Microsoft will shutter its Windows XP line June 30, as planned, ceasing sales of Windows XP Professional and Windows XP Home to retailers and direct OEMs, Microsoft confirmed to eWEEK April 3. The statement from Redmond executives ends weeks of speculation that Microsoft would extend the life of the operating system as users turn up their nose at Vista, the operating system meant to supplant XP, and OEMs argue lighter versions of desktops and notebooks don’t have the juice to run Vista.
I can see the distributions channels filling up now if that is the case. XP still has lots of life left for corporate and even (especially?) small businesses like mine. Hopefully there are enough licenses in the wild (ie ebay, surplus corporate PCs) to always give us an option.
I don’t really know what to say except… dumb asses.
As a serious question, how long after XP’s release, did they no longer sell Windows 2000? Or ME, or 98, etc.
Expect Microsoft to put a headline up ‘Vista sales rocket in July’ A Microsoft representative said ‘We are really pleased to see Vista sales finally take off after the death of XP’.
It is not wise choice, but after all – its their company, not mine. If I could make one decision on behalf of Microsoft – I will cease the sales of XP and restart the sales of Windows 2000. In its current state. It is still far more useful system than Vista.
I still regret that I do not purchased one boxed Windows 2000 when it was possible.
Thank god I have a VLK corp edition of XP…
Who doesn’t?
Free as in beer, I guess
2000 still missed a few interesting bits which only came with XP (TS, cleartype, 32b systray icons, wifi support, wide OS diffusion, …), and which somewhat offset its Playskool GUI and overweight.
I have yet to find one feature I need in Vista (maybe the ability to shrink NTFS volumes, but that’s more of a server feature), and on the other side my list of showstoppers keeps getting LONGER everyday, which is pretty frightening for a 1 year old OS (sick UAC implementation, completely incoherent shell UI, lack of 3rd party VPN support, global slowness, heavyness and unneeded complexity…)
Lack of WiFi was partial – it was only lack of build-in WiFi support – custom drivers ran just fine.
Some issues with large disks are more irritating – but still quite easy to fix.
I have tried to like Vista… I really have.
Here are the absolute dislikes:
1) UAC. I write code and I have to constantly use “run as administrator” and have to avoid getting an epileptic seizure from the constant black screen dimming. I turned off UAC and all is fine now.
2) Hard disk tromping. With 500 GB drives absolutely common and people having oodles and oodles of pictures and files why in the heck does Vista keep thinking it needs to inspect every file? I turned off indexing, and turned off windows defender, but it still has bouts of hard disk tromping.
3) Constant warning of bubbles. That is so annoying that bubbles telling me this that or the other thing keep popping up.
Those three reasons have me yearning to go back to XP. And I finally realized why Vista sucks. They did not do an Apple. Apple has this habit of switching from one technology to another. It hurts if you are stuck with the old technology. But it is better in the long run. Microsoft should have done this with Vista! Or at least what they should have done is run both XP and Vista concurrently where Vista is a brand new kernel that will require some time to adopt.
Personally I think that NT 3.1 was heading in the right direction; the was a small compact kernel, minimal things running in kernel space, the graphics layer sat in user space – sure, it didn’t set the world alight in terms of speed given the hardware of that era but had they stuck to that design we wouldn’t see the pissing, the moaning, and the ‘30% of crashes due to Nvidia drivers’ which we see today.
Even the former Windows manager said that things started to come unstuck around 15 years ago when all hell broke loose in the heady days of the 90s. Things being added left, right and centre. Good programming practices thrown out the window in favour of cramming as many features into a product as humanly possible – with little or no regard spent to how those features will impact on the system in the larger picture (security, stability and so forth).
As for Microsoft, they have nothing to lose. When one has 95% of the marketplace, you can pretty much do what ever you damn well please. I do find it funny when I see people here wailing and gnashing their teeth when it was their very purchase of Windows machines that actually gave Microsoft the power they have today. People hate Microsoft as a monster and yet they ignore the very people who made Microsoft they size it is.
It reminds me of all the Southpark episode regarding ‘Sprawlmart’ – and people protesting about it. Ignoring the fact that it was the people who hated it were the ones who demanded it and shopped at the place. Same can be said for all those people who hate Microsoft and yet use their products – hypocrisy?
Windows NT 3.1 was not considered small and compact at the time. Compared to competitors like OS/2 2.0 and later or Microsoft’s own Windows 3.1, NT 3.1’s memory requirements were very high.
Mate, I said structure wise; it is very possible to have something that consumes more memory, and yet, code wise, is very compact. Its an easy concept, learn it some time.
I loved Windows 2000. I own a jealously guarded Windows 2000 Server CD, which I have used for my server builds over the years.
Recently however I built a brand new Core 2 Duo server and Windows 2000 wouldn’t install, even after I slip-streamed the latest service pack. The installation would just hang somewhere in the hardware detection phase. I disabled everything in the BIOS that I could, and set SATA to run in legacy mode, but still no dice. There was just something on that board Windows 2000 couldn’t handle (BTW, Ubuntu installed flawlessly, so the board in fine).
Now this might have just been this particular board, but over time you will see more and more of this, because board manufacturers aren’t testing Windows 2000, and MS certainly isn’t updating it for new hardware.
I guess if I get nostalgic I can always boot up Windows 2000 in vmware.
I use Vista, because it was preinstalled on my laptop. With Aero disabled i don’t see much difference from XP.
Anyway W2K was better than both of these OSes.
Windows 2000 was the pinnacle of Microsoft operating systems. A testament to this is the amount of corporations that still use it as the primary desktop for employees.
I still use W2K Prof for a couple of reasons, mostly no activation and that gives me a lot of freedom to change or upgrade the hardware at will with no asking anybodies permission (ever). W2K also comes from a time when Microsoft actually respected those of us users that had been using NT3.1 and on up while the unwashed masses still used Win3.1 and later Win95. An at that time most of the Linux installs were pretty unfriendly too.
Once everyone got moved to the NT5 kernel (WinXP) with all the benefits that should have give us it also meant that those of us early leaders were now an insignificant base compared to the eventual massive XP base of plain old users.
I now really regret that MS moved to a common code base, if they had kept on developing Windows Prof for high end users separate from the garbage fed to the masses, we likely would still have no activation and fewer web threats as W2K users would be an insignificant target. MS might actually pay more attention to power users as not all having the same requirements as everyone else. Now we are all in the same cess pool when it comes to net attacks and presumed feature desires. Of course that sounds pretty elitist and it is, no apologies, I expect vastly more from an OS than the vast majority of users and MS can not possibly do that for me, all the effort spent on eye candy is not what I ever want to pay for.
The sad thing about W2K is that it is now terribly dated esp the UI look, way too similar to Win95. A lot of my installs never really fully work and I get piss poor performance from some of the hardware from USB2, FW and many video cards. I have tried the XP trials and while they work much better, the install is still terribly dated and the activation stops me dead, (no cracks for me).
Now if the Ubuntu and PCLinux real simple installers were to be used to instal XP (without activation), I’d be so much happier, but that just isn’t gonna happen. So from my point MS went cold once XP came out.
Still I must get around to trying out the few must have Win apps under Wine probably on OSX when time permits.
/+1.
I was an avid Windows user during the Windows NT3.5.x/4 and 2K days – and I fully agree – Windows 2K was MS’ best OS, no question about it.
Heck, I even worked on converting software from big iron Unix to Windows NT4/2K.
However, things more-or-less went down hill during the XP beta (?) stage – I really didn’t like the direction in which the OS was heading and once XP hit RTM, I was already spending most of my time converting Windows software back (…?) to Linux.
I still use Windows from time to time (mostly when I need to release a new Windows version of my software) but I do my best to avoid it.
– Gilboa
Edited 2008-04-04 06:24 UTC
Let’s face it: Vista is a great OS. Inexpensive, available and well supported. Great hardware support (you can have it your way).
For developers, Vista is the best platform out there. Plenty of documentation and the best tools available.
Vista is another evolutionary step for the Windows OS line.
you can’t be serious, right ?
I do not like Linux too, but having to choose between Vista and Linux I will probably choose to … no. I will choose to dust off my retail copy of Windows ME.
How can I not be serious?
Check out the competition. If you choose Apple then you’re stuck with restricted hardware configurations. Want a desktop quad core Intel CPU? Or an AMD processor? Too bad. If you choose Linux then you’re on your own. A lot of people give up on setting an home page on Konqueror.
