So you really think Linux is better than Vista, do you?

[John Locke]

The beings that run Linsux are not even carbon based life forms!

So you're implying that Linux users are very advanced compared
to Microsoft users ?

 

[John Locke]

My take, people endlessly evangelizing for Macs or Linux should be
treated as the TROLLS they are. This is a Microsoft support group for
Vista. Not some other browser, not some other operating system.

Some people, like me, like both worlds. I have a mix of Linux &
Windows machines...and they both have their places. I like to keep
an open mind and I like to read what both Windows & Linux advocates
have to say. There are lot of people converting from Vista back to XP,
from XP to Linux and even from Linux back to Windows and I like
to know the reasons.

Bottom line: its never about just one operating system !!

 

[Stephan Rose]

You are assuming that a life form based on some other structure is more
advanced. How can you tell until you discover and study such beings?

And the original poster is assuming that non-carbon based lifeforms are less
advanced...

--
Stephan
2003 Yamaha R6

å›ã®ã“ã¨æ€ã„出ã™æ—¥ãªã‚“ã¦ãªã„ã®ã¯
å›ã®ã“ã¨å¿˜ã‚ŒãŸã¨ããŒãªã„ã‹ã‚‰

 

[Robert Firth]

You are assuming that a life form based on some other structure is more
advanced. How can you tell until you discover and study such beings?

--
/* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* Robert Firth *
* Windows Vista x86 RTM *
* http://www.WinVistaInfo.org *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * */

 

[John Locke]

You are assuming that a life form based on some other structure is more
advanced. How can you tell until you discover and study such beings?

Good Point !

 

[mail]

When I first started playing with Linux in 2003 (Debian Woody and

?

 

[Bill]

I worked for most of the day with Windows XP on my dual boot machine.
One of the first things I noticed was that my movies did not look
anywhere near as sharp and clear, as they do when I use PCLINUXOS. I
tried three different movie viewers and they all suffered from the same
lack of clarity. None of the Windows movie viewers would read a corrupt
AVI file, while I have several movie viewers in Linus which will read
them. I usually have ten or 12 movie viewers ready to use in Linux for
different purposes. I was also frustrated by the lack of desktops in
Windows. You can use the powertoy which will give you 4 desktops, but I
am use to working with 10 desktops and switching between them rather than
switching between programs on one desktop. I also noticed that my
wireless wasnt working at full potential. I get better throughput with
the built-in driver in Linux. I also had to be careful what websites I
visited. According to www.stopbadware.org, there are now 23,816 sites
which can dump malware, viruses, and spyware on your computer, if you use
windows. Normally, in Linux, I can go wherever I want, without any
worries, but in Windows, you always have to wonder, if you go to a new
site, if you will leave it with an infested OS. Even if a site could
somehow infest my browser in Linux, I only have to delete the hidden dir
for that browser, and it will be returned to normal. The hidden dir is
located in my home partition, so it can never gain access to the system.
I was also irritated by all the system pop-ups in Windows. The antivirus
announced that it was updating, the system constantly harrassed me that I
had my automatic updates turned off (Microsoft has again decided that IE7
is a critical update, after leaving it for a couple of weeks in the
optional updates. I have seen too many disasters that people have
experienced after upgrading to that piece of c__p),NVIDIA kept announcing
that I only had one video card in a system capable of two..duh).
Meanwhile I am trying to get some work done. Finally, in disgust, I
announced to myself that I really didnt need to be working in XP, and
reboot my system into the relatively peace and quiet of my PCLINUXOS. My
music is softly playing in the background, I am installing a bunch of new
programs with synaptic, I am visiting the newsgroups, my email is up and
running, I have two browsers running, (I have a short attention span and
need lots of stimulation by switching applications..lol..and I do because
I can. I am watching my movies with clarity. The bad Avi's are
playing....All is well with the world..good night...

 

[ShutterMan]

Ive tried a few flavors of Linux, including Ubuntu, and I am still at
this stage not ready to switch. An operating system should be exactly
that - a system where the applications can operate. If you spend more
time mucking with the OS than actually being able to USE applications,
then it's a waste of time. Linux is a curiosity, and may have it's
place in some environments, but it's evolution into an operating
system that makes life easier on the USER (read - non elitist
operating system guru) isn't there - and I don't think it ever can
be. I'd almost say the only way for Linux to ever really be viable
for the average user is to start all over from scratch, getting rid of
all the cryptic commands and layovers from 1912. Vista's introduction
might have been a strong catalyst for introducing Linux, but Vista,
and any version of Windows, is just so much better, easier, and more
integrated for the end user to **operate** in.

But...

