Originally Posted by bilbothebaggins I've just been thinking ... maybe the reason why I'm no fan of Vista is that WinXPsp2 is a pretty great OS. I say it's the first M$ OS that I see no reason for upgrading.
DOS+Win311 -> Win95 ... don't remind me ... was a no-brainer Win95 was a much better experience even if I needed a new hardware for it :-)
-> Win98 ... Maybe one could call it Win95sp2 ? Dunno ... run well enough for me
-> Win2000 ... This was a pretty decent step away from the DOS inheritance. Much better'n 98
-> WinXP ... solved the gaming issues one had from time to time with win200. I did not notice any performance problems btw 2000 and xp back then.
-> sp2 ... well. All I say is it works, it continues working, it's stable it's usable. Driver support for everything. Great performant software.
*snip*
I think this pretty much sums up Vista for me, previously there was a clear reason to upgrade, at least within a couple of months anyway. Vista is coming up to a year on release in a couple of months, and there's still no real reason to upgrade.
Originally Posted by Phil Rhodes I do wish Linux would get its collective arse in gear and either persuade the big software houses to release for it, or come up with workable free alternatives. It's improved out of all recognition but there's still huge holes in what it'll do.
Phil
Theres a quote thats often rolled out when some says things like this... feel free, write it yourself but more realistically, write to the company who produces this program and say you'd like a Linux version and then not buy the windows version. Until there is financial reason to port to Linux no major companies are likely to do it
> Theres a quote thats often rolled out when some says things like this
Usually the conversation goes like this:
Linux geek: Ur teh sux0rz, u should use Linux, it r teh l33t
Phil: But it doesn't do what I want it to do.
LG: Write it yourself, then.
P: But I'm a [job title], not a software engineer.
LG: Ur teh suck! Linux r not 4 j00, ur not l33t enough.
P: Yes. That's why I use windows.
LG: Ur teh sux0rz, u should use Linux, it r teh l33t
Repeat until bored.
I think the real problem with Linux, both as a user and as a developer, is that it's such a moving target. With everything, even stuff that's considered quite basic, coming as optional, configurable upgrades, it's a question of which Linux you aim for, which libraries you require, etc. Creating After Effects under Linux would be a lot more work than doing it under Windows because Linux doesn't provide - or more to the point sometimes
might or might not maybe possibly provide - the same level of services. Houses have to be put in order before seriously heavyweight media apps become workably portable to Linux.
Going from personal experiences, so don 't flame too much ^^
But for me, going from 2k to xp was a complete non-issue for me. (though admittedly, i had cottoned on to fact that more ram/slow CPU = faster windows compared to a low mem PC/fast CPU box by then)
So by the time i swapped my main PC had 1GB ram... ^^
Upgrading from 2k to xp, i noticed a nearly negligible slowdown, a bit more mem usage but more usability (the built in picture viewer was light-years ahead of 2k and sold it on it's own) All in all, no real change...
Now, for vista...
for my particular pc, compatibility has gone out of the window in my eyes... i have yet to try vista on my home PC ever, as the installer DVD simply bluescreens my PC whatever i do :S (doesn't like my SATA PCI card)
Luckily i work in an IT department, so have had a bit of experience with vista there on the test machines...
I'm impressed with Aero, seems like the windows equivalent of Beryl in my eyes (which is good ^^)
It seems a bit slower in places, but it feels noticebly slower from XP > vista than 2k > XP was overall.
The one big gripe i have is that it seems that settings have been moved about for one of the following two reasons only:
- to make the average user be unable to find them so they can't break things accidentally
- changed just to give evidence that vista has changed things
as the saying goes, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"
it seems things are just being changed for the sake of changing things...
Anyway, new PC next week, should actually be able to try it properly soon ^^
Having spent a decent amount of time with vista on 4 different systems... I hate it. Some of the improvements are really great ("breadcrumbs" in explorer, the new start menu with search box, etc) but it's just not worth the pain. Every new release of windows/office/whatever, we complain about how they've "hidden" everything in new places. In vista things really ARE hidden - try changing your IP address. Just try it.
I don't really mind the "resource hogging". Like many other people have said, most of it is to speed your apps up anyway and it doesn't get in your way. I don't appreciate the lower FPS in my games, but the real killer is reduced battery life on my laptop. That's inexcusable, especially with linux making good steps towards /improving/ battery life (see Intel's powertop).
Also, (and I know this is changing, but it still holds) in a lot of situations vista is simply broken. My girlfriend's laptop - straight of the box from dell - gave a message on first boot telling me that it couldn't load an unsigned driver and then dropped out of aero mode. That was during the small window when dell weren't offering XP any more, but that's what the laptop is running now. Synergy - which has become pretty central to the way I work now - doesn't work properly on vista. And oh yeah, give my 8800 a few hours of running that pretty screensaver in vista (you know which one) and I get a BSOD. I know that's nVidia's fault not MS's but it doesn't encourage me to use the OS.
