Microsoft’s Windows Vista will run on just about any PC available today, but it will only show its true colors on about half of them, according to a new report from Gartner. While Microsoft is currently suggesting a minimum of 512MB, the new OS will require at least 1GB of dual-channel memory to provide its full capabilities, Gartner said in the report. However, all recent discrete solutions from major graphics makers such as ATI and Nvidia, for both desktops and notebooks, are expected to be able to support Aero, Gartner said in the report. My take: After toying with Vista myself, it becomes quite clear what you need to run Aero glass: 512 MB of fast RAM, and a DirectX9 compatible videocard with 128MB RAM. I also found that even non-DirectX9 videocards can run Aero Glass comfortably.
So Microsoft says you need 512mb to run it fully, and this guy says 1gb. Vista is still in beta, so why should we take what this guy says for any worth?
Many people, including myself, half run Vista BETA (read: pre-performance optimizations) quite comfortably on systems with 512mb of memory.
edit: Let me clarify a bit.
The guys says:
“the new OS will require at least 1GB of dual-channel memory to provide its full capabilities, ”
Notice: require. That simply is not true. It won’t “require” anymore memory than the installation forces to run. To run well is another issue, but I think 512 will be okay for more people, 1gb should be recommended for POWER users.
Edited 2006-04-07 15:02
A friend of mine installed Vista. Why the hell does it use 7GB of hdd space: in linux distros I have plenty of stuff in 7GB. 7GB for OS and couple of apps ? HELL NO !
After boot it has eaten 400MB of RAM. Finally he kicked it out of hdd quicker than he had installed it
Maybe your friend had a 4 GB swap file?
Vista was nowhere near 7 GB on my test system, but it was still pretty big. Last time I checked, it created a few hidden directories with tens of thousands of files that all looked related to debugging stuff. In any case, I’m pretty sure all of that will disappear with the final release.
Yeah – the latest beta installed to just under 5Gb in my VMware install.
Still excessive for ‘just an OS’ but not all the way to 7gs
Maybe it’s swapping out the entire OS, several times over.
With all the bells and whistles off, I am sure Vista will perform well on low and mid-range machines. I guess some people really like glitz… I turn off the fancy Dock stuff in OS X, why waste cycles? Besides, I like to pin the dock to the bottom left and the expanding icons make it hard to target the left most apps sometimes.
I am looking forward to trying it when it is released… I was pleasantly surprised by XP but not then it was basically 2000+. With the supposed large amounts of rewritten code, I expect Vista to be a slightly different beast.
On the other hand, as the article says, GPUs just keep advancing and providing/supporting methods for the OS to offload work onto them.
I guess Operating Systems will become more and more broken out into server applications that pass messages back and forth, specializing in specific forms of I/O and each server will have its own memory, CPU, and bus controller/interface…
A friend of mine installed Vista. Why the hell does it use 7GB of hdd space: in linux distros I have plenty of stuff in 7GB. 7GB for OS and couple of apps ? HELL NO !
After boot it has eaten 400MB of RAM. Finally he kicked it out of hdd quicker than he had installed it
Excuse me, but a complete installation of MacOS X takes up around 4.5G; for Linux, that depending on how stripped down yuo want to go, it can range from around 1gig up to, well, everything on the cd.
May I suggest that you look INTO the operatng system and find what is taking up the hard disk space; you’ll find that the a good portion of that ‘bloat’ are drivers – you know, those damn annoying things that allow you to use those devices you hook up to your computer. Its not just a simple fact of ‘bloat’ – may I also suggest you learn what bloat actually means, rather than throwing it around in a careless manner, you spend time learning what the term means.
Regarding the 400MB memory usage – I doubt it big time; sorry, I could accept possibly 100MB and slightly above that, by 400MB is nothing more than a exaggeration at the best. Yes, I won’t deny that memory usage has increased, but at the same time there are reasons for this; again, may I suggest you look in that as well. It is not as simply as screaming ‘bloat’ without doing any research.
No, it really does use 400mb of physical memory on boot.
I’m really not worried about that though.
“Excuse me, but a complete installation of MacOS X takes up around 4.5G”
I’m guessing by complete you mean including more than a gig of printer drivers, half a gig of localization files and the dev tools?
Because if you don’t install the above, it’ll be around 3GB.
Or am I the only one who uses the customize button?
“Or am I the only one who uses the customize button?”
You are, indeed, the only Mac user that uses the customize button.
(it’s joke people, from a guy who runs GNOME
.
How would that be any different to Windows, and its massive big cabnet package which supports MORE hardware than MacOS X or Linux COMBINED!
Oh, and yes, I do use the customise button so that I could install X11.
It really depends on what you mean by hardware support; Mac OS X works on ppc and i386, for example. You can’t run Windows on a PS2, but you can run Linux. Debian runs on i386 systems with 32MB of RAM, while Windows XP does not.
It really depends on what you mean by hardware support; Mac OS X works on ppc and i386, for example. You can’t run Windows on a PS2, but you can run Linux. Debian runs on i386 systems with 32MB of RAM, while Windows XP does not.
Which doesn’t prove a thing; there is a mountain of hardware independent code in there which get re-used over and over again in the different architectures – and stop comparing ‘Debian runs on systems with 32MB RAM’ when considering it provides no user interface of any substantial weight in regards to user orientated applications.
So Microsoft says you need 512mb to run it fully, and this guy says 1gb. Vista is still in beta, so why should we take what this guy says for any worth?
Many people, including myself, half run Vista BETA (read: pre-performance optimizations) quite comfortably on systems with 512mb of memory.
According to MS XP Pro requires a P233 (recom. P300) and 128MB of RAM to run. Would anyone even bother?
By the time Vista SP1 comes around expect the “requirements” to be even higher.
Of course if you want to use Vista to watch Blueray discs/etc then you better make sure you have the latest HDCP compliant videocard/monitor.
Because MS isn’t very reliable about system requirements. They say XP will run with 128 RAM. It will boot and all, you can use it… but it doesn’t run, it crawls.
Well, turn on the classic theme and it’ll be much faster. Also make sure your system is clean of spyware.
But anyway, most modern OSes will “crawl” on 233mhz computers with 128mb of memory.
If it will take a minimum of 1GB JUST for graphics and ‘full-capabilites’ (whatever that entails), what will you need in order to actually run some heavy applications? I don’t see this platform having the capacity to run hefty applications (Simcity 4 anyone?) without – what 2 maybe even 4GB of ram? If an interface is this demanding of high-performance hardware, then the entire objective has been missed. This was supposed to be an ‘upgrade’ to XP, but all I’ve heard about is Aero Glass – everything else that was advertised to be a ‘wonderous innovation of Microsoft’ has been ditched (WinFS, .Net 2.0 core, reasonable release time, etc). I wouldn’t even DARE to install (or buy a new PC with) this on a machine for a non-techie boss, co-worker, or grandparent. And now those that have to go out and buy a new PC will be stuck with Vista the same way Win2K-happy consumers were forced into using XP because there was no OEM option. They’ve really messed this all up – Apple may finally have more than a snowball’s chance in heck to pick up another percent of the desktop market (if Linux doesn’t eventually whack them out of the picture). I’m not a huge Mac fan, but I hope Leopard sizzles Vista – and Haiku… …oh Haiku, where art thou?
If it will take a minimum of 1GB JUST for graphics and ‘full-capabilites’ (whatever that entails), what will you need in order to actually run some heavy applications? don’t see this platform having the capacity to run hefty applications (Simcity 4 anyone?) without – what 2 maybe even 4GB of ram?
Talk about non-sequitors. Read the article again. It doesn’t say minimum. It says that 1GB is required to run well for graphics-intensive apps.
Talk about non-sequitors. Read the article again. It doesn’t say minimum. It says that 1GB is required to run well for graphics-intensive apps.
-tomcat
Yes, and we all want things to run ‘moderately acceptable’ versus ‘well’ ?
Personally I think ‘well’ shouldn’t require a gig of ram for candy…
Edited 2006-04-07 16:43
Yes, and we all want things to run ‘moderately acceptable’ versus ‘well’ ? Personally I think ‘well’ shouldn’t require a gig of ram for candy…
The non-sequitors keep on coming…
Aero is an advanced UI feature. It is not required for Vista to run. Don’t want it? Turn it off! And guess what: Vista will run just fine.
THe GPU takes care of Aero, the point is why even when you turn off Aero does it still take 1Gb of ram?. Why on earth would you need to turn off Aero if you have a lower end gfx card that can play complex games?
THe GPU takes care of Aero, the point is why even when you turn off Aero does it still take 1Gb of ram?
WTF does the article say that? Read it again.
Article (even non-DX9 videocards can run Aero Glass comfortably):
“in order to bypass Vista’s DX9 compatibility check of the videocard it runs on, you need to do some minor registry tweaking. Since I’m not sure about the legality of that stuff, fire up Google to find which tweaks.”
That’s not very ‘well’ or ‘comfortable’ to me.
It smells like a bug.
That’s not very ‘well’ or ‘comfortable’ to me.
It smells like a bug.
Nope. MS had to draw the line somewhere. That’s just where it got drawn.
“MS had to draw the line somewhere. That’s just where it got drawn.”
