Yes, it is awesome... I agree... I routinely login from my Linux machine to a Windows machine offering RDP. However, is it enabled in Windows XP Home? It is a great system, but do home users use it? The closest I've seem was "Remote Assistance", which is in Home.... Alas, I only had the experience of this over a 56K modem, and that was far from fun.
I control my Linux machines over ssh with the command line and that works fine over a 56K modem... Just saying...
But it had no cheap "Home" version, so GP may have gotten the impression that it was unsuccessful from not seeing much Windows 2000 use on home PCs.
I do know several home users who did go for the Dell business lines in order to get it. Incidentally, those all use Macs by now;-)
As a dumpster diver, I also routinely find Win2000 computers with valid license stickers.... I don't know where they come from, but I don't think a residential recycling centre (where I dumpster dive) gets a lot of corporate computers.
by now hardware vendors often don't bother with Windows 2000 drivers anymore. Which makes the Windows XP Corporate Edition more desirable these days
I have one of those corporate editions, and I use them to reuse license stickers found on dumpster diven machines. If it has a WinXP Pro machine, you install the corporate version, then you change the license with a tool from Microsoft. It's wonderful you can do that, because you cannot use the license printed on the sticker with a volume license CD. You can change it afterward, so you have a valid XP license and you do not misuse the corporate license which is owned by your company.
their most unsuccessful release since Win2000 or ME?
Look, I'm an Open Source advocate as well and I use Linux and OpenBSD... However lumping together Windows 2000 and Windows ME is just not fair. Windows 2000 was pretty much their best operating system ever, and Windows ME their worst. Just in case you didn't know: Windows 2000, meant for the business world and used in the business world was a big hit. It was and is still very popular in corporate environments.
Windows XP has exactly three things that make it "better" than 2000: Fast user switching, good wireless support and terminal services (only in Pro). The first and the second are good for home use, the terminal services only for business use.
Windows 2000 is used to this day in controlled secured environments.... I wouldn't call it unsuccessful in any sense of the term.
A Win2000 would be a better choice, because it's a modern operating system that doesn't require much resources. I ran Win2000 for ages on a PPro 200MHz (That's less than your typical P-II, you know) with 256Meg RAM and it did just fine.
If you don't want to go the Windows way, then just take Debian 5.0, base install, add a lightweight WindowManager like LXDE and you'll be just fine. If that doesn't fit the bill, go straight to Damn Small Linux. I've ran it smoothly on a P-I with 128Meg RAM.
Oh, and if you didn't notice: he runs FreeBSD-7.1 on it with xfce4. That still qualifies as a modern operating system.
Suggesting anything of the Win9x range these days is just a bad idea. A P-II can handle quite a lot, given enough memory. Sure, a full-blown Ubuntu is probably out of the question... However, there are many modern OSes that will just do fine on a P-II class machine. P-I class if you're inclined to do so (Again: Damn Small Linux).
And as a non-French and non-English living in a country where these days you can only get French or German games, I can tell you it still is a bad idea to buy the translated versions.
Why? Because I learnt most of my English from video games in a time were all video games were English or you didn't get to play. So I sat there with a dictionary and played those games.
Video games help people learning English, and by playing the translated version you stay in your cozy uni-lingual environment instead of reaching out. (Oh, and for the record: I have no particular talent for languages, but I am quintilingual. Why? Because I need ever friggin one of them every day! I can't simplpy learn a language when I don't need it.)
Ehm..... I've been reading slashdot since, I don't know exactly, but my bet is about 1998. In that period I had sex with three different women, one of which is my wife now. Sure, geeks are late-starters and compared to "real men" we had an insignificant amount of sexual partners (twenty++ is not out of the norm for non-geek guys). So, cut the crap.... By now there are geeks that have regular sex. Well, I mean the married-style sex. Twice a year.... Or so;-)
I know that.... I have hit the 4GB/3.5GB limitation years ago with my workstation (which was 32-bit SMP and had 4Gig of RAM). It's not only the Graphics card, by the way: it is every device that uses memory-mapping...
I know that Windows XP handles up to 3.7GB (my machine could do that), but you still have the 2GB/2GB kernel/userspace split. Anyway, the reason it is a sweet spot is that manufacturers like the 3GB because they can still sell a 32-bit operating system that most people want without getting support calls for the "lost 0.5GB".