As for the security improvements, people either turn off UAC or get click-happy with it so you're back to square one. The amount of stupid stuff that you get a UAC prompt for is ridiculous. There's no "I'm changing settings, let me go for 5 minutes" option, it's either on or off. And if you turn it off you get a warning that you've turned it off! And if you turn /that/ off, you don't get the AV/firewall/updates warnings that you actually want!
I think that my main grip in it is the features that NVIDIA cannot put into the vista drivers because of the way vista was built. Specifically horizontal and vertical span's. I have 3 19" LCD screens hooked up to my machine (currently running XP which i went back to after trying to run vista for a few months) and the lack of those two options actually hinder the way i have gotten used to working on my PC.
As for those of you talking about WinFS.... I haven't heard any thing about it recently but all I can say is that they should scrap it and get with Sun about their new ZFS. Only two things I need to say about it are 600 trillion trillion terabytes (yes that is two trillians, not a type-o) being only 1% of its potential storage capacity and copy-on-write.
There are actually a few nice bits to vista - such as how the "network discovery" actually works now. While it perturbs me to see so much of my 4GB vanish, i just shrug it off as you can get 2GB of DDR2-800 for what, $50 if you catch it on sale?
Well I skimmed through what everyone said in reply to my admittedly inflammatory questions and I am vaugly amused. All the great new features are already in the OS I'm currently using or of no interest to me (search for example all my files are very well organized). On my OS I run many of my programs under separate users with permissions only to read and write from specific directory's unless there are unfixed problems with both the OS and the Program there is no way there can be a security problem. As for file systems mine don't fragment (have ms got the hang of that yet?). As for signed drivers?? mine are mostly made by people with some actual enthusiasm as such my sound drivers are better than there windows equivalent. The only drivers that are not great are surprisingly the only commercial ones on my system (ATI).
Incidently it was the ATI display drivers that caused me to switch my last system over to linux (I still have a win partition but haven't used it). They just refused to install properly after a format due to .net which was misbehaving and just randomly I got it to work (by reinstalling and copying files everywhere and editing the registry repeatedly).
The lack of games perturbed me at first but there are loads of good open source ones I have been playing instead and so far css etc... aren't even worth a reboot.
I don't understand the problems people have saying linux is hard to use, there is loads of info online and if you just read the log files etc of anything thats gone wrong it usually says what the issue is.
Originally Posted by Veles That's not the problem, I know where everything of mine is, it's just putting it there and clicking though all the folders (or typing in the overly long file path) is the problem. You've got to admit, after using something along the lines of Picassa2, the folder system seems like a horrible choice.
That's because folders ARE a horrible choice. The filesystem should be transparent to users. Folders should die - everything should be thrown in a stuff folder and be tagged and indexed to death. The only "folders" users would see are smart folders that grab anything of a certain type, tag, size, or content. It's how I do email (well, did, until my IMAP flipped out) - tag stuff, and dump everything into an archive folder. All of my other folders are just, in effect, saved queries.
The technology is all there to make it happen. Machines are fast enough that we can make this work without spending hours crunching through nonsense and doing full-drive sweeps instead of just having a massive but relatively simple database of keywords and content with a simple search interface that writes all of the complex queries. Tags are becoming prevalent enough - at least with the younger and more tech-savvy, that dumping the whole C:\ notation wouldn't scare the hell out of everybody. If you're searching by pics on facebook or something, you go to the users who've been tagged in them or who took them. You don't try to remember IMG_4820.jpg or /Users/Firehed/Pictures/Aperture Library/(more inane crap)/AwesomeSunset.CR2.
There's a lot of good stuff that's going on under the hood of the latest operating systems - Windows, Mac OS, and the Linuxes alike. I didn't buy two gigs of RAM to keep 1.5GB idle and make me feel good. If a program runs faster by using it, then by all means - that's why it's there. If the OS wants it and some other app can't make better use of it, I don't give a damn.
