felt light years ahead of any Windows I had ever used.
As for your comment about Windows replacing Linux when the software support is there, I think it's going to take more than that. Ubuntu's slick UI and unparalleled driver support save the user time worth more than the entry price over it's lifespan. Oh wait. It's free. Double win.
Want a terminal emulator (for programming routers)? Want an SSH client? Want a network sniffer? Want an http server? Smtp? Want any of 10,000 software packages? It's a couple clicks away with Synaptic. Don't tell me that Windows beats Linux for software installation. That's pathetically riduculous to anyone who's actually USED Linux for anything. Just because you can't get -- specifically -- Photoshop or Office or... well, that's pretty much it -- for Linux doesn't mean that software support isn't "there." There are plenty of applications to get the job done, do it the way YOU want to, and not the one single way that someone else supposes you should.
Plus, you can get a lot more support for free because people can look inside the code, actually figure out what the heck is going on, and explain it. If that's not enough, I'm betting you can get support for Ubuntu from Canonical for less cost than you can get support for Windows from Microsoft. And better support. I've called Microsoft support. Three out of four times, their "advice" was "reinstall."
Look. Enough. I'm tired of these old chestnuts from people who install Linux once or twice, can't figure out how to do anything, and then claim that Windows is the only credible OS on the market. Please. I don't have a problem with Microsoft fanboys. I have a problem with ANYONE who raves about ANYTHING without really knowing anything about the alternatives.
(Disclaimer(s): I'm a Gentoo fanboy, but I have Ubuntu NBR on an Asus Eee. For some reason, Firefox is buggier than the Everglades in August, but otherwise, it's fantastic, and there are several other credible browsers available. Yes, I use Windows, but only on my main machine, and only for gaming.)
Acts 17:28, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."
If you're that bothered - just stick with Windows 98 which doesn't do any of this stuff.
Gladly! Now please explain to me where I can get drivers for my ASUS EeePC 901 that will drive the video card, sound card, webcam, ethernet, bluetooth, and wifi... I'm more than able to make Win9x my bitch and get it to sit up, roll over, play dead, and beg but without fully working drivers Win9x simply isn't an option any more.
This is pretty sad too, because I've managed to run Win9x without the infamous bluescreens and other issues thanks to the patches and upgrades put out by the Win9x community at MSFN... Tihiy's shell upgrades and Xeno's kernel upgrades really make the platform look and behave much nicer than you'd believe! If you know anything at all about the history of the Win3x and Win9x systems and how they were constantly extended each time they were thought to have hit a brick wall you'd understand how tragic this really is.
--bornagainpenguin
Have a Virgin Mobile USA smartphone? Give VMRoms.com a try!
It probably doesn't support Apple punch card readers either.
What's your point?
The average user has so many problems on Windows that there are an entire industries dedicated to fixing their problems.
The Windows UI is crap. The everything and the kitchen sink program listing is awful. Most of the admin utilities are hideous and about as unintuitive as they come.
If Windows was even marginally as "easy to use" as is claimed, then my name would not be in the mental rolodex of everyone I know where I am listed under "can fix my computer".
I just wouldn't call running unsupported software that may or may not work with your hardware "win".
It doesn't need to be supported... you load it on and try it out - it either works or it doesn't. Worst case, you put Windows or Linux back on it. I'm going to get flamed for this, but the user experience is similar to Linux, where most people don't get any support for it and don't have the technical skill to fix it themselves.
In my case, I mostly have Macs in the house. If I wanted a netbook, I probably would try to make a hackintosh just to keep my home setup easy. If it didn't work out, oh well, I'd still have a fun little toy to play with... :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I don't understand why the word illegal keeps coming up. I didn't say it was illegal, I just wouldn't characterize as running software on unsupported hardware as "win".
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Ha! Windows sucks following your logic. Why? I have Vodafone Mobile Connect card and I need not install any drivers on Ubuntu, just insert the card click connect and everything is integrated! With Windows? I have to install the specialized software, that I have to launch before I insert the card. WTF? So in my view Windows sucks.
I tried one of the win7 betas but gave up quickly because I could find no working network driver for my onboard NIC. I installed the new RC on Thursday and the OS is an absolute dream.
you must be dreaming.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
I installed the 64-bit version Saturday night (MSDN download), and so far it is much better than Vista. As a developer who beats the hell out of his machines, I've had major performance problems with Vista no matter how much memory I give it. Vista chokes badly when I try to debug apps in Visual Studio on a 4GB machine with nothing else running where XP handles it fine with 2GB of memory and a bunch of other apps running at the same time (even with other virtual machines running).
I installed 64-bit Windows 7 on my home machine (dual-boot with 32-bit XP, just in case). It's a dual-core Athlon with 2GB of memory and a GeForce 8600, and while I haven't had time to beat it up badly yet, so far it seems as smooth as when I run XP on the same machine. Unlike Vista, it does not chew on my hard drive all the time and choke when one of my apps needs it. I just installed Visual Studio last night (which takes like 4 hours including the Service Pack install), so I haven't had time to play with Visual Studio on it yet, but it ran Crysis, Oblivion, and my own graphics demos (http://sponeil.net/) well enough that I'm hopeful about developing on it.
NOTE: I haven't disabled any of the default services 7 starts with. I wanted to see how it ran in its default configuration first. I'll try tweaking it for better performance after I've gotten comfortable with it. Also, for everyone saying it has problems with 1GB or less of RAM, what did you expect? I expected it to choke with 2GB, but so far I have been pleasantly surprised. If I buy Windows 7 when it comes out, I'll probably upgrade to 4GB to make sure I have some breathing room. I don't really like being forced to buy more for the OS, but sometimes you have to move on. (I'll probably keep XP on my old laptop because that's not worth upgrading.)
If you have 2GB of RAM or more and can easily set your system up to run dual-boot (i.e. have a spare hard drive, or can resize your primary partition to make room for a new one), I would recommend giving it a try. I would not recommend replacing or upgrading your only OS with it at the moment.
