Columns Chicks dig RAM

Yes, actually. Hours upon hours on any given day you'll most comonly find me staring at my laptop, with a sick-looking grin on my face as I slowly lose my mind to the pretties of Aero...

But in reality, vista is designed to give up its resources FOR other applications, to enable them to run faster. Most of what vista is using of your system is actually to speed your programs up. For instance, on my lappy ALL my programs start drastically faster in vista then they ever did under XP. There is zero wait time between double-clicking the FF icon and it being open. It litteraly takes longer to DL the start page (BT, obviously!) then it does to open the program up.

This is true across the board for the programs I use. Plus I just don't even bother with an AV or firewall, as vista takes care of everything itself (the UAC has stopped more than one virus, which I was able to just go and delete without hastle).

That is why I switched all my computers over.

 

Whilst i agree with the sentiment, i was dragged over to xp only last year when i went sli and 2k couldn't do it, for the majority of people they're not going to notice how much resources it uses or how much faster 2k was at opening games or what ever. Most people i know who use computers for three things, web browsing, email and pr0n (sorry i meant basic office use) Now you and i use our machines for gaming and we've both proved we don't care about the relative benefits of a new os, So stick with xp till you build your next newest best gaming rig everz at which point vista will make very little dent in your 8 gigs of ddr4 ram. Personally i only xp for gaming rest of the time i stick with my linux box which could also be seen as a resource hog since it uses a large portion of the available ram by caching things to ram, which i don't care about hey its there to be used.

 

I've just been thinking ... maybe the reason why I'm no fan of Vista is that WinXPsp2 is a pretty great OS. I say it's the first M$ OS that I see no reason for upgrading.
DOS+Win311 -> Win95 ... don't remind me ... was a no-brainer Win95 was a much better experience even if I needed a new hardware for it
-> Win98 ... Maybe one could call it Win95sp2 ? Dunno ... run well enough for me
-> Win2000 ... This was a pretty decent step away from the DOS inheritance. Much better'n 98
-> WinXP ... solved the gaming issues one had from time to time with win200. I did not notice any performance problems btw 2000 and xp back then.
-> sp2 ... well. All I say is it works, it continues working, it's stable it's usable. Driver support for everything. Great performant software.

Enter Vista: It MAY add value in the future. It MAY have a better driver model. (Not that I had a single driver issue with XP, but maybe if I wrote drivers I'd be happy bout Vista) There may be some nice features for the user (search and whatnot).
STILL - there is simply no reason for me to upgrade from XP since it is a bloody great OS that runs everything I can throw at it at the moment.
When I eventually have to upgrade from XP to Vista because something won't run on it anymore I will feel a bit RIPPED OFF by M$ because I will feel forced to buy this new OS not because of some added value itself offers but simply because the new thing will only run on the new version of the monopoly product.

br,
btb

 

I prefer the linux way to vista's, why have a gui box popup when i can just add a su or sudo or whatever your distro uses, but then again that wouldnt work when you have to use a gui to install applications

 

Well, I'm new to the forum but can't believe some of the opinions I've just read. I've recently switched from XP to Linux and I can now actually use the performance of my machine (which is a few years old but I have no urge to upgrade as I work for a living rather than playing games). It takes less than 30 seconds to boot up (about a quarter of the time XP takes). I also don't have to restart my PC every few days because Windows has installed yet another security patch. If I install stuff it just starts working. OK it's not got 'Aero' look and feel, but who cares? As I say, I use my PC to do useful stuff, not ooh and aah at the latest waste of money from MS. It may not be idiot proof, but if you're an idiot and want to use a PC, that's what the Office Assistant is for. I don't share the faith that Vista makes a firewall and AV software redundant - your average idiot will probably manage to render it useless with a couple of clicks. And the best bit about Linux? It's free, and if it needs upgrading, that's free too. Oh, and nearly all the application software is free too. I'm never going back. I highly recommend downloading a Ubuntu Live CD image to try before you install. It's painless and now my machine will dual boot XP or Linux. But I haven't run XP for over a month now. Why should I when Linux can read NTFS partitions?