The only resource I should ever have to think about is my free hard drive space. The OS should be able to manage everything else effectively enough that I don't see massive slowdowns from poor memory management. If I've hit the hardware's limits, fine. My experience with both OS X and Vista is that they'll take what they need for the general UI but are pretty good about giving it up to Photoshop if need be. Same with Firefox - I don't care if it takes 300MB of RAM (no, I don't think it should, but that's irrelevant) so long as it'll give it up to Final Cut or whatever else that can make use of the resources. If it takes 300MB for the best web browsing experience, that's fine by me if all I'm doing is browsing at the time.
i been using XP from when it has been out and have always been happy with it as long as SP2 is installed its as secure Vista
when i went from Win98 to XP it was very stable fast as well and most of my programs worked right (my older ms-dos games did not work but did not really an problem any way) the requirements to run XP are not to bad PC with 256 will run XP but 512mb should be the min 1gb recommended 2gb gaming
XP to Vista the requirements it needs to run smoothly is allot wider,
1gb ram is min requirements 512mb ram is unusable = slow PC Before you even bother to install any Active running programs (MSN/anti virus so on) even then with 1gb ram system can be an little slow in some cases
2gb is whats needed to keep vista happy all programs should work OK apart from the ones that do not work at all (not recommended for gamers with high Quietly settings you Run out of ram / game will stutter allot)
3gb/4gb is what i recommend for min requirements with Vista for gaming, Most games will be Preloaded with 4gb ram (Super-fetch) so thay start an little faster
Dual core should also be an min as well when running vista or any PC really now but single core will be OK but can be an little slow but system speed is allot better on dual core
there are lots of things thay have put in vista but thay should of built on top of XP and improved the security instead of Braking allot of stuff
Vista overall
i got Vista 64 for an bit seems quite stable, Sleep and hibernate is an little unstable (BSOD but think its been related to Nvidia in the past), Sound is unstable some times when 2 programs want to use the microphone (prob due to Creative + M$ poor driver support), Super-fetch works well but you have to consider heavy hard disk use until it has filled the ram {i recommend Setting super-fetch to Delayed start in services so hard disk is not bogged down at start up unless you got 2-4 hdds in RAID 0}, overall Video performance is Less on vista then XP in game video settings need to be less then XP for my self that problem should be resolved with an faster CPU, GPU power is not the problem at this time (8800GTX), UAC is OFF to annoying at this time, control panel will completely confuse new users who have switch from Any of the last 4 windows OS
another performance Problem later on in vista life is i am seeing as well with Vista Security limiting, is Programs that Need admin rights what thay are doing is running them as an Service that does not exit or starts with the PC so you have like an driver,service,Norm running program to monitor it (ad-aware, Punkbuster, others)
networking is the next problem, why make an windows that is not completely compatible with other windows, win95 to XP/2003 all of them have no problems seeing each other, Vista network layer is an mess if it does not work its an format and reload as i had 2 PCs that was the same but the first one would not see Any computers on the network apart from the other vista computer but the other vista computer could see all the others, also there is NO network wizard to quickly get the network shares setup right like there is on XP you have to go tho 3-5 UAC box's to get it going
now i wonder why company's are Not considering to upgrade to vista any more i even told them that the two PCs should of came with XP but dell says XP will not work with any software soon, ****s the software thay use is more likely Not work with vista.... next time i going to bring copy's of XP with me or tell them to return them and get PCs with XP on as i wasted all day getting 2 computers running{turning into an rant there} the cost to company's is to much as thay have to pay to workers to tell them where the new start button is, + thay probably have to upgrade software that cost Allot
the Only reason i can see any one wanting to run vista is DX10 (that sucks at the mo),
its more secure but clicking continue = security Gone and thats what norm users do M$ did not Force users to tell them what the UAC does so thay click continue all the time and soon as you get somthing like mallware on the pc it norm Brakes vista and an Format and reload is requred
i know its an long post this is but its how i used the last bunch of pcs and my own
-----------------
windows and Linux
simple things that are simple on windows are not on linux
i want to play an Mp3 file seems easy on linux it is once you put the right files on (ubuntu its restricted codex somthing)
now i want to play Streams thats not so easy and not automatic when trying to play them
linux cant get virus as easy windows does due to the protection with root but most do not bother as linux is not the Mass user base
i like linux but in 7 years its not moved on (ok it has an little the installer is now GUI and has an mouse, and its alot easyer to install programs due to automated install programs {DEP and RPM files i think})
but thay need to sort out basic Norm use that an Home user would do on the pc before we can even use it normaly the second the user needs to use Command lines its out of the space of an norm users i can get my head around my self but i know my way around search and linux cmd but i should not have to wast 3-5 hrs to get simple things working (adding and HDD is fun an 2-3 min job on windows on linux never realy did get the disk to work as i could not get the securty of the disk set right as there was No help on the chmod command and the GUI in KDE was locked out and would not let me chage it that way as well)
Honestly..for all of you complaining about how the visual effects in Vista slows down performance. Or talk about how you don't like the visual effects...have any of you realized YOU CAN TURN THEM OFF and make it look EXACTLY like XP or win2K
I do not like the people who comment on the OS when they haven't lived with it or really know how to use it. I've been using it since December, my biggest complaint is the lack of software/hardware support thus far. But like all new OS's it will come with time. I think it'll be best for the average Joe to stay away from it for another year.