According to the message boards build 7077 is actually faster. Apparently build 7100 is the RC branch and 7077 was a different branch for the RTM.
teque5.com
Does anyone know what the apple stickers are for that come with every Mac, iPod etc.? Aren't they intended for you to Apple-brand your computer?
I'm much more exciting about the upcoming ARM devices that start under $300 and are gunning for the under $200 pricepoint. That combination of price, size, toughness, and unbeholdeness to the Win32 ecosystem
Which would likely be quickly replaced with beholdenness to the WinCE ecosystem.
So every company and organization copies from each other, it's not just linux doing it.
You're absolutely right. But (and I could be wrong), I don't think that's what the GP was referring to. The reason I say this, is I feel the same way.
I have tried a number of Linux distributions, and I have even really liked some of them (Gentoo was my favorite - used it for well over a year), but I always keep coming back to Windows. Why? I can't really describe it. I know Linux is powerful. I know Linux allows complete customization. And, the Linux community has been pretty awesome (again, Gentoo was the best IMO). But, Windows just "feels" better. It really feels like a seamless system. And, quite honestly, that's the best I can do to describe it. It's more of a feeling than anything.
Either way, both systems have their place, and I'm glad there are both options, but Linux has to find that missing piece before it ever has a chance of making a solid dent in the desktop market.
You could just have linked to the appropriate Microsoft marketing page instead of copying and pasting this text.
Funny, but I have an eeePC with the original Xandros and I had to Google it to find how to get a command line. You can do anything at all within the limits of the hardware without a command line.
For example, I recently switched got a new broadband connection at home and the difference in effort to configure the eeePC compared to my older Compaq nx9005 with XP was amazing. In Linux all it took was a couple of mouse clicks in clearly marked buttons, a very intuitive process. "Internet" -> "Network" -> "Create..." -> "Local Area Network" -> "Static IP Address" and then enter the address, subnet mask, and gateway they gave me.
In XP I had to click "Start" -> "Control Panel" -> "Network Configuration" to start he wizard. Now the freaky part begins. One has to click on several pages that show only some warning text. You need to click on a box to make it disregard disconnected network hardware (WHY? I'm not changing the hardware, just the network address). Enter the computer hardware description and name (WHY? I'm not changing that, just the network address). Type a workgroup name. Tell it if I want to change disk and printer sharing (NO! I just want to change the network address!!!). Another nag screen asking me if I want to create a configuration disk (NO!!!). Then it tells me I need to reboot the computer (WHY? I just want to change the network address...)
All in all, configuring Linux is simpler, easier, more intuitive, and quicker than XP.
But, of course, having the command line available is handy when you have one of those "unsolvable" problems and you know what you are doing. For instance, we had an old monitor at work that was left over from a discarded VAXstation. It was a nice monitor, still in very good condition, but it didn't work with any PC because it had non-standard sync timing. With Linux it was just a matter of editing /etc/X11/xorg.conf and create the appropriate Modeline parameters.
All in all, when you kick the Microsoft habit and learn to disregard those marketing blurbs you posted, Linux is both easier to use and more powerful.
Sorry but have you tried Windows 7 yet? There is much more going for it than translucency. The UI actually helps me do tasks more quickly. "Sleek" doesn't only refer to cosmetic aspects - it also describes the ease with which you can perform tasks by removing intermediate steps.
When you copy files the taskbar thumbnail shows a progress bar. You can search from the Start button for any program, email, or document, and all without touching the mouse. When you're managing files you can drag 2 windows to either side of the screen to stack them horizontally, keeping each window fully in view, and when you're done you can move them away from the edge and they return to their previous size. You can pin document shortcuts to program icons so that you can right-click the program to directly jump to that document with that app, instead of having to open the app and browse to the desired document. You can repurpose the "shut down" button on the Start Menu to restart, hibernate, sleep, or whatever you want.
I could go on and on (just ask me if you want more examples - I've been playing with the OS all weekend). I loved Vista but Win7 makes it feel like an old clunker. It's a very user task-minded UI design, and it doesn't take a Microsoft salesman to see this.
I tried a few different drivers for my NIC at the time but none of them work. Stupid ASUS codes hard OS checks into the driver installers. Luckily the Win7 RC build detected my NIC out of the box, but unfortunately there's still no better driver from the vendor. Thanks for the tip, though!
Win7 for netbooks is Microsoft's solution for netbooks as they no longer sell XP and Vista is wholly unsuitable. Really I see this as just a failure in strategy as MS was asleep at the wheel. While MS was trying to fight multiple fronts with Linux, Google, Apple, Redhat, Sun, Oracle, IBM, and Sony, they allowed their OS to slip. By all accounts, Vista was late and an image disaster for MS. All the while they didn't seem to notice the trend of buying cheaper computers with slightly less computing power but more portability. Only late to spot this trend, they didn't have a suitable OS except XP which was being discontinued. So going forward they only have Win7 Starter. That OS seems mediocre at best. Even if MS can get a decent OS onto a netbook, the one thing that can't overcome is the economics of the netbook. Netbook manufacturers are not going to buy OEM licenses for $50 a copy when they sell their product for around $300.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
This article and related comments make me think that netbooks will be a problem for Windows in ways that were not fully anticipated. There are two premises to this:
1) Where is the MinWin concept in all of this? It sounds like the concept of a small snappy kernel is only relative to where Windows was with Vista. If it just barely runs on an Atom based system, with no capacitance or wiggle room for big apps and data, then how could this ever be ported to ARM and various mobile devices like phones / PDAs etc?
2) Netbooks are about to become the new laptops. The current laptop form factor has been around about 15 years, successful only after technology worked its way through various large incarnations of "portable PCs" and performance became commensurate with desktops. Now, we are entering another era of miniaturization, and Netbooks at about half the size of laptops seem to be a nice balance between smaller size but usable screen and keyboard. And don't forget that iPhones and the like are a winning form factor as well.