Now to be serious. Home PC do not come yet with 6GB or 8GB. Most new home PC still seem to have between 1GB and 4GB. Where the 4GB variety is rare because of the fact that most home PCs still come with a 32-bit operating system. 3GB seems to be the sweet spot for higher-end-home-pcs. Your home PC will most likely not have 16GB next year. Your workstation at work, perhaps, but then even perhaps.
At the risk of sounding like "640KByte is enough for everyone", I have to ask why you think why you need 16GB to check your email next year. I'm typing this on a 6 year old computer, I'm running quite a few applications at the same time and I know a second user is logged in. Current memory usage: 764Meg RAM. As a general rule, I know that Windows XP runs fine on 512Meg RAM and is comfortable with 1GB RAM. The same is true for GNU/Linux running Gnome.
Now, at work with Eclipse loaded, a couple of application servers, a database and a few VMs... Yeah, there indeed you get memory starved quickly. You have to keep in mind that such usage pattern is not that of a typical office worker. I can imagine that a heavy Photoshop user would want every bit of RAM he can get too. The Word-wielding-office-worker? I don't think so.
Now, I can't speak for Vista. I heard it runs well on 2GB systems, but I can't say. I got a new work laptop last week and booted briefly in Vista. It felt extremely sluggish and my machine does have 4Gig RAM. Anyway, I didn't bother and put Debian Lenny/amd64 on it and didn't look back.
I my idea, you have quite a twisted sense of reality regarding to the computers people actually use.
Oh, and frankly... If cosmic rays would be a big issue by now with huge memories, don't you think that more people would be complaining? I can't say why Ubuntu/amd64 ran fine on your machine. Perhaps GNU/Linux has built-in error correction and marks bad RAM as "bad".
How would that be possible? Evolution requires those intermediate steps. Your example of the fictional race Minbari doesn't change that. At one point in their evolution there had to be a fish with leg-like appendages formed from its fins, for example. The Minbari are distinctly humanoid, so perhaps the starting point is a fish, but there must have been some convergent evolution, otherwhise they would still look like fish. (Think of other things: how is their skeletal structure, gills versus lungs, mode of reproduction (eggs?), warm-blooded or cold-blooded, etc, etc, etc...)
Our evolution presumably was fish-amphibian-reptile-mammal. The Minbari evolution might be fish-$step1-...-$step-n-Minbari, but becoming Minbari without intermediate steps is not compatible with evolution. (Also keep in mind that evolution has no goals, this linear thinking is indeed misguided. In fact it's an ever deviding tree. Consider that the reptiles evolved into birds and mammals and on top of that still exist...)
Perhaps you need to look a bit into how evolution works.
The Acer Aspire One is a nice machine, I did my research on it, and my mom absolutely loves it, but I was really surprised that I couldn't install some Adobe software initially on it -- because I couldn't accept the EULA.
Who is at fault here? Adobe... A few years ago, 1024x768 would have been standard. Your Acer Arspire one has 1024x600, which is very very close.
Would you have had this on Linux, you could have pressed Alt+Drag Mouse to move the dialog box so that you can see the "Ok" button. As far as I know there are tools on Windows to achieve the same effect. (A few Googles later: altdrag.)
Anyway, this really is software publishers assuming screen real estate that may not be there. That Windows doesn't have correct workarounds, that's another issue entirely.
. So if you could get X amount of computer equipment, now you would be able to get X + Y.
Which is the case... Back then, I paid 300$ for 3 sticks of Registred ECC RAM, back then the conversion rate was about 1:1 and thus 300€. These days, for 300€, I get about 400$. Essentially, I'd get one "free" these days. Oh, and by now the price of that kind of RAM has dropped. For my 300€, I can get 17 sticks. Not that I need them...
I'm the guy below who worked with a P-III 600MHz/512Meg RAM machine. It might be something else: originally my machine had an horrendous slow harddisk. I changed it and that made more difference than upgrading from 256Meg to 512Meg. (It was a 4200RPM HD and I upgraded to a 5400RPM disk)
Why can't they reduce the memory allocation of the graphics to 256 or 128Mbyte?
