Vista users, how ya like it?

Systems

hypertone wrote: »

Ubuntu is done right. It's easier than OSX and is designed properly. OSX seems to be pretty odd when it comes to the terminal, it's kind of a hack job if you ask me. I don't consider OSX "done right", but it does have good commercial software which is lacking in Linux.

Ive spent a lot of good testing time with Ubunti. Mainly installed it myself on several newer Dell Optiplex 745's for testing (not the Dell build). I don’t think its nearly ready for the business world. Linux is an ok OS for PC geeks but its still not ready for prime time. EX: no way in heck I would roll it out to my 60 year old mom.

Sami

Out of the box, Ubuntu might not have all the software installed but with Synaptic installing all that is a breeze. It's not for the end users who don't know their fingers from their toes, if it is not pre-installed with all the options they need. Then again, that applies to Vista and XP as well.

One thing I found out about Vista today is burning FLAC's back to CD is made almost (?) impossible. Nero doesn't work (nor does it burn WAV's), and forget about WMP. So I had to turn to my Ubuntu box, Serpentine (full GUI with FLAC support out of the box) was either preinstalled or I installed it myself (can't remember what options I checked on Synaptic). Couldn't have been easier to burn, all from GUI, no command line options needed.

Systems

More Leopard Problems Plague Apple

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/2007/11/22/more_leopard_problems_plague_apple/

mantis

Silverti wrote: »

More Leopard Problems Plague Apple

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/2007/11/22/more_leopard_problems_plague_apple/

I read it and don't have any of those problems. I have a Imac 24 2.4 gig duo processor with 2 gig memory and installed Leopard on it. I have yet to have any problems and hope I have none. The biggest reason I switched to mac is all the windows problems and I was sick and tired of fixing all the computers in my house. I have a wife and 2 kids who all use the computers(2 pc's and 2 macs). Since I upgraded my sons computer Mac mini and my wifes computer a Imac 24, we never been so happy. My son plays WOW on both macs with no prroblems. I hope Leopard don't start....

So far so good( crossing everything)

Systems

mantis wrote: »

I read it and don't have any of those problems. I have a Imac 24 2.4 gig duo processor with 2 gig memory and installed Leopard on it. I have yet to have any problems and hope I have none. The biggest reason I switched to mac is all the windows problems and I was sick and tired of fixing all the computers in my house. I have a wife and 2 kids who all use the computers(2 pc's and 2 macs). Since I upgraded my sons computer Mac mini and my wifes computer a Imac 24, we never been so happy. My son plays WOW on both macs with no prroblems. I hope Leopard don't start....

So far so good( crossing everything)

So the son dual boots and fires up XP for Wow? Does it play pretty good?

Sami

Silverti wrote: »

So the son dual boots and fires up XP for Wow? Does it play pretty good?

You can play WOW from Mac and Linux.

Demiurge

I just got a MacBook Pro for work since I wanted the web development and graphic design ease of use that Macs offer. I'm pretty PC savvy, but this Mac really treats me like a complete mongoloid -- I understand why the masses appreciate that. That said, I still like the versatility of all of my PCs.

It seems like if you drop a few grand on a Mac it comes with a license from Apple to be a dickhead to anyone else who doesn't have one. Since I own both and use both, they each have their advantages and disadvantages.

fatchowmein

XP smokes Vista.

http://www.news.com/Windows-XP-outshines-Vista-in-benchmarking-test/2100-1016_3-6220201.html

SKsolutions

XP or OSX, or Linux is the only way to fly for the laptop user.
With laptops/notebook sales on an exponential rise and comprising as much as 35% of the curent market . . . it seems odd that M$ feels no need to make a stand alone product that would compare with XP, Linux, OSX, etc. Instead, we get this out of control amalgam Vista foisted upon us. It looks great, but I can dress XP to look and act just like it if it was USEFULL, but it's just gizmos, search and shadow. No thanks.

With XP on a laptop, you will get much better battery times. You can also strip it down quite a bit to make it lighter. I get almost 3 hours on a newish consumer 5-pound 14" HP 2Gig, with the small 6 cell. I'd need to spend more than twice as much on a machine to get similar performance from Vista.