The problem is that people are not going to settle for netbooks being just a glorified PDA or internet kiosk. They will see a familiar user interface, it will run most of their apps (even if slow and kludgy), and it will look and feel mostly like their desktops and laptops. So, expectations and demands will rise. The industry will respond by making chips, boards, screen technologies, etc. more capable, and within 5 to 10 years, smaller form factor netbooks will rival the performance of today's laptops and even today's desktops, just as 15 years ago "laptops" supplanted "portable PCs". The current form factor of laptops will not disappear - laptops are successful for a reason, and large screens and keyboards will remain of crucial importance for many users - but people will come to expect the smaller form netbook, handy and easy to carry, to nonetheless perform as a desktop and run all their apps while on the go.
Hardware makers will make these goals possible. In the meantime, people are starting to become familiar with other OSes as the cellphone-PDA-mediaplayer class of devices becomes more pervasive. As such, what people really want is easy, smooth, intuitive, bug-free transparent performance, and not necessarily a single given proprietary look and feel. This article and thread makes me wonder if MS and Windows are going to end up being perpetually a step behind, planning products based on today's marketplace and technologies, but delivering the product several years later when technology and people's expectations have moved forward.
Right here is the class reference for changing the icon of an application in OS X. An example of this being used is Xcode provides you with a progress bar in the icon of the application to show the status of the project as it builds. Granted, this isn't for copying files, but the potential is there if you wanted your application to do that.
One of the default modules, exebuf, of the e17 desktop manager allows the same behavior, and has had it since e17 was started about six years ago. Press Alt-escape, and then type in your command and it gives you suggestions as you type. Also, you can add keystrokes to navigate the start menu, just like windows.
This is surely nice and useful, but you can do the same in a number of file managers, the oldest I think being norton commander.
In OS X you drop a file onto an application icon and it opens it. No browsing required.
This is nice, but in OS X I can hit my monitor power button and get the shut down menu, I can hit the power button on the computer to get the same, or I can use the apple menu, or in e17 I can add a short cut for whichever command I want. The point is that similar customizable functionality exists elsewhere.
I will grant you that windows 7 may combine these useful features in a good way, but to say that windows is innovating, I'll believe it when I see it. I will believe you and try installing windows 7 over my vista partition though, because frankly, using vista is like having to have a wet dog in a tent. It stinks.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Newer Windows weak point IS drivers, and failure to support older hardware. Its the SUV of OS's.
Having to spend more to up spec hardware to compensate for bloatware is just cost shifting to the consumer.
Perfectly working printers and peripherals don't work on Microsoft because new drivers don't exist, and there is going to be no backporting.
No wonder MS is bending backwards to have a LITE solution that works.
Psystar purchases OSX licenses, just like anyone else. They pay for the hardware they sell, just like anyone else. The fact that you classify them as shady for that reason immediately marks you as an apple fanboi and discredits anything you may have said or any points you may have made, not matter how rational
What is all the fuss about Windows 7? What new features does it really have? It seems to me like they just cleaned up Vista and turned off most of the memory hogging things by default. The problem was that they made a tough change to their driver model in Vista and that cause problems while manufacturers learned the new model. Now it seems like the driver model is stable so they launch Windows 7. It the same drivers now and the same program compatibility. They just want $200 to "upgrade" to it.
That's funny, because I feel the exact opposite! :) When I use a windows system, I get annoyed that I can't just open a package manager and install whatever software I need instantly. Linux just feels like a complete operating system and my distro. (debian) has software to do just about every thing I need to do. WIndows has an operating system, a web browser and other useful apps that come with it, but nothing like debian which has over 20,000 packages. For the few programs I might want that aren't in debian, usually I can download them from the internet (legally). Also, debian is a compiled for a multitude of system architectures, so I can run the same OS on my old PPC mac laptop as my Intel core duo, it's sweet.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
How much of that is system cache and buffers though?
None of it. Otherwise the figure would be 100% memory utilization.
One of the major issues with the typical package manager is information overload. It's just way too much stuff, and there's no way for someone to easily compare two apps that do the same thing. No screenshots, no user reviews, nothing but a typically terse description of what the app is supposed to do (which may not even be what it really does).
Unless you like installing apps and playing around with them, you're stuck going out to freshmeat or something similar to read more detailed descriptions of thigns, but then you're in the same boat as the typical windows users that goes to download.com or similar. In other words, the information overload combined with the lack of detailed information to make judgements with make the typical package manager very difficult to use for most people.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
Visio has never "hogged the registry" that i'm aware of, even if it did though, this is largely irrelevant today.
People that use Visio heavily have an investment in pre-designed shapes, often specifically for things like network equipment and enhanced shapes. They don't just use the stock stuff. I don't think Dia can import those, can it?
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
Classic Slashdot - the OP gets marked -1, Flamebait, while this gets marked +4, Insightful.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
You have a valid point there, it also does not help that packages which are simple lib files or dependencies for other applications are listed too. I have grown used to the applications I install on every system that I forget sometimes what it's like searching for something I've never heard of, let alone compare them. I do sometimes look in the information section for a site to visit, but you're right, even that involves opening a browser, copy & paste etc.
Some package managers do have a star system which goes a little way towards addressing this but not all. Debian have started their screenshot program, but that's hosted on a site, not inside the package manager, and it is only screenshots. Package managers are most certainly the best option available but they do need refined still.
I don't know how that runs that slow. I run RC1 on my old laptop with a 1.7 GHz Pentium mobility, 512 mb of slow ram, a radeon 7500 mobility, and a 20gb hdd that is slowly dying. I use office 2003 on it for all my schoolwork, and I get it to desktop with word open in about a minute after I put in the hdd lock password. I even get 3 1/2 - 4 hours of battery on it, when with xp pro I was lucky to pull off 2 1/2.
You've made my argument for me. I never said Windows was innovating, I said it has a sleek user experience. I don't care much about innovation - I just want to get my computing tasks done efficiently. Yes these features, or the potential to create these features, is available elsewhere, but here it all is in one package. You've made the point even more salient than I could have by mentioning features in 20 years worth of operating systems - I love that it's all brought together under one roof.
I had zero driver issues and zero required uses of the command line in Ubuntu 9.04. Ubuntu has come a long way int he past two years.