Vista has it's share of problems now too with many applications.
Seems to me that Microsoft has pushed us into a crossroad, hoping
everyone will continue to come along. Apps and hardware that run
happily under XP may not work on Vista, forcing you to spend more $. I
was very surprised to find OEM's forcing Vista on consumers without
offering XP instead. What about those older digital cameras? Scanners
and printers? Pocket PC 2002 devices? Just because I buy a new
machine does not necessarily mean I want to completely repurchase
every single peripheral or application I own!

All I can say is that Apple is paying very close attention to all
this.

 

[Bill]

When I first started playing with Linux in 2003 (Debian Woody and
Mandrake), I had decided that the Windows 2000 desktop was the most
boring thing in the entire world (next to cold oatmeal). I said to
myself "self, they say Linux is difficult, but anything would be better
than this...let us get brave and learn it...So I did. At least the
basics. It wasnt really hard to learn and it was a lot of fun. And
today, I can turn on my 3d desktop, anytime I feel like a little
adventure, I can putter around with wine, I can download and install
programs...(what is so hard about typing 'make' in a command window..)
and do lots of other neat stuff...and guess what I no longer have to look
at that boring Windows 2000 desktop...or watch my computer crash randomly
with Vista, without a clue, as to what is going on with the internals of
that OS. Besides, at least I have something to read while my system is
starting up or shutting down...I like all those macho terminating
statements...'going down for reboot...' whoopee...let me ride her down...

 

[Bill]

This is a public newsgroup on Usenet...You can wish all you want.
Because it is a public newsgroup, we are not limited to what you or
Microsoft would like to express here. Many of us are also Windows users,
disillusioned windows users. Why shouldnt we offer hope to someone who
has reinstalled Vista five or six times, and still cant get the damn
thing to work..I installed PCLINUXOS in less than 30 minutes on a dual
boot windows machine and everything is working perfectly...You can not
say the same for Vista.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

So . . . tell me again why Linux is better than Vista?

The most important advantage of Linux vs. Vista is that users don't have
to pay a fat licensing fee, sign in, get their license validated, and
then subject their systems to a monitoring process by which Microsoft
attempts to detect violations of the license agreement and/or IP
copyrights.

I don't trust Microsoft any more than they trust me, and I will not put
up with Vista's surveillance.

Your problems reflect the biggest weakness in Linux -- hardware
incompatibility. When you stop to think about it, is it surprising that
Windows, with 95+ percent market share, has better driver support than
Linux, with 2 or 3 percent?

I'm having a great experience with Ubuntu on a couple of machines that
are 3-4 years old.

For your wife's old computer, I suggest you try DSL (Damn Small Linux).
The developers are aiming for a compact OS that fits on a bootable USB
pen drive, but DSL also installs on a hard drive. I have had good luck
installing it on a couple of machines with sub-ghz CPUs and obsolete
video cards.

Charlie

 

[Mike Hall - MS MVP]

Bill

Yes, one can say the same.. I loaded Vista in 20 minutes.. there can be as
many problems getting Linux up and running as one can experience with
Windows, the major difference being that more load Windows onto machines
than Linux..

This is a public newsgroup on Usenet...You can wish all you want.
Because it is a public newsgroup, we are not limited to what you or
Microsoft would like to express here. Many of us are also Windows users,
disillusioned windows users. Why shouldnt we offer hope to someone who
has reinstalled Vista five or six times, and still cant get the damn
thing to work..I installed PCLINUXOS in less than 30 minutes on a dual
boot windows machine and everything is working perfectly...You can not
say the same for Vista.

Mike Hall
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/

 

[Mike Hall - MS MVP]

Bill

One more point.. this is a Microsoft.Public newsgroup as opposed to a
Microsoft.Private newsgroup.. it is a manufacturer group, in much the same
way as others like Symantec or McAfee.. one should have some respect for
that.. some obviously don't, and feel that they can say anything, regardless
of how offensive or political..

This is a public newsgroup on Usenet...You can wish all you want.
Because it is a public newsgroup, we are not limited to what you or
Microsoft would like to express here. Many of us are also Windows users,
disillusioned windows users. Why shouldnt we offer hope to someone who
has reinstalled Vista five or six times, and still cant get the damn
thing to work..I installed PCLINUXOS in less than 30 minutes on a dual
boot windows machine and everything is working perfectly...You can not
say the same for Vista.

--


Mike Hall
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

On Sun, 11 Mar 2007 13:52:45 +0100, Stephan Rose

I had everything onto one partition which is bad. Old windows habit
since it is virtually impossible there to keep the OS isolated.

