I have the same graphics card as you. The problem is obviously on your side and you're doing something wrong, because I have no clue what you're talking about.
This is the worst response to a bug complaint I've ever seen. This is on a fresh install with the newest nvidia drivers provided by Jockey... that's it. Using the X configuration present when my system rebooted with the new drivers. That is all. It even tears without Compiz. My Powerbook Pismo has hardware accelerated display and does not tear in Mac OS X like my brand new desktop-- maybe it has something to do with the fact that their windowing system was designed for the desktop!
I find it very interesting that you blame X rather than nVidia. Lots of people who don't buy that crap have no problems.
There's no reason to blame Nvidia. DWM is beautiful on my system in Windows 7 (and even Vista!) and Quake 4 runs about the same in linux and windows... so I think the problem is with X. Ubuntu fed me the drivers with jockey- it's not like I went out to break linux. Am I just not allowed to have 3d graphics because I have an extremely popular non-discrete graphics card?
Far too late for that -- the Linux kernel supports entirely too much stuff, most of it very well. And are there any good nvidia drivers, open or not, for Haiku?
If you really want to make that succeed, start trying to port the more interesting Haiku features to Linux.
I don't think you understand- the point is that Haiku is designed from the ground up for the desktop based on BeOS's example. The point is that it's not linux- it's designed for the desktop. This is the reason we lost the ck patchset for the linux kernel. The companies supporting linux are doing it for the server and HPC-- and that's fine.
What's with this Katamari Damacy attitude in open source? I thought F/OSS was supposed to be more flexible.
Personal anecdotes: I have a Q6600 / 8GB 800MHz RAM / 512MB Geforce 8600GT. I used 8.10 as my primary desktop for a few months. Now I'm using Win 7 beta. Of the two, I strongly prefer Win 7, and one of the reasons for the switch was the unacceptable slowness of the X-windows GUI and all the glitches still present in Firefox 3.0.5.
Seconded. All the GUI tearing in Ubuntu gave me a headache within minutes of using 8.10-- I also have Nvidia graphics hardware. It's becoming increasingly clear that X11 will never be hacked into a usable local display option. The open source community badly needs something more desktop centric.
I wish more developers would pay attention to Haiku for the desktop so we can have a POSIX compliant free desktop operating system that is built with the desktop in mind. It's just too much hacks from Point Server to Point Desktop in linuxland.
Open source systems that aren't linux are okay- as long as they're POSIX compliant it's no big deal to recompile the source and do a tiny bit of GUI porting. We already wrote all this open source code, after all. Let's keep linux on the servers and pave a new solution for desktops that is actually competitive with Mac and Windows.
As long as Firefox and Opera run better in Windows and my overall desktop experience is smoother and faster, I can't put open source ideals in front of usability.
It seems this is a very old tune that I've been hearing for years now. Wasn't this same idea trumpeted like 5 years ago? The weird random demand for wanton open sourcing eventually got so powerful that Sun drank the koolaid and gave away all their software. Now they're basically collapsing. Open sourcing everything is a sign that your business is dead or in the process of dying. I think the only company making money writing open source code as a business model is Red Hat... and that is it.
Although I am sure Microsoft really wants to be Sun right now (with only legacy products and no plan for the future) but somehow I doubt this is going to happen. I know the market is really scary what with linux almost reaching critical mass at 1% and Microsoft's server market share encroaching upon linux at the same time, but somehow I think they're way more scared of Apple than Linux.
1 quasi-choice if you want ultimate and know why you want and go find it.
Ultimate's more proper and sensible title would be "Conspicuous Consumption Edition". It's for those gamers that need enterprise level drive security to protect their porn from their mom and play WoW off a RAID array for some bizarre reason.
Microsoft Update sure sounds like it will update Microsoft products. Given that Firefox is not a microsoft product, how the hell was I to know they would update it?
The point is that you have no legal recourse, so RTFM next time.
If you would rather keep your Firefox platform separate from the Windows platform, then just hack it out.
You authorized it when you installed SP1. The extension is clearly described in the ClickOnce section of the SP1 feature list. We all read feature lists, changelogs and release notes very carefully whenever we install something this significant, right?
Technically, Microsoft didn't modify a single bit of Firefox. It just dropped the extension where Firefox could find it.