Yeah, they like to draw lines through the registry!
The point that most of us (those that aren’t drooling over MS products), is that the hardware requirements of Vista are simply unreasonable for a product that is supposed to be ‘better’ than the last Windows release. You seem to be looking forward to Vista quite intently – and I hope you enjoy it. But for those of us who have seen systems with good responsiveness and stability that demand less than 512MB ram – Vista is simply a poorly planned project. They could have made it more modular so as to allow users to pick and choose what they want to run – not release seven or more different version of Vista to target different tasks. Linux is modular and stable, though responsiveness is somewhat lacking. BeOS is/was modular, stable, and responsive. Amiga is/was stable and responsive, RiscOS is stable and amazingly responsive… …lots of older platforms are stable and responsive, but they don’t have all the bells & whistles as Windows – and yet people still find them productive and in some cases, superior. Vista will have a lot of catching-up to do in the performance field, but it does have many features. Its a trade-off I wouldn’t accept.
🙂 smile. it’s just software.
Yeah, they like to draw lines through the registry!
I would remind you that this is pre-release software. MS reportedly has plans to allow you to manually turn off Aero.
The point that most of us (those that aren’t drooling over MS products), is that the hardware requirements of Vista are simply unreasonable for a product that is supposed to be ‘better’ than the last Windows release.
Whatever. Vista — and Aero — is leaps and bounds better than XP. I’ve used the Beta, unlike many of you here. The increase in memory requirements is easily justifiable and nominally more expensive, given the already low cost of memory today.
I’ve used a beta of Vista with 1GB of memory and a 2.6ghz proc. Not to start off a MS fanboy war but it’s pretty bad (in terms of performance). Now most betas don’t suck this badly. Infact most betas are decently stable for the most part, with a few minor bugs (usually). Now Vista is a train-wreck, more like an alpha.
Careful. You used the word ‘fanboy’ – apparently, you should say ‘zealot’… it’s more polite (I guess)
What was the worst part? After all, you’re using a 2.6Ghz CPU – that’s a reasonably high-end piece of hardware. And most laptops don’t run this fast (if they’re more than a year old) – was this a PC or notebook? And since there’s no good way to benchmark an application on Vista yet, would you say ‘performance’ was all relating to the OS – or did you attempt any 3rd party applications?
How many Macs out there are able to display all of Tiger? Mine can’t…
Then your Mac (in computer years) is old.
They are talking about CURRENT PCs.
A Mac just needs a video card that can understand certian OpenGL instructions. Oh, and needs to be a G4, which the G4 has been around for 5(?) years.
What features can you not display? How old and what specs does your mac have? Is it part of the supprted list?:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/requirements.html
What is the video card like? It sounds like you can run some of Tiger though. The requirements for Tiger itself are not that high.
Take a look:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/techspecs/
Requirements
Macintosh computer with a PowerPC G3, G4 or G5 processor
Built-in FireWire
DVD drive for installation
256MB of RAM
3GB of available hard disk space (4GB if you install the developer tools)
If you can’t run it at all, I would say it is time for an upgrade as the bottom requirement is a G3.
You need, I think, at least a 64MB card to run Quartz 2d Extreme, which is what makes Mac roughly equivalent in graphical prowess to aero glass.
There are simply physical minimums of memory needed to run these modern graphical systems. No one should be giving Microsoft or Apple a hard time for that, it’s a fact of life.
If you want to be angry, be angry with computer builders for going chincy to get PC’s down to $300.
Seems pretty simple to understand, right? Sigh.
It’s funny how all it takes is one site to claim Vista needs this or that (whether true or not) and people start believing it.
It’s funny how all it takes is one site to claim Vista needs this or that (whether true or not) and people start believing it.
The anti-MS zealots seem to be constantly wantinig to latch onto something … anything … to justify their own hatred. It’s pathetic.
I don’t know what I can’t display (I can’t see it
)… I do know however that my iBook G4 purchased in August 2004 that has a Radeon 9200 video chipset does not meet the requirements for Core Image.
Microsoft … states that the OS will require a minimum of 512MB of RAM and a modern processor to run.
This falls right in line with Microsoft’s SOP. It’s been reported before, but not everyone grasps it. Here’s the deal. They come out with a new OS upgrade which you go out and buy to upgrade your existing PC. But then you realize your PC is “slow”, so you say, “Man! My PC is old. I need to buy a new one.” So you go out and buy a new PC.
But do you then install the new copy of Windows that you just paid for on your new PC? No. You buy another copy for your new PC. So by making each new version of Windows a bigger hog than the last, they guarantee a steady stream of hardware upgrades and therefore double sales. And of course you are likely to buy a whole new MS Office for the new PC too.
Linux users actually benefit from this. A major reason that PC hardware is so cheap is this mutually beneficial relationship between Microsoft and computer manufacturers. Linux users aren’t pushed to upgrade on Microsoft’s schedule, but when it’s time, there is cheap PC hardware on the shelf ready for purchase.
his falls right in line with Microsoft’s SOP. It’s been reported before, but not everyone grasps it. Here’s the deal. They come out with a new OS upgrade which you go out and buy to upgrade your existing PC. But then you realize your PC is “slow”, so you say, “Man! My PC is old. I need to buy a new one.” So you go out and buy a new PC.
You say this as if it were unusual for a company to offer new products with more intensive performance features/requirements. It also falls in line with BMW, Porsche, Sony, and practically every other company that introduces innovative new products year after year.
Hey, Linux zealots: Instead of bashing competing products, why not turn your energies to adding desktop compositing to your own OS? It would be more productive and, daresay, more interesting.
It also falls in line with BMW, Porsche, Sony, and practically every other company that introduces innovative new products year after year.
No, it’s nearly the opposite. When a new car comes out, it has no affect on your existing car. And a new car is likely to either accelerate faster or run more effieciently. But Vista probably doesn’t offer any more performance than WinXP–just more bells, whistles and dancing icons.
Real-time thumbnail previews sound like they might enhance some prople’s work, but for me and most others they’ll just be eye candy that use lots of CPU cycles.
But to each his own. I only brought up Linux to show that it’s not negative.
No, it’s nearly the opposite. When a new car comes out, it has no affect on your existing car. And a new car is likely to either accelerate faster or run more effieciently. But Vista probably doesn’t offer any more performance than WinXP–just more bells, whistles and dancing icons.
BS. Vista’s network stack was completely rewritten from the ground up. Sleep/Boot are much faster. SuperFetch places commonly used files in a cache to improve boot of speed of the OS and applications. USB boot devices. Hybrid hard drives. These features improve Vista’s perf over XP.
“Hey, Linux zealots: Instead of bashing competing products, why not turn your energies to adding desktop compositing to your own OS? It would be more productive and, daresay, more interesting.”
Uhm, not that I use Linux (other than to run Apache on), but it does already have desktop compositing. So it actually is Microsoft who is lagging behind. As usual.
This falls right in line with Microsoft’s SOP. It’s been reported before, but not everyone grasps it. Here’s the deal. They come out with a new OS upgrade which you go out and buy to upgrade your existing PC. But then you realize your PC is “slow”, so you say, “Man! My PC is old. I need to buy a new one.” So you go out and buy a new PC.
Except that’s not really how it works. Very very few people buy Windows at retail. Most people just use the version of Windows that comes with their computer. The people who buy Windows retail are the people who know how to upgrade their own computer.
Very very few people buy Windows at retail. Most people just use the version of Windows that comes with their computer.
I don’t know how many do, but I think it’s more that very very few. I presented what I’ve observed in my own experience and in the experience of friends and acquaitances. And also what I read in an article by a businessman who explained it in terms of pushing sales.
Linux users actually benefit from this. A major reason that PC hardware is so cheap is this mutually beneficial relationship between Microsoft and computer manufacturers. Linux users aren’t pushed to upgrade on Microsoft’s schedule, but when it’s time, there is cheap PC hardware on the shelf ready for purchase.
I’ll let you in on a little horror story; I went through hell to get Fedora Core 5 working on my computer; couldn’t quite work out how I did it, but I accomplished it. Apple releases a new update, so I re-install Windows to update my iPod (the only other computer in the house is a Mac, and you can’t update it without changing it to HFS+ format, which Fedora doesn’t support (writing support)).
So here I am, trying to re-install it, I’ve rebooted the computer 6 times, each time trying failing to start the installation process of partitioning, formating and installing Fedora onto my hard disk – I change consoles, and it complains about not being able to read hda (cd issue), but the simple fact is, that the cd worked before.
So you’re coming to me, and saying that some how, through some devine revolution, we’ll see on mass, people migrating to Linux even though it can’t even handle a VERY common and VERY mainstream chipset like the Intel 925X which comes with a Dell 8400?!
Please, the day when I can throw in a Linux cd, and the installer *just works* as it is meant to, then we’ve made progress, but until then, only those with the patiences and willingness to dick around for hours, are willing to work that ‘extra bit harder’ to get linux installing on their machine – for the vast majority, they’ll upgrade to Vista either through their employees select licencing, which allows employees access to all the latest Microsoft software, through a purchasing a new computer, or someone who has just bought a computer in the last 6 months, with intermediate computer knowledge will upgrade the machine themselves.