As a side note, the Premium Vista that I installed over XP, left most of my file structure intact when it installed. There is no way this is a "new", "from the ground up", operating system. BS advertising. New Shell? Big dealio.

danger boy

XP is ok, i just got a laptop and it was pre loaded. with 2 gigs RAM it's running fine. but honestly, it's not that much different than XP really. just a big suped up is about it. still hangs sometimes. I've had mine crash to have to start up in safe mode the second day I got it.

it's fine now.. but to me not really any more or less stable than XP.

Sami

The more I work with Linux, the more I like it. What Vista would have needed would have been a complete make over. I could go on forever but, for starters;

- get rid of the drive letters
- implement symbolic links, none of this .lnk crap
- implement terminal access

etc.

Systems

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PolkThug

Yes Vista sucks.
Constant indexing that slows down everything. (can be disabled)
It reduces your CPU multiplier when it thinks you don't need the speed. WTF

My rig is overbuilt, I can't imagine the suckage on older PC's.

However, I continue to tweak based on tips scavenged from the Internet, and it has gotten better since Day 1.

Why I'm sticking with it:
1. DirectX 10 (advanced graphics capabilities built into the newest games)
2. Eventually it will be fast.
3. It looks pretty.

There is a big learning curve with how it works, and by the time it gets up to speed, I'll be 'in the know'.

However, when I play Unreal Tournament 3 at 1920x1200 at max settings on my 24" screen, I forget about all my problems.

steveinaz

Xp is a big enough "pig" don't want or need vista. Heres the course of events over the last 15 years:

processors get fast
OS's get bigger
processors are slow
processors get fast
OS's get bigger
processors are slow...

repeat over and over and over again.

Whateverer

PolkThug wrote: »

There is a big learning curve with how it works, and by the time it gets up to speed, I'll be 'in the know'.

I have to disagree with this. In my opinion its very much like XP, Maybe a little to much. I'm not saying they should have made it so different as to make it really hard on users going from XP to vista but it should be a worth while upgrade and I just don't think its enough of an "upgrade" to justify the price. I think there has been many more changes "under the hood" then from a GUI point of view.

Just think it was basically the same deal when XP first came out. With the speeds of new processors and GPU's it really wont matter the extra resources it uses over XP. If one really wants to use the least amount of resources as possible might as well just go back to windows 95.

Sami

Having just started developing software in Microsoft's CLI (Common Language Interface) which is Visual Studio managed code, versus doing pure standard C++ with MFC, I am not surprised if things are getting even more bloated. Changing an efficient language like C++ to cater for the C# and VB developers isn't helping in developing low cost (in terms of system requirements) software, although it is making the development a little faster and easier.

PolkWannabie

steveinaz wrote: »

... repeat over and over and over again ...

Ergo the acronym IBM ... Install Bigger Machines ...

steveinaz

Back in the mid-90's, our shop decided to have some fun. We built a pentium 75 computer with 32MB of RAM from spare parts and loaded the then old Windows for Workgroups 3.11. That thing smoked. We went from power on to being in windows in like 4 seconds---it was awesome. Clicking applications like Word or Excel opened them immediately.

What a shame we have to keep piling on the pig Os's and slowing things back down to a crawl.

bobman1235

I agree with Steve. I went VERY begrudgingly away from Windows 2000. That thing was so stable, and nice and quick on newer machines, but after several years of XP being around they started making software that just wouldn't run on non-XP systems.

I predict the same fate will befall XP at some point, and software will be Vista only, but I'll definitely stick with the tried and true for as long as possible.

PolkThug

steveinaz wrote: »

Back in the mid-90's, our shop decided to have some fun. We built a pentium 75 computer with 32MB of RAM from spare parts and loaded the then old Windows for Workgroups 3.11. That thing smoked. We went from power on to being in windows in like 4 seconds---it was awesome. Clicking applications like Word or Excel opened them immediately.

What a shame we have to keep piling on the pig Os's and slowing things back down to a crawl.

Agree 1000% I did that same thing with a P120.