Copied from Channel 9. Yes, you authorized this. You also authorized this by enabling Microsoft Update IN ADDITION to Windows Update. It does not do this by default.
Basically, if you didn't want this, it's your own fault for blindly allowing things to be installed on the server. It sounds like its there to aid Visual Studio in prototyping web apps with firefox (for those who use firefox) and other general junks.. it's not exactly a trojan. Calm down, morons. Go sue your pillow for a while.
What does it matter if it can't feature-match modern systems? Slackware is basically computing in the past. It may be stable, but it's not competitive for modern desktop purposes. We're talking about modern (very modern) desktops here, since this is a thread regarding Windows 7.
You're comparing your STUDENT EDITION to a full regular copy? Looks like they've got you suckered there; that's not even a valid argument since in the working world (where you spend most of your life) they don't give you that price.
Why not? It's the price I got it for. I specifically needed a computer and I received one. Students are a major software/hardware market.
Apple will knock $50 off their %1000 laptop for a college student... Amazing!
So you're not very likely to buy Windows at full price, since you usually get it through OEM's, anyway.
Nor have I found that their systems qualify as "junk" at any level.
I've heard a very different story from some Apple techs. All my mac-y friends always tell me that their Macs are "at the shop" or whatever all the time. I don't know anyone whose Macbook has survived a year without maintenance/RMA.
When you consider the absolutely astronomical difference for Microsoft's software offerings vs. Apple's, it's a wonder anyone ever floats the cost argument against Apple when comparing them.
Thus, Windows 7. What if I use my OS to run applications instead of worshiping it like a golden calf? I think the gui-fication of windows 7 has quite caught up-- and I can even run games! (look up "computer games" on wikipedia if you haven't heard of them)
Ah, the good old fashioned "it's a mac so it's just... better" argument. Not for the faint of wallet.
We're not in the 90's anymore. Macs are no longer defined by the outrageous price discrepancies of PowerPC and [insert ridiculous proprietary bus here].
In that case, how much of what your paying for is simply stylish form factor or casing? Consider that Apple Cinema Displays use the same LCD's/components as some of the Dells and they are at a terrific markup. Let's look at the Mac Mini for instance.
It costs about $599 for quite a low end model, 80 gb hdd, GMA 950-- etc, etc....
Now, at fist, I was going to compare this to a similar Dell, but Dell simply doesn't offer anything at that low of technical specs. The best I can do is this Inspiron Mini-Form Factor:
The one with the monitor meets or beats the Mac Mini in every single category-- I mean, hideously so. 500 GB hdd (and a faster one, to boot), 2.66 GHZ Core2Duo, GMA 3100, 3 GB of RAM, etc. It even includes a 64 bit edition Windows Vista Home Premium, which I consider to be the feature equivalent Vista to Mac OS X, since Apple doesn't make enterprise-class software.
All this weighs in WITH a monitor (and a monitor that is basically an Apple cinema display in different casing) for the price of a Mac Mini. With a monitor included, the difference between these two boxes goes far beyond 10%-- the Dell is undeniably more powerful and still beats the Apple. This machine needs to be compared with the $799 Mac Mini to be fair-- which is still inferior. Plus the cost of that monitor, let's be kind and charge the dell price of about $150-- the Mac Mini comes it at $950 vs. the $599 Dell.
So the mark-up is actually more like 40% on similar hardware. This is the first PC I looked for-- so it would be safe to say that I could get a comparable PC for about half the price of a mac.
And let's not kid ourselves here- the Mac is just a PC, and the lower end ones are quite low quality PC's. Do I really want to pay $350 for the right to have an Apple product if I am looking for a strong lower middle end PC?
I hardly consider comparing Microsoft's pricing and release model to Apple's fair. In fact, it's kind of brutal to MS if you do so. Might wanna avoid that when you ride to MS' rescue.;-)
But then I have to buy one low-end piece of junk hardware at a massive pricetag to get into the apple club.
Most people get their copy of Windows heavily discounted with their PC and then you would pay about $129 for an upgrade license to Vista Home Premium, which is comparable to Mac OS X, since Apple doesn't make enterprise level software. You don't need to even worry about vista Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise then.
That's besides the fact that I can choose what quality of hardware I am getting instead of paying a ton for low end or paying a fuck-ton for middle-end with Apple.
They haven't announced Windows 7 pricing yet, so we'll see how it compares at that release.
