Comments on: Windows Vista: One Year Later

By: ddelv

ddelv — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Two remarks: Vista(tm) is the best thing that ever happened to Linux (and OS X)!
And, never, never spend money on NetGear!

By: rgb@phy.duke.edu

rgb@phy.duke.edu — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Oh, am I tempted to recount my own Vista horror stories. Even my sons, Windows lovers all because of course all of their games run under Windows and things like multimedia accessed via the web work transparently almost without exception -- THEY couldn't stand it. It won't run their games as well as Linux with e.g. Cedega does, and doesn't come close to XP.

I myself "have" to be able to run Windows XP from time to time, which I generally do inside a VMware partition. This in turn requires XP Pro (and/or Vista business or better) because MS refuses to license the home versions for use in VMs for absolutely no reason but a desire to pump an extra $100 or so out of you to permit you to use their software the way you would like to use it on hardware that you own and that is otherwise properly licensed for Windows. I have downgraded two systems to XP from Vista because Vista is all but unusable.

I am starting to think Microsoft has a death wish. Vista sucks, to the point where even people who've never used anything but Windows are thinking twice or even three times about it -- converting to Linux is starting to look like it might be less work and actually work better for folks who wouldn't have dreamed of it under XP (which is actually pretty good -- easily the best Windows ever, and I say this as a longtime Windows hater Linux lover, fair is fair). Then they go and try a hostile takeover of yahoo. Is alienating the world about to become a way of life with them? Do they love the pain of antitrust suits as they seek to buy out all of Google's competition so that they don't have to actually compete to win?

Time will tell...

rgb

By: floridasage1

floridasage1 — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Since January of 2007, I have migrated many times more computers and home,education, business users to GNU/Linux each week as I have experienced in the past ten years+ (since 1997).

Multimedia works in GNU/Linux, and even Microsoft's restrictive WMV codec embedded videos and movies run smoother in GNU/Linux, than on the Vista platform!

I am a Veteran and just finished running the WMV encoded MyHealtheVet introductory film staring Bo Derek... on my SimplyMepis7.0 (32bit version) system.

GNU/Linux IS multimedia! Witness TIVO, and many Cellphones that play videos, and other consumer gadgets for MM display!

None of the million Microsoft virus/Worms/Trojans/Malwares/spybots even exist in GNU/Linux.

I do agree VISTA is horrible, (as is the DRM crummy junk, mandatory registration, WGA shutdowns of legit owners), and so do more than 500 individuals and business owners and educators, whom I have helped switch over to GNU/Linux in the past year!

Some even run Fedora based VIXTA! (google it!)

You damage your credibility as a journalist when
the facts are misrepresented or you spread FUD.

By: edupalacio

edupalacio — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I am migrating from good old W2K to Linux (Ubuntu)
Easy, beautifull, refreshing, not a hardware eater and guess what!! it’s FREE
I took this decision after looking at several of my friend suffering Vista inadequacy.

By: randrews

randrews — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

(In my opinion, Linux can't fulfill the multimedia PC role yet. More on that later.)

It is true that getting initial release driver support for bleeding edge stuff like HD DVD etc for linux is a real issue. You can always try running the windows driver in a wrapper.

I can't see that paying extra $ for XP pro or Vista premium to get media center is truely a "multi-media" aware system either and if I have to take two bad choices then I will take the cheaper bad choice everytime.

I have nothing against your ATI, but most people have a lot less hassles with Nividia graphics cards for linux mulit-media projects due to the much better driver support.

By: anthonyarrigo

anthonyarrigo — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I suffered with Vista on a new Dell Laptop I purchased in April. Every day was a painful adventure. I finally loaded Ubuntu on the laptop this fall and system crashes are now a thing of the past. Sure, Ubuntu isn’t quite as polished as windows, but it performs much better and was able to meet all of my day to day needs.
FYI: I purchased a new 24″ iMac in late December and am fully converted. Ubuntu and OSX play nicely together and I can’t imagine ever going back to the old windows garbage I grew up on.
Live and learn….

By: serge-nn

serge-nn — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

[[[ No matter what third party software program I downloaded, be it Firefox, Avast! Antivirus, VNC, whatever-- it just plain refused to install and bombed out with an error.

Yes, its a bizarre thing when the latest consumer version of Windows is less compatible with modern hardware than either Linux or the previous version of Windows, one year after its release. ]]]

Before, compatibility was a religion for Microsoft (see Raymond Chen's "The Old New Thing" book and blog). Too bad they dropped it lately and pay more attention to fancy-looking UIs and horrible DRM schemes. I still think that a lot of blame for compatibility issues can be laid on drivers and applications developers. Microsoft can't take care of every bug and API misuse for everybody else (Chen's book has many funny examples).

By: indigo196

indigo196 — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Odd.

I installed Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit last April and have not had any of the issues you mention... though I refuse to buy DRM HD/BLUERAY content so that could be the cause.

I play games -- no issues.
I program -- no issues.

I am moving to Linux anyway for other reasons, but Vista is just fine in my book. You want to turn UAC off? I assume you must run your Linux box as root full time then; right?

By: sharmag77

sharmag77 — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Why don’t you focus on Linux and stop blathering about WinVista? Given that this article appears in Linux mag makes this article truly junk-worthy. It is clear that you will kvetch about MS and Vista no matter what. Linux folks first berated MS about not having a UAC, now they can’t get over the fact that it has a better UAC mechanism than Linux. MS was bad because it tried hard to maintain compatibility, now it is bad because it broke compatibility. Too bad MS exposed lots of internals, now too bad that it doesn’t.