Doesn't that depend on the laptop/BIOS/Chipset? I have Fujitsu-Siemens Pa1510 and it reserves 256Meg by default for the graphics card. Originally the machine had 1Gig, I upgraded it to 2Gig, which results in me having 1.8Gig available (still enough...) I only use it for 2D stuff, so I would be more than comfortable with 16Meg Framebuffer (1280x800x24bit=24576000bit=3072000Byte ~= 3MByte required) The BIOS has next to no options and under Linux I can't seem to adapt it (please, if you know how to, tell me!) I think I saw the option on Windows, but that's long ago and I might be mistaken. It's an ATI X1100 chipset.
Anyway, my point is that these cheapo machines (mine was an el-cheapo machine) usually don't give you such options.
Oh, I remember when 1024KByte RAM was overkill (my first, okay, my dads first machine had that... and most people were at 512KByte then) Anyway, I must have pissed off someone. I don't think those Troll mods were deserved.
I ran a P-III 600MHz laptop with 512Meg for two years (begin 2005 to begin 2007) and I could run Thunderbird, Firefox, OpenOffice, iTunes at the same time without a problem. Sure, I did an installation from scratch and I do know how to keep programs from hogging the systray. That, and I run Limited User...
Something else was seriously wrong with your sisters machine...
Yes, indeed... You are of course right. However, I implied (that wasn't perhaps clear) that a 512Meg machine runs a Full Linux-Based Desktop like Gnome just fine. On my Asus EEE PC 701 4G, I rarely exceed 300Meg used.
True, I had to pay out of the nose for Registred ECC RAM too to upgrade my SMP machine (before dual-cores were the norm). That said, buying it in the US was 3 times cheaper than buying it here in Europe. Even the import tax (which is high) didn't matter. That was before the dollar tanked.
Anyway, now consumer computers do seem to have a 2Gig to 4Gig RAM standard these days. My work laptop has 4Gig and still Vista seems to give me a few second wait. I don't get it. I dumped Debian Lenny on it, and don't even boot in Vista anymore. (I left it there, just in case.)
Probably even with shared graphics memory, resulting in something like 448Meg usable? Windows XP SP0 and SP1 ran on 256Meg RAM, SP2 seems to need 512Meg RAM, SP3 seems to need a bit more (but I never tried taht one on low-memory machines). Vista on such a machine? Eeeuh.... I don't think so.
That said, they seem to have paid quite a lot of money to get a RAM upgrade.
Linux runs fine tough on such "low-memory" (I had harddisks smaller than that, like 20Meg!) machines.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, it is awesome... I agree... I routinely login from my Linux machine to a Windows machine offering RDP. However, is it enabled in Windows XP Home? It is a great system, but do home users use it? The closest I've seem was "Remote Assistance", which is in Home.... Alas, I only had the experience of this over a 56K modem, and that was far from fun.
I control my Linux machines over ssh with the command line and that works fine over a 56K modem... Just saying...
I do know several home users who did go for the Dell business lines in order to get it. Incidentally, those all use Macs by now ;-)
As a dumpster diver, I also routinely find Win2000 computers with valid license stickers.... I don't know where they come from, but I don't think a residential recycling centre (where I dumpster dive) gets a lot of corporate computers.
I have one of those corporate editions, and I use them to reuse license stickers found on dumpster diven machines. If it has a WinXP Pro machine, you install the corporate version, then you change the license with a tool from Microsoft. It's wonderful you can do that, because you cannot use the license printed on the sticker with a volume license CD. You can change it afterward, so you have a valid XP license and you do not misuse the corporate license which is owned by your company.
Look, I'm an Open Source advocate as well and I use Linux and OpenBSD... However lumping together Windows 2000 and Windows ME is just not fair. Windows 2000 was pretty much their best operating system ever, and Windows ME their worst. Just in case you didn't know: Windows 2000, meant for the business world and used in the business world was a big hit. It was and is still very popular in corporate environments.
Windows XP has exactly three things that make it "better" than 2000: Fast user switching, good wireless support and terminal services (only in Pro). The first and the second are good for home use, the terminal services only for business use.
Windows 2000 is used to this day in controlled secured environments.... I wouldn't call it unsuccessful in any sense of the term.
Actually it shouldn't do squat. The user inserted the disk, he should know what to do.
A Win2000 would be a better choice, because it's a modern operating system that doesn't require much resources. I ran Win2000 for ages on a PPro 200MHz (That's less than your typical P-II, you know) with 256Meg RAM and it did just fine.
If you don't want to go the Windows way, then just take Debian 5.0, base install, add a lightweight WindowManager like LXDE and you'll be just fine. If that doesn't fit the bill, go straight to Damn Small Linux. I've ran it smoothly on a P-I with 128Meg RAM.