Personally, I got my copy of Vista Ultimate for $60 since I am student. My PC as a total was $180 (+$35 for a monitor) with the operating system included-- and it's comparable to $1200 mac or higher in hardware.
No kidding. Apple's hardware starting tanking a few years ago, when they responded to the "Macs are too expensive" hype by bringing down prices as much as possible. Surprise, surprise, quality came down as well.
Yeah, I started drinking the mac koolaid a while ago and tried out a couple of second hand iBook's... man did I come to regret that. I learned the hard way the difference between a powerbook and an ibook. On a more pleasant note I have a Powerbook Pismo that's lasted just about forever. I am actually using it now.
There was a point where Sony Vaio's were beating Macbooks in terms of what hardware you were getting at what price. I would take much more interest in the mac platform if they could pricematch PC's on the low end-- the "mac tax" is even more serious than the "windows tax".
I think the biggest difference between mac and windows comes down to development culture. Windows puts more power into the hands of the developers and OEM's... and they simply abuse it. Every bit of control they give somehow turns around to damage the overall PC experience. I love vanilla Windows systems but I can't stand anything Compaq or Dell, etc. It's unbelievable.
Apple has been taking more and more control over their environment to the point that they command all the user experience from the hardware to every piece of software on a new mac. Third party developers take the HIG very seriously, leading to lots of pretty applications. If Windows developers paid attention to the HIG and wrote more uniform applications like on mac or even in gnome in linux/unix, I think Windows would be a serious contender with mac human interface-wise.
Microsoft needs to do more to feed the open source community, like Apple did, if they want more pleasant and integrated applications to appear on their system.
I eventually got everything working except usb 2.0, I could only get 1.0 working. Out of everything on that laptop, usb 2.0 should have been the easiest thing to get working.
Most laptop manufacturers carry the drivers for the laptop in the support section of the website. Alternatively, you can use the CD that came with the machine-- sometimes, they have several Windows versions of drivers available on the cd, despite having come with a certain version of Windows.
If your USB is broken, you should look into drivers for your chipset-- and those are most likely provided by the manufacturer.
But how much time have you lost defending your machines against viruses etc? Installing and updating preventive software products? And how much slower do they run with their burden of anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-adware programs running to defend you? And how much more has it cost you to license this protection? The "free" one from Microsoft has since turned into a profit center.
I have never run a virus scan in Vista. I run as a standard user and do not engage in risky behavior such as running untrusted applications.
So... none? Once in a blue moon, I will scan my system to test my hypothesis... always turns out green.
I use Avira Anti-Vir if I need a virus scan. It's free.
I am specifically trying to draw that distinction. I think the average response to this was that it was crazy to release after a single RC- but I don't think enough people make the distinction that linux distributions (that most slashdot users would be using) do not have their betas tested internally to the extent that a Microsoft public beta is. This beta passed an army of QA testers at Microsoft before the community got their hands on it. It's much more feasible for Microsoft to release an OS after ONE public beta and ONE public RC because of this internal QA.
Can you not generalize the whole F/OSS community when you have only used ubuntu please?
I am using Ubuntu as a reference because it is the closest to a professional release cycle available in the F/OSS world. I'm also pointing to the fact that a Microsoft beta has already gone through QA whereas a linux beta is currently *in* QA-- so they tend to be a lot more broken.
I've screwed around with plenty of linux distributions and they're not really worth mentioning. They are barely different from one another and none are as polished or supported as Ubuntu.
Your analogy is fatally flawed. You need the service packs, but if there's nothing you want in a new mac OS, you're still getting all your security updates, all your software updates (iTunes, Quicktime, etc) and your machine keeps getting better with age, like smelly, smelly cheese.
The same thing happens on Windows PC's...
If you should choose to upgrade, Apple will regularly release re-dressed OS X versions with a few extra features at a high price point-- their new versions don't represent the kind of back-end changes represented by a Windows release.
Microsoft supports more than a handful of computers-- they need to have more QA than Apple. If Apple had to support any third party systems, you'd see their quality level dive. Even linux distributions have a wider band of support- the extra stability is simply artificial because they limit and control who can use their software.
Then you go on to say that a windows beta is of quality that open source couldnt dream of.