Do yourself a favour and try Vista. You’ll find that most of the arguments against Vista are mostly hot air. Just because the angry mob at OSAlert feels that anything labeled Microsoft is bad, doesn’t mean that in reality it is.
Open Konqueror.
Go to the page you want as your home page: eg:
http://www.google.com
Select the text that is shown in the address bar and copy it to the clipboard (Crtl-C).
Settings -> Configure Konqueror.
In the middle of the settings dialog box, where it says “Home URL” … erase the existing text, and paste (Ctrl-V) in the URL you previously copied to the clipboard.
Click OK.
You are done.
PS: You are not on your own. Just ask a question in the right place, and someone will help you in very short order.
I know your intention was to show how easy it is, but really, I cant think of a single other browser that doesn’t have a “use current” button
Yea. But when you will ask too many questions, then you will become a “troll”.
Nope. It didn’t work last time I had tried it. Even with a login/logout. The Konqueror intro web page always came up.
Or maybe it was another of Kubuntu’s quirks like the Adept database locking up all the time and having to drop to the command prompt to fix it. Or having to jump hoops to install Gnash in konqueror.
You are correct, in a way. The process I described does set the home page in konqueror … however the problem you describe is that when you start konqueror, it does not open the home page on start-up.
Test it by clicking the “home” icon toolbar button immediately after you start konequeror and the konqueror intro page is showing.
That is a bit of a bugger I ran into with the openSUSE version of KDE as well. You need to use Settings -> Save View Profile “Web Browsing” after you’ve reset your home page, in order to make the change stick, otherwise they’ll wind up reverting back to distro defaults after a login/logout.
I’ll be the first to admit that they could make it an easier process.
The “funny” thing is IE7 does the same thing. You have no choice but to go through their “onetime” setup to even set the homepage where you want it.
I’ve had clients totally stumped by this. And now they even try to push the whole “IE toolbar” junk. Now whenever you start up IE7 for the first time you have to go through 10 or so steps before everything is configured.
Firefox FTW!
Or you can click the drop-down arrow next to the home button and choose “Add or Change Home Page”.
The interface of IE7 is very confusing.
So says I, a more technically-inclined person and my colleagues, who are not technical at all.
I wish that people stopped using Kubuntu as a reference whenever they mention problems with KDE. More often than not, Kubuntu itself is the culprit of the problem. Kubuntu has to be the worst KDE implementation known to mankind and it is truly sad to see it being advertised as one of the leading KDE distros while better distros like Mandriva, OpenSUSE or even Mepis (which is also Debian-based) are rarely mentioned.
For those of you that like KDE, please try a distro that offer a good implementation with little to no tweaks and then see if you manage to reproduce the behavior seen on Kubuntu like Debian Etch/Lenny, Mepis, Slackware and a few others. Yeah, I challenge you!
Having said that, Konqueror definitely has a weird way to deal with those things and I can certainly understand some people’s frustrations with it. If you click on the home button on the toolbar, it will show ~/ instead of the homepage that you wanted to see. The workaround for this is to create different profiles: filemanagement shows $HOME at startup while webbrowsing shows the webpage that was being displayed when you saved that profile. But Konqi will still show $HOME regardless of the profile being use when the Home button is clicked.
That’s one of the few reasons that made me replace it with Firefox as my day-to-day browser. KHTML and KJS themselves could use some improvements on the speed and compatibility departments but they aren’t too bad.
When people complained left and right that there were problems with Konqueror, the KDE devs decided to address it from the wrong side IMHO by trying to “improve” the file management experience with Dolphin. While I do agree that Dolphin is about to catch up with Konqi in features while offering something new after a little while, I still think that all this effort should have been directed towards improving Konqi as a web browser instead.
I will keep looking forward for a KDE standalone web browser based on Webkit that will give Firefox a run for its money…
I know this sounds easy for us nerds but most people I know can only comprehend 3 steps. Anything after that is too difficult.
1. go to page
2. right click home button
3. choose “make this my homepage”
I already tried in rc stage – it sucks even more than Ubuntu or Linux in general. And its not about drivers – its about whole experience. Vista is slow, Vista is resource hungry (one of my two home PC is based on Celeron 1700 and have 1GB of RAM – it is now five years old and runs XP and apps just fine) and Vista is in one of its aspects very similar to Linux – it “knows better what is good for me” – for example you cannot shut down all its “whistles” in UI to make it clean and fast like XP in “Windows 2000” mode.
Im absolutely serious now – I prefer WinME over Vista.
Vista in my home, in my private computer – yes, but over my dead body. Period.
Right click on the Desktop, select “Personalize”. Then select “Theme”. In the drop down select “Windows Classic”.
Now, I wish that the “classic” look and feel was XP’s “Silver” skin, but alas, it’s basically stock windows 2000.
Again, I’m not defending the MS zealot, but really, using an RC of Vista and making a judgment on it is ridiculous. Hasn’t MS been around long enough to know not to use their OS before SP1?
Vista SP1 did fix a lot of things, and now it’s fine on modern hardware. And by modern hardware I mean a $350 computer from Newegg.com.
Well it is fine if you want to run an OS that will end up costing you in additional software four times the cost of your newegg computer and which will then be slower on that hardware than a free alternative OS, it will spy on you and send your details back to big-brother corporate interests, it will likely not work with some older peripherals that you may have (such as older scanners or printers), it will require you to save your own data in deliberately-obscured formats so that you have no option other than an software upgrade treadmill, and it will prevent you from copying data from your own purchased media under some circumstances, and it will occupy a lot of your time and bandwidth just to try to keep it healthy.
Oh don’t worry; OpenOffice.org runs just as slow under Vista as it does under Linux. =) Please specify the software you’re referring to that I personally use that costs me four times as much.
Yes, but that’s mostly just in Vista: Tinfoil Hat Edition.
Not run into this so far; it works with my Canon scanner, my HP AiO, and all Laserjets I’ve tried. But okay.
Yeah, because .mp3, .doc, .jpg, and .mpg are so incredibly obscure. :\
On OSAlert, apparently you can only like Linux or Windows or OSX. Never shall the three meet.
Unlike a lot of people I am guessing, I actually use both in a production environment for business, not for fun.
It’s in this daily operation I can see what each are good at, and where they both need work.
Luckily we’re migrating to Likewise Enterprise and Ubuntu instead of continuing with NIS and SuSe. That should really improve things on the Linux side.
Edited 2008-04-04 15:31 UTC
If you are using FOSS software that runs on Vista or XP … then you can run the same software at the same cost on Linux with less hassle … Linux doesn’t have Vista slowness issues.
If you are using expensive proprietary software that runs only on Windows … games, MS Office, anti-virus … nothing special … then it will cost you in total four times or more as much as your $350 worth of computer hardware.
All it takes is to have a peripheral that was out of production before Vista was released. Very few peripheral manufacturers write new drivers for out-of-production hardware.
Note that Obscured != Obscure, and also Obscured != ubiquitous.
I have had many issues with data stored in previous versions of MS Office that is not readable with any software that I can purchase today from Microsoft.
OpenOffice is very often better at reading such data than Microsoft is … and I do mean .doc files. These formats once were ubiquitous, not obscure at all … but they are most certainly obscured.
$350? really?
I spent ^Alb250 upgrading my already-good computer to be able to install Vista, and even then it was at the lower end of the usable specification for Vista.
If you’re talking about the ‘minimum system requirements’ then you’re drinking the same kool-aid as the MS PR department.
Good Grief! In konqueror, to set any current page as the “home” page, go to menu bar, tab settings->Save View Profile “web browsing,” and check Save URLs in profile.
That you think that is simple and intuitive speaks volumes.
Its about as intuitive and simple as setting the home page in Firefox or IE7.
What’s a view profile? Why should there be more than one? What does the one named “web browsing” do? What are URLs, and why would I want to save them? How do I know to follow exactly that procedure among all the other options available?
In Epiphany:
Edit->Preferences->Use Current Page
(And, of course, the “Use Current Page” button is clearly placed under the “Home Page” heading, which is at the top of the preferences page, and the first thing the user sees in preferences.)
The Konquerer method is not even remotely intuitive. It’s not that many more clicks if you already know how to do it. Otherwise it’s dozens and dozens of clicks followed by a Google search and forum posting.