My support issues were generally solved very quickly with a google search. Calling MSFT for support would take much longer and would connect me with a third-world script-reader.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Why use a driver installer?
Unpack that installer and just grab the actual drivers.
Aren't Linux people the same people that bitch when MS DOES bundle apps with the OS?
I don't think Linux distributions are a different era, they're a completely new paradigm and Linux is a different 'holistic computing experience' from Windows or Macintosh. I've used Linux at home for at least 10 years as my primary machine and while I use Windows at work I *insist* on a linux machine to ensure productivity.
Workspaces for me are a killer application and I simply can't go back now and I feel lobotomised when I use windows. With windows, I never feel like I can extract all of the power of the machine to use on my application, primarily music production, for which Linux has allowed me to heavily customise for performance. Yes I tried it under windows and frankly with the money I saved on *not* buying the mac/protools combo I invested heavily in microphones. I want all the cpu time I paid for.
So while my Fedora 10 install annoys me cause it can't play flash or wmv's it records 16 channels of hi resolution audio all day and mixes and masters music in a way that's simply not available on a Mac. When I want to play flash or wmv's I (dual) boot to Ubuntu where the eye candy is pleasing and, when I run wine, it happily runs my instance of ERwin and most of the games I'm interested in. If I need other software within a few clicks I've installed Eclipse (maybe not as friendly but seems much more powerful than VS), MySQL, Umbrello, OpenOffice and a bunch of other software without a single license key. Old hardware, media server, older hardware Asterisk box.
Perhaps, one day, when propriety software vendors key on to how easy it is for a user to search for and install software for Linux they may offer a similar facility to licence and pay for their software to install under Linux distribution. Until then I'll just be satisfied with the limitations of the free software and donate some of the money I've saved to those projects so they can enhance it.
If I want to upgrade an Ubuntu install? I Upgrade, restore users home directory, done. Environment maintained, missing a program? add/remove, done. With my new builds I offer users an Ubuntu install first and install their applications, so if they don't like it, then they can shell money out for windows. I think this time around there has been 2 or 3 releases of Fedora and Ubuntu since Vista was released so because fixes are soon and improvement is often, satisfaction remains. I don't understand how you can make the comparison if, as you say, 'you've stuck with windows'. Every time I've fixed a windows box is why *I've* stuck with Linux and none of my Ubuntu users have seen a command line, let alone used one.
So, you're probably right, Windows probably is a familiar 'holistic' experience that comforts windows users, but I don't think it's a paradigm the average user enjoys any more, I don't. As the 'release soon, release often' matures Linux's 'holistic' experience it's paradigm get's better sooner and get's better often. Comparing Linux's 'holistic' experience with windows or mac is just not relevant anymore. I compare it's 'holistic experience' to that Linux distribution's last release. Freedom means more than 'freeware'
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Is this opposed to the Turbo Netbooks with 30 inch monitor and water-cooled processor?
Translation: I tried Windows 7 on the least powerful machine it could theoretically run on.
I'd like to point out that XP (or prior) has every single one of those features except for:
Restoring window positions after a cascade/similar.
Progress bar on icons (I've seen it in some apps, though).
I'm not going to quote everything here.
As for me not being objective, you need to re-read my Linux comments as I clearly prefix them with "in my opinion". I don't pretend to speak for everyone, but perhaps someone out there nodded his head while reading my opinion.
Regarding drivers, I guess you had more luck with your hardware drivers than I. I've tried various Linux distros on a few desktop and laptop machines and always seem to find one or two (or five) components that lay dormant due to lack of driver support. Maybe I'm unlucky or maybe I'm too dumb to figure out how to install the driver, but I don't find either prospect very welcoming.
Regarding support, I was talking specifically about where Microsoft is the OEM. Microsoft offers support for the products they manufacture and I've had great experiences talking to their support reps (except for product activations - that pisses me off to no end). Ask me if you want examples.
Finally, regarding holistic experiences, I'm confused by your contradicting statements. You tell me you use command line extensively in Windows, you say Ubuntu is your primary desktop yet you boot to Windows for some applications, and you recommend I use Apple. "Holistic" means the quality of bringing all the parts together into one whole. Windows does that for me very neatly, so why would I take your advice of using a loose patchwork of unrelated standalone applications? I think perhaps I'm not the only one who needs to take a step back to re-evaluate the solutions out there today.
That's kind of like saying "I can carry 100 pounds so I don't mind if my phone weighs 25 pounds."
To be fair, most of the times I called Microsoft Support I was indeed deflected to an Indian call centre. However, even if they are script readers, their scripts are very detailed. Calling Microsoft's toll free support number has solved my problem every time I've tried it.
I don't consider a netbook with 1GB of RAM and a HD to be entry level. The entry level machines have 512MB of RAM and as little as 4GB of SSD for storage. The Aspire one used is perhaps at the bottom of the high end not having a 10" screen but is definitely not entry level.
i've only been using os x since 10.5 (on a santa rosa macbook), and had to get a new printer because it wouldn't reliably print to my canon i860 attached to a print server, even though it could see it, and the printer works with our xp and vista laptops. i replaced that printer with a hp l7580 aio- the printer works fine, but it pretty regulary can't scan.
I tried - I unzipped the setup.exe and tried installing by right-clicking the inf files. No joy.
Nope.
Apple-branded means Apple branded it, not that it's been branded with an Apple. It's legal terminology with a precise meaning.
I think that is an excellent point. It would be very useful if the Ubuntu package manager gave some basic helpful info such as:
Is this a command line app or a gui driven app?
What are the alternatives to this app?
and, as the parent noted, some sort of review. Or a score or something - the Applications menu has this and it would be useful for Synaptic as well.
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
That was a really fantastic post and I do feel like some of my words were reactionary rather than objective. It's a tough to discuss this topic objectively because we all use one OS primarily and thus we often discuss the contrasts between OSes, rather than the standalone merits of any one.