I installed the Windows 7 beta on a $120 home built computer. Everything ran beautifully out of the box with no issues, didn't even need to seek drivers. That's even more seamless than an Ubuntu release- not bad for a beta. But part of this is because their betas are tested by internal QA before they get released to the community, whereas Ubuntu has no internal QA.
Look at Digg, Reddit, Slashdot-- Windows 7 is buzz-tastic. I think the article is looking at this issue too technically. From a marketing perspective, it's miles ahead of Vista.
Even if the cheapest Mac cost $1000 more than the cheapest PC (for example) it would still be a better value for people who value their time and sanity.
Yeah, it's a lot of money to pay for pretty icons and a dock. I think many users view their operating system as a sort of "container for applications".. not so much like a religion... or a cult. So, to them, saving $500 and still getting their digital pictures off their camera and writing emails to their friends is basically capital. If their kids can play "computer games" (look it up on wikipedia) with the system as well, that's another plus.
Don't see how. Most users stick with what they are given when they buy, or are supplied with, a PC. If you're changing (as a private individual), then moving to a new Mac is not that much more expensive than going for a PC. (Oh, and I'm far from being a Mac apologist).
I think Windows PC's are still about half the price of Macs. That's a big deal to most users- and I think it always was. That's the same concept that got Windows to market dominate in the first place.
No, the biggest market is - and always will be - OEM pre-load. Here, Windows 7 is - from what I can see of the feature list - more of a marketing exercise than a leap forward. Certainly I cannot see myself trying to do a business case to get any of my existing customers to move from XP to W7.
I am more talking about Windows users avoiding PC upgrades because of Vista. So, we're talking about a Mac style upgrade (throw your computer out the window and buy a new one) not a linux-style upgrade (sit at your desk and watch your applications versions rise).
Slashdot Mirror
I have the same graphics card as you. The problem is obviously on your side and you're doing something wrong, because I have no clue what you're talking about.
This is the worst response to a bug complaint I've ever seen. This is on a fresh install with the newest nvidia drivers provided by Jockey... that's it. Using the X configuration present when my system rebooted with the new drivers. That is all. It even tears without Compiz. My Powerbook Pismo has hardware accelerated display and does not tear in Mac OS X like my brand new desktop-- maybe it has something to do with the fact that their windowing system was designed for the desktop!
I find it very interesting that you blame X rather than nVidia. Lots of people who don't buy that crap have no problems.
There's no reason to blame Nvidia. DWM is beautiful on my system in Windows 7 (and even Vista!) and Quake 4 runs about the same in linux and windows... so I think the problem is with X. Ubuntu fed me the drivers with jockey- it's not like I went out to break linux. Am I just not allowed to have 3d graphics because I have an extremely popular non-discrete graphics card?
Far too late for that -- the Linux kernel supports entirely too much stuff, most of it very well. And are there any good nvidia drivers, open or not, for Haiku?
If you really want to make that succeed, start trying to port the more interesting Haiku features to Linux.
I don't think you understand- the point is that Haiku is designed from the ground up for the desktop based on BeOS's example. The point is that it's not linux- it's designed for the desktop. This is the reason we lost the ck patchset for the linux kernel. The companies supporting linux are doing it for the server and HPC-- and that's fine.
What's with this Katamari Damacy attitude in open source? I thought F/OSS was supposed to be more flexible.
Personal anecdotes: I have a Q6600 / 8GB 800MHz RAM / 512MB Geforce 8600GT. I used 8.10 as my primary desktop for a few months. Now I'm using Win 7 beta. Of the two, I strongly prefer Win 7, and one of the reasons for the switch was the unacceptable slowness of the X-windows GUI and all the glitches still present in Firefox 3.0.5.
Seconded. All the GUI tearing in Ubuntu gave me a headache within minutes of using 8.10-- I also have Nvidia graphics hardware. It's becoming increasingly clear that X11 will never be hacked into a usable local display option. The open source community badly needs something more desktop centric.
I wish more developers would pay attention to Haiku for the desktop so we can have a POSIX compliant free desktop operating system that is built with the desktop in mind. It's just too much hacks from Point Server to Point Desktop in linuxland.
Open source systems that aren't linux are okay- as long as they're POSIX compliant it's no big deal to recompile the source and do a tiny bit of GUI porting. We already wrote all this open source code, after all. Let's keep linux on the servers and pave a new solution for desktops that is actually competitive with Mac and Windows.