The question is asked so frequently that it is considered a “Frequently Asked Question” by the devs. Although they have not seen fit to actually do anything other than just add it to the FAQ:
http://www.konqueror.org/faq/
And a few examples I Googled up in about 3 minutes:
http://dot.kde.org/1090097283/1090171096/
http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-usability&m=103044666415584&w=2
http://linux.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/SuSE/2007-10/msg00649.html
http://mandrivausers.org/index.php?showtopic=3192
http://mandrivausers.org/index.php?showtopic=37682
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=428601
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=53443
http://marc.info/?l=opensuse&m=119171184926530&w=2
Edited 2008-04-04 16:36 UTC
Well, I did try Vista (for 3 months). Hell, that’s why I’m posting this message from Linux
I tried Vista as soon as it came out; and I sold my laptop soon after. I’ve now got a MacBook with Mac OS X. Every time I am tempted by the likes of the PC world, I remind myself of Windows Vista, the broken promises and the lack of any forward looking direction that puts progress ahead of comprising for the lazy programmers in the third party world unwilling to update their code.
As for PC’s running *NIX, there still has alot of work to go before it gets to the level of usability and software available as Mac OS X (software availability in the form of commercial third party applications like Microsoft Office, Creative Suite, Quark, and so forth).
With that being said, however, does it matter if someone is running Linux, Solaris or MacOS X? the most important thing, they’re not running Windows – and that is what will hurt Microsoft, not the fact that Mac OS X or Linux or Solaris is winning, that somewhere along the line Microsoft is being hurt. Thats the important thing.
True. GNU/Solaris with KDE 4.1 would be a very nice combination … except for the very point you make about commercial third party applications.
Commercial third party applications for GNU/Linux for specialist applications such as CAD/Mathematics/Graphics etc are becoming available these days … but they tend to be focussed on a very few variants. Fedora and Ubuntu would normally be catered for, less often Debian, SuSe or Mandriva … but almost never GNU/Solaris.
Edited 2008-04-04 02:51 UTC
Not only that, but, like they said, they’re very niche commercial applications. If anyone wants to see what end users like, go down the road and look at the shelves of boxed software sitting there. From software which allow one to make greeting cards to software which allow one to balance their cheque book, pay taxes and balance a budget. Then there is the games section, from the latest shoot-em-up to education games with a purple dinosaur.
Now, I’m not saying that they *have* to be done by commercial companies, but I do think that if the opensource community do wish to create a suite of software that is easy to use – invest in a computer running Windows, purchase this software and use it; create a clone, call it version 1.0, then make it better in 2.0 – only once you have the depth and breadth of software on Windows, then Linux (or what have you) will take over.
*NIX in itself isn’t being held back by anything other than the lack of applications; the hardware support is there, the desktop itself is already mature and stable. The basic applications like media players and so forth, although codecs can be a little hairy at times, are very easy to install.
The basic foundations of a *NIX desktop are there; or as the old joke years ago on the KDE website was, rather than “is UNIX ready for the desktop”, they changed it to “is the desktop ready for UNIX”.
Or do yourself and your wallet an even bigger favour and try a recent GNU/Linux. Fedora or Ubuntu would be fine choices. If you don’t feel able to install an OS, get a pre-installed system from ZaReason, System 76 or even Dell or HP … at a stretch you can even get a low-end low-price system from Wallmart online.
You will get a fully functional, stable, secure OS and literally thousands of applications available to you for free, it will perform significantly better than Vista on the same hardware, it will be fully capable out-of-the-box (without the need to purchase extra products such as anti-virus or Office suite), and your data will be saved and exchanged in open formats that can be processed by software from any of several software vendors.
Edited 2008-04-04 02:42 UTC
…and be sure that there are plenty of affordable Linux support companies, whose will be happy to address all your problems with xorg.conf, fstab, menu.lst or even help you to fix that broken GNOME calculator tool in Ubuntu 8.04 – and all this (and more!) at a very attractive monthly fee contracts!
When you buy a system with Windows Vista pre-installed, you should not have any problems with your hardware, and so it is unlikely that you would have to edit the registry or resolve a .dll conflict. Even so, if you do have such a problem … a support contract is required because you have not much show (outside of Microsoft) of fixing the issue … because Windows Vista is a closed book. All fixes must come from Microsoft.
When you buy a system with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed, you should not have any problems with your hardware, and so it is unlikely that you would have to edit xorg.conf, fstab, menu.lst, and even if there is a broken tool such as a calculator then there are tens of other equivalent tools available at no cost to you as replacements. Even so, if you do have such a problem … a support contract is probably not required because there is a whole community of support … approximately 1.5 million developers with access to the source code to fix the problem and incentive to fix it because either they use that tool themselves or they like the kudos that comes with giving useful open source contributions.
Today is a “day two” since I reported #211316 bug in Launchpad:
Status – new
Importance – undecided.
I wonder if they fix it on time – it will be quite amusing to receive CD from shipit with broken gcalctool
I also found it quite amusing that Vista and OSX shipped with File/copy errors. No OS is perfect but that is what updates are for.
Or you could, you know, learn how to use google. There are rarely any issues on linux that you won’t find the answer to in google with the first results being links to ubuntuforums.org which has a very active helpful community full of people who aren’t all tech geeks and the questions asked there range from the most newbish question to the most hardcore geek question.
I can’t say the same for windows, most sites that come up as results in google searches usually try to get you to pay for the info, or have issues for months on end without any help from anyone. Even MS’s own site is a PITA to navigate through. Issues with Linux can usually be resolved quickly and easily, especially if the issue is just about configuration.
What people don’t understand is that the same brute force techniques they use to get windows to work around issues don’t apply and aren’t necessary in Linux. There is no registry hell to work around, just delete the config files. Software issues are kept to a minimum and can easily be resolved with a bit of commandline trickery, most of the time this could be done through the UI, but its much faster to use the cli.
Anyway, stop trolling!
individuals like yours usually have only two things to say, when someone dares to challenge your point of view:
– Use Google
– Stop trolling
Linux is not “new kid on the block” and “RevolutionOS” anymore. And we are not living in 1999 too. More and more people saw Linux, and more and more people disliked it for many reasons. Accept it. And please remember – no one is trying to take your Linux away from you. Use it. Enjoy it. You talk a lot about “freedoms”. You ask for your freedom to “spread the word” about Linux, you have it. But do not try to force people who disliked Linux to keep their mouths shut. If you and yours alike will continue doing this, that “freedom” of yours will become more and more like “People’s Demokracy” or something similar.
Edited 2008-04-04 19:57 UTC
Now, now, autumnlover. I’ve been noticing you, lately, going out of your way to make taunting, negative, and nonconstructive posts in Linux threads. (I just checked your comment history to confirm.) And the condescending tone you take here is not exactly the most constructive communications technique, either. So I’m not sure that you are in a position to claim the moral high ground.
That said, as an advocate, I believe that dealing with reality is more effective than wishful thinking.[1] So I find honest and constructive criticism, coming from inside or outside the Linux community to be both welcome and helpful. But my impression is that you are not really doing that. Not consistently, anyway. So I would have to agree with apoclypse and others that you have, indeed, been doing a bit of gratuitous trolling. It’s not a crime. I’ve been known to do a bit of it myself. Just ask the KDE advocates! But please try to be honest about it.
[1] Furthermore, as an admin of Linux business desktops, I do not have the luxury of wishful thinking. When I encounter weaknesses, I have to face them and overcome them.
Edited 2008-04-04 20:22 UTC
I am trying. I also hope that you noticed my criticism and scepticism about Vista, other comments not related to Linux/Free Software at all (AmigaOS ?) and – last but not least – my sarcastic sense of humour, that I am trying to put in my comments from time to time. (“my dear fellow linuxians”)
I did.
A sense of humor is a dangerous thing to bring to an Internet forum.
You know, this is a case of you just making shit up.
The online support communities for most distributions are pretty incredible, plus, there’s this magical bag Linux users use called “google.”
I have never, ever, run into a single human being who dropped Linux because they didn’t have a phone number to call for support – ever.
“Want a desktop quad core Intel CPU? Or an AMD processor?…”
Well, if I want an Intel Quad Core I can get a Mac Pro. For the AMD I can use Linux or one of the BSD’s, if I really want to.
*opens Mac and drops in quad core intel chip
wow… it works!
stop being a silly 10 year old and grow up please.
Oh Sure Vista taking all of my somputers resources and still running like crap is all just hot air. Nice try.
The future’s so bright I gotta wear shades.
