You know, I'm getting a little confused the more I read of you. You're a
computer programmer correct? You don't like Vista because of DRM or WPA
or Vista was difficult for you to comprehend...you claim to have never
used linux yet you take to it like a duck to water.
I'm just curious...and it's really none of my business...but would you
fill me in on what I'm missing that will make your statements and claims
gel and make sense?
Haha sure, no problem.
You are correct, I am a programmer. I write various types of software
ranging from Embedded software (PIC and ARM based platforms) to PC
Software which ranges from minor utilities to high end industrial /
commercial applications. I don't do much mass-market stuff.
Basically it all started late January when Microsoft released Vista. I
looked at it. I looked at the Eula. I looked at the new features. I looked
at the new system requirements. I was not even the tiniest bit impressed.
The built in WGA/WPA and the operating systems ability to deactivate
itself makes me just sick. Probably in part because I am a programmer and
because I know how easy such complex systems can do the wrong thing, which
is confirmed by more than enough reports showing how trigger happy Vista
is in that regard. This is just a type of problem I don't feel like having
to deal with.
Next comes the DRM, which affects me largely at home as my PC plays DVD
player for my TV. I watch DVDs from about 3 different regions of the world
so the PC is the most versatile tool for this purpose. DRM is something I
don't care for in *any* from from any company. If I go to pay for it, I
should be able to do with it what I want. I'm not asking for source code
or anything like that. That's not what I mean. I am asking to be able to
make backup copies of my CDs, DVDs, etc. I am asking to be able to keep an
image if I want to stored on my hard drive of said CDs and DVDs so I don't
need to keep swapping them all the time! Things like that...things which
DRM attempts to keep me from doing. And again, being a programmer I know
how useless all the DRM crap is to those who actually do pirate the
products.
The bottom line is that all the WGA, WPA, DRM crap, for the most part,
only causes problems for those who legitimately attempt to use the
products. Those who pirate said products already know how to circumvent
the security measures and are largely unaffected. I, as a paying legal
customer, do not wish to fight Microsofts anti-piracy battle and deal with
their problems.
So those are already 2 things I didn't like about Vista. They are
"features" that can only do one thing: Cause problems for me. The best
thing I can possibly hope for is that they don't and I am not naive enough
to believe they never will. But they do not benefit me in anyway.
Next came the high resource requirements. Sure, most my systems I use are
all high end systems that I custom build. But I wouldn't want to run Vista
on this Pentium 4 I use in my office. Not with my software requirements
that go beyond basic e-mail, web browsing and the like.
So realistically, for my needs, if I wanted to use Vista I'd have to
replace one computer already. My home system it would be allright.
But still, any resources used by Vista can't be used for other
applications. So basically, by running Vista, in a best-case scenario
everything I have will run just as fast as it previously was. More
realistically though, many things are just liable to be slower, especially
software that has high resource requirements, as they now have less
resources available in terms of CPU and Memory. They can't use the
additional resources that Vista needs. Again, not something I am too
terribly keen on.
Vista's UAC is also not something I am too terribly excited about. I have
even seen long time Linux users who are used to Sudo prompts complain
about UAC being far more excessive than any sudo prompts you would ever
encounter in Linux. Now I will concede that the software a person uses
largely impacts this. Someone who just uses MS Office, Windows Mail and
Internet explorer is likely to see far less, if any, UAC prompts than
someone who uses a lot of 3rd party software. So this is something that is
largely going to vary from user to user.
Next up is Vista's hardware and software compatibility or lack thereof.
There isn't any system in this office that could run anything beyond Vista
Basic adequately. All systems though are more than adequate for their
tasks with their current operating systems. If all of my peripherals,
especially my programming peripherals (J-Tag debuggers and the like) are
compatible is questionable as well. I'd have to see if the various
companies have bothered to release updated drivers or not. One of the
biggest things though that really just made me shake my head in disbelief
is that Microsoft's own software is not compatible! Namely Visual Studio
which won't run correctly under Vista. So that alone actually is reason
why I couldn't run Vista if I wanted to. Microsoft's own development tool
won't run correctly with it. Maybe they fixed this in the meantime via a
service pack, maybe they haven't. I really don't know as I don't really
have any need for visual studio anymore so I haven't bothered checking.
Aero is a neat little thing. But it's hardly a feature that makes me
switch operating systems. Knowing what it does and how something like that
actually works internally I even find its hardware requirements just to be
idiotic. I could do more complex things than Aero does in my own software
with lower hardware requirements. I don't even really run Beryl under
Linux. It's neat to play with and show off when someone comes around who
thinks Aero is the best thing ever. But beyond that, just like Aero, I
consider both to be fairly useless.