So you’re coming to me, and saying that some how, through some devine revolution, we’ll see on mass, people migrating to Linux …
I didn’t say or imply that, though I would love to see it.
Please, the day when I can throw in a Linux cd, and the installer *just works* as it is meant to, then we’ve made progress,…
That’s approximately true for my experience with Mandrake and Mandriva Linux on multiple PCs, including a Dell.
However I too have experienced my share of frustration installing and upgrading Linux, Windows, and a few other OSes. And I have to agree that every OS has more hardware problems than Windows, but that’s largely because many hardware manufacturers develop Windows drivers, but thumb their noses at every other OS.
However I too have experienced my share of frustration installing and upgrading Linux, Windows, and a few other OSes. And I have to agree that every OS has more hardware problems than Windows, but that’s largely because many hardware manufacturers develop Windows drivers, but thumb their noses at every other OS.
But that really isn’t the issue; how can an installation work one day, and I get a perfectly working desktop so that I can write a review ( http://kaiwai.blogsot.com ) and when I go to re-install it, it doesn’t work.
With Windows on the other hand, I just thew in my cd, didn’t even have to touch anything in the BIOS, and everything ‘just worked’.
Point one: you re-installed Windows because Apple released an iPod update??? Is that where Linux needs to go before you consider it user-friendly enough?
What I don’t understand is why you’re re-installing Fedora at all. I assume Windows ate your bootloader, if that’s the case you can simply re-install grub.
But if you want a new installation: it’s likely that something whacky happened to your partition table in the middle of all the re-installing (it seems you have Apple and Microsoft to thank for that). If Fedora can no longer find /dev/hda, when it did before, then something wrong went on. It’s possible that Microsoft’s installer is responsible for the f–k up.
Also, if you really want a comparison with Windows you should use a commercial distribution, because those are the ones competing with Microsoft, not Fedora.
Although I don’t think the problem you’re having is hardware incompatibility keep in mind that your Dell is not supported by Apple’s MacOS X. An OS doesn’t have to work on *all* hardware to be good or popular. Windows Vista, for example, won’t support all computers out there. I don’t run Windows, but of the 3 computers my family uses only one (mine) would support Vista.
Edited 2006-04-08 21:45
Point one: you re-installed Windows because Apple released an iPod update??? Is that where Linux needs to go before you consider it user-friendly enough?
Its such a rare occasion, the installation is so fast, I didn’t care, it was going to be quicking loading of Windows on, install the update, then back to Linux again – a ‘one night stand’ with Windows, if one wishes to use a colloqualism.
What I don’t understand is why you’re re-installing Fedora at all. I assume Windows ate your bootloader, if that’s the case you can simply re-install grub.
How about reading the post, then you’ll get the full story:
1) I wanted to update my iPod.
2) There is no tool in Linux as to allow me to update my iPod.
3) I install Windows so that I can install an update on my iPod.
4) Tried to re-install Linux, and it fails.
That is the series of events, so please deary, take a little effort to keep up with the scenario.
Although I don’t think the problem you’re having is hardware incompatibility keep in mind that your Dell is not supported by Apple’s MacOS X. An OS doesn’t have to work on *all* hardware to be good or popular. Windows Vista, for example, won’t support all computers out there. I don’t run Windows, but of the 3 computers my family uses only one (mine) would support Vista.
Babe, you really do have comprehension problems; I got it installed on the machine the first time, so I could write an interview – anyone who is a regular visiter can SEE the review I made of it! ( http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=14189 ); and yet, when I go to re-install it, after having a ‘one night stand’ with Windows; the installer pukes.
How the bloody hell does an installer go from one day supporting my hardware, then the next day, going tits up and not even getting to the point of partitioning the damn thing!
I’m still not sure I understand exactly what you’re trying to do. Please blame it on my reading comprehension and not on your writing abilities.
Are you dual-booting Windows and Fedora? Or did you install Windows on top of Fedora and now you’re trying to install Fedora on top of Windows?
How the bloody hell does an installer go from one day supporting my hardware, then the next day, going tits up and not even getting to the point of partitioning the damn thing!
Exactly. It didn’t. You changed something on your system and that’s the reason the installer is no longer working like it previously did. Something is obviously wrong. Fedora can’t work with the current scenario, because:
a) Fedora’s broken;
b) your system is broken. Maybe it’s your fault, or maybe Windows broke it.
Oh, and by the way:
2) There is no tool in Linux as to allow me to update my iPod.
Are you sure about that?
Are you dual-booting Windows and Fedora? Or did you install Windows on top of Fedora and now you’re trying to install Fedora on top of Windows?
<shakes head> US education system.
I installed it onto my computer; had I dual booted it, I would have mentioned – the default assumption should be ‘he replaced Linux with Windows’.
Exactly. It didn’t. You changed something on your system and that’s the reason the installer is no longer working like it previously did. Something is obviously wrong. Fedora can’t work with the current scenario, because:
How so, I installed Windows, kept the BIOS settings the same; when I tried to re-install Linux, the installation failed. Like I said, how can it go from being able to install it to not working?
Oh, and by the way:
2) There is no tool in Linux as to allow me to update my iPod.
Are you sure about that?
Come on smart ass; where is it then if you’re going to give that smartass tone; where is an updater for Linux? is it hidden somewhere on the Apple website? its so commonly known that EVERYONE in the world knows it except me?!
(shakes head) US education system.
I installed it onto my computer; had I dual booted it, I would have mentioned – the default assumption should be ‘he replaced Linux with Windows’.
I don’t see what the US education system has to do with anything. Are you American? Oh, I see it.
I don’t like to make assumptions, but I had to because you didn’t explain things fully in your first post. I assumed you were dual booting, like most people that use both Windows and Fedora on a computer do. (I don’t think it’s common to keep installing one OS over the other when you need one application from Windows).
How so, I installed Windows, kept the BIOS settings the same; when I tried to re-install Linux, the installation failed. Like I said, how can it go from being able to install it to not working?
Like I said, you or the Windows installation program f–ked up something. Download a utility from the company that made your HD to format it, and get back to me if you can’t install Fedora then. The utility will probably be in a bootable CD.
Come on smart ass; where is it then if you’re going to give that smartass tone; where is an updater for Linux? is it hidden somewhere on the Apple website? its so commonly known that EVERYONE in the world knows it except me?!
You should probably look it up on the internet or ask in a forum for help. I don’t own an iPod so I’m afraid I can’t give you the best advice, but I’m 100% sure you’ll find a better solution than that.
Edited 2006-04-09 16:35
Linux users actually benefit from this. A major reason that PC hardware is so cheap is this mutually beneficial relationship between Microsoft and computer manufacturers. Linux users aren’t pushed to upgrade on Microsoft’s schedule, but when it’s time, there is cheap PC hardware on the shelf ready for purchase.
A very good point. Im quite sure Nvidia and ATI are happy as pigs in excrement over the dx9 requirement. Im pretty happy about it also because I think I will have a better chance of finding a good deal on a used gf 4 ti 4×00 card that I can use for a opengl accelerated linux desktop.
running at 1.1 Ghz with 512 MB of RAM with a Radeon 9000 and 60 GB hard drive. It runs fine. I just turn off all the UI bells an whistles. It runs about as good as Windows 2000 on the same hardware. In fact, I turned off all the UI tweaks and it looks like Windows 2000.
It runs all my apps no problem (even 3D games).
Did you read the article? It’s talking about the Aero features, which are “UI bells and whistles”. If you turn them off, then the article doesn’t pertain to you.
That’s my point. If you turn them off then the article is moot and all this fuss about Vista being too bloated is meaningless (as most anti-MS articles are).
But then aren’t you paying big bucks for something that you already paid for? A relatively secure, as they promised you, windows xp (or 2000) ?
I’m not paying again for Windows 2000. I’m paying for the added security, speed, and media center capabilities. Vista also improves productivity by improving search capabilities and it provides smarter file handling. So no this really isn’t Win 2K. I just like the look of Win 2K. I’m not a big fan of the Aero glass concept.
After trying a bunch of older cards I can see why Microsoft requires a DX9 card. Some of the older ones work fine, some are so-so and the rest just don’t hack it. DX9 sets a standard baseline where everything will work. It’s a reasonable requirement.
I have a P3 and I’m not going to buy Vista. The only advantage it has for me is that it doesn’t do the same junk with the registry.
If all goes well, my next computer will be a Playstation 3. (If I can get an accelerator card for my Amiga 1200 so I can sell my MicroA1-c but that’s another story.)
Software should dictate the requirements of a computer not the OS. Why should someone have to purchase a gaming computer just to see the OS’s GUI? Sounds like the ideal time for everyone to get friends, family, clients, and governments to switch over to Linux in one of its main flavors(I prefer Ubuntu, for my clients.)
In my opinion the OS shouldn’t be in anyway important when deciding on computer hardware. The OS should run exactly the same on every modern(~5yrs old) system.
Software should dictate the requirements of a computer not the OS. Why should someone have to purchase a gaming computer just to see the OS’s GUI? Sounds like the ideal time for everyone to get friends, family, clients, and governments to switch over to Linux in one of its main flavors(I prefer Ubuntu, for my clients.)