You're joking! I've been building multi-volume Windows installations
from the DOS and Win3.yuk days right through to Vista RTM; it's been
my standard procedure for well over a decade now...

So I reinstalled Ubuntu, setup the partitions the way I liked them (32 gigs
for the OS / Application partition) and the remainder 260 gigs for /home
which is where all user data goes. Perfect!

Install took about 10 minutes...
Of course, loads in 1024x768 VESA driver...incredibly slow...
Then, unlike you, I went to my manufacturers website (nvidia in my case)
downloaded the video driver...installed it...reboot...ohh..lookie here!
1600x1200 and running at full speed.

This now about 20 minutes later...and now...I'm done beyond adding little
add on's I like. Beryl took another few minutes to download and add to auto
start.

So yea, you *might* want to consider installing the appropriate graphics
card driver on your wife's laptop..that should improve performance
drastically.

The tricky think is when you move from a platform you know really
well, to one you don't know at all.

I'd find it really easy to download device drivers from a good PC,
carry them over on a USB stick to the new one, and apply them - in
Windows. The same task in *NIX would have me stumped.

That says more about me than *NIX, of course... but it's a problem
that applies to anyone who knows one platform far better than another,
in one direction or the other.

On partitions; what bugs me about *some* Linux distros is that they
use 3 separate partitions, thus 3/4 of the partition table, without
the elegance of logical volumes within a single partition.

The word "piggy" comes to mind, there.

--------------- ---- --- -- - - - -

Saws are too hard to use.
Be easier to use!

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

You just confirmed what I experienced years ago with seven different
flavors of Linux. Basically Linux is a toy for wannabe geeks

Linux versions often aren't stable, they often have more issues then
Windows. There is little worthwhile support for any flavor. Finding
device drivers is at times next to impossible

I remember an article stating that only 10% of program code was
actually there to do the work; the rest was UI for the user.

The inference was that this was a "bloat" problem.

But what computers and software do, is to bridge between the user's
conceptualization of what they are trying to do, and what the machine
has to actually do to accomplish that end.

If you can conceptualize what you're trying to do in terms that are
closer to the machine - e.g. "I want to edit a text file" rather than
"I want to apply for a job" - then you need less software. You can
probably enter a command with parameters, rather than rely on a
desktop icon launching some sort of wizard.

As hardware gets more capable, we have less need for very lean code
that requires the user to interact almost at the raw code level, and
more need for software that abstracts the mechanics behind a GUI,
wizards, canned templates, auto-formatting logic, logic to
automatically deduce the appropriate file formats, etc.

Linux is "lean" in the sense that the GUI simply doesn't exist for
many tasks. Install Ubuntu and decide you want to stop it dialing up
after every boot, or that you want to edit the Grub boot manager's
defaults and timeouts... you're up to your elbows in command line
syntax (that looks like modem line noise) in no time at all.


Linux certainly is used for serious work, all the time - even if
retail s(oft)ware e.g. as Symantec etc. are conspicuously absent.

The chances are your ADSL router is running Linux, your MemTest RAM
diagnostic boots from Linux, and you may have Linux embedded in other
intelligent peripherals. It's generally a good choice when you want
to run a limited set of well-defined jobs on a "black box", including
servers, or when your computing needs are so intense that you need
every ounce of power devoted to "the work", without UI overhead.

--------------- ---- --- -- - - - -

Saws are too hard to use.
Be easier to use!

 

[Mike Hall - MS MVP]

That was the original concept of Linux.. a barebones, yet highly capable OS
that could be easily customized for 'the' task in hand..

The Linux trolls in here quote the original mandate for Linux, but for a
very different product to the original concept.. the most popular distros
for personal desktop use are as bogged down with GUI and programs as ever
Windows is.. now, Linux Distos have minimum memory and disk space
requirements approaching Windows minimums.. of course, the trolls wouldn't
know this, having only recently discovered Linux in its prettier forms..

I remember an article stating that only 10% of program code was
actually there to do the work; the rest was UI for the user.

The inference was that this was a "bloat" problem.

But what computers and software do, is to bridge between the user's
conceptualization of what they are trying to do, and what the machine
has to actually do to accomplish that end.

If you can conceptualize what you're trying to do in terms that are
closer to the machine - e.g. "I want to edit a text file" rather than
"I want to apply for a job" - then you need less software. You can
probably enter a command with parameters, rather than rely on a
desktop icon launching some sort of wizard.

As hardware gets more capable, we have less need for very lean code
that requires the user to interact almost at the raw code level, and
more need for software that abstracts the mechanics behind a GUI,
wizards, canned templates, auto-formatting logic, logic to
automatically deduce the appropriate file formats, etc.