In no way do I mean to say that Windows is the best solution for a Linux user, nor for all users in general. The point I think I failed to convey is that the right product for you is the right product for you. For me personally I feel the right product is Windows, and nobody has yet been able to convince me otherwise. I'm actually looking to be convinced, else I wouldn't waste my keystrokes on a public discussion forum, so I thank you profusely for being so thorough and level-headed in your response.
You struck a real nerve when you mentioned audio production. That's something I've done extensively on Microsoft operating systems since the DOS days, and you're 100% correct that MS is starting to take control out of my hands to do that effectively. For example, in Vista (and 7) MS took away some internal routing controls which reduced me to buying a patch cable to hook one sound card's line in to the other card's line out. That's some archaic vacuum tube shit right there, and now that you mention it I'm sure I could have done the same thing purely with software on Linux.
Users grow into, and grow with, the platform they use the most. I think you are absolutely correct that Linux can be everything a user needs, and more, in many realistic use cases. I'm not necessarily talking about those people in my previous comments, though. It's unrealistic for most casual (or even hardcore) users to "make the switch" to any other OS without giving up some significant abilities in the process, and even a more open framework can feel restrictive when you give up some feature you rely upon.
Most important, I believe you are correct that it is more fair to compare Linux and Windows as "paradigms" rather than "eras". When I used those terms I was speaking specifically about the OS-level UI, but now that you've revealed some of the intricacies I can see my words may have been too general.
P.s., I upgraded from Vista to Win7 in maybe 2 hours by copying over my documents and appdata directories. This restored my browser histories and extensions, application settings, my email, my address books, and pretty much everything I cared about in Vista. The only reason it took this long was because I had to install each app and run it before copying the profile over.
you'd need to use device manager (start>run>devmgmt.msc)
right click on the device then update driver and browse to the inf folder
If you knew anything about the Mini9, you'd know that everything on it is supported OUT OF THE BOX with 10.5.6.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
If I am reading this correctly, this was a full install of the RC. No optimization for the netbook beyond what the OS can do for itself.
The dual-core Atom netbook with 2 GB of RAM or more and much better graphics performance can't be that far off.
The geek looks at the sub-netbook and sees a market where Microsoft [and x86] can't compete.
But he has been wrong before.
The sub-netbook at $150 is a gadget, like the pocket HD camcorder.
In a deep recession, that's a purchase which can be postponed -
and by the time shoppers return to the market, the tech will have evolved and expectations will have changed.
They wouldn't try to make me sign up for a "Windows Live ID"®.
Which'll happen when pigs fly.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
There are howto's out there that seriously suggest putting an apple sticker on your computer to make it "apple branded." :-)
I'm running Leopard on my Aspire One by the way and not once have I felt like it was too "heavy" for the hardware. It's a joy to use.
See Mac OS X Software Licence Agreement, search for "label" on the page. In each OS X box they conveniently ship a couple of Apple logo stickers (also known as labels, as in "an identifying or descriptive marker that is attached to an object").
I'm rather sure that would hold in court. IANAL though. YMMV, YABB ATH EHUT, etc..
How about a correct comparison?
Spend $25 on a 2GB dim.
Spend
Spend $0 on anti-virus and use a free one (AVG free works great on my Windows 7 RC install). I see see you are not bothering to get an anti-virus for your Linux example - is that a bit risky?
Stick to open office for windows - if it is good enough for your Linux example why is it not good enough for your Windows example?
I have a Samsung Q1U UMPC with 800MHz A110 CPU and 2GB of ram. Windows 7 RC *ultimate ed* is running very well on it thank you...
I do have an acer aspire one.. came with linpus, 8gb flash and 512mb of ram... day one I had ram lying around and stuck in an extra 1gb. So, fair's fair I have 1.5gb of ram. The reason I bought the aa1 by the way is that it was impossible to get anything else (still is pretty much except for the 7' eeepc's). I almost got a 900 eeepc when it was available, but the 901 came out so quick I thought I'd hang back. To this day, finding a 901 (or any of asus' newer models) is near impossible with linux (or anything other then acer actually - MSI, Dell, HP, none of them come with a linux distro down here in Australia).
After replacing linpus (i quite liked this OS by the way) with ubuntu 8.04 (or 8.10, i cant remember) just to try UNR I was quite impressed. I also tried windows xp, vista and MAC OS X on it. None of these were trivial to install at the time - which is not MS or apples fault in any way (mac os was slightly easier cause I could install it happily to an external HD). Vista was a nightmare, XP was OK but the speed of the acer aspire one's flash in the 8gb model is not fantastic (as people have noted in the past).
I recently changed to 9.04 ubuntu and WOW what a difference - they have a distro specifically for the netbooks now and it is much faster (in my experience) then 8 was and definitely faster then XP.
I've not tried windows 7 on it and im probably not going to, i've tried 7 on a few other machines with limited success. Its better than vista, worse then XP in some ways that just cant be quantified in a slashdot post (thats my general feeling).
Surfice it to say, win 7 on a machine where it works well is quite nice. But on a netbook I just dont really see the point when you compare it to ubuntu 9 (im a fedora guy by the way). With evolution or thunderbird and Open office 3 theres very little else that I need (on a netbook) that it cant provide and the UNR interface is quite well designed for it. Keep in mind the breadth of software IN the ubuntu repo's is quite substantial so if your looking for a game to play or an application targetting some facet of your life your likely to find it there somewhere, so from a "what software can I get for it" its pretty useful to the netbook and you dont have to go hunting that hard for software (it was even quite easy to get the citrix ica client working which my gf uses to connect to work - much to my supprise).
Hey, thats my humble opinion - and given the little article the other day about 2007's ODF support I feel much happier using open office!. By the way did anyone else find it strange that as soon as open office started to support OOXML (ooxml that works with office 2007 - not the ISO OOXML by the way) that MS do an about-face on ODF and produce a broken version?
The best thing about ubuntu 9 on the netbook though is that given the target hardware its quite impressive from a perspective of people who dont know what a command line is. It supported my gf's 3g usb dongle out of the box rather then needing drivers (which crashed her vista laptop). But in reality I never really hated vista that much - the 3g driver thing was the hardware manufactures fault. I DO very much hate microsoft for many very relevant reasons - not worth discussing here.
