Chicks dig RAM

Originally Posted by Glider
Man, all the wining about "Linux takes ages to install" is starting to irritate me... Ubuntu installs to a XP like (feature wise) environment in 20 minutes...

Also "Installing programs in Linux is hard" ... 4 words: Package manager and Google!

I also totally adore the fuss about "MS forces me to work in a child-orientated environment"... If you hate it that much, change... There are plenty others out there... But all have consequences... Either you live with them or you should STFU

well said

Originally Posted by zero0ne
Hrmm, computer savvy AND using Internet Explorer? I don't think those two words go hand in hand...

you would be surprised, 90% of the students in my bachelor of it classes still use it, some haven't even heared of firefox or opera

Reading this article, it could certainly be aimed at me
I know Ive posted quite a few times on this forum about my dislikes of vista, and probably without great reasons, honestly

I know MS has reworked a lot of the core of windows for vista, just like they did with XP
XP had pretty massive changes, the networking section is basically rebuilt, the driver system is infinitely better, its more secure, etc etc

Now, vista probably improves those further, but why do i want to go out and pay £150 for a slightly better driver system, and a better network stack
The difference now is, the ones in XP are actually pretty good, and although vista's are better, the difference isn't as big

Personally, my biggest gripe with MS is the way they do business, we waited 6 years for a new OS, but its still hindered by the same problems, there's still that 3gb ram limit, its still dependent on the bios, its still very closed source, its still very difficult to fix
The wont release DX10 for XP, when it would clearly work (OK maybe not as well, but it would blooming well work ffs) things like this just say to me - "we need to justify our new OS, lets lock in the next big thing to it so people have to upgrade to it"
If DX10 was worth it, and it worked so much better on vista, it would sell itself, but by locking it in MS are just saying to me, its not worth it

Go around the Internet, there are hundreds of people who say "i took the plunge into vista" - ask them why they changed from XP to vista ... and you will gets um's and ahh's, they don't know, they just did it because that's what they think is the thing to do
It also pisses me off, that for example, MCE2005 has huge huge problems with it, so massive i cant even list them here, or even get across to you how damn annoying the bugs are
But because vista is MS's new pet project, MCE2005 wont get a second look, the bugs will never be fixed now, and if i want something that works better (how it should tbh) i will have to fork over £150 to do it

Its these bully boy tactics of MS's that piss me off, and why i really really hate them - windows is a great achievement, but MS are a bunch of a******* IMO
And for all the bugs in MS's old OS's that they never fixed, basically forcing you to upgrade to the next one, the same thing will happen with vista and we will be forced to the next OS, even if it spy's on us even more, does even more things we don't like, but we cant do anything about it because MS has the PC monopoly

MCE 2k3/2k5 were intended for specific hardware, though. Plus, Vista does come with MC software that tends to work...

the 3gb ish limit (hardware thats installed sets the limit) is has been set in stone for an long time on linux / windows / hardware, if users used windows 64 that problem is not there, this topic has been bunt up an little with anandtech

if useing firefox or IE, when clicking just cancel the print
Welcome to AnandTech.com [ Article: A Messy Transition: Practical Problems With 32bit Addressing In Windows]
Welcome to AnandTech.com [ Article: A Messy Transition (Part 2): Windows XP, Vista, and the 2GB Barrier]
Welcome to AnandTech.com [ Article: A Messy Transition (Part 3): Vista Buys Some Time] << this one is about the patch other ones are related to it (part one and two good read)

i do think users should try and use windows 64 over 32 more

this game as far as i know is the only know game i know of that hits the limit is Supreme Commander (goto page 13 and some one posted an Pic of SupremeCommander useing 2.9gb in task manager but its very nasty settings)
GPGnet :: View topic - Crashing with large maps, several skirmish AI (FIX)

Originally Posted by leexgx
the 3gb ish limit (hardware thats installed sets the limit) is has been set in stone for an long time on linux / windows /
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.
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I do think users should try and use windows 64 over 32 more

The 3GB limit isn't a hardware limit, it is a software limit. A 32-bit cpu can address upto 4GB of memory (2^32 = 4,294,967,296 address locations), with the 36-bit PAE that limit is even higher (which is why Linux has had a hugemem kernel option for years now). The 3GB limit is a software limit of 32-bit applications in Windows. I don't know of any apps in Linux that have this limitation (although I could be wrong).

Since before the advent of the AMD64 extensions to the x86 instruction set, the linux kernel had been compiled in a 64-bit flavour (thanks to 64-bit support in gcc). Most, if not all, applications found packaged alongside the major distros have a 64-bit version, or can be compiled with 64-bit support. Linux has also had multi-processor support (smp kernels) for as long as I've been messing with it (about 10 years).

When I build my next system, I'll be using 4GB of memory and running with Vista 64 and Fedora, so this'll be a learning experience bar none for me:(

Andy

Originally Posted by Tulatin
MCE 2k3/2k5 were intended for specific hardware, though. Plus, Vista does come with MC software that tends to work...

Most of the bugs aren't even hardware, they are problems with MS's coding of MCE2005

Originally Posted by leexgx
i do think users should try and use windows 64 over 32 more

it would be good, but aslong as 64bit apps/drivers/support is neglected, who wants to use 64bit (only the few people with 4gb ram)

Originally Posted by Shielder
The 3GB limit isn't a hardware limit, it is a software limit. A 32-bit cpu can address upto 4GB of memory (2^32 = 4,294,967,296 address locations), with the 36-bit PAE that limit is even higher (which is why Linux has had a hugemem kernel option for years now). The 3GB limit is a software limit of 32-bit applications in Windows. I don't know of any apps in Linux that have this limitation (although I could be wrong).