As long as Firefox and Opera run better in Windows and my overall desktop experience is smoother and faster, I can't put open source ideals in front of usability.
It seems this is a very old tune that I've been hearing for years now. Wasn't this same idea trumpeted like 5 years ago? The weird random demand for wanton open sourcing eventually got so powerful that Sun drank the koolaid and gave away all their software. Now they're basically collapsing. Open sourcing everything is a sign that your business is dead or in the process of dying. I think the only company making money writing open source code as a business model is Red Hat... and that is it.
Although I am sure Microsoft really wants to be Sun right now (with only legacy products and no plan for the future) but somehow I doubt this is going to happen. I know the market is really scary what with linux almost reaching critical mass at 1% and Microsoft's server market share encroaching upon linux at the same time, but somehow I think they're way more scared of Apple than Linux.
1 quasi-choice if you want ultimate and know why you want and go find it.
Ultimate's more proper and sensible title would be "Conspicuous Consumption Edition". It's for those gamers that need enterprise level drive security to protect their porn from their mom and play WoW off a RAID array for some bizarre reason.
Microsoft Update sure sounds like it will update Microsoft products. Given that Firefox is not a microsoft product, how the hell was I to know they would update it?
The point is that you have no legal recourse, so RTFM next time.
If you would rather keep your Firefox platform separate from the Windows platform, then just hack it out.
You authorized it when you installed SP1. The extension is clearly described in the ClickOnce section of the SP1 feature list. We all read feature lists, changelogs and release notes very carefully whenever we install something this significant, right?
Technically, Microsoft didn't modify a single bit of Firefox. It just dropped the extension where Firefox could find it.
http://channel9.msdn.com/forums/Coffeehouse/421171-NET-Framework-Assistant/?CommentID=421225
Copied from Channel 9. Yes, you authorized this. You also authorized this by enabling Microsoft Update IN ADDITION to Windows Update. It does not do this by default.
Basically, if you didn't want this, it's your own fault for blindly allowing things to be installed on the server. It sounds like its there to aid Visual Studio in prototyping web apps with firefox (for those who use firefox) and other general junks.. it's not exactly a trojan. Calm down, morons. Go sue your pillow for a while.
What does it matter if it can't feature-match modern systems? Slackware is basically computing in the past. It may be stable, but it's not competitive for modern desktop purposes. We're talking about modern (very modern) desktops here, since this is a thread regarding Windows 7.
You're comparing your STUDENT EDITION to a full regular copy? Looks like they've got you suckered there; that's not even a valid argument since in the working world (where you spend most of your life) they don't give you that price.
Why not? It's the price I got it for. I specifically needed a computer and I received one. Students are a major software/hardware market.
Apple will knock $50 off their %1000 laptop for a college student... Amazing!
So you're not very likely to buy Windows at full price, since you usually get it through OEM's, anyway.
Nor have I found that their systems qualify as "junk" at any level.
I've heard a very different story from some Apple techs. All my mac-y friends always tell me that their Macs are "at the shop" or whatever all the time. I don't know anyone whose Macbook has survived a year without maintenance/RMA.
When you consider the absolutely astronomical difference for Microsoft's software offerings vs. Apple's, it's a wonder anyone ever floats the cost argument against Apple when comparing them.
Thus, Windows 7. What if I use my OS to run applications instead of worshiping it like a golden calf? I think the gui-fication of windows 7 has quite caught up-- and I can even run games! (look up "computer games" on wikipedia if you haven't heard of them)
Ah, the good old fashioned "it's a mac so it's just... better" argument. Not for the faint of wallet.
How are you liking your truncated MP3s?
Whoah! Zing!... what are you talking about?
We're not in the 90's anymore. Macs are no longer defined by the outrageous price discrepancies of PowerPC and [insert ridiculous proprietary bus here].
In that case, how much of what your paying for is simply stylish form factor or casing? Consider that Apple Cinema Displays use the same LCD's/components as some of the Dells and they are at a terrific markup. Let's look at the Mac Mini for instance.
It costs about $599 for quite a low end model, 80 gb hdd, GMA 950-- etc, etc. ...