Seriously though, if you've not tried ubuntu 9 on a netbook, its very very worth a look into - for the tasks you could expect a netbook to perform.
Since I am in the process of leaving my company for becoming a freelancer I recently had the necessity to buy a replacement for the laptop which my company had given me.
The machine had to be capable of doing the usual office stuff, software- and db-development with java, and some music production (entry level).
The laptop I had from my company was an asus M50VM. Wrt to performance this machine is really top notch. 2.53 GHz, 4GB ram, 1GB graphics card. Barely ever had to utilize this machine even 10 %.
My main concern was the weight of this monster. It weighs around 3.2 KG ('bout 6 pounds, for the illiterate ones of you...).
In addition the charger weighs about 500 grams. So altogether, in my backpack, I caried a whopping 3.7 KG while commuting on bike to my workplace. And one single battery charge was barely enough for letting this monster work for 2 hours.
So I thought long about buying a netbook. Knowing that the reviews all read that they are dog slow, barely capable of running their operating systems, just powerful enough for surfing, emails and that stuff. But in the end I gave it a try.
The machine I've bought is an asus eeepc 1000HE (Atom n280). I've upgraded the ram to 2 GB, plugged in an other hd (500Gb Seagate momentum). And: I am deeply surprised that _all_ of my computational needs are (almost) perfectly satisfied.
I've installed debian linux with gnome, java, apache, tomcat and all the stuff I need for software development. And all of this runs reasonable fast.
Then I tried to start the virtualbox with the windows xp instance I had copied from the other machine.
And to my utter surprise even this works reasonbly fast.
So I can do all the office-2007-stuff I have to do for my still-current-employer from within this virtualboxed XP, without the need for dualbooting.
And all of that for a mere 378 EUR plus upgrade costs. The machine weighs about 1.3 KG including charger. And on a single battery charge it runs for roundabout 5.5 hours.
Only problem I currently have is the rtc. Don't know why, but jack (audio), ardour and rosegarden always complain that the rtc is missing. But with rtc turned off inside jack even the music production stuff works.
Alltogether, this is a great machine and I am deeply amazed of what this netbook is capable of.
Don't want to switch back anytime soon...
Yt,
Gunnar
Seems to me that the best answer would be to lay out the package manager like Amazon's review pages, showing one of each of the top voted good/bad user reviews, a link to the package homepage and maybe a link to its screenshot page.
From the F'n summary: "This time, Microsoft was smart not to limit the time that it's available or the number of keys. It will be up for download until July."
/., but sheesh!
Funny, I never realized unlimited time ends in July. Why the hell is there an inane quote from an anonymous reader in the summary? Why not just say, "MS is making the beta available until July, much longer than earlier releases." I realize this is
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
What won't it open?
Since OO.o 3.x came out, I have not found a single file it would not open. In fact I used it to fix a broken excel spreadsheet the Office would not read at all.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
Most Windoze installs are ok after a clean install. Give it a few months and THEN see how it performs. The achilles heal of Microsoft has always been that the OS degrades (quickly) over time.
You say that like it is a bad thing.
I tell you now that my mission in life is to make sure that all floppy drives everywhere are destroyed.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
My post involved "stickin' it to the man". You'll almost always get points for stickin' it to the man, though some stickler for copyright law will always call you a thief, and then also get modded up. The original post was ranking the three major OSes. That's just asking to be modded down... like ranking the major religions.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
ubuntu has come a long way in the past two years. i agree. but don't compare networking on ubuntu to networking on winxp, vista or win7. the simplest options are just not there in ubuntu. suppose i switch off wifi using the physical switch on my laptop and switch it back on, with windows i just need to click on the crossed out network icon and click rescan. in ubuntu, i usually need to reboot, or if lucky, restart x. this is the only thing that ubuntu does not do better and it does it so freaking bad, i advise everyone who asks me about ubuntu to stay away if they use a laptop and wifi.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
man, what's with all the crap about osx on dell mini? if you wanna use osx use it the way its meant to be used: on a macbook pro.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
Windows has included the vb runtime since xp, and windows vista/7 will find the drivers automatically for you, just like ubuntu.
And running a full AV scan will bog down almost any system (even linux!). this is why they're usually set to run at like 3am, once a week.
Ubuntu's "Add/Remove" goes a long way to solving this, but it's not perfect. Still, for the average novice, it provides much better, friendlier descriptions than what you see in apt, with a scoring system to tell you how popular it is, and overall it's just "nicer" to a newb. It also filters very well, so the user running the search will just see that this is a DVD player or whatever, and not all the associated libraries and stuff they don't need to care about. The scoring system also helps them decide (rightly or wrongly), so they can see that plenty of people use option A and only a few use option B, so they might try option A first.
Screenshots would be nice, I guess.
But look at the flip side -- you want some new software in Windows? You have to find it yourself, sift through pages and pages of Google results, find one that actually does what you want and isn't a crippled version, a trial version, or costs an arm and a leg. Then download and run an untrusted executable that came from god-knows-where, then clean up the systray icons and desktop shortcuts and other party favors. And half the time it still won't run properly because you need some codec or dll or something, so you have to go hunt that down.
OVerall, the package management system needs work to be user-friendly but I still say it's lightyears ahead of where Windows is. And once a user feels comfortable with it they can dive into synaptic or apt for more packages and better control of what's going on -- whereas in Windowsland you're stuck doing it one way, or no way at all.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
Doctrine of first sale says he can do anything he want with it short of violate the copyright.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
IMPORTANT: The RC will expire on June 1, 2010. Starting on March 1, 2010, your PC will begin shutting down every two hours.
I agree with all of this. These are some good ideas that would be fairly easy to implement. The good news is that (for the most part) the competition doesn't even have a concept of a unified package interface.
Think of it this way: If your biggest problem using your computer involves deciding which free program to use, then things are going quite well. I have no doubt that open code will continue to improve the IT experience for everyone involved. :)
Recently I've started amending EULAs at install time - if I have a sharpie available and I'm at a CRT I write on the screen VOID, or I simply place a sticky over the screen. Just as with other contracts, I'm simply amending it, and clicking through to take advantage of the doctrine of first sale. I started doing that after reading about folks who do that and photograph the screen.