P.S. IF there is a feature in Vista you don't like...you can almost always find a way to turn it off. If you are unable to turn it off, I say you don't know enough about the OS to have it turned off!
I don't doubt that vista offers a decent set of updates and new features over xp and I don't doubt that the higher system overhead will be trivial two even one year down the road, however at the current moment if it isn't broken why fix it? I'm running xp and it does what I need it to do, runs the programs I need, security etc hasn't been an issue. I relate it like this. cars come out in new models every year but if your 2001 Ford pick-up truck still works just fine, is there a reason to go out and buy a new 2007 model just to get a slightly beefier engine and more driver perks?
I'm on the wait and see path, no point in upgrading vista until my current PC has outlived it's usefulness in running the programs I need to run. when I hit a slump on my current hardware, no longer being able to play current games and software then I'll make the switch to new hardware/software in general I don't see the need to make the switch if everything is working just fine
When I had used the RC versions of Vista, everything people were complaining about were true. Drivers sucked and it was incomplete, causing it to run slow and half the stuff in my machine didn't work. About 2 weeks ago, I installed Vista Ultimate x64 and the newest drivers for all my equipment. It runs almost as good as XP did and I find it to be a really good OS, that shows even more promise for the future. Sure, there are a couple things that annoy me, like the fact I'm forced to run my game audio in software mode because I'm using an Audigy card, but overall, I'm very happy and haven't seen a reason to go back to XP. Unfortunately, all of these "techies" that are still saying "wait for SP1" or that "it's a prettier version of XP" and keep touting it as useless are still going off of their impressions from a release candidate they tried almost a year ago. Most of them haven't installed the full version recently and really don't have any right to give recommendations on what is worth using or not.
Of course, there are people that shouldn't move up to Vista just yet. Mostly people with older computers and less than 2gb's of ram, or people who have specialized software that isn't 100% compatible with Vista yet. For the majority of us with decent machines, there's no reason I've found not to move up. Granted, if I didn't receive Vista for free with a bundle, I would be reluctant to drop the dough for the software since I'm sorta broke, but if you are waiting for SP1 or some other similar reason, then you can do it now and be just as happy.
Originally Posted by Kipman725 I don't understand the problems people have saying linux is hard to use, there is loads of info online and if you just read the log files etc of anything thats gone wrong it usually says what the issue is.
ROTFLMAO. That quote was too funny to pass up. Most people can't figure out how to turn off UAC, and you think those same people should read HOWTOs written by techies, for techies, and examine log files filled with cryptic notations to determine why critical system services died?
I used Linux for a long time (switched to Windows-only not because I believe Windows to be superior as an OS but because I had to cater to my noncomputer savvy mother and sister), and as with every OS, it has its good points and its bad points; I wouldn't use it for gaming, for example. However, the one major reason why it can't be the standard OS on the average user's computer is the attitude of Linux users, as demonstrated in the quote.
Originally Posted by Da Dego (seriously, HOW many people STILL complain about UAC without realizing they can turn it off?!)
I highly recommend that UAC is not turned off entirely, it can actually cause you a few problems as Vista will stop you from being able to run executables from within the Temp folder. Instead I suggest you download TweakUAC and set it to Quiet Mode.
Originally Posted by Phil Rhodes > Theres a quote thats often rolled out when some says things like this
Usually the conversation goes like this:
Linux geek: Ur teh sux0rz, u should use Linux, it r teh l33t
Phil: But it doesn't do what I want it to do.
LG: Write it yourself, then.
P: But I'm a [job title], not a software engineer.
LG: Ur teh suck! Linux r not 4 j00, ur not l33t enough.
P: Yes. That's why I use windows.
LG: Ur teh sux0rz, u should use Linux, it r teh l33t
Repeat until bored.
I think the real problem with Linux, both as a user and as a developer, is that it's such a moving target. With everything, even stuff that's considered quite basic, coming as optional, configurable upgrades, it's a question of which Linux you aim for, which libraries you require, etc. Creating After Effects under Linux would be a lot more work than doing it under Windows because Linux doesn't provide - or more to the point sometimes
might or might not maybe possibly provide - the same level of services. Houses have to be put in order before seriously heavyweight media apps become workably portable to Linux.
P
True there is an element of that but like i say write to the developer if enough do and a revenue stream appears they might just take the chance.
As for the moving target, dude have you used things like debian or RHEL. Debian stable is updated every few years and Red Hat also has very definable upgrade path with appropriate versions for the libraries.