So what else is left? Well there is ready boost, which I absolutely have
no need for. I don't build systems under 2 gigs of RAM. Besides, it
actually can't work anyway due to the fact a USB Stick doesn't
remotely have the bandwidth of a hard drive. A user would be far better
off installing a second hard drive and putting the swap file on that drive
instead of using ready boost. Doing that might actually get them a
performance improvement. But that's beside the point. With the memory I
keep in my systems I wouldn't even have a need for it in the first place.
Long story short, I just simply don't agree with Vista's licensing terms
and I find most of it's new features to either be disruptive to my work or
just plain useless to my needs. It doesn't do anything new that I would
actually have a need for.
So that made me look at alternatives, which I had never done up until that
point. I had never touched any form of Linux. Really not feeling like
dealing with Vista, I decided to check it out for once and downloaded
Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy).
Was it easy? No. The first week of using it actually was rather difficult.
Everything was different. Everything was in a different place. Everything
was done differently. I had some installation problems initially because
the 6.10 installer had a bug dealing with newer nVidia cards. It was quite
a learning curve. I am not going to say it wasn't. But was it worth it?
Yes.
Initially the only things I switched over to Linux was the standard
e-mail, web, and multimedia stuff. Due to a driver update in Windows, I
was no longer able to use my TV from windows as nVidia dropped support for
fullscreen video overlay in their XP driver. Don't know about Vista or if
they have in the meantime added it again.
I tried to move my programming work to Linux but initially wasn't all that
successful there. I had already late last year switched to a cross
platform API for development due to a lot of requests for Linux support in
my current high end project. So my source code compatibility wasn't a
problem.
Problem was trying to find a decent IDE I could work with. KDevelop was
allright, as was Anjuta...but neither really impressed me all that much.
They both did their job but also both had quirks that made them kind of
annoying to use.
So for the first few months, all my work related stuff actually stayed
with windows and I just used Linux for my personal home stuff.
Then recently I discovered Eclipse. Very excellent development environment
capable of supporting multiple languages just like Visual Studio. Very
intuitive to use and it has excellent project management and source
control integration. Plus it had some features that Visual Studio didn't
and some things such as content assist that actually works. Visual studio's
intellisense absolutely sucks for C/C++ Development. Then just recently, a
few days ago actually, the new version of Eclipse along with the C++
development part of it was released which completely put Visual Studio
into its grave. They fixed a few problems that the previous version had
and added new features that I could only dream of in Visual Studio.
I was also impressed with the overall stability and speed of the Linux
system compared to XP. I just found myself to be a lot more productive
under Linux than Windows. I don't need to spend time scanning for spyware
and adware. I don't need to bog the system down with anti virus software
constantly scanning everything in the background. I don't need to
constantly defrag my hard drives, which when you have a terabyte of
storage does take some time! The new programming IDE I found also made my
work far easier and enjoyable and productive.
In the end, I just stopped using XP naturally. I just stopped having
reasons to boot into it. I am now able to do 99% of my work from right
here within Ubuntu and I am able to do it faster and more efficiently with
less headaches and I need to spend far less time on system maintenance.
Now of course I still need to support Windows with my software but that's
not difficult to do. I don't even need Visual Studio for it. The C/C++
compiler and Platform SDK are available for download from Microsoft at no
charge. It's the IDE one has to pay for, which I no longer need. Saves me
money too. The compiler and linker being command line tools, they should
actually even run perfectly fine and flawless from wine. But even if not,
then fine, I can just keep a windows system around to compile my projects
natively under windows using microsoft's tools and stay 100% windows
compatible.
3D CAD/CAM which I do occasionally is another thing I need to keep windows
around for. But that's nothing all that major. I actually don't even have
any of that work in production right now. Just playing with concept
designs and likely will be for another year I suspect. So I could actually
relatively easily switch that to a linux solution such as Pro/E provided I
can get my hands on a trial I can work with. 30 Day Trials are useless to
me as I'd likely not be able to justify the expense of several thousand
dollars for a license until we actually go into production with a design.
So I'd need a trial license that allows me to use the software until we
actually do something productive with it...and then purchase a real
license. Dunno yet though if this is something they'd be willing to do.
I will admit that Gaming still is a partial problem. I do enjoy playing
the occasional game, though these days not as much anymore as I simply
don't have as much time. So for that I do have windows around as well, and
I suppose it does make a relatively ok gaming platform. But this isn't
anything crucial to my needs. I could classify the games as a "want", but
not as a "need". If it was need then I'd have to get my head examined!
Though I do have to say that a Wii is looking attractive as a solution to
the problem and I actually have a few PS2 games on my list from Japan I'd
love to buy and play.
I hope this maybe makes a bit more sense. If you got any questions though,
feel free to ask. =)
--
Stephan
2003 Yamaha R6
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