Assholes who come up with one-sided contracts for a product where there are no refunds can stuff it. If you disagree with a contract, simply amend it then agree to your terms. :)
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Package managers are most certainly the best option available but they do need refined still.
Package managers are great for one thing: keeping programs up-to-date. It just so happens that users don't really care about this.
They suck for:
1. Collecting the programs you want installed. Sure, you can make a folder with the .deb's for programs you want, but they are instantly out of date with what he package manager thinks is current. And all hell breaks loose if you force it to install an incompatible version of something. If you're really technical you could create a script to apt-get the programs, assuming they are all in the default repos and the names never change.
2. Installing old versions. You basically can't. It'll complain that you have 'lib-yyy.5.97' but MUST have 'lib-yyy.5.96'. If you actually get it installed, you have to monkey with symlinks to get it to even try to run.
3. Controlling your process. If you're a company, you want to have control over the release process. To do this you need to set up repositories for debs, rpms, whatever, and somehow get these added to people's package managers. Or you create a stand-alone .sh style installer and confuse user.
Package managers are only good in linux because everything changes so much, it's such a pita to get older software working, and most software currently is free and can be packaged by the distro. But the user doesn't care about any of this! The windows model of installers is actually better match to what users actually want, and the Apple model of applications being folders that contain everything they need is even better still. Package managers are basically terrible in comparison.
Mod this man up.
This depends... If you are Hacker you will make it work, and it's not difficult, you just have to research up and down a lot. Its difficult not impossible. It didnt take too much time for me because i had already moded a PC to run OSX. On the other hand if you are fat lazy bastard sitting on your mom's basement with no idea how to do it... you will be your biggest challenge. Sure it is more convenient to just go buy a macbook, but for those of us who like to tinker with stuff, this is the best next thing than to build a nuclear reactor in your house yard. Thinking of that I should probably try build me one of those... dont ask me what would happen if I had a meltd,
Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d encule de ta mere.
And the usual free/shareware program's webpage out there throwing random .exe files everywhere do this better HOW?
Not really a troll.
Well, by support, I meant from Apple, and I read the following comment in a way that meant I wasn't just talking about the Mini9 anymore:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1222143&cid=27828849
As far as not knowing the Mini9 is available with Ubuntu, I actually went to Google, searched for it, clicked on it, clicked customize, clicked Operating System and was presented with Windows XP as the only option. So, in a cursory but reasonable search, I failed to find out that it was available without windows.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I would not agree to that. Having been on Ubuntu as my primary desktop for 9 months now, I can say that there are no reasons for loosing any time.
And your needs are exactly the same as everyone elses.
Maybe you should remove those critic's goggles and approach Linux with a more open mind. Because your commentary stinks of prejudice.
Sounds like you need to approach computing with a more open mind because not everyone is like you.
Some people require Windows applications. Some people have hardware that has no Linux driver. Some people don't give a crap about what license their driver/software is released under as long as it works. Some people like PC games. Some people like Windows.
You are not a representative sample of computer users. The sooner you come to terms with this, the better.
Well duh - the same thing can be said about the same netbook running XP or Linux. Where's the Windows 7 RC1 review?
I'd like to point out that XP (or prior) has every single one of those features except for:
Restoring window positions after a cascade/similar.
After a cascade in XP, right-click on an empty space of the taskbar. You should see an option to "Undo Cascade."
However, the new window management features (called "Aero Snaps" during the beta and described in a December article) are a bit more than what XP offers and are much easier to use for novices.
In Windows 7, you can tile two windows vertically ("half-maximize" two windows side-by-side) by simply dragging each window to the left/right sides of the screen. Restore them by dragging them off (or do the keyboard shortcut). To do the same in Windows XP, you need to control-click two buttons in the taskbar, right-click one of them, then select "Tile Vertically." There's no way to restore them easily in XP (that I know of).
Windows 7 also offers a way to easily maximize/restore a window vertically, which I think could be useful in this age of wider screens with less vertical resolution.
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
can we get a +1 insightful for this post?
My intelligence insults itself.
and the Apple model of applications being folders that contain everything they need is even better still. Package managers are basically terrible in comparison.
Does that include libraries? If three Apple applications require the same library, is that library stored in three separate directories?
Linux playing catch-up? Seriously? I too have windows 7 in a VM. Yes it seems like they took a stab at copying KDE4. Too bad they still dont know how to do much with it. KDE has better contextual menu support, applications integrate better, single clicking works correctly, IO slaves (bus) implementation is better, etc. etc. All this and not slow. KDE 4 does need more polish, but Gnome, KDE, and XFCE are all available and the underlying architecture is still far ahead.
You obviously have not used linux long enough to see that Windows is doing the catch-up (and thats a fair statement, as they sat with XP for so long...) as the free OS desktop environments are always moving forward, not waiting 2 years for a new idea.
The prefetcher works by watching what code and data is accessed during the boot process
How many applications have data that are accessed during the boot process?
Does that include libraries? If three Apple applications require the same library, is that library stored in three separate directories?
Yes, for most apps it normally does. If it's not a standard Mac OS library. Now days, disk storage is cheap and libraries are small pittance in the scheme of things. It also avoids version hell- one app designed for a certain version of a library, then the library gets updated by another app and POOF problems start showing up. It also makes an app very portable and easy to delete, along with most of it's other bits. If there are any pieces (like prefs) it's normal for it to store it in your Libraries by app folder. It's a pretty cool system.
Posting anon since I'm modding. I didn't see anyone answer you, so I figured I drop a quick line
If more than one such app is running, does each app use its own copy? Disk space is cheap, but RAM is still constrained.
As for version hell, one can have multiple versions of a library in Linux, as the version number is part of the file name. Not that all applications are written to exploit this.
You can control click taskbar buttons in XP?
FUCK. Mind blown!
Haah, I'd never thought I'd see an argument about floppy drives backfire so badly. That musta hurt.