Now, at fist, I was going to compare this to a similar Dell, but Dell simply doesn't offer anything at that low of technical specs. The best I can do is this Inspiron Mini-Form Factor:
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/inspndt_530s?c=us&cs=19&l=en&ref=dthp&s=dhs
The one with the monitor meets or beats the Mac Mini in every single category-- I mean, hideously so. 500 GB hdd (and a faster one, to boot), 2.66 GHZ Core2Duo, GMA 3100, 3 GB of RAM, etc. It even includes a 64 bit edition Windows Vista Home Premium, which I consider to be the feature equivalent Vista to Mac OS X, since Apple doesn't make enterprise-class software.
All this weighs in WITH a monitor (and a monitor that is basically an Apple cinema display in different casing) for the price of a Mac Mini. With a monitor included, the difference between these two boxes goes far beyond 10%-- the Dell is undeniably more powerful and still beats the Apple. This machine needs to be compared with the $799 Mac Mini to be fair-- which is still inferior. Plus the cost of that monitor, let's be kind and charge the dell price of about $150-- the Mac Mini comes it at $950 vs. the $599 Dell.
So the mark-up is actually more like 40% on similar hardware. This is the first PC I looked for-- so it would be safe to say that I could get a comparable PC for about half the price of a mac.
And let's not kid ourselves here- the Mac is just a PC, and the lower end ones are quite low quality PC's. Do I really want to pay $350 for the right to have an Apple product if I am looking for a strong lower middle end PC?
I hardly consider comparing Microsoft's pricing and release model to Apple's fair. In fact, it's kind of brutal to MS if you do so. Might wanna avoid that when you ride to MS' rescue. ;-)
But then I have to buy one low-end piece of junk hardware at a massive pricetag to get into the apple club.
Most people get their copy of Windows heavily discounted with their PC and then you would pay about $129 for an upgrade license to Vista Home Premium, which is comparable to Mac OS X, since Apple doesn't make enterprise level software. You don't need to even worry about vista Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise then.
That's besides the fact that I can choose what quality of hardware I am getting instead of paying a ton for low end or paying a fuck-ton for middle-end with Apple.
They haven't announced Windows 7 pricing yet, so we'll see how it compares at that release.
Personally, I got my copy of Vista Ultimate for $60 since I am student. My PC as a total was $180 (+$35 for a monitor) with the operating system included-- and it's comparable to $1200 mac or higher in hardware.
I personally feel like I did well.
No kidding. Apple's hardware starting tanking a few years ago, when they responded to the "Macs are too expensive" hype by bringing down prices as much as possible. Surprise, surprise, quality came down as well.
Yeah, I started drinking the mac koolaid a while ago and tried out a couple of second hand iBook's... man did I come to regret that. I learned the hard way the difference between a powerbook and an ibook. On a more pleasant note I have a Powerbook Pismo that's lasted just about forever. I am actually using it now.
There was a point where Sony Vaio's were beating Macbooks in terms of what hardware you were getting at what price. I would take much more interest in the mac platform if they could pricematch PC's on the low end-- the "mac tax" is even more serious than the "windows tax".
I think the biggest difference between mac and windows comes down to development culture. Windows puts more power into the hands of the developers and OEM's... and they simply abuse it. Every bit of control they give somehow turns around to damage the overall PC experience. I love vanilla Windows systems but I can't stand anything Compaq or Dell, etc. It's unbelievable.
Apple has been taking more and more control over their environment to the point that they command all the user experience from the hardware to every piece of software on a new mac. Third party developers take the HIG very seriously, leading to lots of pretty applications. If Windows developers paid attention to the HIG and wrote more uniform applications like on mac or even in gnome in linux/unix, I think Windows would be a serious contender with mac human interface-wise.
Microsoft needs to do more to feed the open source community, like Apple did, if they want more pleasant and integrated applications to appear on their system.
I eventually got everything working except usb 2.0, I could only get 1.0 working. Out of everything on that laptop, usb 2.0 should have been the easiest thing to get working.
Most laptop manufacturers carry the drivers for the laptop in the support section of the website. Alternatively, you can use the CD that came with the machine-- sometimes, they have several Windows versions of drivers available on the cd, despite having come with a certain version of Windows.
If your USB is broken, you should look into drivers for your chipset-- and those are most likely provided by the manufacturer.