“A lot of people give up on setting an home page on Konqueror.”
I get your point that with Linux there is more manual work to be done, but you’re really stretching it here.
“Do yourself a favour and try Vista.”
Funny…
Vista is an expensive transition system. They’ve already started work on its modular replacement.
I’m sure Thum will edit me down with Gestapo-like efficiency but “who cares” what others think about Vista. I actually like it since it works a little more like a real operating system should.
This is from a Linux, OS X and Windows server admin.
I personally run an AMD 64bit with Mac OS X with no problems, your comments about OS X are invalid.
Maybe Mac OSX is an option for you?
While I can’t say I agree with the person you quoted, choosing to “dust off my retail copy of Windows Me” is an even crazier statement to make. Me was an abomination, and anyone that thinks Vista is worse hasn’t even used it. Had you used it, you’d see it’s far more stable, just as stable (in my experience) as XP. Yes, it is slower. I won’t debate that (though it runs just fine for me).
But saying Me is better is laughable.
I used ME for about two years – at one of my home PCs, 98SE on another, and there were no significant difference between two systems. 98SE were usually praised as best of 9x line. IMHO they both were good, with a little tweaking needed of course. ME had never version of explorer.exe which was free of that stupid freeze-bug which surfaced when you copy/move lots of files. Things that forced me to abandon them were games requiring at least Windows 2000 (Doom 3 and later), 512-768MB RAM barrier and 136GB HD barrier. If they can handle 2 GB of RAM, larger partitions (they could be run from SATA drives, minus 136GB barrier of course), and you could run ET: QuakeWars on them I will probably still be using them today.
I was (and I am still!) very sentimental towards DOS and Norton Commander times – maybe that is the reason.
Got any more kool-aid?
You’ve got to be trolling, right?
If you’re actually serious, I suggest you take a look at Mac OS X (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Leopard), which actually comes with free professional developer tools (included on the install DVD), access to superior APIs like Core Animation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_Animation) and Core Image (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_Image), and far more extensive documentation (http://developer.apple.com/referencelibrary/) than anything I’ve seen out of Microsoft in the 15+ years I’ve had to deal with Windows.
If you believe Microsoft is developer-friendly, I think you should read http://ooxmlisdefectivebydesign.blogspot.com/, with regards to their “standards”. I’m particularly fond of how Excel, Powerpoint, and Word implement completely different methods of doing something as trivial as setting font color or alignment.
Don’t succumb to the Ballmer monkey dance!
You can’t be serious…
I could go on and on about the archaic state of the apple developer story, but rory is a much better writer then me, and he already did it here http://www.neopoleon.com/home/blogs/neo/archive/2008/03/17/29941.as…
If you think obj-c and xcode are good try something… ANYTHING else.
Edited 2008-04-04 02:07 UTC
Are you being ironic?
Whether yes or no, don’t you think ‘revolutionary’ is a better word? :p
(me, I ‘m being ironic here…)
Dude,
1st of April has passed… it’s 4th now… Wake up.
Positive move–for people who hate Microsoft.
MS is under pressure to ram Vista down the throats of anyone who has a Dollar. The DRM plan must move forward.
They are ditching profits to spare their brand name.
MS is openly inviting us to try alternatives, let’s oblige.
“The DRM plan must move forward.”
The DRM plan as you call it was set in motion by Hollywood and Apple. DRM only got publicity since Microsoft was putting it in as requested, Apple already had it. Something they copied from Apple?? Probably…
On another note, the bad press it has gotten has made the big players think twice. A good chunk of movie houses are starting to release things as DRM free, which will be a good thing.
Sure, I do understand of course that they wish to make money off of Vista which they spent years and years in making. But, XP is just so much better in many cases, and a lot of people just generally likes XP more. Forcing Vista to people who don’t want it will absolutely not make those people like Microsoft. The only positive things they get out of it are more money, and they can brag how they have boosted Vista sales (they’ll probably claim it’s all because of SP1 or something similar)
I have to agree. I recently purchase a new laptop and it has Vista Home Premium. I dual boot with Linux (latest Ubuntu beta, for now) and rarely touch Windows. I also agree with others in thinking that Win2K was the last great Microsoft OS.
I have said it before and I’ll say it again — XP and, now, Vista both felt like betas that were released on the public to squash bugs. How long did it take for XP to become “stable”? I can tell this — I work for a major hospital and the mere mention of Vista gets eyes rolling. So, though they stop selling it, I don’t see XP being out of the picture for a long while afterward. In fact, I could forsee a scenario where companies try to skip Vista altogether in hopes that the next version of Windows will be better put together.
Edited 2008-04-04 03:52 UTC
As far as I know, XP will still work after June. So I don’t know where this “Dies” thing came from.
It’ll still work. It’s just that Microsoft will no longer sell new copies of XP on June 30.
I suppose… security updates will stop?
Mainstream support XP Home ends 14 April 2009, Extended support 4 August, 2014. According to their policy, security updates for consumer products last at least until the end of the Mainstream support phase.
http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/search/?sort=PN&alpha=window…
Thanks for the info. That’s good news, I suppose… I’m currently using XP and OpenSUSE 10.3 dual-boot, but once security updates for XP stop being provided, I’m probably going all-Linux (or maybe Mac).
That is, if Windows 7 will be as much of a lemon as Vista is. If it’s the bee’s knees, then I might upgrade, but personally I doubt it.
Edited 2008-04-04 10:57 UTC
It was pre-installed on a new HP laptop my company provided. I’ll admit I was curious, but it was a morbid kind of curious – and rightly so. We couldn’t use VS 2003 or 2005 (again, I don’t want to hear the argument that they work – the compatability buglist is absolutely appalling and effectively unusable). After replacing the new Explorer with BBlean (Blackbox for win) it was bearable, hell I’ll admit it was almost pretty. But it was useless without fully-working development tools and there wasn’t the luxury of waiting for VS 2008 to be released. So after a week of hope and disapointment, we determined it wasn’t worth the effort. The scary part is that we had to use the last XP license…
invest in gold?..
no, invest in boxed copies of XP before it’s too late
My attempt to install VS 2005 on Vista x64 went stupendously wrong, apart from taking 4x longer to install than on XP.
The installer decided half-way through to turn off WOW64 folder-redirection, leaving half of a VS install in the WOW64 Folders/Registry Keys and half in the native folders.
Of course, the un-installer gave up completely at this point, leaving me with a rather horribly broken system.
To be honest, I’m torn.
As my family’s (and friend’s) self-appointed administrator (that handles a large number of -legit- XP machines – I refuse to handle pirated copies) I dread the idea of having Vista shoved into my family’s and my friend’s throat.
I’m actually considering buying one or two copies of XP – saving them for a just-in-case-someone-needs-a-new-machine event.
As a Linux user, developer and promoter that avoids Windows like plague (… even though I write cross-platform software, which I do need to test Windows 2K3/8 from time to time) there nothing that I that pleases me more then MS’ heavy handed approach to shoving Vista down people’s throat.
From the Linux side of the world, there’s nothing better then having MS:
A. Stop selling XP.
B. Stop activating XP.
C. Stop releasing XP and 2K security patches.
D. Implement new and exciting anti-piracy measures.
MS’ is already at A; one can only wonder when B, C and D will come.
– Gilboa
June the 30th, 2010
That’s another 2 years and 2 months
Vista is the best OS. XP is too obsolete!
I don’t know why people complain Vista. My Vista works fine and it’s faster and more responsive than XP.
Vista is the first Microsoft OS that finally allows to work with less privileges and with the UAC you can elevate a task only when it’s necessary. I like the UAC.
Edited 2008-04-04 09:00 UTC
Vista is not the best OS. It works “acceptably” well on more hardware than OSX, but far less hardware than GNU/Linux will work on.
And when I say “acceptably” … it is only acceptable if you are OK with a large US corporation being in control of your hardware, in control of your data, in control of which IT products are and are not offered to you, in control of which other parties are and are not allowed to vie for your custom, and which expects other software producers to pay it royalties (for which the software producers pass the cost on to you) for software they did not write.
Are you jocking? or perhaps, are you a microsoft employer?
Edited 2008-04-04 09:26 UTC
Jocking?
Aaah, memories of a number of particularly painful events that I suffered at school
.
