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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."
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.
I agree except for one quote:
Once I had loaded Microsoft Office 2007 the 1GB of RAM became insufficient and the computer started page faulting.
I don't know if 1GB of RAM should be too little for an OS and MS Word. I will say that my 5 year old laptop has no problem running Office 2000 on Windows XP ... with 512MB of very very slow ram. The same laptop has no problems running a simplified Linux with Open Office either. I say "simplified" because, yes, the default Ubuntu graphics shitfest causes it to be a bit unstable at times.
I'm not sure which piece of the equation is making a glorified word processing program page fault on 1GB of RAM but I think that's a bit ridiculous.
My work here is dung.
The RC is Ultimate so it does not have the 3 app limit. Although there's a hack that can be done to allow one to install the different Win7 versions. I'm still using XP on my netbook, I'm a little skeptical with running Win7 on it.
a browser written in assembly and a SQLite database
FAIL
Let's see your browser written in Assembly with Java and Flash 10 support.
What you want is called Damn Small Linux. With a little hacking and whacking you could do the sqlite thing but it just stuffs things into flat files IIRC. There are others as well but I've found it to have a good balance between size and functionality. It has a lot more than the browser, but once you have the kernel, X, the browser, and the JRE you might as well have some other stuff.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Limited support? Lack of drivers?
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I agree, that is, the RAM usage for basic apps has gotten out of control. 1GB is not enough? I mean come on Clippy, whats the deal? Why are programs getting so bloated that they need a super-computer to run them. I too run Office 2000. It installs in about 1 minute and runs fast on my older machines without needed 10GB of RAM.
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.
I run OOo3.0 on my Acer Aspire One, which handles Office 2007 formats well enough to not have to fiddle about with conversions at work.
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.
OS X doesn't even support Apple's own floppy drives.
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.
Mouse to the bottom right-hand corner of the screen -> click once to show all gadgets/desktop, or hover to glass all windows and show gadgets/desktop. Or press WInkey+D. Or Alt-Tab to the desktop. I understand what you're saying, and I certainly have no way of know what your usage habits are, but for me having that sidebar up all the time seems like a huge waste of space when they could just as easily be placed on the desktop.
640kb ought to be enought for anyone.
My, oh my, how far we've come. 1000x isn't even minimal, any more.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Yes, but if caching stuff to RAM impedes running applications, it defeats the purpose it began with.
I wish I had mod points for you. You are right. This guy apparently doesn't know. From his post, it appears that he thinks a page fault is something like a blue screen error or GPF. The truth is, page fault is the technical term for what people commonly refer to as swapping. The program tried to access a page of memory that is no longer resident in physical memory and has been swapped out to the virtual memory swap file. It is treated much like any other invalid memory access, in that the program is suspended and the OS exception handler is invoked to decide how to respond, except that in the case of a page fault, the OS knows how to handle it. It determines what part of memory it should swap out, and swaps in the needed page.
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.
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!
The reason that firefox eats memory is that it decides to cache a nice lot of stuff for you in the memory since from it's point of view you don't seem to be using it. Like the original parent who is using 871MB of 2GB so he has 1100MB free thus surely firefox using 327 is no problem. Just for reference In my house there is a machine which runs firefox perfectly which has 128mb of RAM. It is not quite as fast because it cannot cache so much stuff and I guess there tend to be fewer tabs open than with the version we have on our more powerful machine. Also chrome tends to use more memory in my experience and this is because of the overhead due to having more processes (Google did say this as well).
That's an oversimplified view of my usage patterns.
I buy/sell stuff online from other countries a fair bit and like having an immediate way to do the currency conversion.
Weather is handy to see, as I can keep an eye out for sudden major drops outdoors as I grow tropical plants in a cold climate so sometimes need to act if the temp drops too much but also because I do a 45 minute commute to/from work every day and so have the weather for home and work and depending on the weather at both locations I alter my route as the country roads are the quickest way unless it's raining, snowy or icy nearer work etc.