Of course, since Linux can’t do anything like Aero, this is a moot point.
What does Aero “do” (which isn’t even in the wild yet) that *nix can’t do presently?
Read the article about Xgl and composting – which is available today.
Read about what X.org is doing to improve X.
All I see with respect to Aero (from the screen shots I’ve looked at through here) is transluncent windows, some 3D window composting and a butt fugly looking interface that I probably won’t be able to configure well unless I shell out more $$ for something like window blinds. Desktop applets? Dashboard, gdesklets and SuperKaramba do this (and have been)
So, enlighten me. What “new” technology does Aero have that doesn’t exist in the wild already for non-Windows based machines.
Read the article about Xgl and composting – which is available today.
Read about what X.org is doing to improve X.
No distro ships with Xgl. It ain’t ready for prime time. Driver support is ridiculously limited, cumbersome, and buggy.
All I see with respect to Aero (from the screen shots I’ve looked at through here) is transluncent windows, some 3D window composting and a butt fugly looking interface that I probably won’t be able to configure well unless I shell out more $$ for something like window blinds.
When Linux can do any of that stuff out of the box, let me know.
Desktop applets? Dashboard, gdesklets and SuperKaramba do this (and have been)
No Linux distro is offering a comprehensive, bundled solution. Asking customeres to download one is just plain naively silly.
No distro ships with Xgl.
Kororaa does. It’s in the Dapper Drake repository, and the next Novell desktop will surely ship with it. More importantly, it’s available right now.
It ain’t ready for prime time.
Sure it is. Your bias is showing.
Driver support is ridiculously limited, cumbersome, and buggy.
Irrelevant, as it is constantly improving. You said “Linux can’t do this”, but the truth is that it can.
When Linux can do any of that stuff out of the box, let me know.
When Vista is commerically available, let me know.
No Linux distro is offering a comprehensive, bundled solution. Asking customeres to download one is just plain naively silly.
That’s your opinion, and one that is tainted by one of the biggest anti-Linux, pro-Microsoft bias I’ve seen on this site.
Kororaa does. It’s in the Dapper Drake repository, and the next Novell desktop will surely ship with it. More importantly, it’s available right now.
And what graphics cards does it support?? Answer: Practically none.
Sure it is. Your bias is showing.
Hardly. The Windows Beta is fully integrated and supports a much wider range of cards than Xgl. Xgl doesn’t support pixel shaders and it remains to be seen how it holds up when actual human beings start using it.
When Vista is commerically available, let me know.
It’s available to anyone with MSDN/beta program access.
That’s your opinion
It’s fact. None of the distros offers what Aero offers, along with the features cited in the previous post.
And what graphics cards does it support?? Answer: Practically none.
All Nvidia cards, most ATI ones, and some IBM chipsets…it actually support the vast majority of cards sold with new PCs today.
So in fact it works with lots of video cards, and it will work with even more cards when Vista ships.
Hardly. The Windows Beta is fully integrated and supports a much wider range of cards than Xgl. Xgl doesn’t support pixel shaders and it remains to be seen how it holds up when actual human beings start using it.
I’ve had lots of people try the Kororaa liveCD and they were all very impressed.
Pixel shaders is a small detail – most people wouldn’t even notice the difference.
It’s available to anyone with MSDN/beta program access.
Exactly. When it’s commercially available, let me know.
It’s fact.
No, when you say “asking users to download it is just silly”, that’s opinion, not fact.
All Nvidia cards, most ATI ones, and some IBM chipsets…it actually support the vast majority of cards sold with new PCs today.
Look at the “release notes” for Xgl. Most of the cards have unusable glitches. I don’t call that “supported”.
I’ve had lots of people try the Kororaa liveCD and they were all very impressed.
All 3 of them. Whoopie.
Pixel shaders is a small detail – most people wouldn’t even notice the difference.
Yeah, sure, whatever. Downplay your weakness. Nice tactic. Pixel shaders are CENTRAL to realtime effects.
Exactly. When it’s commercially available, let me know.
It is commercially available.
No, when you say “asking users to download it is just silly”, that’s opinion, not fact.
The fact is that Vista integrates all of these capabilities. You have to download them. That’s fact. My opinion is that asking users to download them is silly and unnecessary, when there’s no reason that they couldn’t be integrated.
And what graphics cards does it support?? Answer: Practically none.
See http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_Video_Card_Support_Under_XGL
I think you’r correct, only on the basis that Practically none == practically 100.
It also runs on my i915gm with 8MB of shared ram on a pentium M 1.73 – and it runs smooth. It runs as well as my athlon 64 3700+ with a GeForce 5200. The hardware requirements for Xgl are minimal. And that’s for pre-alpha software – not even optimized. Also, it’s very very stable. I’ve had it running for about 3 weeks, and X has never crashed, nor have any other applications.
Hardly. The Windows Beta is fully integrated and supports a much wider range of cards than Xgl. Xgl doesn’t support pixel shaders and it remains to be seen how it holds up when actual human beings start using it.
See above.
It’s available to anyone with MSDN/beta program access.
Does unpaid beta testing == commercial availability?
It’s fact. None of the distros offers what Aero offers, along with the features cited in the previous post.
You forget that Vista is not available. Long before Vista is available, a lot of distros will offer Xgl, and therefore will offer more than what Aero has, as Xgl has more eye candy. Furthermore it has a plugin architecture which allows people to add functionality. People are writing plugins as we speak. Open source again in action – modular design + available source = faster development. Deal with it.
I think you’r correct, only on the basis that Practically none == practically 100.
Let’s examine some of the “support” provided for Xgl, shall we?
Half-screen problem can occur.
Rootless mode only with xf86-video-ati-6.5.7.3
Distorted Screen with both drivers
Slow at 24 bpp. Flickering, bitmaps not properly redrawn, slow windows, and black windows at 16 bpp
No DRM, slow video
No DRI; heavy CPU usage; can’t watch videos at fullscreen smoothly on 1.7G Pentium M
Random lockups can be fixed by turning off mtrr in Xorg.conf
OpenGL applications and mplayer crash X. Screenshots garbled.
Works perfectly, only very slow Wobbly effect.
Distorted sceen & totally freeze PC.
tested on AMD64, random lockups on x86, using driver 8.22.5 and 8.23.7.
I could go on … but you get the picture, ad nauseum. Xgl simply isn’t ready for prime time. The guys who put together the distros know it. Why can’t you simply admit it?
Does ALPHA software mean anything to you and who said it was ready for prime time? Aleast we can use it and alot of issues have been resolved already.
Can I buy Vista now?, NO!
And what graphics cards does it support?? Answer: Practically none.
See http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_Video_Card_Support_Under_XGL
I think you’r correct, only on the basis that Practically none == practically 100.
It also runs on my i915gm with 8MB of shared ram on a pentium M 1.73 – and it runs smooth. It runs as well as my athlon 64 3700+ with a GeForce 5200. The hardware requirements for Xgl are minimal. And that’s for pre-alpha software – not even optimized. Also, it’s very very stable. I’ve had it running for about 3 weeks, and X has never crashed, nor have any other applications.
Hardly. The Windows Beta is fully integrated and supports a much wider range of cards than Xgl. Xgl doesn’t support pixel shaders and it remains to be seen how it holds up when actual human beings start using it.
See above.
It’s available to anyone with MSDN/beta program access.
Does unpaid beta testing == commercial availability?
It’s fact. None of the distros offers what Aero offers, along with the features cited in the previous post.
You forget that Vista is not available. Long before Vista is available, a lot of distros will offer Xgl, and therefore will offer more than what Aero has, as Xgl has more eye candy. Furthermore it has a plugin architecture which allows people to add functionality. People are writing plugins as we speak. Open source again in action – modular design + available source = faster development. Deal with it.
Hey archiesteel,
And I thought I was getting personal for no reason. Hmm do you smell troll-funk too? Those that can’t handle Linux are bound to hate it, and those that give up on it – probably should. Its an OS that takes time, patience, and -yes- intelligence to learn and use effectively. For those that just want an ‘all-in-one’ ready package they can just stick in the CD drive, Linux may never be able to compensate for that kind of uneducated user. Why bother either? Do we want that type of person in the Linux community? I know I don’t. Gawd forbid someone suggests that you recompile your kernel – that’s just silly, right? I forgot that customization only means ‘clicking a check-box’, and not actually learning something new. Aren’t we just silly?
For folks who question whether you “want that type of person in the Linux community”, you certainly spend a lot of cycles bashing other platforms… What’s the point?
Hmmm. Let me think of how many platforms I’ve bashed…
One. One sad, lowly, late, pithy little Vista.
And you? Well, you’ve venomously bashed nearly every other person’s comments here – and brought us all down to your level of bitterness. Congratulations on bringing all relevant conversation to a halt! This article was about hardware requirements and performance of Vista, and because everyone here didn’t agree with you – you took it upon yourself to become a sniper. Good for you! That’s good. That’s productive.
The point? I love people like you. You just make me feel great! But now I must leave, oh pity – I know. I’ll miss you, and I’ll think about you all day. Sweet dreams!
(hugs and kisses)
XOXOXO
keep smiling! ;P
No distro ships with Xgl.