Compared to Vista, GNU/Linux:
1. Is easier to install,
2. Works well on far more hardware,
3. Gives the user more choices,
4. Gives the user more control of their own hardare and the software they run (or do not run)
5. Does not run checks on the owner or user of the machine
6. Does not phone home, and so respects the user privacy
7. Does not force the user to use proprietary formats for which royalties must be paid
8. Does not have any per seat or per use charges
9. Does not include any obscured or hidden functionality
10. Is auditable
11. Is in fact audited by myriad programmers worldwide, who are satisfied enough to then use it for themselves
12. Is less expensive to acquire and maintain, and will run well using less computer resources
13. Is greener
14. Is more secure
15. Does not require additional security software to attain that security
16. Has tremendously less malware which targets it
… and so on and so on. I have barely scratched the surface here.
There are many many more ways in which Linux is better for the end user and machine owner than Vista is.
In fact, the only entity for which Vista is better is Microsoft.
They are releasing a service pack three months before ending sales of the operating system? How long before activation service stops working?
Anyway, good for other OS’s (including Vista), bad for users.
Vista64 here. It works OK. In fact I haven’t had any problems with it apart from slow load and shutdown which sp1 has cured, to an extent.
If your needs are simple and your hardware is up for it, Vista strikes me as perfectly OK. However, Vista is not designed for simple needs, and this is the paradox. It’s a humungous OS that wants to cater for all conceivable needs, but my impression is that if you try to move away from simple and do lots of complicated things on it, then Vista will soon start borking.
I guess in Vista that Microsoft wanted to create a highly user-friendly operating system that would cater for all eventualities and please the DRM-loving Hollywood shysters. By their own lights, then, Microsoft has failed. Vista is not very user-friendly (just look at the Start menu mess) and it isn’t stable enough to cater for all eventualities.
Most of my pc use is on Debian. Vista is largely for games, and as a fall-back. If I didn’t have Debian, then it would be back to XP for sure.
In many ways, Vista is the last of the monolithic 1990s OSes. It’s completely out of tune with the times. We’re well into a smart, nimble, multi-device, low-energy era now. Vista is the burpy, gas-guzzling V8 whose salesmen haven’t noticed the world has move on. Sure, Microsoft’s monopoly will mean they’ll sell lots of copies of Vista, but at the same time they’re stoking up user alienation and dislike of computers generally. Want a UMPC like the Asus EEE as huge numbers of people do, not least because it shows you don’t have to spend $$$ to get into computing? You would be nuts to even consider Vista for it. Quite an own-goal by corporate man.
Love the 6.0L v8 in my car. 400 HP. Simple, yet refined design. 17/27 MPG.
Next time anybody looks at a smaller displacement engine that is setup for performance, don’t forget to look at the extra complexity of the twin turob’s, the intercoolers, and all the other stuff that causes the 3.0 or 3.6 liter engines to use more gas than the V8 and produce less horsepower. How are these more efficient? I’ll never know.
Haha. That’s like saying “My laptop is really really fast. I’ll bet you won’t find a faster one. And it only uses 15,000 watts of electricity an hour.” All true, but only about half a dozen peeps are going to be in the market for one. Everyone else these days is looking for a frugal solution they an afford. One day, I guess Microsoft’s management will notice or, at least, starting listening to their younger generation of devs who know the score very well.
Get yourself two wheels with something like a good Fireblade engine between them. You’ll soon find you’re leaving those old 6L V8 bangers in the dust, and for all pennies in running costs by comparison.
… and I told you so weeks ago
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2008/apr08/04-03xpeos.m…
honestly people, do you think any vendor would sign a deal and prep a system for compatibility for only 8 weeks of lifetime, like Asus just now..? Then you really need to get a clue…
couldn’t be bothered reading the thread, probably someone pointed it out already.
Vista has *issues* as I think most people acknowledge. Linux on the desktop (ok, at least the technical desktop) has progressed a lot lately. With Linux OEMs/integrators like LinuxCertified or Penguin Computing offering pre-installed Linux systems, Linux may make another run for the mainstream desktop..
“XP Home Lives, and So Does Linux, on UMPCs”
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Linux-and-Open-Source/XP-Home-Lives-and-so…
This is very interesting. Samba 4 will make it even more interesting.
Now that Microsoft has extended the life of XP, in order to try to compete in the emerging market of “Ultra-low-cost PCs and MIDs” they have shot themselves in the foot by making this extension for XP Home only. XP Home is not suitable for business use.
Linux (especially now that Wine is approaching 1.0 release) has long made a better Windows than Windows. Nowadays even business CIOs and PHBs and IT media are beginning to realise this.
Now all we need is for someone in the IT media to realise (and widely report) that SMBs can replace exchange server and sharepoint with Citadel:
http://www.citadel.org/doku.php
http://www.citadel.org/doku.php?id=screenshots
(or something similar and cross-platform, maybe open Xchange)
… and the Microsoft lock-in for small-to-medium business desktops is finally finished.
Hooray for that day.
Edited 2008-04-04 12:35 UTC
I won’t argue, Vista is a pig and MS should not have released it. Should I ever be forced to switch from XP to Vista, I would choose the most basic version, as none of the features in the more expensive versions are a real need to me – besides, most of them can be emulated with third party software (drive encryption, remote desktop etc).
But here comes the fun part: since MS has a 95% market share, they can do as they please without jeopardizing their position. Who cares if Vista is awful? People will adopt it, just like they did in the 2000 to XP transition. The switch might be slower than the last time, but it’s taking place, nonetheless. I pity the zealots who think otherwise.
However, I can’t say the free software world is able to offer real alternatives. Linux-based operating systems are a mess. With 1 or 2 releases per year, bugs are getting fixed and a shitload of other bugs emerge. Most popular distros don’t give a damn about LSB. People are spending more time looking for support on forums and following third-party tutorials found on God-forsaken blogs than actually USING their machines. BSD couldn’t care less about the desktop. Source patches and updates at the end of the first decade on the 21st century? They must be crazy. And no, PC-BSD, although admirable for its PBI effort, is the same as any other binary Linux distro.
People don’t have time to tinker with their machines!
The hardware support on Linux is not on par.
The Linux counterparts of Windows applications are not quite the same and and thus have a learning curve, no matter how small.
All this requires time by default, a resource that a lot of people cannot afford to lose.
Backwards compatibility is a no-no for FOSS programmers, they always focus on the latest version and since backporting fixes and features is a difficult task, few take on the job. Thus we have 2 versions of the same operating system, released no more than 6 months apart – yet they are not backwards compatible with each other. I know that focusing on the latest and greatest means progress, but what about what is left behind? Everyone wants to be in the spotlight since that’s where interesting things happen. “If it doesn’t work upgrade to the latest version / compile against the latest version of library xyz”. OK, progress is good, but what about stability? Programmers that code for money are compelled to do the dirty work of backporting, it’s their job – hence the versatility of Windows.
I’m sick of 6 months “good enough” OSes. In 6 years of Windows XP, I installed whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. In Debian or Ubuntu, there’s no official way of upgrading Firefox or OO.org, because it would break the whole goddamn apt-get ecosystem. What use is such a fragile OS that forces me to go through the pain of upgrading every 6 months? This sucks badger wiener! Users can’t be bothered to upgrade, they’re used to buy an OS, install it and never look back. Look at how reticent are people when it comes to upgrading to Vista – same happened with 98/2k and 2k/XP – and you want them to do the “distribution dance” every 6 months? Dudes, just because you have the time to tinker with your boxes, or just because this is a hobby of yours, it is NOT for most of the rest of the world.
The word of the day is CONVENIENCE. People are able to put up with the feces flung by MS because no matter what they do, they offer a CONVENIENT operating system. DRM, bloat, high requirements and other crap are overlooked, because of the CONVENIENCE offered by Windows. There’s a balance in all this and MS is smart enough to keep it. The day when Windows will offer less than the annoyances, bad design decisions and bloat it provides, is going to be the day its competitors win. Otherwise it will be Good Enough^a"c for most people.
I’m not here to insult people or to troll. I am sure there are people who use Linux or BSD and couldn’t care less about the Windows world since their OS of choice provides everything they need. They also probably have the time and the necessary skills to set up such a system, and that’s cool.
But deluding yourselves that Joe Sixpack users are going to:
– compile things,
– apply source patches,
– willingly and constantly use the command line,
– read changelogs,
– put up with constant upgrades, bugs and regressions,
– spend countless hours on forums in search of a solution,
– give a damn about the UNIX file hierarchy or put up with the naming conventions in use,
– ask for Linux compatibility when they buy their hardware from Walmart,
– put up with Firefox/Flash crashing and freezing when it’s smooth on Windows,
– abandon their games, whether they’re GPU hogs or ActiveX controls embedded in a page
won’t get you anywhere.