Originally Posted by identikit Because (for want of a better word) it's crap. Why do we have to search anyway? Shouldn't everything be easy to find? Plus to find it you need to know it's name. Windows relies on the fact you know the names of your files and where they are. For instance your financial documents would probably be named finances_06-07^2.xlsl and be in a folder 'Financial' in 'My Documents'. Why? Can't we have tagged files, with dynamic tagging.
Not really thought this through have you? If you're not organised enough to name files and put them in a useful directory do you really think you'll be organised enough to tag each and every one of them? If you want the computer to tag everything for you then it's gonna get it wrong, even the best tagging algorithm wouldn't be to your liking - even people can't do this task to the liking of each other so what chance does the humble pc have?
I agree tagging would be very useful, but the onus is still on the user. What you really need is a good search and vista's has improved, yes there's further to go but decent search is a difficult task to do quickly.
and just for the record, I'm usually fairly organised so i'm happy with my xp and linux machines. I've uninstalled vista until i get a new pc.
Originally Posted by Phil Rhodes > Systems arn't used to do just work anymore. People don't want a barebones OS that just runs their apps,
Yes, I do. That's exactly what I want.
I think the solution to this is actually to have the "pro" versions actually be professionally oriented. XP installs right now for me involve twenty-five minutes of installing, then an hour of turning off all the needless fripperies. It's absolutely ridiculous to have something purporting to be a professionally-oriented system which uses megabytes of bitmaps to draw the UI. It's laughable.
After Effects rendering faster equals me having more free time. Yes, I do want a barebones OS. I do wish Linux would get its collective arse in gear and either persuade the big software houses to release for it, or come up with workable free alternatives. It's improved out of all recognition but there's still huge holes in what it'll do.
Phil
I have to say you're in the minority of home users.
However, MS do have a professionally orientated OS - Windows Server. they've had workstation versions for years now, if you want a barebones up to date OS you should be running that.
The UI on Vista is faster since it's acceleration by your graphics card. If you don't like the effects then you can turn them off.
if you want people to upgrade any product, you need to prove that A) it's as good as the last product and B) slightly better. Currently, with its enhanced security and dx10 it's ticked criteria B for me but as its a nightmare to get and kind of webcam, microphone or even a bloody soundcard to work on it, not to mention the massive fall in dx9 performance, it does not meet criteria A. They shouldn't have released it until they ironed out most of the driver issues.
BRETT!!! biggup mate, nicely put, i agree wholeheartedly, and i'm glad soemone finally has the guts to tell all the little CS:S players to STFU.
Vista is a lot better. I use my PC for SO many different things, not least audio produciton and live web streaming for my radio show, the way it handles multiple audio cards is far superior (integrating it into windows rather than using crappy C-Media interfaces) as just one example.
Windows Explorer is now far mroe stable, it may look similar in style, but behind the scenes, windows now compose themselves in the back ground, if i open 'Computer' (instead of the fisher price 'My Computer') i can see my hard drives and click on thjem without having to wait for the CD drive to report whats in it, like in XP - little things like that that CS players don't notice are the big changes
Sorry to generalise the whole 'CS players' thing, but you know what i mean, non-power users who have bang up to date hardware but know NOTHIGN of how to get the most out of it save for pwning other 10 year olds in deathmatches.
Originally Posted by Ramble MS do have a professionally orientated OS - Windows Server. they've had workstation versions for years now, if you want a barebones up to date OS you should be running that.
Er what? The workstation version of Windows Server 2003 is Windows XP Professional. Just as Vista Business is the workstation version of the upcoming Windows Server 2008.
Originally Posted by quack Er what? The workstation version of Windows Server 2003 is Windows XP Professional. Just as Vista Business is the workstation version of the upcoming Windows Server 2008.
not really, but i see what you're saying.
If you have ever installed Server 2003, you'll know that it is what you're after, a barebones OS with none of the cr*p pre-installed (the search dog and windows messenger for start).
I had it on my laptop for two years with no problems, the only reason i switched back to XP was my Audigy notebook soundcard drivers that 'required' XP for some reason.
other than little intricacies like that, the Web Edition (sans Active Directory) is good alternative to XP for power users, and you can turn back on most of the stuff if you want it.
if you really want a server OS then Vista is your ticket. SP1 will be upgrading the current kernel to the one used in server '08 (6.0 -> 6.1).
You can disable the crapola yourself.
Comments 51 to 75 of 119
ReplyTheres a quote thats often rolled out when some says things like this... feel free, write it yourself but more realistically, write to the company who produces this program and say you'd like a Linux version and then not buy the windows version. Until there is financial reason to port to Linux no major companies are likely to do it
Usually the conversation goes like this:
Linux geek: Ur teh sux0rz, u should use Linux, it r teh l33t
Phil: But it doesn't do what I want it to do.