Kororaa does. It’s in the Dapper Drake repository, and the next Novell desktop will surely ship with it. More importantly, it’s available right now.
Well, Kororaa has a version number of 0.2 and Dapper is also not out yet. And Xgl does not “ship with Dapper”, it’s just in the repositories. Did you try to install it? I did just recently. It worked, but not very good, and it’s still very experimental.
It ain’t ready for prime time.
Sure it is. Your bias is showing.
I don’t think so. It is not ready for the average user. It crashes a lot for many people, most people don’t even manage to configure it (and don’t say it’s just apt-get install xgl. it isn’t), there are some graphic errors with some cards and videos and games don’t run smoothly or at all for at least ATI users.
Driver support is ridiculously limited, cumbersome, and buggy.
Irrelevant, as it is constantly improving. You said “Linux can’t do this”, but the truth is that it can.
I would not call it “ridiculously limited”, but it is limited to Intel, ATI and Nvidia chipsets. And it’s not irrelevant. That somewhen in the far future Linux will have astonishing 3D-accelerated graphics is easy to guess. But if you compete with Vista, which will probably ship early 2007, you need to have a product that works by early 2007, and not at some unknown time when the driver developers had enough free time to write the code.
When Linux can do any of that stuff out of the box, let me know.
When Vista is commerically available, let me know.
Both are not available to the average user. But when Vista ships in 2007 and you still need to have several years of Linux knowledge to activate Xgl and then have it crash once or twice every day, it’s just not the same.
No Linux distro is offering a comprehensive, bundled solution. Asking customeres to download one is just plain naively silly.
That’s your opinion, and one that is tainted by one of the biggest anti-Linux, pro-Microsoft bias I’ve seen on this site.
You are a bit harsh. Do you really expect your Mom to read 2 hours in the dapper forum to find which packets she needs to apt-get and then spend some more hours figuring out what to put in which config file to circumvent some driver bugs? You and me can do that, but if you ship a product and say “oh it has a zillion great features, but to really use them, you have to spend a week downloading and configuring if you are an IT professional, don’t even try if you aren’t” you won’t sell.
I don’t use Windows at all and have not used it for years. I wont’t use Vista. I use Ubuntu and I did install Xgl, but there is a big difference between having these effects “just working” (like in OS X or probably in Vista) or having a buggy, hack-like implementation that says “EXPERIMENTAL” written all over it.
[quote]
No distro ships with Xgl. It ain’t ready for prime time. Driver support is ridiculously limited, cumbersome, and buggy.
[/quote]
What post stated above.
[quote]
When Linux can do any of that stuff out of the box, let me know.
[quote]
I invite you to my house to see then.
[quote]
No Linux distro is offering a comprehensive, bundled solution. Asking customeres to download one is just plain naively silly.
[/quote]
$apt-get install gdesklets
for example.
I guess I’ll be shown wrong though, when Vista is released……maybe January next year?
We’ll see how much further along all of these *nix based technologies come along by then.
Don’t talk about lack of driver support – when Vista isn’t released yet. We’ll see what my Direct X 9 capable card can do in *nix with Xgl versus Windows then.
What post stated above.
Show me a distro that has Xgl turned on by default — and which works with more than one or two cards.
I invite you to my house to see then.
Cool! You have pixel shaders running on Xgl?! No way! Not even the Xgl devs have that running! Way to go!
$apt-get install gdesklets
And you wonder why the Year of the Linux Desktop hasn’t arrived..? Why should anyone install a desktop OS that’s so poorly integrated? For a server? Fine. For a desktop? Try again.
I guess I’ll be shown wrong though, when Vista is released……maybe January next year? We’ll see how much further along all of these *nix based technologies come along by then.
Right. You can just ask people to waste their time downloading them, huh? LMFAO!
Don’t talk about lack of driver support – when Vista isn’t released yet.
You might not want to talk about it (I don’t blame you, given your pathetic compatibility matrix) but MS is. See http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/evaluate/hardware/ent… for a list of compatible Aero cards.
We’ll see what my Direct X 9 capable card can do in *nix with Xgl versus Windows then.
Try pixel shaders, for one. Ooops! Forgot that one, huh? It’s in Aero, though.
Hey, Linux zealots: Instead of bashing competing products, why not turn your energies to adding desktop compositing to your own OS?
[…]
Of course, since Linux can’t do anything like Aero, this is a moot point.
Desktop compositing and eye-candy effect like those found in Aero are already in Linux, with stuff like Xgl and Compiz.
Sure, Aero has pixel shaders, but how long do you think it’s going to take the X hackers to add that in? I’ll bet it’ll be before Vista comes out…
Desktop compositing and eye-candy effect like those found in Aero are already in Linux, with stuff like Xgl and Compiz.
Define “in Linux”. Are any distros shipping with Xgl/Compiz TURNED ON? I didn’t think so. And why not? Because the driver support is utter garbage right now.
Sure, Aero has pixel shaders, but how long do you think it’s going to take the X hackers to add that in? I’ll bet it’ll be before Vista comes out…
Uhhhhhhh … the X hackers might want to work on getting Xgl/Compiz turned on by default before they work on pixel shaders. If not, their priorities are completely out of whack…
Define “in Linux”. Are any distros shipping with Xgl/Compiz TURNED ON?
Yes there is, Kororaa. It’s a great tool to see if your PC can run Xgl/Compiz without a problem.
I expect we’ll have distros that offer Xgl/Compiz as part of the default package (selectable on or off, of course) before Vista ships.
Uhhhhhhh … the X hackers might want to work on getting Xgl/Compiz turned on by default before they work on pixel shaders.
Sure, because that would be the responsibility of the X hackers…wait a minute, no it isn’t! That’s the responsibility of the distro makers!
And I disagree, it shouldn’t be on by default, it should be a choice in the install, and then only after a test has been done to make sure it works.
Yes there is, Kororaa. It’s a great tool to see if your PC can run Xgl/Compiz without a problem.
LMFAO! That’s, like, 3 users.
I expect we’ll have distros that offer Xgl/Compiz as part of the default package (selectable on or off, of course) before Vista ships.
It’s good to be optimistic but, at the end of the day, all you’re holding is a handful of wishes.
Sure, because that would be the responsibility of the X hackers…wait a minute, no it isn’t! That’s the responsibility of the distro makers!
Yeah, leave setup to somebody else. That makes a lot of sense. Maybe 2016 will be the Year of the Linux Desktop.
Actually the main guy hacking on XGL is worried about working with pixel shaders and he has already had success.
The current water pluggin does just this. Screenshots here:
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=895737&postcount=127
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=894852&postcount=113
I installed Windows Vista build 5342 and it required over 600MB just to start and open 1 webpage with internet explorer….
Of Course this is still a beta version and not an optimized version but it indicates that you will need plenty of memory.
1GB will be the least you need if you will be running some business software on your computer, and even more for games..
This was my point as well. Can you imagine how awful it will be to open a Word document? yow.
‘Scottie – I need more Ram’ – Capt.
‘All the slots are full! She can’t take any more captain!’ – Scottie
600 MB? Where do you get this figure from? Are you talking about the “Commit Charge” figure in Task Manager? If that’s the case, then it’s not a good measure because most of the commit charge is pageable and isn’t actually wasting ram unless it’s being used.
I’m actually pretty interested where people are getting these statistics about how much RAM Windows uses, because in theory it should be using ALL of it. If there’s no program that’s taking the RAM, it should store as much of the filesystem metadata in there as it can.
What does it mean when they say “it will only show its true colors” with 1Gb ram. I mean what the hell? a 1Gb of ram WITH GPU run GUI, so whats taking the 1Gb ram then?
This seems to me nothing more than a sales pitch to boost hardware sales, because we can run XGL with 256Mb ram/Intel gfx card the same speed as a top end system. All Aero seems to be a transparent GUI with some effects, are people that gullible?
What does it mean when they say “it will only show its true colors” with 1Gb ram. I mean what the hell? a 1Gb of ram WITH GPU run GUI, so whats taking the 1Gb ram then?
This seems to me nothing more than a sales pitch to boost hardware sales, because we can run XGL with 256Mb ram/Intel gfx card the same speed as a top end system. All Aero seems to be a transparent GUI with some effects, are people that gullible?
No, it’s not just a sales pitch. Vista has a new driver model (LDDM) that allows virtualization of GPU memory. When the GPU runs low on on-board memory, textures can be moved (on a LRU basis) to slower system memory (ie. system memory acts as a backing store). Most of you complaining about the quantity of system memory are full of crap. Graphics ain’t cheap. But system memory IS cheap and widely available, by comparison. Does anybody really care to attach a dollar figure to 1GB of memory — and then amortize that cost over the course of the average PC’s lifespan; say, 4-5 years?
You completely avoided my question about the 1Gb of ram, so you dont know then or does nobody know?
The question is WHY does Vista need 1Gb of ram to do daily tasks that you can do in XP?. After all Vista offloads the GUI to the GPU.
The question is WHY does Vista need 1Gb of ram to do daily tasks that you can do in XP?. After all Vista offloads the GUI to the GPU.
It doesn’t. You fabricated that requirement in your own mind.