Linux is "lean" in the sense that the GUI simply doesn't exist for
many tasks. Install Ubuntu and decide you want to stop it dialing up
after every boot, or that you want to edit the Grub boot manager's
defaults and timeouts... you're up to your elbows in command line
syntax (that looks like modem line noise) in no time at all.


Linux certainly is used for serious work, all the time - even if
retail s(oft)ware e.g. as Symantec etc. are conspicuously absent.

The chances are your ADSL router is running Linux, your MemTest RAM
diagnostic boots from Linux, and you may have Linux embedded in other
intelligent peripherals. It's generally a good choice when you want
to run a limited set of well-defined jobs on a "black box", including
servers, or when your computing needs are so intense that you need
every ounce of power devoted to "the work", without UI overhead.



Saws are too hard to use.
Be easier to use!

--


Mike Hall
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/

 

[Stephan Rose]

On Sun, 11 Mar 2007 13:52:45 +0100, Stephan Rose


You're joking! I've been building multi-volume Windows installations
from the DOS and Win3.yuk days right through to Vista RTM; it's been
my standard procedure for well over a decade now...

Sure I keep stuff seperated into multiple volumes too even in Windows.
Generally meaning physical seperate hard disks. Don't use My Documents,
etc.

Though too much stuff (user settings, etc.) all end up inside the same areas
that windows resides in. A lot of applications automatically, especially
these days, put all sorts of things into My Documents which resides in the
OS partition.

The fact that most apps are so dependant on the registry already makes it
impossible to seperate the two and generally means to have to reinstall
everything if I have to reinstall the OS.

The tricky think is when you move from a platform you know really
well, to one you don't know at all.

Well that is exactly what I did. Up until MS releasing vista I've never
touched Linux. So when MS wanted me to switch operating systems, I did!
Just not to Vista. =)

I'd find it really easy to download device drivers from a good PC,
carry them over on a USB stick to the new one, and apply them - in
Windows. The same task in *NIX would have me stumped.

"sudo sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-9755-pkg1.run"
- Enter Password
- Answer installer questions
- Done

Yes...mindblowingly difficult. =)

That says more about me than *NIX, of course... but it's a problem
that applies to anyone who knows one platform far better than another,
in one direction or the other.

Granted, moving from one platform to a completely different platform may not
be easy. Though that doesn't make one better than the other.

On partitions; what bugs me about *some* Linux distros is that they
use 3 separate partitions, thus 3/4 of the partition table, without
the elegance of logical volumes within a single partition.

You don't *have* to do it that way, though I figure some distro's maybe have
that as their default setting. But in case of my distro, you can set up
your partions any way you like if you go with the manual setup.

--
Stephan
2003 Yamaha R6

å›ã®ã“ã¨æ€ã„出ã™æ—¥ãªã‚“ã¦ãªã„ã®ã¯
å›ã®ã“ã¨å¿˜ã‚ŒãŸã¨ããŒãªã„ã‹ã‚‰

 

[Stephan Rose]

I remember an article stating that only 10% of program code was
actually there to do the work; the rest was UI for the user.

The inference was that this was a "bloat" problem.

But what computers and software do, is to bridge between the user's
conceptualization of what they are trying to do, and what the machine
has to actually do to accomplish that end.

If you can conceptualize what you're trying to do in terms that are
closer to the machine - e.g. "I want to edit a text file" rather than
"I want to apply for a job" - then you need less software. You can
probably enter a command with parameters, rather than rely on a
desktop icon launching some sort of wizard.

As hardware gets more capable, we have less need for very lean code
that requires the user to interact almost at the raw code level, and
more need for software that abstracts the mechanics behind a GUI,
wizards, canned templates, auto-formatting logic, logic to
automatically deduce the appropriate file formats, etc.

I can partially agree with that however just because hardware gets more
capable does not mean we have to drag it BACK DOWN to 486 levels with
bloated code.

You can still have very lean code *AND* a very good and intelligent UI.

I just reduced one of my apps in the process of porting it from C# to a more
cross-platform C++ solution from about 40,000 lines of code to 10,000 lines
of code with more functionality than it had before. Not that it wasn't
optimized before, but on the second iteration I was able to make design
choices that significantly reduced my overhead and improved my efficiency
that I couldn't make on the first run.

Sometimes some more intelligent design is simply all it takes to drastically
reduce code size and to improve performance and stability.

It's one thing if an application I run is bloated. That only affects that
app.

It's an entirely different thing if the OS that *every* app relies on is
bloated. This in turn drags every app down no matter how well it is
written.