LG: Write it yourself, then.
P: But I'm a [job title], not a software engineer.
LG: Ur teh suck! Linux r not 4 j00, ur not l33t enough.
P: Yes. That's why I use windows.
LG: Ur teh sux0rz, u should use Linux, it r teh l33t
Repeat until bored.
I think the real problem with Linux, both as a user and as a developer, is that it's such a moving target. With everything, even stuff that's considered quite basic, coming as optional, configurable upgrades, it's a question of which Linux you aim for, which libraries you require, etc. Creating After Effects under Linux would be a lot more work than doing it under Windows because Linux doesn't provide - or more to the point sometimes
might or might not maybe possibly provide - the same level of services. Houses have to be put in order before seriously heavyweight media apps become workably portable to Linux.
P
But for me, going from 2k to xp was a complete non-issue for me. (though admittedly, i had cottoned on to fact that more ram/slow CPU = faster windows compared to a low mem PC/fast CPU box by then)
So by the time i swapped my main PC had 1GB ram... ^^
Upgrading from 2k to xp, i noticed a nearly negligible slowdown, a bit more mem usage but more usability (the built in picture viewer was light-years ahead of 2k and sold it on it's own) All in all, no real change...
Now, for vista...
for my particular pc, compatibility has gone out of the window in my eyes... i have yet to try vista on my home PC ever, as the installer DVD simply bluescreens my PC whatever i do :S (doesn't like my SATA PCI card)
Luckily i work in an IT department, so have had a bit of experience with vista there on the test machines...
I'm impressed with Aero, seems like the windows equivalent of Beryl in my eyes (which is good ^^)
It seems a bit slower in places, but it feels noticebly slower from XP > vista than 2k > XP was overall.
The one big gripe i have is that it seems that settings have been moved about for one of the following two reasons only:
- to make the average user be unable to find them so they can't break things accidentally
- changed just to give evidence that vista has changed things
as the saying goes, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"
it seems things are just being changed for the sake of changing things...
Anyway, new PC next week, should actually be able to try it properly soon ^^
I don't really mind the "resource hogging". Like many other people have said, most of it is to speed your apps up anyway and it doesn't get in your way. I don't appreciate the lower FPS in my games, but the real killer is reduced battery life on my laptop. That's inexcusable, especially with linux making good steps towards /improving/ battery life (see Intel's powertop).
Also, (and I know this is changing, but it still holds) in a lot of situations vista is simply broken. My girlfriend's laptop - straight of the box from dell - gave a message on first boot telling me that it couldn't load an unsigned driver and then dropped out of aero mode. That was during the small window when dell weren't offering XP any more, but that's what the laptop is running now. Synergy - which has become pretty central to the way I work now - doesn't work properly on vista. And oh yeah, give my 8800 a few hours of running that pretty screensaver in vista (you know which one) and I get a BSOD. I know that's nVidia's fault not MS's but it doesn't encourage me to use the OS.
As for the security improvements, people either turn off UAC or get click-happy with it so you're back to square one. The amount of stupid stuff that you get a UAC prompt for is ridiculous. There's no "I'm changing settings, let me go for 5 minutes" option, it's either on or off. And if you turn it off you get a warning that you've turned it off! And if you turn /that/ off, you don't get the AV/firewall/updates warnings that you actually want!
</rant>
As for those of you talking about WinFS.... I haven't heard any thing about it recently but all I can say is that they should scrap it and get with Sun about their new ZFS. Only two things I need to say about it are 600 trillion trillion terabytes (yes that is two trillians, not a type-o) being only 1% of its potential storage capacity and copy-on-write.
Incidently it was the ATI display drivers that caused me to switch my last system over to linux (I still have a win partition but haven't used it). They just refused to install properly after a format due to .net which was misbehaving and just randomly I got it to work (by reinstalling and copying files everywhere and editing the registry repeatedly).
The lack of games perturbed me at first but there are loads of good open source ones I have been playing instead and so far css etc... aren't even worth a reboot.
I don't understand the problems people have saying linux is hard to use, there is loads of info online and if you just read the log files etc of anything thats gone wrong it usually says what the issue is.
The technology is all there to make it happen. Machines are fast enough that we can make this work without spending hours crunching through nonsense and doing full-drive sweeps instead of just having a massive but relatively simple database of keywords and content with a simple search interface that writes all of the complex queries. Tags are becoming prevalent enough - at least with the younger and more tech-savvy, that dumping the whole C:\ notation wouldn't scare the hell out of everybody. If you're searching by pics on facebook or something, you go to the users who've been tagged in them or who took them. You don't try to remember IMG_4820.jpg or /Users/Firehed/Pictures/Aperture Library/(more inane crap)/AwesomeSunset.CR2.