WHAT?
“the new OS will require at least 1GB of dual-channel memory to provide its full capabilities”
“Gartner recommends that corporate buyers specify, at a minimum, that their desktops include the 945G chipset, a Pentium 4 processor and at least 1GB of RAM, while notebooks start with a Core Duo processor, the 945GM chip set and 1GB of RAM.
Technology-minded buyers looking for greater performance, particularly in notebooks, should look at stepping up to 2GB of RAM and a discrete graphics chip, the firm said.”
Microsoft says different, and the only thing Gartner can make judgements based off of is BETA code with tons of debug symbols in everything, which bloats memory usage and disk space.
Seriously, if that conclusion was reached based off of a beta version, they are freakin’ retards.
Really?, So if I enable kernel debug in my Linux kernel, it will use up an extra 768Mb of ram?
I didn’t know Vista beta used an “extra” 768mb of memory on boot
Last time I checked, it was hovering around 400mb.
Yes Vista is still a beta version, but I have received and installed many betas before, Win 2000 and Win XP and remember MS promises when it come to memory usage’
You should double up (x2) the MS requirements to have an OS running some useful applications
Gartner’s recommendation is based on using Aero. Since you don’t need to use Aero to use Vista, its minimums don’t apply in the non-Aero scenario. Get it?
No, it’s not just a sales pitch. Vista has a new driver model (LDDM) that allows virtualization of GPU memory. When the GPU runs low on on-board memory, textures can be moved (on a LRU basis) to slower system memory (ie. system memory acts as a backing store). Most of you complaining about the quantity of system memory are full of crap. Graphics ain’t cheap. But system memory IS cheap and widely available, by comparison. Does anybody really care to attach a dollar figure to 1GB of memory — and then amortize that cost over the course of the average PC’s lifespan; say, 4-5 years?
I don’t understand why Vista will be so memory hungry
But I believe Microsoft did the right decision to move graphics (even 2d) to the 3D processor, but shouldn’t that have freed up system resources from Windows??
Vista should have run nice with 256Mb because the graphics is handled by the 3D chip. Or??
No, not really. A lot of stuff (read: almost all) in current versions of Windows is drawn straight to the screen and not stored. Hence why applications have to redraw everytime you move another window over its area, because the content isn’t stored. So moving this stuff to the graphics card doesn’t free up memory, just CPU.
It may end up actually requiring more system memory because it has to store a little extra information now (though most will be stored on the graphics card memory).
if indeed 1GB is the miminum to get all from vista then the system will need at least 2GB of ram such to play games or even surf the net.
My take: After toying with Vista myself, it becomes quite clear what you need to run Aero glass: 512 MB of fast RAM
that might be the case for the current vista betas that are out there, but the actual vista release might require the 1GB RAM
one of the main reasons i switched to FOSS was to get out of the hardware-software upgrade cycle.
Vista’s hw requirements are a perfect example.
So I installed Vista build 5342. Let me put it short and sweet. I like the UI. It looks clean and classy for the most part. I personally cannot think of anything better than what MS has done with Aero Glass despite it being a slight bit underwhelming. So those who are expecting miracles of some sort with respect to the GUI as far as the Beta goes and probably what the final version of Vista is going to be (I am guessing) dont get your hopes too high with all sorts of 3d gizmos etc etc, because they honestly don’t add to the usability at all. I have a ATI Mobility 9800 256 mb card and it seemed like it was more than capable of driving the interface despite the interface being in beta and despite the fact that MS has YET to start any sort of tweaking.
So that covered the UI pretty much. Now for the performance part. I have an Inspiron XPS notebook so it has 3.4 ghz P4 HT processor with a measly 1 gig DDR 400 ram and a 60 gig 7200 rpm hard drive with the aforementioned video card. My computer aint no slouch but running Vista, albeit I ran it on my spare 60 gig 5400 rpm hard drive, was a bit too slow for my tastes. It was probably as slow as OS X 10.0 when it first came out…maybe a bit slower but that gives me great hope. Because there is no way MS is going to leave it like this. It is unoptimized and there are 45 services running for no reason! Well I am sure MS had their reasons but I dont and I turned a few off and ended up disabling a service that just stopped allowing me to open up Windows Explorer to see my hard drive contents.
I also tried IE 7 on it and I must say I like it. It renders a lot faster I felt and it could have been because of the reworked network stack because boy my internet connection was flying! I have a 3 mbps DSL connection and all my downloads when in XP average around 310kb/sec or so…but it was 350kb/sec in Vista. I dont know what’s up with that and I am attributing that to be a stochastic anomaly. IE 7′ popup blocker is I must say great. I ran a few tests out of my limited knowledge and it passed with flying colors! My brother who is an avid Firefox junkie was impressed. Not that it is a big deal because IE 6 is so far behind I am surprised it hasnt opened up a black hole and is now going back through time. IE6 is garbage quite honestly. IE 7 needs to outpace Firefox 2.0 coming out IMHO but that remains to be seen. Bottomline IE 7 impressed me just the way Firefox did. But Firefox has plugins going for it and i am not sure but I do hope IE 7 has something like that for added functionality.
So overall, I liked Vista. It is not revolutionary in any means and I am sure MS knows that. I personally think it is the fault of the average Joe Public who have really incredibly and unrealistically high expectations of Vista. Vista will be a great release and a great OS there is no doubt in my mind. It detected my hardware quite easily so I had sound and wireless internet wrorking right away. Very easy! I downloaded and installed the ATI drivers and there was one glitch that a reboot cured anyway. Also the cool thing was that after install of the ATI driver I did not have to reboot so that was good. All in all I am going to upgrade to Vista. Maybe not right away but when i buy a new system maybe end of next year, then I will definitely not uninstall Vista and revert back to XP with SP3.
In my most humble opinion, the biggest weak point to Vista is MS themselves. See, I dont know if I am right or wrong but I am off the opinion that despite running 45 processes and despite everything taking up 700 mb of memory at idle, Vista is not going to be like that when it is released. It would be ludicrous! MS will be shooting themselves in their own feet because no corporate company is going to ugprade to Vista if the hardware requirements are so high. Again this is all my opinion. So I think the requirements for Vista are going to be technically the SAME as XP is except maybe for optimal usage you will need to have 512 mb ram and a 64 mb DX 9 class vid card for al lthe GUI features one may like to see. Now I don’t think that is unreasonable.
Things MS have left to do on Vista:
I honestly dont know if this release was feature complete or not. If it is then I sure as heck didnt miss anything that I needed. Everything was there, even a dvd authoring software! Biggest thing MS has left of course is the fact that it is UNOPTIMIZED! There are plenty of loose ends to tie up people! Get ot it! So for those who are panicking for memory and so on, I recommend wait to see what happens and dont jump to conclusions! I will have to agree with Rahul Sood, avid blogger and head honcho of VoodooPC that Vista will be a sweet release. Again I repeat what you see of Vista is unoptimized and that is my firm belief and there is no way Vista is going to take up that much memory. Performancewise it will be as zippy as Windows XP is I am sure and that is no laughing matter considering the amount of things that are going on in Vista.
All in all I say MS, looks like Office 2007 which I also tried and loved and Vista are going to be great releases and a much much needed breath of fresh air. Good luck with the venture MS.
I hope you guys enjoyed my first ever review of anything. Please feel free to flame away etc etc. Have a good one!
PS: I am by no means a Windows fanboy…I just use Windows to achieve what I need to the quickest. I am most comfortable using it and I can do what I need to a lot quicker, whether it be for programming in Java, or editing videos thru Adobe Premiere 2.0, or running After Effects or donig Web development using the Macromedia suite…it just works for me. Granted it is fully anti-security but I am smart enough to make sure I dont do silly things so as to compromise my system. Oh and the fact that I can game is a great contributing factor as well !!
Yay! A non-Windows-fanboy does a review!
Good review, I’d like to ask a few things…
a) In the last line, you say “I can game” – what game(s) exactly? There’s a wide range out there and we’d (I assume) like to know what was tried.
b) 45 background processes may (sadly) be close to what we’ll see at release (just check XP’s list of processes for inspiration). How many did you close – and what were their responsabilities (your best assumptions)?
c) You’re running at 3.4 Ghz – much faster than most PCs on people’s desks. What specifically worked so slowly?
In your free time, of course…
Yay! A non-Windows-fanboy does a review!
Look, Jacob. The day that you can get a rational thought out of your head without resorting to non-sequitors … I’ll appreciate anything you have to say. Until then, your characterization of people as “fanboy” is the ranting of a maroon…
Look, tomcat:
The last paragraph of the Vista review said:
“PS: I am by no means a Windows fanboy…I just use Windows…”
…so you seem to be very sensitive of other’s opinions. Don’t be. You’re probably just fine the way you are.
Aside from that, I avoid “your characterization of people” like your often used terms of “linux-zealot”. Fanboy sounds a lot nicer than zealot.
And for reference, it is spelled “non-sequitur”…
smile!
…so you seem to be very sensitive of other’s opinions. Don’t be. You’re probably just fine the way you are.
I’m a fan of all OSes (including Linux). But I’m not a fan of BS. Or confusion. Or lies.
