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."
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?
Would you really call those specs "entry level", as in "the lowest specs available"?
So its Shareware then. Nothing wrong with that and why shouldn't they get paid if you like it enough to keep using it?
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.
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.
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.
How many times per hour do you need to convert currency, or check what today's date is? If that's your business, then you're using the wrong tool. If it's NOT your business, then the widgets are just masturbation.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
probably the only time we will ever see a crack at M$ modded troll (and now flamebait) Fan bois, your thread is here http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/04/2039219&art_pos=9
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
It's not a production software and it's not freeware.
It's an unfinished piece of code that's released by MS to enthusiasts who want to try it out and participate in ironing out problems and bugs that remain in it. We all know that they won't completely succeed, but still...
In any case MS is very upfront with how long the RC will function and what will happen when the TESTING period expires.
People who have any other expectations from this code are probably not paying too much attention.
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?
Nonsense. Nothing can force you to buy it; you could always go back to your previous OS. This is like saying at the end of a test drive, you're "forced" to buy the car. Only if you want to keep using the new car!
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
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
What are the minimum memory requirements, and how much of that will be eaten by the OS itself?
Both Vista and 7 strive to consume as much memory as possible to precache commonly loaded executables. This cuts down on execution time and helps minimize disk access to a small extent. It's a smart use of resources, and it flushes RAM as required for games and such. Why buy RAM just to keep it unallocated, right?
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! ~~
Your life is very sad.
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 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?
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.
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!
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
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.
That doesn't answer the parent's very legitimate question. Yes, you're right - if I try to run Vista or Win7 on a high-end machine, it will appear to take up more RAM then it needs to. Yes, this can very well be a good thing.
The question, however, is this: what is the minimum necessary RAM to run Win7 with and how much will be available.
I don't want excuses or justifications for why it takes however much RAM it does, I want to know if I can run it smoothly on older/cheaper hardware.
CAPTCHA: concern
Well duh - the same thing can be said about the same netbook running XP or Linux. Where's the Windows 7 RC1 review?