There's a lot of good stuff that's going on under the hood of the latest operating systems - Windows, Mac OS, and the Linuxes alike. I didn't buy two gigs of RAM to keep 1.5GB idle and make me feel good. If a program runs faster by using it, then by all means - that's why it's there. If the OS wants it and some other app can't make better use of it, I don't give a damn.
The only resource I should ever have to think about is my free hard drive space. The OS should be able to manage everything else effectively enough that I don't see massive slowdowns from poor memory management. If I've hit the hardware's limits, fine. My experience with both OS X and Vista is that they'll take what they need for the general UI but are pretty good about giving it up to Photoshop if need be. Same with Firefox - I don't care if it takes 300MB of RAM (no, I don't think it should, but that's irrelevant) so long as it'll give it up to Final Cut or whatever else that can make use of the resources. If it takes 300MB for the best web browsing experience, that's fine by me if all I'm doing is browsing at the time.
when i went from Win98 to XP it was very stable fast as well and most of my programs worked right (my older ms-dos games did not work but did not really an problem any way) the requirements to run XP are not to bad PC with 256 will run XP but 512mb should be the min 1gb recommended 2gb gaming
XP to Vista the requirements it needs to run smoothly is allot wider,
1gb ram is min requirements 512mb ram is unusable = slow PC Before you even bother to install any Active running programs (MSN/anti virus so on) even then with 1gb ram system can be an little slow in some cases
2gb is whats needed to keep vista happy all programs should work OK apart from the ones that do not work at all (not recommended for gamers with high Quietly settings you Run out of ram / game will stutter allot)
3gb/4gb is what i recommend for min requirements with Vista for gaming, Most games will be Preloaded with 4gb ram (Super-fetch) so thay start an little faster
Dual core should also be an min as well when running vista or any PC really now but single core will be OK but can be an little slow but system speed is allot better on dual core
there are lots of things thay have put in vista but thay should of built on top of XP and improved the security instead of Braking allot of stuff
Vista overall
i got Vista 64 for an bit seems quite stable, Sleep and hibernate is an little unstable (BSOD but think its been related to Nvidia in the past), Sound is unstable some times when 2 programs want to use the microphone (prob due to Creative + M$ poor driver support), Super-fetch works well but you have to consider heavy hard disk use until it has filled the ram {i recommend Setting super-fetch to Delayed start in services so hard disk is not bogged down at start up unless you got 2-4 hdds in RAID 0}, overall Video performance is Less on vista then XP in game video settings need to be less then XP for my self that problem should be resolved with an faster CPU, GPU power is not the problem at this time (8800GTX), UAC is OFF to annoying at this time, control panel will completely confuse new users who have switch from Any of the last 4 windows OS
another performance Problem later on in vista life is i am seeing as well with Vista Security limiting, is Programs that Need admin rights what thay are doing is running them as an Service that does not exit or starts with the PC so you have like an driver,service,Norm running program to monitor it (ad-aware, Punkbuster, others)
networking is the next problem, why make an windows that is not completely compatible with other windows, win95 to XP/2003 all of them have no problems seeing each other, Vista network layer is an mess if it does not work its an format and reload as i had 2 PCs that was the same but the first one would not see Any computers on the network apart from the other vista computer but the other vista computer could see all the others, also there is NO network wizard to quickly get the network shares setup right like there is on XP you have to go tho 3-5 UAC box's to get it going
now i wonder why company's are Not considering to upgrade to vista any more i even told them that the two PCs should of came with XP but dell says XP will not work with any software soon, ****s the software thay use is more likely Not work with vista.... next time i going to bring copy's of XP with me or tell them to return them and get PCs with XP on as i wasted all day getting 2 computers running{turning into an rant there} the cost to company's is to much as thay have to pay to workers to tell them where the new start button is, + thay probably have to upgrade software that cost Allot
the Only reason i can see any one wanting to run vista is DX10 (that sucks at the mo),
its more secure but clicking continue = security Gone and thats what norm users do M$ did not Force users to tell them what the UAC does so thay click continue all the time and soon as you get somthing like mallware on the pc it norm Brakes vista and an Format and reload is requred
i know its an long post this is but its how i used the last bunch of pcs and my own
-----------------
windows and Linux
simple things that are simple on windows are not on linux
i want to play an Mp3 file seems easy on linux it is once you put the right files on (ubuntu its restricted codex somthing)
now i want to play Streams thats not so easy and not automatic when trying to play them
linux cant get virus as easy windows does due to the protection with root but most do not bother as linux is not the Mass user base
i like linux but in 7 years its not moved on (ok it has an little the installer is now GUI and has an mouse, and its alot easyer to install programs due to automated install programs {DEP and RPM files i think})
but thay need to sort out basic Norm use that an Home user would do on the pc before we can even use it normaly the second the user needs to use Command lines its out of the space of an norm users i can get my head around my self but i know my way around search and linux cmd but i should not have to wast 3-5 hrs to get simple things working (adding and HDD is fun an 2-3 min job on windows on linux never realy did get the disk to work as i could not get the securty of the disk set right as there was No help on the chmod command and the GUI in KDE was locked out and would not let me chage it that way as well)
I do not like the people who comment on the OS when they haven't lived with it or really know how to use it. I've been using it since December, my biggest complaint is the lack of software/hardware support thus far. But like all new OS's it will come with time. I think it'll be best for the average Joe to stay away from it for another year.