Methinks this author and similar ostriches need to get a life and quit being whiners. I read this magazine because I want to hear about Linux. Not some stupid dude whining about Windows.

By: michaelhodgins

michaelhodgins — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

We’ve had Vista on the laptop for a few months and it’s no worse than XP. Equally bad, I would say.

By: drarem

drarem — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

You want to turn UAC off? I assume you must run your Linux box as root full time then; right?

Actually, I run everything I can recover easily under my home folder.. everything else like system stuff is root-protected. I can secure an individual file down, don't know bout windows unless they copied it too. But the system files are always protected unless you turn 'UAC' off, in vista terms..

What else.. oh yea, no defragging required for linux and with a standard desktop edition, you may want to run antivirus to protect your windows friends or network. I haven't had to run an antivirus on my ubuntu for the past 1.5 years I've been playing around with.

The only downsides are minor web annoyances (slight incompatibility with proprietary stuff), UT3 not released for linux yet grrrr and ms flightsim x and crysis requires windows.

By: climacs

climacs — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I’m a open source guy, i work mostly on Unix/Linux environment when it comes to servers, but my desktop/laptop are all dual boot in windows and Linux, right now i’m using my laptop as dual boot Vista Home Premium and Fedora Core 8, i don’t have the same problem as you guys having with Vista, it runs perfectly in my laptop, core2 duo 2.0, 2gig ram.

By: fightclub

fightclub — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

yeah cool. now I need to upgrade 150 pcs of computer unit from pentium 4 to core2 duo, 2gig… nyahahahahahahahaha I LOVE YOU guyes… Any good advice for me?

By: iateadonut

iateadonut — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

no more windows articles in linux mag.

By: dhurst

dhurst — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

One thing that really strikes me about this article is the purposing of the system Jason is talking about. Linux led the way in purposing systems since it is affordable, runs on anything, and makes any running piece of hardware useful. In most of the world people are not blessed with cutting edge hardware so Linux is salvation for them. It’s probably very few instances where a system like Jason’s is even needed. It is just expensive keys to unlock entertainment that drove the project, that ‘s all. Not criticizing really, just making an observation that DRM does put money in certain people’s pockets, at least for a short while.

By: jeffsilverm

jeffsilverm — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Has any body done some serious benchmarking comparisons of software performance under Windows/XP, Windows/Vista, and Linux? Use identical hardware, just change the OS.

By: jasonperlow

jasonperlow — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

At Linux Magazine we like to differentiate ourselves between the other publications that cover Linux — we consider ourselves an Open Standards and Open Systems publication above all else. Linux is simply a kernel by which many open components sit, and as we are more geared towards enterprise computing, it is inevitable that we have to deal with cross platform and interoperability issues, which is why we frequently have articles that cover Open Source applications on Windows and virtualization technologies that permit Linux and Windows to exist heterogeneously, which is how the real world of IT actually works.

Additionally, as Windows is currently the dominant desktop platform and Linux is competing with it for market share, it is also important that we point out why Linux is eclipsing Windows in terms of hardware compatibility, performance and ease of use, so that IT shops as well as consumers can make educated choices.

By: dfsixstring

dfsixstring — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I work for a software company that develops products that enable interoperability between Windows and Linux. Our servers are Linux – our Office components (obviously) install on Windows desktops. Windows compatibility is one of the most difficult parts of our existence. As soon as we figure out how they do something – they change it with the next version. It is the name of the game. Vista is arguably the most difficult platform we’ve ever tried to develop for. After working around it I have decided to stay away from it on any of my home systems – at least for another year. Do you remember when XP came out – when it first came out? It was horrible. I delayed – stayed with W2K Pro for any Windows-based system until XP SP2 came out. What was that – two years later? XP SP2, IMHO – is stable and usable. It required a whole lot more to run it than did W2K – but I eventually migrated all of my desktops to it – no regrets. As a closer – I just wanted to share this – my Linux test server (CentOS 4) is an old Intel P3 550 Coppermine – 384MB of RAM – running day in and day out. I build on it – pound on it, etc – keeps on running. Strange – isn’t it?

By: modjohn

modjohn — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I feel that the occasional report on other OSs is needed in a Linux magazine. As a Linux system administrator I still need to be kept uptodate with other OSs in order to be a well rounded computer engineer

By: prague14

prague14 — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I wonder why everyone who bashes Windows, does so because it doesn't do what Linux does. Do you really want it to? Windows and GNU/Linux are two different operating systems, targeted to different markets, and designed to do different things.

Additionally, all the groups trying to make Linux a "desktop OS" are all just trying to get Linux to work more like Windows, to attract the existing customer base. The first group to do this, let's say it's Ubuntu for example, is going to hear the same whining from the hardcore nix-nerds that Microsoft does. They'll all complain about the security risks by running as the default user, viruses will start to target vulnerabilities, etc.

If any of you are worth a crap when it comes to doing whatever it is you do with a computer, you'd stop complaining and adapt like the rest of us...

By the way, the dumbest Vista gripe I've heard is the memory gripe. Yes, it requires more memory because of the changes to the user interface. If you want to continue to cry about it, you'll look as stupid as someone crying about why they have to trade in their Toyota Camry to get speed, style, and performance like a Corvette