Edited 2008-04-04 13:19 UTC
I’ve been using desktop Linux exclusively at home with the same home partition (and the same data files, many of which originated on Windows machines) but different distributions over the past four years.
Not once have I had to do any of those things.
You are either hopelessly behind the times when it comes to desktop Linux, or you are deliberately trying to misinform people about it.
Edited 2008-04-04 13:27 UTC
That’s because you probably invested enough time and effort to make sure that your hardware plays well with Linux, to research, to learn, and you’re now enjoying the fruits of your spent time and effort.
What I’m saying here is that most people cannot be bothered to invest time and effort in such endeavors because they have things to do that they consider more important. And Windows does exactly what they need it to do with minimal investment. It’s CONVENIENT.
Linux is free as long as your time values nothing.
Also, if Linux works for you it doesn’t mean it works for everyone.
Edited 2008-04-04 14:15 UTC
You must be kidding. Linux generally installs on hardware with no additional hardware driver installation required. Not only that, but just about all the software you’ll need is installed as well. Now that is convenience. Do a Windows install and you’re grabbing driver install disks right left and centre.
To be fair, I’ve not tried Vista, so maybe a Vista install also manages without any driver CDs.
That’s original, and possibly true when it was first said ten(?) years ago. Times have changed. Have you got a crib sheet there or something?
Windows doesn’t work for everyone. The fact that Linux doesn’t work for everyone doesn’t mean it works for no one.
Yes, but when those drivers aren’t there, enjoy getting them to work. Ubuntu has done a lot for this issue, but SuSe and Fedora are still far, far behind Windows with this, especially when you’re talking brand new hardware.
And really, what’s so hard about installing drivers on Windows? Download. Doubleclick. Yes. Yes. Done. No matter if it recognizes hardware right away or not, you’re going to be downloading new versions of the drivers anyway, so what’s the big deal?
Just the other day I wasted 3 hours fighting with SuSe 10.3 with an FX1700 nVidia card. It worked fine with an FX1500, which is no longer available for purchase. I’d call that a waste of time.
When the dirvers aren’t there … don’t use that hardware. There is heaps of hardware the will work fine with Linux … more such hardware in fact that will work with Vista.
Do apples-with-apples comparisons … compare the systems under the same circumstances. If you are thinking of a new system with Vista pre-installed … compare it to a new system with Linux pre-installed. The Linux system wins in such a comparison easily, by any objective measure at all.
If you have an old system on which you are trying to install Linux yourself … compare that situation to having an old system on which you are trying to install Vista yourself. The Linux system wins in such a comparison easily, by any objective measure at all.
In the scenario when you have an old system on which you are trying to install Vista yourself … this is a huge deal. It is far, far more likely that the older hardware will have drivers on the Linux install CD than on the off-the-shelf generic Vista install CD.
Now do an apples-with-apples comparison. You have an off-the-shelf generic copy of Vista to install on capable but slightly older hardware … say three years old. The video card is capable but obsolete … it went off the shelves in September 2007. No Vista driver was written for it.
So … no Vista for YOU!
I don’t even know where to start here. First of all, let me reiterate: I use Windows and Linux in a business environment, and as such we purchase machines from two vendors: HP and Lenovo. When you purchase new laptops and desktops, you get new hardware. As a corporation, we don’t have people buying parts and assembling laptops and workstations. It’s a waste of resources, especially when warrantied work and/or parts are required.
Such as? Example please. Since a good majority of the FOSS software on Linux is also available for Vista, so I’d like to see your examples. What’s not available for Linux is a huge number of business-related applications, such as document management apps, accounting apps, engineering apps, etc.
I am not concerned with old machines. Our machines have lifecycles of 3 years for laptops, 4 years for desktops. I don’t take old hardware and put newer OS’s on them in most cases.
Again, see above. I am not putting newer distros of Linux on old machines, nor am I putting Vista on old machines. This is a business environment with machine lifecycles.
I removed the perfectly functioning vista installation to put SuSe on it. No SuSe for you!
Also, please look at nVidia’s site. They have Vista drivers all the way back to their Geforce 5 series, cards which are several years old.
Perhaps other, more obscure video cards have issues, but then again I don’t see why people would be running obscure graphics cards in a business environment, which is what I’ve been referring to the entire time.
You are seriously behind the times.
With Linux, these days you simply get a “LiveCD”, and put it in the CDROM tray, and boot the system. The LiveCD will auto-discover all of your hardware that it can and boot straight to the desktop as a guest user. From that state you can use the OS and make sure all of the hardware works. You can do all this without touching the hard disk … you can even do it if the hard disk is new, blank or even unformatted.
If the hardware works … you can install Linux from that point by clicking on the “Install to hard disk” icon and answering questions no more complicated than “what is the time, what is the date, in which country are we and what is your name?”
Finally, and tellingly, if you do an apples-with-apples comparison, and compare pre-installed Windows Vista with pre-installed Ubuntu Linux (available from a number of vendors even now from dell) … then there is absolutely no contest … Linux is way MORE convenient.
Windows Vista pre-installed comes only with a bare OS.
Ubuntu Linux pre-installed comes with a complete desktop application suite and heaps of tools and utilities.
If your time is valuable … then get a system with Linux pre-installed. It will save you heaps of time … ongoing too because it will be far easier to maintain in a working condition.
Still being a troll I see, kudos.
You don’t get it, do you?
Microsoft’s success comes from the very fact that the Windows operating system is barebone after the installation. And then the user can add whatever he likes, without fear of bloat.
Now compare this with Linux distributions, where after installation I’m left with software that I don’t want.
This kitchen sink approach occurs because in most of the cases Linux distributions are closed systems. Since nobody packages software, apart from the distribution maintainers, the wheel is bound to be reinvented for each distro. A repository is centralized and whatever software resides on the installation media is just a part of that repository. Usually, the stable repositories are frozen and new versions of the different applications and programs do not receive new features.
What good is apt-get then? Yeah, it installs whatever I command it to install, but what if I get more specific and want a certain version of Pidgin? Sorry, that can’t be done because it would break the package manager database. Actually, one can really break the OS by mixing repositories. Thank you, but no, thank you. I choose the Windows / Mac OS X approach any day.
With a fresh install of Windows or OS X I can play in any way I want and I am free to install whatever I like. No locked repositories, no fear of breaking system libraries simply by installing a package. This is real freedom and real decentralization. I dare to say this is more in the spirit of free software than the Linux distribution approach is.
“Ubuntu Linux pre-installed comes with a complete desktop application suite and heaps of tools and utilities.” – yeah, and pretty much that’s it. Oh, I forgot, there’s more in the repositories. Pushing beyond this limit breaks the repository system.
Look at Ubuntu Dapper: in order for users to use Firefox 2, the official documentation requires an upgrade to the next release. The whole frigging operating system for a newer version of the browser. Same is going to happen with the current stable release of Ubuntu and Firefox 3. Same is true for Debian and other prominent distributions. It makes baby Jesus cry.
I used Linux for more than a year and deleted it from my HDD when I realized I was actually spending more time making various things to work instead of actually getting things done. What a bummer for productivity.
Linux: a colossal waste of time for the pragmatist.
I think is a fundamental problem of linux that can’t simply be fixed by some clever changes and fixes to Gnome or the kernel. Linux has highly talented people to fix the technical problems but this is more of a political problem.
I cringe just thinking about the amount of research I’ve done, the number of reviews I’ve read, the trial and error installing and uninstalling potential software candidates, and screwed up Windows installs in the process… just to find decent, non-bloated replacements to the crap Microsoft gives you by default (or not at all).
I eventually gave up my search (after finally finding a nice set of lightweight apps) because no matter what, Windows decided to eat up virtual memory like candy on my RAM-starved system (about 200+ megs on boot alone). Plus several dozen other reasons, but I won’t get into those. Either way, I’ll just say… it was a bitch trying to find such non-bloated software in Windows.
It sounds like you’re complaining because you chose the wrong distro. Too bad. Here running Zenwalk, I found just what I needed to run my system nicely, rarely eating into swap, and in general running much better than XP did on this system when all the programs I wanted to run were installed. It’s not perfect, and it’s still not enough memory for what I would *like* to do, but it’s certainly an improvement in overall performance over the days when it ran XP.