Progress is good, but cheap storage and fast cpu's have led to bloated programs.

PhantomOG

PolkThug wrote: »

Progress is good, but cheap storage and fast cpu's have led to bloated programs.

Crappy/lazy programmers have led to bloated programs. Better hardware and very high level programming have enabled that laziness/crappiness.

PolkWannabie

bobman1235 wrote: »

... I went VERY begrudgingly away from Windows 2000 ...

While I do have a system w/XP, I still do most development and testing work in W2K for a variety of reasons and I still prefer running the Server versions of OS's i.e. W2003 which will give way in due course to others.

Systems

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bobman1235

Vista likes them? I've never had a hard drive not "liked" by the OS.

As far as boot time and speed goes, there's not much mystery to it. Access time and caching plus whatever interface (IDE, SATA, SATA 3Gb/s, etc) are pretty much the defining factors.

Sami

PhantomOG wrote: »

Crappy/lazy programmers have led to bloated programs. Better hardware and very high level programming have enabled that laziness/crappiness.

Yep. Completely agree, my post above already touched the subject that SW Engineers for Windows platforms many times don't even have much of a choice in the matter, even if they are competent enough (and a lot of them nowadays are not). It's a compromise between development time and code efficiency really and we all know what matters more when it comes to deadlines.

All the CLI libraries are very, very nice, I just wish they didn't have to wrap it into the package they have now. Porting that code into different environments is also made very difficult (most likely a planned action from MS).

Systems

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[Deleted User]

vista is pretty to the eyes. but beware. its not driver friendly. still consumes cpu v ram, run high def video on your pc, you will see the cpu usage maxed or near 100 percent, whereas, all the ram is barely used! mac comes into play. cpu is not the main processor as brain, mac uses ram, as it should be used! i have the mac book pro and launching in vista to run hd videos, it freezes due to high cpu, run os, it used only ram, cpu is still free.. on last thought, it is almost impossible to go back to xp pro if you upgraded your computer to vista. that is why, i modified my vista, stripped it of all the unnecessary stuff while maintaining the essential parts. my version is backward compatible to xp pro.

AsSiMiLaTeD

halenhoang wrote: »

vista is pretty to the eyes. but beware. its not driver friendly. still consumes cpu v ram, run high def video on your pc, you will see the cpu usage maxed or near 100 percent, whereas, all the ram is barely used! mac comes into play. cpu is not the main processor as brain, mac uses ram, as it should be used! i have the mac book pro and launching in vista to run hd videos, it freezes due to high cpu, run os, it used only ram, cpu is still free.. on last thought, it is almost impossible to go back to xp pro if you upgraded your computer to vista. that is why, i modified my vista, stripped it of all the unnecessary stuff while maintaining the essential parts. my version is backward compatible to xp pro.

Wow, I don't even know where to start.

First, reading that and trying to understand what you said was one of the most difficult things I've done all day.

Second, RAM is NOT a processing device, plain and simple. RAM is a storage area, that's it (albeit ia very quick storage device, but still storage nonetheless) - RAM doesn't DO anything. CPU and RAM work TOGETHER to accomplish a task, such as playing back a movie, not one vs the other. Saying a computer is using CPU instead of RAM is kinda like saying someone is eating instead of reading a newspaper - the two can be done simultaneously to provide a nice morning breakfast experience, but you can't get full on newspaper and you can't catch up on current events with food.

Third, saying cpu vs ram is one thing, but then making a value decision based on that is even worse - like CPU is better than RAM? That's like saying water is better than air - No, you kinda need both.

If you're going to make any comparison, it should really be between ram and the hard drive. Now saying, Mac is better because it uses RAM more than the hard drive (so in this case saying a PC just reads the movie from the hard drive as it's playing it but the MAC loads the whole movie into RAM so the playback is smoother (RAM is faster than HDD) - that would work. I don't know if that's a true statement or not, and it kinda sounds a bit absurd - but at least it's a logical comparison between two similar things!

I need a day off....

bobman1235

RAM is too slow for me, it's cache or nothing

ben62670

Have I mentioned Vista SUCKS!!!