But how much time have you lost defending your machines against viruses etc? Installing and updating preventive software products? And how much slower do they run with their burden of anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-adware programs running to defend you? And how much more has it cost you to license this protection? The "free" one from Microsoft has since turned into a profit center.
I have never run a virus scan in Vista. I run as a standard user and do not engage in risky behavior such as running untrusted applications.
So... none? Once in a blue moon, I will scan my system to test my hypothesis... always turns out green.
I use Avira Anti-Vir if I need a virus scan. It's free.
I am specifically trying to draw that distinction. I think the average response to this was that it was crazy to release after a single RC- but I don't think enough people make the distinction that linux distributions (that most slashdot users would be using) do not have their betas tested internally to the extent that a Microsoft public beta is. This beta passed an army of QA testers at Microsoft before the community got their hands on it. It's much more feasible for Microsoft to release an OS after ONE public beta and ONE public RC because of this internal QA.
Can you not generalize the whole F/OSS community when you have only used ubuntu please?
I am using Ubuntu as a reference because it is the closest to a professional release cycle available in the F/OSS world. I'm also pointing to the fact that a Microsoft beta has already gone through QA whereas a linux beta is currently *in* QA-- so they tend to be a lot more broken.
I've screwed around with plenty of linux distributions and they're not really worth mentioning. They are barely different from one another and none are as polished or supported as Ubuntu.
Your analogy is fatally flawed. You need the service packs, but if there's nothing you want in a new mac OS, you're still getting all your security updates, all your software updates (iTunes, Quicktime, etc) and your machine keeps getting better with age, like smelly, smelly cheese.
The same thing happens on Windows PC's...
If you should choose to upgrade, Apple will regularly release re-dressed OS X versions with a few extra features at a high price point-- their new versions don't represent the kind of back-end changes represented by a Windows release.
Microsoft supports more than a handful of computers-- they need to have more QA than Apple. If Apple had to support any third party systems, you'd see their quality level dive. Even linux distributions have a wider band of support- the extra stability is simply artificial because they limit and control who can use their software.
I installed windows 7, never could get the ethernet working.
I hope you reported that as a bug. It's a beta, after all. If you have non-standard or incredibly new hardware, try the Vista drivers.
Once again, your claim that a beta from microsoft is higher quality than open source could dream of is just plain silly.
I'm sorry, but Microsoft's betas are QA tested and open source betas are for QA test. It's a difference of practice.
Then you go on to say that a windows beta is of quality that open source couldnt dream of.
I installed the Windows 7 beta on a $120 home built computer. Everything ran beautifully out of the box with no issues, didn't even need to seek drivers. That's even more seamless than an Ubuntu release- not bad for a beta. But part of this is because their betas are tested by internal QA before they get released to the community, whereas Ubuntu has no internal QA.
How much did redmond pay you for your post?
Four dollars.
W7 will sell big on OEM boxen. Period.
Look at Digg, Reddit, Slashdot-- Windows 7 is buzz-tastic. I think the article is looking at this issue too technically. From a marketing perspective, it's miles ahead of Vista.
Vista was stupid, not unstable. The failure was design, not QA.
Even if the cheapest Mac cost $1000 more than the cheapest PC (for example) it would still be a better value for people who value their time and sanity.
Yeah, it's a lot of money to pay for pretty icons and a dock. I think many users view their operating system as a sort of "container for applications".. not so much like a religion... or a cult. So, to them, saving $500 and still getting their digital pictures off their camera and writing emails to their friends is basically capital. If their kids can play "computer games" (look it up on wikipedia) with the system as well, that's another plus.
Don't see how. Most users stick with what they are given when they buy, or are supplied with, a PC. If you're changing (as a private individual), then moving to a new Mac is not that much more expensive than going for a PC. (Oh, and I'm far from being a Mac apologist).
I think Windows PC's are still about half the price of Macs. That's a big deal to most users- and I think it always was. That's the same concept that got Windows to market dominate in the first place.
No, the biggest market is - and always will be - OEM pre-load. Here, Windows 7 is - from what I can see of the feature list - more of a marketing exercise than a leap forward. Certainly I cannot see myself trying to do a business case to get any of my existing customers to move from XP to W7.
I am more talking about Windows users avoiding PC upgrades because of Vista. So, we're talking about a Mac style upgrade (throw your computer out the window and buy a new one) not a linux-style upgrade (sit at your desk and watch your applications versions rise).