 

eh, i think it will take me a few years and a new rig to finally install vista.... my brand new laptop is a little weak for 3dsmax, dont even want to know what happens on vista with those basic buggy drivers and half the resource hogged up... i think i can live without the uber search function, extra security and preload of programs for some more time.

what is also annoying is that some systems are "outdated" and dont support vista... so your pc is just a useless brick.... moved to denmark a few weeks ago and everyone who had vista couldnt get broadband working.... that in totally different dorms in different locations. well, luckily i had xp so i googled for an hour or so and found a solution (the least i could do for the girl whos place i crashed in for a week)

 

Systems arn't used to do just work anymore. People don't want a barebones OS that just runs their apps, DOS can do that perfectly well. People want their PC to be the centre of their 'digital life'. They want it to be able to store movies, music and pictures and they want quick access to that stuff.
Apple with OS X was right on the money with it's iLife suite, Windows ME was an attempt to move towards a more personal machine, XP improved on that and now Vista is here and is a great OS for that.

 

I appreciate that not everyone wants to do the same things with their PC. But with Linux I can watch DVDs, view my pictures and movies, connect my Palm, surf the net, email etc. I just don't geek out on the latest video games. I can use the same machine to develop commercial websites with Apache, PHP and MySQL using gphpedit and phpmyadmin. Oh, and they're all free too and you don't need to restart your PC when you install them. It's a no-brainer.

 

Are you having a LAUGH? Put everything in 1 directory? you could do and create a search tool but whats the point ? When I want a file I know exacty where to go to look at it despite not knowing the filename as my computer is so nicely organised ish.

I agree its unjustified saying vista is a resource hog, in a few years however much ram it needs will be the norm - hell even I have 2gig ram!

 

> Systems arn't used to do just work anymore. People don't want a barebones OS that just runs their apps,

Yes, I do. That's exactly what I want.

I think the solution to this is actually to have the "pro" versions actually be professionally oriented. XP installs right now for me involve twenty-five minutes of installing, then an hour of turning off all the needless fripperies. It's absolutely ridiculous to have something purporting to be a professionally-oriented system which uses megabytes of bitmaps to draw the UI. It's laughable.

After Effects rendering faster equals me having more free time. Yes, I do want a barebones OS. I do wish Linux would get its collective arse in gear and either persuade the big software houses to release for it, or come up with workable free alternatives. It's improved out of all recognition but there's still huge holes in what it'll do.

Phil

 

If you want to try fancy effects on Linux you could try beryl or compiz fuzion, i personally dont like fancy windows at all. I am in the same boat for dual booting xp and Linux, the only time i use XP is for gaming and for C# which i have to do for my Bachelor of IT course.

lol, what more needs to be said about that.,

Computer savvy yet she pays for someone to install an OS for her? if she hates it so much just chuck XP back on (please dont say that would be a waste of money as it was in the first place)

 

It's about time that someone with a large audience said this. Great article!

 

I think this pretty much sums up Vista for me, previously there was a clear reason to upgrade, at least within a couple of months anyway. Vista is coming up to a year on release in a couple of months, and there's still no real reason to upgrade.

 

Theres a quote thats often rolled out when some says things like this... feel free, write it yourself but more realistically, write to the company who produces this program and say you'd like a Linux version and then not buy the windows version. Until there is financial reason to port to Linux no major companies are likely to do it

 

> Theres a quote thats often rolled out when some says things like this

Usually the conversation goes like this:

Linux geek: Ur teh sux0rz, u should use Linux, it r teh l33t
Phil: But it doesn't do what I want it to do.
LG: Write it yourself, then.
P: But I'm a [job title], not a software engineer.
LG: Ur teh suck! Linux r not 4 j00, ur not l33t enough.
P: Yes. That's why I use windows.
LG: Ur teh sux0rz, u should use Linux, it r teh l33t

Repeat until bored.

I think the real problem with Linux, both as a user and as a developer, is that it's such a moving target. With everything, even stuff that's considered quite basic, coming as optional, configurable upgrades, it's a question of which Linux you aim for, which libraries you require, etc. Creating After Effects under Linux would be a lot more work than doing it under Windows because Linux doesn't provide - or more to the point sometimes
might or might not maybe possibly provide - the same level of services. Houses have to be put in order before seriously heavyweight media apps become workably portable to Linux.

P

 

Going from personal experiences, so don 't flame too much ^^

But for me, going from 2k to xp was a complete non-issue for me. (though admittedly, i had cottoned on to fact that more ram/slow CPU = faster windows compared to a low mem PC/fast CPU box by then)

So by the time i swapped my main PC had 1GB ram... ^^

Upgrading from 2k to xp, i noticed a nearly negligible slowdown, a bit more mem usage but more usability (the built in picture viewer was light-years ahead of 2k and sold it on it's own) All in all, no real change...