P.S. IF there is a feature in Vista you don't like...you can almost always find a way to turn it off. If you are unable to turn it off, I say you don't know enough about the OS to have it turned off!
I'm on the wait and see path, no point in upgrading vista until my current PC has outlived it's usefulness in running the programs I need to run. when I hit a slump on my current hardware, no longer being able to play current games and software then I'll make the switch to new hardware/software in general I don't see the need to make the switch if everything is working just fine
Of course, there are people that shouldn't move up to Vista just yet. Mostly people with older computers and less than 2gb's of ram, or people who have specialized software that isn't 100% compatible with Vista yet. For the majority of us with decent machines, there's no reason I've found not to move up. Granted, if I didn't receive Vista for free with a bundle, I would be reluctant to drop the dough for the software since I'm sorta broke, but if you are waiting for SP1 or some other similar reason, then you can do it now and be just as happy.
I used Linux for a long time (switched to Windows-only not because I believe Windows to be superior as an OS but because I had to cater to my noncomputer savvy mother and sister), and as with every OS, it has its good points and its bad points; I wouldn't use it for gaming, for example. However, the one major reason why it can't be the standard OS on the average user's computer is the attitude of Linux users, as demonstrated in the quote.
http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/3365/tweakuacam8.png
True there is an element of that but like i say write to the developer if enough do and a revenue stream appears they might just take the chance.
As for the moving target, dude have you used things like debian or RHEL. Debian stable is updated every few years and Red Hat also has very definable upgrade path with appropriate versions for the libraries.
Not really thought this through have you? If you're not organised enough to name files and put them in a useful directory do you really think you'll be organised enough to tag each and every one of them? If you want the computer to tag everything for you then it's gonna get it wrong, even the best tagging algorithm wouldn't be to your liking - even people can't do this task to the liking of each other so what chance does the humble pc have?
I agree tagging would be very useful, but the onus is still on the user. What you really need is a good search and vista's has improved, yes there's further to go but decent search is a difficult task to do quickly.
and just for the record, I'm usually fairly organised so i'm happy with my xp and linux machines. I've uninstalled vista until i get a new pc.
I have to say you're in the minority of home users.
However, MS do have a professionally orientated OS - Windows Server. they've had workstation versions for years now, if you want a barebones up to date OS you should be running that.
The UI on Vista is faster since it's acceleration by your graphics card. If you don't like the effects then you can turn them off.
When was the last time you tried? Mine all plugged in and played.
The driver issue is NOT MICROSOFT it's the manufacturers, so moan at them
Vista is a lot better. I use my PC for SO many different things, not least audio produciton and live web streaming for my radio show, the way it handles multiple audio cards is far superior (integrating it into windows rather than using crappy C-Media interfaces) as just one example.
Windows Explorer is now far mroe stable, it may look similar in style, but behind the scenes, windows now compose themselves in the back ground, if i open 'Computer' (instead of the fisher price 'My Computer') i can see my hard drives and click on thjem without having to wait for the CD drive to report whats in it, like in XP - little things like that that CS players don't notice are the big changes
Sorry to generalise the whole 'CS players' thing, but you know what i mean, non-power users who have bang up to date hardware but know NOTHIGN of how to get the most out of it save for pwning other 10 year olds in deathmatches.
not really, but i see what you're saying.
If you have ever installed Server 2003, you'll know that it is what you're after, a barebones OS with none of the cr*p pre-installed (the search dog and windows messenger for start).
I had it on my laptop for two years with no problems, the only reason i switched back to XP was my Audigy notebook soundcard drivers that 'required' XP for some reason.
other than little intricacies like that, the Web Edition (sans Active Directory) is good alternative to XP for power users, and you can turn back on most of the stuff if you want it.
You can disable the crapola yourself.
-
« Previous
-
1
-
2
-
3
-
4
-
5
-
Next »
Discuss in the forums