You have got to be joking!
Windows Vista is something like 15GB … for a barebones install !!!
Talk about bloat. Even Microsoft admits that Vista is not suitable for devices which they have labelled as “ULCPCs” … yet those devices can come with 512MB RAM, 12GB solid-state disk and have a processor > 1GHz.
Linux systems in general are very easy to keep up to date without breakage … I have no idea why you would want to FUD about that issue.
What is more … on a Linux system it is far easier to remove any software which does not appeal. One minute with the package manager software will do it. Just try removing WMP or IE from Windows without breaking it, and see how you go.
If you had bothered to read my previous posts, you would have seen my previous stance on Vista. However, in a few years Vista is going to be the standard, and by then the hardware manufacturers would have to be crazy not to support it, or release buggy drivers for it.
That’s because you probably invested enough time and effort to make sure that your hardware plays well with Linux, to research, to learn, and you’re now enjoying the fruits of your spent time and effort.
I have 4 different computers here at home, all of them running Linux. (two of them dual-boot with XP) But, I never once checked beforehand if the hardware is actually supported. All of it still does work just fine without a hitch except for the Toshiba SD-card reader on my laptop. Even then it’s not a big issue cos it can’t even read MMC cards and my phone uses those.
What I’m saying here is that most people cannot be bothered to invest time and effort in such endeavors because they have things to do that they consider more important. And Windows does exactly what they need it to do with minimal investment. It’s CONVENIENT.
Windows? Convenient? Hmm, I just had to reinstall XP a few days ago when my harddrive crashed..Well, it was far from convenient. Windows doesn’t provide drivers for my motherboard chipset so I had to hunt for those online first, then I had to start installing updates and all that. All in all, I did over 10 reboots just because of all the updating, not to mention how long it took to install those. Only after that I could start installing apps that I actually use…I just fail to see how that is more convenient.
I have 4 different computers here at home, all of them running Linux. (two of them dual-boot with XP) But, I never once checked beforehand if the hardware is actually supported. All of it still does work just fine without a hitch except for the Toshiba SD-card reader on my laptop. Even then it’s not a big issue cos it can’t even read MMC cards and my phone uses those.
Wow, you must be very lucky.
Windows? Convenient? Hmm, I just had to reinstall XP a few days ago when my harddrive crashed..Well, it was far from convenient. Windows doesn’t provide drivers for my motherboard chipset so I had to hunt for those online first, then I had to start installing updates and all that. All in all, I did over 10 reboots just because of all the updating, not to mention how long it took to install those. Only after that I could start installing apps that I actually use…I just fail to see how that is more convenient.
Again, wow. You say that your hard drive crashed and you had to reinstall Windows. Well, of course! The operating system resides on the HDD, if there’s no HDD then there’s no OS and since the HDD was trashed you have to install a fresh new OS on a fresh new HDD. Geez! How’s that Windows’ fault? How was Linux, or any other operating system going to help you with that?
Also, Microsoft is not the manufacturer of your motherboard chipset, it’s not their job to provide you with drivers, they make operating systems. What’s wrong with updates, you Linux users are not familiar with the term? Of course they take time to complete, but experienced users like you should know about a technique called slipstreaming. Updating Windows XP with all the patches since SP2 to the most current ones takes roughly less than upgrading Ubuntu from one release to another.
Honestly, if I were you I would refrain from posting in this thread, since it’s clear that you have nothing to add to the discussion and you prefer to make a fool of yourself.
That’s funny because this is the exact reason I choose Linux over Vista. I have software that ran great in XP that no longer works in Vista so, unless I use it under XP, they might as well be coasters and, no, compatibility mode didn’t work. I and friends who have used Vista have had things like printers, scanners and network-attached storage devices not work under Vista. Yes, we can blame the vendor but, I have gotten nearly all my devices to work out of the box in Linux. In fact, the only driver I have had to go out of my way to retrieve was for a newer Atheros wifi card and that took me about 5 mins to get it up an running.
In my spare time, I am a web developer. Linux gives me the tools, out of the box, to be productive. For example, I am working on a project in Django (Python framework) and, out of the box, I get a web server, MySQL and Postgresql database server, Python and any other things I may want to use for development, in addition to a desktop. I just then install, via a package manager, tools I need like the adminstrative tools (GUI) for my databases and the IDE (Eclipse with a python development plugin) that allow me to work. Heck, I can even download the Django framework itself via a package manager and have it installed on the spot.
In Windows, I would have to search for these tools in various places across the internet and very likely need to understand how to set up things like environment variables to run things like Python and…gasp…I might even have to use the command line for a couple of things.
Now, granted, in Linux or Windows, doing something like this would require some expertise.
But, let’s go back to Joe Sixpack. Joe Sixpack will likely need help regardless of what OS he uses. Nearly everyone I know uses Windows and comes to me on a regular basis to get things fixed. They come to me not understanding why the software they purchased worked on XP and doesn’t work on Vista — they just say that it’s Windows so, it all should work. Hell, it’s still hard to get Joe Sixpack to stop downloading any and everything of the internet (legal or otherwise) without an antivirus program. Also, I don’t see Joe Sixpack regularly updating their software unless prompted to do so. I check stats on various websites I either run or support and see that people still use browsers as old as IE5.5 so, they would likely shrug their shoulder when told they didn’t have the latest Firefox or OpenOffice.
Finally, it’s hard to get Joe Sixpack to understand why there are some 4-5 versions of Vista and that the “Vista-capable” PC can’t run all the cool effects or that Media Center thing that they saw on some other computer they were playing around on at Best Buy because theirs came with Vista “Home Basic” and not “Home Premium”. Explain it to them and ,then, watch their eyes glaze over.
Ease of use is a very relative term and to borrow from what you said, “if Windows works for you it doesn’t mean it works for everyone.”
Edited 2008-04-04 18:59 UTC
well if they can understand that when buying a car, you don’t necessarily get the sun roof and the GPS unless they pay more for an options package then they can understand why this is the case with vista.
What they might not understand is if some software doesn’t work and other software does.
I see this over and over again. Linux’s next customer is not Joe Sixpack. It’s Andy Admin. That’s where our strengths and selling points currently lie. And *that* is what we should be striving for as I write today in the spring of 2008. All this “Joe Sixpack” talk is quite premature. I can’t call it a straw man, because so many of my community fellows actually *do* propose Linux for Joe. And while Joe might sometimes do OK with it, he is not really the ideal customer. At least not yet. You’ve got to learn to walk before you can run. Let’s do our best to get Joe used to using Linux at work. Let’s do our best to give him a good impression of it there. And *then* we can think about being a good choice for him at home. Patience is a virtue. Haste makes waste. And all that sort of rot.
Edited 2008-04-04 13:44 UTC
Better tell that to your friends and to the Linux community in general, it’s full of teenagers who have no idea what they’re talking about and try to shove Linux down other Joe Sixpack’s throat.
I never said Linux is not a good server or scientific OS, I said it’s not ready for the desktop. I tried to prove the Vista bashing crowd that Vista *will* get adopted, no matter how they twirl and twitch. MS getting Vista off the shelves is just a zealot’s wet dream.
Your personal attack on members of the Linux community is both unbecoming and compromises your credibility, and I will not address it further.
However, you misunderstood my post. I may not have been clear enough. Andy Admin administers Linux business desktops. I administer somewhere around a hundred or so myself. And so I know, very well, the strengths and weaknesses. But with a skilled admin in charge, the weaknesses can be overcome, and the strengths can be maximized. “The Desktop” is a another phrase that I see thrown around as if it were meaningful. It is not. The business desktop is a very different thing than the home desktop. And there is variation even within those two categories. Linux is ready for the business desktop, to the extent that such a broad statement can have meaning. It is also ready for certain home users. But the coverage is spotty, and you only have one chance to make a good first impression. I advise caution.
Edit: Just to clarify: Much, but not all, of Linux’s shortcomings on the home desktop are due to a lack of third party support by software and hardware vendors, and not due to anything inherent in Linux, itself.
Edited 2008-04-04 15:04 UTC
Wow, you sounded VERY defensive with your first statement. “I won’t address that any further.” — See how rude that sounds? Almost sounds like you want to be alpha male or sound like a manager with an ego issue.