--
Stephan
2003 Yamaha R6

å›ã®ã“ã¨æ€ã„出ã™æ—¥ãªã‚“ã¦ãªã„ã®ã¯
å›ã®ã“ã¨å¿˜ã‚ŒãŸã¨ããŒãªã„ã‹ã‚‰

 

[Stephan Rose]

That was the original concept of Linux.. a barebones, yet highly capable
OS that could be easily customized for 'the' task in hand..

The Linux trolls in here quote the original mandate for Linux, but for a
very different product to the original concept.. the most popular distros
for personal desktop use are as bogged down with GUI and programs as ever
Windows is.. now, Linux Distos have minimum memory and disk space
requirements approaching Windows minimums.. of course, the trolls wouldn't
know this, having only recently discovered Linux in its prettier forms..

I gotta disagree a little bit there.

My Root partition is currently at 3.7 gig usage, and that is no longer just
the OS.

That already includes things such as MySQL, Cedega, Wine, Beryl, C/C++
Development IDE, Open Office, and a few other applications. So basically
this is the equivalent of Windows + Program Files directory.

Now lets look at XP:

C:\Windows - 4.5 gig
C:\System Volume Information - 6 gigs worth of restore points

Not included are the equivalent of any of the additional apps above.
So XP is eating 10.5 gigs of space without additional apps VS 3.7 gigs of
space with every app I pretty much need.

Memory Usage?

Ubuntu is around 200 megs average, 0 bytes virtual.

XP is around 300-400 megs avereage and an additional 200-300 megs virtual.
Why it uses virtual memory when there are 2 gigs of perfectly fine physical
memory is beyond me...but...that's how it is.

The hard drive space usage of windows doesn't bug me really. I have close to
a terrabyte of storage...don't really care.

The memory usage though does bug me, especially with Windows' trend to use
more every new release. Seeing how plenty reccommend 2 gigs for Vista to
actually run smooth with more than 1 application at a time.

I do realize that computers get faster and available memory increases and so
on...but just because that is the case does not mean we have to bloat the
operating system every few years to make sure the computer slows down
again.



--
Stephan
2003 Yamaha R6

å›ã®ã“ã¨æ€ã„出ã™æ—¥ãªã‚“ã¦ãªã„ã®ã¯
å›ã®ã“ã¨å¿˜ã‚ŒãŸã¨ããŒãªã„ã‹ã‚‰

 

[ptravel]

The most important advantage of Linux vs. Vista is that users don't have
to pay a fat licensing fee, sign in, get their license validated, and
then subject their systems to a monitoring process by which Microsoft
attempts to detect violations of the license agreement and/or IP
copyrights.

That's quite true -- Linux (or at least most of the distros) is free.
I also agree that Microsoft's validation is the most intrusive and
annoying I've ever encountered.

I don't trust Microsoft any more than they trust me, and I will not put
up with Vista's surveillance.

It's no different than XP's surveillance. I had a perfectly
legitimate, properly licensed machine that was running XP for several
years suddenly turn up with a, "You're running illegal software"
message when I installed a new NIC. Somewhere along the line, the
validation software got broken on my machine and I was not offered
phone validation -- I had to go through Microsoft's stunningly
incompetent "technical support" lines to get it turned back on,
spending nearly 4 hours talking to people in India on a Friday night,
when I had real work to do.

Ugh

Your problems reflect the biggest weakness in Linux -- hardware
incompatibility. When you stop to think about it, is it surprising that
Windows, with 95+ percent market share, has better driver support than
Linux, with 2 or 3 percent?

No, it's not surprising. Nonetheless, Linux remains a rather opaque
and specialized OS. I've decided it's probably worth the trouble to
learn it, but I can't find good resources for doing so -- they either
assume you're a complete idiot or a complete geek already conversant
with the jargon and methodology.

Oh, well. I'm going to try to learn Mandarin, too.

I'm having a great experience with Ubuntu on a couple of machines that
are 3-4 years old.

I've got Ubuntu running on my own Vista laptop under Virtual PC and,
for a short while, had it going on my wife's old machine. I'm simply
not that impressed. I installed Suse on my wife's machine last night
-- I think I may like that better.

For your wife's old computer, I suggest you try DSL (Damn Small Linux).
The developers are aiming for a compact OS that fits on a bootable USB
pen drive, but DSL also installs on a hard drive. I have had good luck
installing it on a couple of machines with sub-ghz CPUs and obsolete
video cards.

Can you suggest a good, easy-to-use server package? All I really want
to do with that machine is to set it up as an FTP and file server
(file serving to my Windows machines) and, maybe, add a mail server,
website, etc.