The 3gb limit in apps is often due to poor programming
Although a 32bit CPU can address 4gb ram, about 1gb is wasted in interrupts, IRQ's etc etc (alot of legacy stuff in other words)
PAE isn't used very much for some reason, probably because it requires special hardware, and its not actually very well supported (poor programming again - i believe), i also think MS never thought it would be a problem, but here we are, hitting the 3gb limit, and this is on a brand new OS that's supposed to last us another 5 years - great

Since before the advent of the AMD64 extensions to the x86 instruction set, the linux kernel had been compiled in a 64-bit flavour (thanks to 64-bit support in gcc). Most, if not all, applications found packaged alongside the major distros have a 64-bit version, or can be compiled with 64-bit support. Linux has also had multi-processor support (smp kernels) for as long as I've been messing with it (about 10 years).

I cant say i quite agree, getting 64bit, even in Linux, is still a bit of a pain, although it may just be a few pieces of software and a few drivers, but that's whats important so ....

Originally Posted by completemadness
I cant say i quite agree, getting 64bit, even in Linux, is still a bit of a pain, although it may just be a few pieces of software and a few drivers, but that's whats important so ....

Try a source based distro (like Gentoo) and a lot of your problems will go away... Only Flash and sorts (Closed source) binaries are an PITA... When will Adobe realise there ARE 64 bit systems and release binaries for it?

I'm gunna leave Vista alone for at least a year. By then they should have fixed some bugs and driver support should be a lot bigger.

My next system, in about a months time, i was intending to get 4gb RAM and run on XP. Is it worth going for the 64 bit XP or just using the 32 til next year, or longer?

There is nothing wrong with vista both 32 and 64b as long as your current system is not older then a year and not have 'older' exotic hardware like wireless usb modems and stuff like that. The driver problem is not a Microsoft issue but for the hardware manufacturers. But because people expect that windows load the drivers, they blame windows for it.

Also if you are planning to play games on it, steam/hl2/cs, bioshock, lost planet etc all work very well, photoshop, nod32, office2007, speedfan and other little apps works also.

Originally Posted by Glider
Try a source based distro (like Gentoo) and a lot of your problems will go away... Only Flash and sorts (Closed source) binaries are an PITA... When will Adobe realise there ARE 64 bit systems and release binaries for it?

true, but i think a lot of people using a computer would want to have flash and such, ATM though 64bit is used quite a bit for servers i believe

You can run 32 bit firefox (binary) with flash on a otherwise native 64 bit system by just installing some libraries and an emulator

I have been running Windows XP Pro x64 Edition for almost two years now. No big problems. Of course some hardware manufactures neglect 64-bit but then I just have to find something that works.

Also some game developers are more future-oriented than others. VALVe (no shocker) already have working 64-bit games (Half-Life 2 and the Lost Coast technical demo). There is also a mini-game called Dreadnough that was developed in cooperation with AMD (for their AMD64 platform) which supports PAE as well as native 64-bit mode.

So 64-bit is absolutely the way forward. And you would be lying to yourself if you think otherwise.

Vista is no problem for me either. Works great. As for WinXP x64 I say the same, if a program or device doesn't work find something that does. Manufactures needs a little pushing before they support something. If they see customers vanishing they might start thinking it's vice to support the new stuff.

There are no simple answers to anything. People have different opinions. What works for one person may not work for the other.


@Glider: Yeah, most people set up a chroot with 32-bit libraries or use a 32-bit user mode linux. Too bad they don't give you an easy to use 32-bit emulation layer as exists in x64 Windows.

I've had problems with 64-bit Linux in all but one distro - Gentoo. i don't know what they're doing but it works amazingly, everything that can be 64-bit native is, and everything that can't be installs and works fine too. I don't even need to chroot into anything, i can just run the program normally.

Originally Posted by Saivert

@Glider: Yeah, most people set up a chroot with 32-bit libraries or use a 32-bit user mode linux. Too bad they don't give you an easy to use 32-bit emulation layer as exists in x64 Windows.

If they do emulation of the 32bit libraries,is there not a risk, that the programmers dont make the step to 64bit at all, but staying in the 32bit environment?

Originally Posted by Ramble
I've had problems with 64-bit Linux in all but one distro - Gentoo. i don't know what they're doing but it works amazingly, everything that can be 64-bit native is, and everything that can't be installs and works fine too. I don't even need to chroot into anything, i can just run the program normally.

Gentoo compiles as much as possible from source... Compile your binary with a 64 bit GCC et voila, you have a 64bit application.

Originally Posted by Glider
Gentoo compiles as much as possible from source... Compile your binary with a 64 bit GCC et voila, you have a 64bit application.

True indeed, but 32-bit apps work great too. Opera for example works without a flaw, I assume Gentoo packs some 32-bit libraries along with 64-bit ones too.
Debian was never like that for me (perhaps because it wasn't an official port).

Originally Posted by Phil Rhodes
if I were to go out and buy Vista tomorrow, what would I actually get out of it? Well, I'd get an OS that took slightly longer to boot, ran my applications slightly more slowly

I bought a Compaq laptop at the time when HP were offering free upgrades. With 1GB of RAM, I found it to be far quicker than XP, and for the most part, easier to use. Any kind of change obviously needs a bit of getting used to, and there were a few things it took me a while to work out, but for the most part it was a smooth transition. My problem with Windows in general is the speed, or lack of it. Out of sheer curiosity, I wiped my computer and installed Ubuntu. Now I can't bear using Windows because I go insane waiting for everything. The only thing I miss about Vista is the separate volume control for each app. It was something I'd wished for for years.

LMFAO Chicks Dig Ram, never forget that! Har!

please can we have another column? its been nearly two months, i'm starting to worry