When someone says “Linux is ready for the desktop” that usually implies for home users. When they say “Linux is ready for businesses” they usually mean “It’s ready for businesses desktops”. You are trying to twist words in an effort to cover up you lost an argument.
Swap Linux with Vista and your argument can still apply to the topic.
So far every single time I’ve seen someone give Joe Sixpack a Linux desktop, they pretty much became their slave to “how do I get audio working with this app? how do I…?”. This tells me that it is probably not ready for a desktop without technical support. This will probably mean home users and small businesses.
OpenBSD runs my firewall, Ubuntu 7.10 runs my gaming server / play server, and Vista runs my desktop. I have problems with none of these however OpenBSD and Ubuntu run a farely limited set of services.
Regardless of OS — the REAL answer is education. NONE of the OS’s (neither Mac, Windows, nor Linux) can do everything perfectly. Consider them all a tool. Nothing more. Don’t let it stuck you in emotionally.
Please read what I was declining to respond to:
“””
“””
There is really no point in responding to such a broad generalization. Particularly one so offensively phrased. Indeed, the quoted paragraph of your response to me, while being a true personal attack and not an over-generalization, is hardly any more constructive than zugu’s.
That said… yes, of course some advocates are, shall we say, overenthusiastic. And that can be quite damaging. This is not specifically a Linux or FOSS issue, although we do tend to have a higher level of enthusiasm than some groups, and less than others. You can probably do a search for my username and the phrases “good advocacy”, “bad advocacy”, or maybe “poor advocacy” and read more about my thinking on this issue . I’ve certainly posted enough on the topic that you can scarecly accuse me of ignoring anything along those lines. You might also read further and note the resulting flames that some of them received from members of what I feel to be a vocal minority of my own community.
I understand that you posted without bothering to check, and will gladly accept your apology afterwards.
Edited 2008-04-05 18:40 UTC
Oh, and a side note — yes mange Linux fundies do try to push Linux down peoples throats. Ignoring the problem isn’t going to achieve anything.
You sound like a Mac zealot and lost a lot of credibility.. blah blah blah…
Earlier this year I’ve installed PCLinuxOS on laptops for two “grannies” (literally) that I know, neither of whom had used Windows (or computers at all for that matter) during their work days. Both were therefore “complete newbies” … utter novices when it came to computers. Your ultimate “Joe sixpack” users.
Apart from troubles that they would have had no matter what OS I installed for them (such as “how do I ‘double-click?”?) neither has had any trouble with desktop Linux.
The more adventurous one of the two is using desktop Linux to go on-line (with firefox), even to the extent of using it for on-line banking, write & read emails (with thunderbird), and allow her grand-daughter to do homework when she visits (using OpenOffice … even though the grand-daughter’s school uses MS Office).
The other granny is using desktop Linux to write a novel of her life’s story.
Even the newbie on-line granny has had not one whit of trouble with malware, spam or phising scams for example. Her system is not a zombie, she is not innundated with extra toolbars, it has cost her nothing in additional software and she has not had to deal with Windows Update, Virus definition updates or any other of a million things that would have popped up to utterly confuse her had she had a Windows system instead.
So, contrary to your view … I do not agree at all that “All this “Joe Sixpack” talk is quite premature”. If anything, it is overdue.
Edited 2008-04-04 14:24 UTC
Yes. I am familiar with that usage pattern. And yes, Linux can work well in these scenarios:
1. The user has no previous computing experience. (Not essential, but it helps.)
2. The user has a limited set of tasks which they want to perform.
3. The user does not browse BestBuy for software to design needlepoint patterns, plan her garden, etc. and expect to be able to install and use it.
4. The user doesn’t need much support, but what little she gets is *critical* because she would never be able to accomplish it herself.
This is Aunt Tillie and her nephew Melvin. Not Joe Sixpack. Different people. I think it is great that members of the community carefully, and judiciously introduce Tillie to Linux, and I do it myself. I do advise caution, however. Because, as I said in a previous post, we only get one chance to make a good first impression.
I might add that on our business desktops, 2, 3, and 4 are likely. And I am everyone’s nephew Melvin.
Does that bring us any closer to agreement?
Edited 2008-04-04 15:01 UTC
For Melvin and Joe users … tell them to get a pre-installed Linux “ULCPC” – Ultra Low Cost PC.
An EEEPC or an Everex with gOS.
Soon enough these devices will be popular enough that they will attract their own after-market.
http://www.amazon.com/Eee-PC-and-Accessories/lm/RYOKFX5FBNS76
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewforum.php?id=14
http://technience.com/2008/01/03/asus-roll-out-eeepc-accessories/
http://eeepcworld.wordpress.com/category/accessories/
http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/02/asus-shows-off-new-lineup-of-eee…
Yes. That does help. It is important that this class of user be happy with something which is essentially an appliance.
Yes. And I am hoping that my, and others’ business desktop usage will also have benefits in the way of 3rd party support that trickle down to the home market eventually.
Shout it from the rooftops!
Post it in the forums!
Install a dual boot Linux solution,
Install a fresh linux o/s,
Go buy an Apple
Whatever, but break free from Microsoft.
Refuse to buy the next computer with windows
pre-installed.
Call up a vendor to buy, but then tell them
you’re not buying it with the Vista tax included.
We saw with the Dell/Vista episode that millions
of customers can bend the will of Microsoft.
It’s time to seize control and wield the power
of our numbers.
Can you imagine how good XP or 2000 could be if
Microsoft didnt spend all their time and money
inventing new, unwanted crap, but spent it perfecting
the best products they ever made?
Microsoft is “The Machine World”
“I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.” Morpheus
Or you can live in the real world.
Even if they stop selling XP in June, it’s still gonna work for years to come. Nobody is forcing Vista down your throat. I would imagine that Vista works fairly well with new machines, as long as you a) Don’t snag a cheap POS $300 clunker that’s gonna die ina year anyway and b) Don’t buy an HP or similar with 9,000 trialware apps that run on startup.
We’re field testing Mac’s now for our environment, thanks to Microsoft cutting off support, and the OEM’s cutting off driver support (Sony, Toshiba, eventually HP and Dell).
Actually this has our president excited. His comment to me was “this seems more like a luxury car, and Windows seems more like a Toyota”
I’ve tried Vista. It’s not worth the time, effort, energy, trouble, or money for our company to change over.
My experience is that old Windows work fine with new machines. They are usually heavily patched, and consume far less memory. They work fine in virtual machines, too.
The main reason I need MS OS is MS SQL server. I always choose OS that is as old as possible and still run what I need.
That is the best possible approach to MS software. Run the oldest possible versions. Completely ignore what Microsoft says, it is not true in 95% of the situations.
DG
…I do have a quad core Dell desktop with 4GB RAM, a decent ATI card in it and no legacy apps carried over from XP Lots of talk about how Linux isn’t a suitable alternative – well, 64-bit Fedora 8 was much easier to install on my new Vostro 400 than 64-bit Vista was!
Incredibly, despite installing both 64-bit retail Vista and 64-bit Vista Service Pack 1, it *does not* support the Intel network card on the Vostro 400 in 64-bit retail Vista! Yes, you’ve read that right – the latest 64-bit retail Windows release with the latest Intel motherboard/network card *does not work*. Guess which 64-bit OS supported the network card out of the box? Yep, Fedora 8!
In a case of supreme irony, I then was forced to use 64-bit Fedora 8 to search the Intel Web site (no net connection in 64-bit Vista remember?) and download the 64-bit Vista network card driver. Pathetic on the part of 64-bit Vista – what a total joke!
Getting a little more on topic, it’ll be interesting to see if some OEMs consider Linux for some of the normal laptops and desktops once July 2008 rolls around. As for extending XP Home a further 2 years on sub-laptops, this is total desperation on the part of Microsoft: Vista is too bloated and, seemingly, Windows Mobile isn’t functional enough, leaving them with a 7-year-old OS whose development stopped over a year ago to put on brand new hardware vs. continuously developed Linux distros.
I think what Microsoft are desperately hoping is that Windows 7 will be modular enough to release a “sub-laptop edition” and also Intel will continue to beef up the chipsets used for sub-laptops (e.g. Atom and its successors) so that Windows 7 will squeeze onto them. The XP extension is a panic stopgap move as they desperately try to cling onto OEM pre-installs…
To me Vista is ok as long as we will not move backward as previous Windows such as XP. Previously, when installing XP always there are updates from times to times..We hope this Vista is the perfectionist of XP
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