Oh, and if you didn't notice: he runs FreeBSD-7.1 on it with xfce4. That still qualifies as a modern operating system.
Suggesting anything of the Win9x range these days is just a bad idea. A P-II can handle quite a lot, given enough memory. Sure, a full-blown Ubuntu is probably out of the question... However, there are many modern OSes that will just do fine on a P-II class machine. P-I class if you're inclined to do so (Again: Damn Small Linux).
Why? Because I learnt most of my English from video games in a time were all video games were English or you didn't get to play. So I sat there with a dictionary and played those games.
Video games help people learning English, and by playing the translated version you stay in your cozy uni-lingual environment instead of reaching out. (Oh, and for the record: I have no particular talent for languages, but I am quintilingual. Why? Because I need ever friggin one of them every day! I can't simplpy learn a language when I don't need it.)
I need that achievement....
I have a sports car... No woman ever looked at it.... Men on the other hand....
Ehm..... I've been reading slashdot since, I don't know exactly, but my bet is about 1998. In that period I had sex with three different women, one of which is my wife now. Sure, geeks are late-starters and compared to "real men" we had an insignificant amount of sexual partners (twenty++ is not out of the norm for non-geek guys). So, cut the crap.... By now there are geeks that have regular sex. Well, I mean the married-style sex. Twice a year.... Or so ;-)
I know that.... I have hit the 4GB/3.5GB limitation years ago with my workstation (which was 32-bit SMP and had 4Gig of RAM). It's not only the Graphics card, by the way: it is every device that uses memory-mapping...
I know that Windows XP handles up to 3.7GB (my machine could do that), but you still have the 2GB/2GB kernel/userspace split. Anyway, the reason it is a sweet spot is that manufacturers like the 3GB because they can still sell a 32-bit operating system that most people want without getting support calls for the "lost 0.5GB".
1) Yes
2) No
Now to be serious. Home PC do not come yet with 6GB or 8GB. Most new home PC still seem to have between 1GB and 4GB. Where the 4GB variety is rare because of the fact that most home PCs still come with a 32-bit operating system. 3GB seems to be the sweet spot for higher-end-home-pcs. Your home PC will most likely not have 16GB next year. Your workstation at work, perhaps, but then even perhaps.
At the risk of sounding like "640KByte is enough for everyone", I have to ask why you think why you need 16GB to check your email next year. I'm typing this on a 6 year old computer, I'm running quite a few applications at the same time and I know a second user is logged in. Current memory usage: 764Meg RAM. As a general rule, I know that Windows XP runs fine on 512Meg RAM and is comfortable with 1GB RAM. The same is true for GNU/Linux running Gnome.
Now, at work with Eclipse loaded, a couple of application servers, a database and a few VMs... Yeah, there indeed you get memory starved quickly. You have to keep in mind that such usage pattern is not that of a typical office worker. I can imagine that a heavy Photoshop user would want every bit of RAM he can get too. The Word-wielding-office-worker? I don't think so.
Now, I can't speak for Vista. I heard it runs well on 2GB systems, but I can't say. I got a new work laptop last week and booted briefly in Vista. It felt extremely sluggish and my machine does have 4Gig RAM. Anyway, I didn't bother and put Debian Lenny/amd64 on it and didn't look back.
I my idea, you have quite a twisted sense of reality regarding to the computers people actually use.
Oh, and frankly... If cosmic rays would be a big issue by now with huge memories, don't you think that more people would be complaining? I can't say why Ubuntu/amd64 ran fine on your machine. Perhaps GNU/Linux has built-in error correction and marks bad RAM as "bad".
How would that be possible? Evolution requires those intermediate steps. Your example of the fictional race Minbari doesn't change that. At one point in their evolution there had to be a fish with leg-like appendages formed from its fins, for example. The Minbari are distinctly humanoid, so perhaps the starting point is a fish, but there must have been some convergent evolution, otherwhise they would still look like fish. (Think of other things: how is their skeletal structure, gills versus lungs, mode of reproduction (eggs?), warm-blooded or cold-blooded, etc, etc, etc...)
