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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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