Calendar isn't just about checking todays date, it's useful to see what day of the week a particular calendar date is and that sort of thing, I have a fairly busy schedule so it's handy for planning.
Notes are of course useful to remind you about non-trivial things, or to scribble down a phone message and that sort of thing - certainly less clunky than using a notepad window and saving it to the desktop like I used to in XP.
RSS on the sidebar is also simply useful to see the latest headlines for various sites also.
You're right in that if you oversimplify it that the widgets are largely useless, but that's the problem with oversimplification, it never paints the full picture and between all the gadgets I get damn good use out of the sidebar. I'm not sure why you feel qualified to suggest what is and isn't the right tool for my usage patterns when you do not know what they are. Having used various tools through the years, the sidebar is absolutely one of the best tools for my usage that I've encountered so far, hence why I'm dismayed to see Microsoft appeared to have largely bastardised it in Windows 7.
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.
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
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 agree with you on almost all of your points, though I have to disagree on cmake. Compared to autotools it's wicked fast, it's far more platform independant, and it makes life much easier for the developer. Autotools was always a complete pain in the ass but with cmake I can spend my time actually coding instead of hacking together a build system.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
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.
At an earlier point in TFA, the author states (emphasis mine)
Upon logging in, and without any other programs installed or running, 7.73GB of the hard drive was used already. On a roomy 160GB hard drive that's not a problem but if your netbook uses a solid state hard disk then space may be more of a premium.
The task manager's performance tab showed 33 processes running and 465MB of RAM - or about 45% - in use while sitting idle. While nearly half the RAM being consumed without actually doing anything useful may be concerning it'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.
So the 465MB of RAM actually seem to be the consumption of Windows 7, because there were no applications besides the OS installed that could be preloaded. The rest obviously is the fault of Office 2007. Which is also a lot more than I'd expect from an office application.
For comparison:
Right now, I'm running Windows XP SP3, have several SeaMonkey(Browser) windows open and I have started Open Office with a small text document. Memory usage according to Task Manager:
- Total 365 MB
- SeaMonkey about 120 MB
- Open Office around 60 MB.
- a few MB for AVG Antivirus, split into several processes.
That leaves maybe 180 MB Windows XP is using for its own services.
Other tests have claimed that Windows 7 with plenty of RAM is just as fast as XP, sometimes better. But the fact remains that it is still a memory hog.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Besides, I have no idea what criteria Windows uses to determine what my "likely" programs are, but if it's even remotely like the criteria it uses to display "Often Used" and "Rarely Used" in the Add/Remove Programs applet, I have zero faith in it whatsoever.
Here's good evidence that you don't know you're talking about. Win7 (and even Vista for that matter) doesn't display any data about how often it thinks you use a program.
Right, which I find annoying. As soon as I have my desktop up I want to open my usual host of applications, and I'm stuck waiting forever for them because the system is thrashing about trying to load a bunch of other crap Windows thinks I might possibly want to load at some unspecified point in the future.
Perhaps you should try installing Win7 and seeing what happens before drawing your conclusions. Based on your previous comment, you haven't even tried.
-Shippy
I/O is precious. As a user of nLite, I've seen first-hand what disabling prefetching, auto-defrag, and thumbnails can do. Folders open quicker in explorer, games start faster, and Firefox does too.
Why buy RAM and keep it unallocated?
Because the Windows security model requires that memory pages be zero'd out before being used. I wonder how long it'd take to zero out 400MB and allocate it to other processes? 10ms? 20ms? 150ms?
There is a delay. It's not as bad as java garbage collection, but it still has to be done!
This prefetching stuff doesn't actually boost performance - it simply shifts where the load is to when the computer is idle, which is a lot of the time with an average user. If your computer is (almost) always busy, or you do I/O heavy tasks like video encoding, just disable it and performance will go up. But if you are an average user, don't disable it.