Our evolution presumably was fish-amphibian-reptile-mammal. The Minbari evolution might be fish-$step1-...-$step-n-Minbari, but becoming Minbari without intermediate steps is not compatible with evolution. (Also keep in mind that evolution has no goals, this linear thinking is indeed misguided. In fact it's an ever deviding tree. Consider that the reptiles evolved into birds and mammals and on top of that still exist...)
Perhaps you need to look a bit into how evolution works.
Who is at fault here? Adobe... A few years ago, 1024x768 would have been standard. Your Acer Arspire one has 1024x600, which is very very close.
Would you have had this on Linux, you could have pressed Alt+Drag Mouse to move the dialog box so that you can see the "Ok" button. As far as I know there are tools on Windows to achieve the same effect. (A few Googles later: altdrag.)
Anyway, this really is software publishers assuming screen real estate that may not be there. That Windows doesn't have correct workarounds, that's another issue entirely.
Which is the case... Back then, I paid 300$ for 3 sticks of Registred ECC RAM, back then the conversion rate was about 1:1 and thus 300€. These days, for 300€, I get about 400$. Essentially, I'd get one "free" these days. Oh, and by now the price of that kind of RAM has dropped. For my 300€, I can get 17 sticks. Not that I need them...
Be my guest....
Hey, I even ran Eclipse! ;-) (Okay, only small projects...)
I'm the guy below who worked with a P-III 600MHz/512Meg RAM machine. It might be something else: originally my machine had an horrendous slow harddisk. I changed it and that made more difference than upgrading from 256Meg to 512Meg. (It was a 4200RPM HD and I upgraded to a 5400RPM disk)
Thanks... You're probably right. I also remember a time Microsoft fanboys were a rare breed around here ;-)
Doesn't that depend on the laptop/BIOS/Chipset? I have Fujitsu-Siemens Pa1510 and it reserves 256Meg by default for the graphics card. Originally the machine had 1Gig, I upgraded it to 2Gig, which results in me having 1.8Gig available (still enough...) I only use it for 2D stuff, so I would be more than comfortable with 16Meg Framebuffer (1280x800x24bit=24576000bit=3072000Byte ~= 3MByte required) The BIOS has next to no options and under Linux I can't seem to adapt it (please, if you know how to, tell me!) I think I saw the option on Windows, but that's long ago and I might be mistaken. It's an ATI X1100 chipset.
Anyway, my point is that these cheapo machines (mine was an el-cheapo machine) usually don't give you such options.
Oh, I remember when 1024KByte RAM was overkill (my first, okay, my dads first machine had that... and most people were at 512KByte then) Anyway, I must have pissed off someone. I don't think those Troll mods were deserved.
I ran a P-III 600MHz laptop with 512Meg for two years (begin 2005 to begin 2007) and I could run Thunderbird, Firefox, OpenOffice, iTunes at the same time without a problem. Sure, I did an installation from scratch and I do know how to keep programs from hogging the systray. That, and I run Limited User...
Something else was seriously wrong with your sisters machine...
Yes, indeed... You are of course right. However, I implied (that wasn't perhaps clear) that a 512Meg machine runs a Full Linux-Based Desktop like Gnome just fine. On my Asus EEE PC 701 4G, I rarely exceed 300Meg used.
But your points are well taken....
I think standard VGA has a minimum of 256KByte. In the 386 days, VGA was already the norm. Just saying...
True, I had to pay out of the nose for Registred ECC RAM too to upgrade my SMP machine (before dual-cores were the norm). That said, buying it in the US was 3 times cheaper than buying it here in Europe. Even the import tax (which is high) didn't matter. That was before the dollar tanked.
Anyway, now consumer computers do seem to have a 2Gig to 4Gig RAM standard these days. My work laptop has 4Gig and still Vista seems to give me a few second wait. I don't get it. I dumped Debian Lenny on it, and don't even boot in Vista anymore. (I left it there, just in case.)
Probably even with shared graphics memory, resulting in something like 448Meg usable? Windows XP SP0 and SP1 ran on 256Meg RAM, SP2 seems to need 512Meg RAM, SP3 seems to need a bit more (but I never tried taht one on low-memory machines). Vista on such a machine? Eeeuh.... I don't think so.
That said, they seem to have paid quite a lot of money to get a RAM upgrade.
Linux runs fine tough on such "low-memory" (I had harddisks smaller than that, like 20Meg!) machines.
Just to pick nits: didn't we evolve from some fish-like being too? I mean: something set foot on land someday and we stem from that creature.