I'm off to find a floppy drive, take a picture of it and build a shrine.
MMO Vampire Role Playing
In any case most of things are done via the browser nowadays, so I don't really care about the OS much.
If you're a secretary or data-entry clerk, maybe. But for most jobs, no.
Let's look at what I'm running right now that isnt in the browser that is necessary:
Outlook (email & calendar)(no, gmail is not even remotely adequate for this)
Pidgin (IM)
Notepad++ that keeps my content when the laptop is in standby and offline
OneNote
Putty
Thunderbird (for IMAP email accounts)
Ruby IDE
Eclipse
MySQL Admin tools
PasswordSafe
MozyPro offsite auto-backup
MediaPlayer
Paint.NET
SVN client
FileZilla
Lightscribe disc labeller
Jing
Thats just a quicky list.
Mind you, most of those run on Linux or have something roughly equivalent that does. The problems that are hard to replace are Outlook (Evolution is a POS in my experience), OneNote (nothing like this out there in the OSS world that I am aware of), and Jing. Although there may be something like Jing out there I'm not aware of.
It goes both ways. I've literally never, in my entire life, been able to get a linux install to work with the wifi on a laptop. Ever. Even on my new hp compaq that has the intel abg card with open source drivers. Even on the 3 laptops before that, all dell before the hp.
And the last few laptops I tried to install linux on, I had to go through a fairly bizarre ritual involving only using the alternative setup disc, editing grub to suppress the splash screen, and then manually downloading nvidia drivers with wget.
I know not everyone runs into that, but the fact that I've run into the exact same set of problems with nvidia and wifi drivers across several different dell latitude generations and a brand spanking new hp compaq is worrisome.
On the flip side, HP ships a handy dandy driver disc that includes 32-bit and 64-bit drivers for both Vista and XP, so its kind of a stacked game.
Not to mention the package manager keeps track of EVERY package on your PC (as long as it was installed via the package manager) as well as the core system itself, so updates are a one-click deal.
This is only true if the software you need is open source, packaged by your package manager, and is ported to your distro in a timely manner. I run into a _lot_ of situations where the package managers dont have what I need and I have to out and either compile the stuff myself or download and run some scripted installer.
So yeah, package manager is great for the base commodity desktop apps. But if its not in the package manager, and there's alot thats not, it sucks the big one.
With Windows the Windows updates system only does WINDOWS updates, nothing else. You have to do every application separately, which means a LOT of clicks, with a LOT of different GUI's to interact with to stay updated.
Actually, Microsoft Update updates nearly all Microsoft software. Office packages, development tools, database servers, exchange servers, web servers, utilities, driver packs, etc etc. It doesnt do everything, but on most windows installs it covers a great deal.
This is not to suggest that its perfect and does everything, but your representation of the situation was not accurate.
This is only tru
Wow, so they finally bumped Office into the Windows updates huh? Last time I checked that was a separate issue, with separate validation clicks etc.
"This is only true if the software you need is open source, packaged by your package manager, and is ported to your distro in a timely manner. I run into a _lot_ of situations where the package managers dont have what I need and I have to out and either compile the stuff myself or download and run some scripted installer."
Being open source here is not technically true, there are plenty of distros who offer a non-free repo for proprietary binary blobs compiled by the vendors, like Skype. You're right in the fact that you're relying on the version compiled and included in the repos being updated in a timely manor however in many cases FOSS projects have their own repos you can add to your package manager and install from, thereby getting the latest version, regardless of how timely your distro updates it. I have about 5 applications I do this for because there are features in the later versions I need.
The other thing I can't understand why Microsoft haven't managed to get right yet is the way installing / removing applications leaves crap behind, or goes wherever it wants. When you install an application on Windows IT decides how many icons to put where, how many new links to add to the programs menu, whether to add itself onto the startup menu, system tray, quick launch etc. You have to look for the "advanced install" option and untick stuff (assuming they give you the option) or go round removing lots of crap after the install. After all that's done you find you have another couple of options at the end of a 3 column long unordered "programs" list. When you remove it, assuming it has an easy "uninstall" icon or the uninstall is not grayed out in the add/ remove programs does it gather all the shit it installed on the way out? No, it leaves it all behind for you to manually clear out.
By comparison installing on Linux assumes that YOU will decide where you want icons, that YOU will decide if the application starts at bootup etc. It also adds the application into the correct category in the menu, ordered alphabetically.....without you lifting a finger. If that's not helpful enough, when you remove it, it removes that entry to the menu too, again without you lifting a finger.
The way I see it is that Windows is designed for the benefit of companies who want to sell you stuff, and set up your PC for their revenue streams. You have to be wary when installing stuff and untick a lot of the options they want you to take. Maybe the fact that you don't own the OS you;re using sets the tone for this arrangement, perhaps it's all the pre-installed trial-ware which loads the PC down when you buy it which does it, I don't know. The user is only the wallet.
Linux by comparison is made by users for users. By that I mean it's not corporations insisting on certain features, or holding back on some features because they seek to sell you the "Pro" version. Most of the stuff in Linux comes from users with coding skills scratching their own itches, which means they don't include stuff that gets in the way.
It has definitely hogged the reg hive... I have had to clean up stuff manually... and we are talking about an abnormal amount of keys... megabyte range. Granted this was MSDN version and back in 1999 or so.
Nope I don't think Dia can import those and I never used Visio so much as to make my own predefined shapes with it (knowing it would just "bind" me to the Visio solution.)
Thanks for the reply even though it was tagged offtopic.
Having Mac-fags crawling out of the woodwork to claim lack of support is a good thing isn't 'backfiring' in any way. It just shows delusional fanboys for what they are: delusional fanboys.
I have Win7 build 7100 running on a Compaq Presario 2800. This is a laptop with a 1.4 Ghz P4M, and 384 MB of RAM. It takes a little while to boot, but once it's up and running it's usable. All I'm doing with it is random web browsing and serving up audio to a HT, and it works for that. If I can find some more RAM for it I'll try serving up video, but for now streaming audio works well enough.