Now, for vista...

for my particular pc, compatibility has gone out of the window in my eyes... i have yet to try vista on my home PC ever, as the installer DVD simply bluescreens my PC whatever i do :S (doesn't like my SATA PCI card)

Luckily i work in an IT department, so have had a bit of experience with vista there on the test machines...

I'm impressed with Aero, seems like the windows equivalent of Beryl in my eyes (which is good ^^)

It seems a bit slower in places, but it feels noticebly slower from XP > vista than 2k > XP was overall.
The one big gripe i have is that it seems that settings have been moved about for one of the following two reasons only:
- to make the average user be unable to find them so they can't break things accidentally
- changed just to give evidence that vista has changed things

as the saying goes, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"
it seems things are just being changed for the sake of changing things...

Anyway, new PC next week, should actually be able to try it properly soon ^^

 

Having spent a decent amount of time with vista on 4 different systems... I hate it. Some of the improvements are really great ("breadcrumbs" in explorer, the new start menu with search box, etc) but it's just not worth the pain. Every new release of windows/office/whatever, we complain about how they've "hidden" everything in new places. In vista things really ARE hidden - try changing your IP address. Just try it.

I don't really mind the "resource hogging". Like many other people have said, most of it is to speed your apps up anyway and it doesn't get in your way. I don't appreciate the lower FPS in my games, but the real killer is reduced battery life on my laptop. That's inexcusable, especially with linux making good steps towards /improving/ battery life (see Intel's powertop).

Also, (and I know this is changing, but it still holds) in a lot of situations vista is simply broken. My girlfriend's laptop - straight of the box from dell - gave a message on first boot telling me that it couldn't load an unsigned driver and then dropped out of aero mode. That was during the small window when dell weren't offering XP any more, but that's what the laptop is running now. Synergy - which has become pretty central to the way I work now - doesn't work properly on vista. And oh yeah, give my 8800 a few hours of running that pretty screensaver in vista (you know which one) and I get a BSOD. I know that's nVidia's fault not MS's but it doesn't encourage me to use the OS.

As for the security improvements, people either turn off UAC or get click-happy with it so you're back to square one. The amount of stupid stuff that you get a UAC prompt for is ridiculous. There's no "I'm changing settings, let me go for 5 minutes" option, it's either on or off. And if you turn it off you get a warning that you've turned it off! And if you turn /that/ off, you don't get the AV/firewall/updates warnings that you actually want!

</rant>

 

I think that my main grip in it is the features that NVIDIA cannot put into the vista drivers because of the way vista was built. Specifically horizontal and vertical span's. I have 3 19" LCD screens hooked up to my machine (currently running XP which i went back to after trying to run vista for a few months) and the lack of those two options actually hinder the way i have gotten used to working on my PC.

As for those of you talking about WinFS.... I haven't heard any thing about it recently but all I can say is that they should scrap it and get with Sun about their new ZFS. Only two things I need to say about it are 600 trillion trillion terabytes (yes that is two trillians, not a type-o) being only 1% of its potential storage capacity and copy-on-write.

 

There are actually a few nice bits to vista - such as how the "network discovery" actually works now. While it perturbs me to see so much of my 4GB vanish, i just shrug it off as you can get 2GB of DDR2-800 for what, $50 if you catch it on sale?

 

Well I skimmed through what everyone said in reply to my admittedly inflammatory questions and I am vaugly amused. All the great new features are already in the OS I'm currently using or of no interest to me (search for example all my files are very well organized). On my OS I run many of my programs under separate users with permissions only to read and write from specific directory's unless there are unfixed problems with both the OS and the Program there is no way there can be a security problem. As for file systems mine don't fragment (have ms got the hang of that yet?). As for signed drivers?? mine are mostly made by people with some actual enthusiasm as such my sound drivers are better than there windows equivalent. The only drivers that are not great are surprisingly the only commercial ones on my system (ATI).
Incidently it was the ATI display drivers that caused me to switch my last system over to linux (I still have a win partition but haven't used it). They just refused to install properly after a format due to .net which was misbehaving and just randomly I got it to work (by reinstalling and copying files everywhere and editing the registry repeatedly).
The lack of games perturbed me at first but there are loads of good open source ones I have been playing instead and so far css etc... aren't even worth a reboot.

I don't understand the problems people have saying linux is hard to use, there is loads of info online and if you just read the log files etc of anything thats gone wrong it usually says what the issue is.