Aside from that, I avoid “your characterization of people” like your often used terms of “linux-zealot”. Fanboy sounds a lot nicer than zealot.
I think that most people will probably agree that “Fanboy” is more condescending than “zealot”.
I’m a fan of all OSes (including Linux).
That’s a good one. With fans like these, who needs enemies?
Seriously, I’ve never seen any one of your posts being critical of Microsoft OR praising Linux. Not one. Everyone knows your biased, the least you could do is admit it…
But I’m not a fan of BS. Or confusion. Or lies.
Then why do you indulge in them so much?
I think that most people will probably agree that “Fanboy” is more condescending than “zealot”.
I don’t think so. I think the two are equally condescending. The real problem is that you use the two to question someone’s character instead of actually challenging what they say.
Then why do you indulge in them so much?
What fun would the internets be without indulgence?
Excellent review! Thanks for taking the time.
Hey all, thanks for the kind words. I just really felt I had to get this off my chest so I did my unofficial “take” on Vista hehe.
I will try to answer your questions one at a time and hopefully I will cover all the bases.
a. First off the game comment. I apologize beforehand if I was not clear enough when I was typing up that post that I did not run games in Vista. Sorry about that. I wanted it to mean that I like to game and that when I am working on Win XP which is my main OS at the moment, I take the occasional time out to game. So apologies with that.
b. I went to the ElderGeek website and looked at the services list and closed most of the ones that were similar to those services found in XP. I turned off, lets see, the Internet Connection Sharing, the Firewall, the security center, telephony, Remote Access Connection (IIRC), hmm…oh yes and the digital driver managing service as well. Those names are quite alien to me hence I can’t remember them. But if you do a few searches on google with “Vista tweaks” you will find some helpful sites. Hope that helps.
c. Good question. See what worked slowly was that since it used 800 mb of my main memory it resulted in a lot of disk thrashing whenever I opened up say the control panel, or Windows Movie Maker, or IE 7. Even surfing the web with IE 7 was causing unusually high amount of CPU usage and I could hear my laptop fans whining away everytime I would surf through a quick succession of pages by clicking through links. Also the pages would not scroll smoothly. Another thing is sometimes some of the effects, for example when you close a window, and the taskbar icon of that app disappears, the icons surrounding it slide together to take up the empty space right? That animation for example was not smooth always. It is not a limitation of my hardware I am convinced but rather the fact as I have tried to stress many times in my “poor man’s review” that the software has not been tweaked or optimized in any way.
Well I hope that helped a bit. Apologies for the spelling errors and the Enlgish grammar that may have escaped my notice.
Wonderful.
I would point out that some of the graphic ‘choppyness’ (not scrolling smoothly) would probably be a result of the swap/HD thrashing – as it throws lots of interrupts.
Great review, and don’t worry about your English – it’s better than most American’s.
The President comes to mind – among others…
Yes I believe you are right. Hard drive activity was very intense! If ever one needed a hard drive “stress” test run the Vista dev builds would be my suggestion!
And I just remembered that I also disabled Windows Defender because it kept scanning my disk everytime I booted I think.
It’s curious to see whether all of the animations running together would interfere with eachother’s rendering. Was it common for the animations to be moving at the same time, or did they seem to ‘take-turns’? I only ask because it sounds like there are many of them – and they seem to make up a significant part of the Aero experience. I don’t know that non-techie users (bosses, secretaries, etc) would be comfortable with a lot of fancy motion on the screen (that tends to scare them).
Great question. Where were you when I was writing my very poor review? haha. The animations didnt seem like they were taking turns…no…they worked quite well in sync.
Give yourself more credit – you’re not self-righteous. That’s the first step in making a good review.
I don’t know how much extra ram the beta release should really be using. 700MB+ is rather high (although some people seem to think this is fine), and although this is a beta and probably has a great deal of unoptimized and debug code – something just smells fishy about that number. Hopefully, everything will be smaller in size and more responsive (smoother) in the final release.
If you could, try running a game or other graphics program (Winamp comes to mind – if it’s even possible to install) and see how the system responds under a general load. (This is all assuming you still have access to this beta.)
Thanks for your interesting post.
“I have an Inspiron XPS notebook so it has 3.4 ghz P4 HT processor with a measly 1 gig DDR 400 ram and a 60 gig 7200 rpm hard drive with the aforementioned video card. My computer aint no slouch but running Vista, albeit I ran it on my spare 60 gig 5400 rpm hard drive, was a bit too slow for my tastes. It was probably as slow as OS X 10.0 when it first came out…maybe a bit slower but that gives me great hope”
I’m not sure if I share your hope. I mean, at the time of the OS 10.0 release the fastes Mac had, what, an 800MHz G4? (I’m just guessing here). Your laptop on the other hand looks like it tears through anyhing, yet it runs Vista slowly.
Let’s just hope it’s caused by disk swapping and that MS keeps Vista’s memory usage in check for the final release.
Absolutely. I see what you ar esaying. I threw tthat OS X comparison in there because I kind of wanted to give people a sort of reference. The disk was thrashing constatnly. The commit charge showed 700 mb of usage before and then garduallyy upon a half hour of usage it even hit 800 mb because I turned on and off a bunch of apps.
But as soon as I turned off a few services and rebooted the memory usage was a lot better at 450 mb and the disk thrashed a lot less. This was rather amazing to me because I have a gig of memory and it seemed that if it used 450 mb of commit charge, it shouldnt be touching the disk at all. I used my tweaked XP set up as a reference and recalled at boot I use a 140 mb of commit charge with 20 processes running including NOD32.Vista used 700 mb with 45 processes running.
Also I have used intense apps on my XP setup when I am coding and I have Netbeans 5.5 dev build running with an application server and azureus running and that uses up 770 mb of memory approximately on my XP setup yet my computer does not thrash at all! But this is my 7200 rpm hard drive. If I had a similar hard drive and I put Vist on it things could have been a bit better because of the difference in speeds of the hard drives.
Because of all this I decided to extrapolate that Vista is very raw right now with no sort of optimization taking place. I even had to run the diskperf command as I did when I tweaked XP and gave it the -N switch so it would not record statisitics about the hard drive while any apps were running thus slowing the OS down. I hope this helps.
I should point out that Newegg is offering 1GB of dual channel memory at prices ranging between $63.99 and $200. Those prices will be even lower by the time that Vista ships.
So. Core Image came out after the iBook G4 was released. If you were really “worried” about Core Image/Video then you wouldn’t have bought an iBook G4. You would have chose the PowerBook G4.
I haven’t seen multi monitors addressed at all in the Vista convo’s.
The reason why it’s important is that people run maybe 2 monitors off the primary video card whether it’s AGP or PCI-Express. For those of us who have more, you are usually required to add a 2nd (3rd, 4th)video card in the PCI slots. Right now those cap out around the GF FX 5700 and Radeon 9250 generations.
They are DX 9 cards and you can find a decent selection in the 128-256M areas. But this is just the baseline to enter this party. Since Vista is the next generation in computing with DX10/ WGF coming and DX 10’s emulation mode (ie crippling and bogging down) for older versions means those outdated cards will be useless fast.
A lot of the heavy multi-mon solutions aren’t the best for general purpose use, unless you reach deep into your pockets for SLI/ Crossfire solutions.
So how will that be addressed?
Define “in Linux”. Are any distros shipping with Xgl/Compiz TURNED ON? I didn’t think so. And why not? Because the driver support is utter garbage right now.
Sure, Aero has pixel shaders, but how long do you think it’s going to take the X hackers to add that in? I’ll bet it’ll be before Vista comes out…
Uhhhhhhh … the X hackers might want to work on getting Xgl/Compiz turned on by default before they work on pixel shaders. If not, their priorities are completely out of whack…
Take a step back. Vista has been in development for over 5 years. Aero has been in development much longer than Xgl and the fact they’ll both be ready for the market within months of each other speaks volumes to the competency that is Microsoft.
Did all you people even WATCH the video I made? Why do you people ignore CLEAR-CUT evidence that Aero DOES NOT, I repeat, DOES NOT require a supa-dupa GPU? Why?
Why?
I don’t get it. Cognitive dissonance. Something contradicts your viewpoints, so you just ignore it to regain a mental state of ease.
It’s sickening.
Gartner: Half of Current PCs Will Show All of Vista
Because the other half will be running OSX.
Because the other half will be running OSX.
Rrrrrrrrright. All of those users are simply going to abandon their software investments. Even Jobs isn’t that enthusiastic.
http://darwine.opendarwin.org/
I have 2 comps, one desktop is 500Mhz and 128Ram, the other is a laptop 750Mhz and 256Ram. Because my hardware is so old i plan some budget hardware acquisition, probably september i will buy a Core Duo with XP so i can continue my Windows investment while escaping Vista. In the same time i will start to transition my current working hardware to some light-weight OS, probably SyllableOS and/or BeOS-Zeta.
I am quite pleased with my Windows experience, but seriously i can’t follow Microsoft this time, so bye bye Microsoft, hello alternative OSes. My change is not ideological, it’s just i need something cheap and stable, i don’t want to pay a price premium for beta-quality software.
An XP licence will be the last MS licence i buy unless they reorient to something truly stable, ligth-weight and innovative. I hope the Singularity project is a step into a fresh new direction, otherwise i prepare to slowly quit the microsoft world for a very long time.
Edited 2006-04-07 20:05
Good call!
This is exactly the point that most of us were making. A 500 or 750 MHz machine couldn’t hope to run Vista with reasonable performance. So do you just throw the dang thing away and buy a new PC that can handle Vista? NO! Use something else, something not from Microsoft, something that will be supported for more than 4 years before you’re forced into another upgrade. Good call! With this type of scenario, a project like ReactOS will be getting more and more attention every day.
Peace out!
Yep I agree. Hopefully OpenSuse comes into its own when it is finally released this year. I for one and looking forward to using it.
Or you can disable all the fancy stuff and run it. AFAIK, you can purchase an edition of Vista that will be targeted for lower end machines.
[quote]
Or you can disable all the fancy stuff and run it. AFAIK, you can purchase an edition of Vista that will be targeted for lower end machines.
[/quote]
I don’t need something as feature-beefy as Vista is, i prefer an OS that will show all of my hardware than to buy a new hardware that will show half of Vista as the title suggests.
I will buy a new comp with pre-installed XP, so MS will get my money one way or another, for the same price XP is certainly a better deal than Vista considering how lower are the hardware specs.
I’m not using Windows, and I’m not intending to, but I’ll play with it when it will be released. I can only hope the new release will be worthwhile for the Windows users and maybe, just maybe, it will decrase number of calls from friends and family.
UI eyecandy. It’s here to stay, you like it or not. Req. are high but what can you do? Most nowdays games also loves both RAM and GPU power, so I can assume that most people who game are all set for Vista.
RAM. Well, 1Gb sounds OK for a system with applications. I have an old laptop with 256Mb (Breezy) and a desktop computer with 768Mb (Dapper). After day of development on the desktop machine I still have memory free:
emil@boks:~$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 757 615 142 0 35 316
and I didn’t even made a swap partition.
I just hope MS can trim some of the fat (debugging symbols for example;-) because running off disc swap is a both performance and HDD killer.
okay kids. It’s time to remind you that Windows Vista is currently in BETA. Microsoft has basically eight months to optimise the Operating System.
Let’s have this discussion when it ships and then we can see how fast it is.
Most of this Anti-Microsoft and Anti-vista crap is getting old. duh, let’s compare a highly optimised OS with one that isn’t and wow Vista sucks!
Not to troll, but how old are most of you guys anyway?
I can take a guess just based on your posts.
The graphics card companies write their own drivers. NVidia even writes drivers for Linux just to keep their IP rights from getting ruffled when somebody reverse-engineers their software to get it to work on any other OS.
GFX card support on third-party operating systems suffers because of the near-monopoly status of Microsoft. I wish that were covered under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Look at the “release notes” for Xgl. Most of the cards have unusable glitches. I don’t call that “supported”.
Nvidia cards are fully supported, because Nvidia’s Linux drivers are of very high quality. ATI is currently trying to regain lost ground, and they are making lots of progress.
All 3 of them. Whoopie.
More like a dozen. Are you that afraid of competition that you must retort to such adolescent antics? Whatever MS is paying you, it’s way too much…
Yeah, sure, whatever. Downplay your weakness. Nice tactic. Pixel shaders are CENTRAL to realtime effects.
No they’re not. I don’t think you even know what pixel shaders are…If you did, you’d realize that Vista actually makes very little use of them. In any case, I’m quite sure we’ll see them available for Linux, as well as other eye-candy modules, before Vista is released – you know, in 2007.
It is commercially available.
No it’s not. It’s not out yet, and won’t be until maybe next january. By then Leopard will be out, as well as the first distros officially incorporating Xgl.
The fact is that Vista integrates all of these capabilities. You have to download them. That’s fact.
Indeed, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Linux users have no problems downloading their software from repositories.
My opinion is that asking users to download them is silly and unnecessary, when there’s no reason that they couldn’t be integrated.
You’re entitled to your opinion, no matter how silly or unnecessary it may be.
LMFAO! That’s, like, 3 users.
It doesn’t matter. You said there were no distros using Xgl as default, I proved you wrong. End of story.
Yeah, leave setup to somebody else. That makes a lot of sense.
Are you seriously saying it’s up to X hackers to package distributions? Do you realize how idiotic that is?
Think before you write. Right now you’re doing your side more harm than good.
But if you compete with Vista, which will probably ship early 2007, you need to have a product that works by early 2007, and not at some unknown time when the driver developers had enough free time to write the code.
Xgl wasn’t developed by part-time coders, it was developed by Novell, who wants to use it to compete with Microsoft.
But when Vista ships in 2007 and you still need to have several years of Linux knowledge to activate Xgl and then have it crash once or twice every day, it’s just not the same.
Several years of Linux knowledge? You’re exaggerating qutie a bit.
Now, you’re assuming that I’m talking about Xgl as it is now in Dapper Drake, which isn’t out as you’ve mentioned. And sure, Xgl doesn’t work with all configurations – but it is possible to have it work perfectly with some configurations, which is the same type of controlled environment in which OS X runs (for example).
Most of the problems right now have to do with ATI drivers. When ATI gets up to speed with Nvidia a lot more configurations will work out-of-the box (and, yes, it is almost as easy as “apt-get install xgl” if you’re using a Nvidia card – the only other thing you have to do is change a line in two files…)
You are a bit harsh. Do you really expect your Mom to read 2 hours in the dapper forum to find which packets she needs to apt-get and then spend some more hours figuring out what to put in which config file to circumvent some driver bugs?
No, I don’t expect her to do that. But she won’t be able to install Vista either. I expect Xgl to be added to EasyUbuntu so that it can be installed and configured with a few click of the mouse.
You seem to think that the current method to install it in Dapper will stay that way. I’m sorry, but that’s a bit naive. You also ignore the fact that Novell will come out with a complete package in their next distro…come on, Xgl just came out, and you won’t accept anything less than perfection?
there is a big difference between having these effects “just working” (like in OS X
Give me a stable hardware platform like Apple has for OS X, and I’ll show you a stable and efficient Xgl installed as default. If you want to compare, at least provide a level playing field, otherwise your comparisons simply won’t be valid.
But if you compete with Vista, which will probably ship early 2007, you need to have a product that works by early 2007, and not at some unknown time when the driver developers had enough free time to write the code.
Xgl wasn’t developed by part-time coders, it was developed by Novell, who wants to use it to compete with Microsoft.
You are right, but the r200 driver is (which is the only driver for radeons that the open source community can work with.). You can of course hope that ATI fixes it’s drivers (and I guess they will) but it’s not sure and it’s especially not sure whether this will be ready to compete with Vista.
But when Vista ships in 2007 and you still need to have several years of Linux knowledge to activate Xgl and then have it crash once or twice every day, it’s just not the same.
Several years of Linux knowledge? You’re exaggerating qutie a bit.
A bit, maybe, but not that much. You need to know a lot about the complicated system that is the X11-system to really understand what you have to do to activate it and why it does work. Of course, this “why” is not so important when everything works, but if something goes wrong, many people end up with a system that crashes as soon as it enters Xgl. I can direct someone to configure Xgl or give him a step-by-step manual, but without extensive Linux/PC knowledge, it will be like magic to him.
Now, you’re assuming that I’m talking about Xgl as it is now in Dapper Drake, which isn’t out as you’ve mentioned. And sure, Xgl doesn’t work with all configurations – but it is possible to have it work perfectly with some configurations, which is the same type of controlled environment in which OS X runs (for example).
Well, as you said “it’s out now!” i assumed you talked about how it is now… You are right with your comparison to OS X, but OS X is made only for these specific configurations, while Linux is meant to run on most PCs. If you buy a PC especially for Xgl and Linux, you will have a great working system. But if you upgrade your existing XP system to Dapper, it will most probably not work flawlessly with XGL.
Most of the problems right now have to do with ATI drivers. When ATI gets up to speed with Nvidia a lot more configurations will work out-of-the box (and, yes, it is almost as easy as “apt-get install xgl” if you’re using a Nvidia card – the only other thing you have to do is change a line in two files…)
I guess you are pretty much right here. It’s just that you sounded like “it works right now, Vista is not here”. If you say “it’s pretty experimental right now, but i guess it will work before 2007” it’s a different story.
You are a bit harsh. Do you really expect your Mom to read 2 hours in the dapper forum to find which packets she needs to apt-get and then spend some more hours figuring out what to put in which config file to circumvent some driver bugs?
No, I don’t expect her to do that. But she won’t be able to install Vista either. I expect Xgl to be added to EasyUbuntu so that it can be installed and configured with a few click of the mouse.
You seem to think that the current method to install it in Dapper will stay that way. I’m sorry, but that’s a bit naive. You also ignore the fact that Novell will come out with a complete package in their next distro…come on, Xgl just came out, and you won’t accept anything less than perfection?
I don’t think it will always use the current method to install. I guess everyone can install Ubuntu or XP (or OS X, or Vista) today, as it’s not much more than pressing a “next”-button today. Installing will improve, and sooner or later installing Xgl or the the compositing system with air in it’s name (sorry, forget the exact name) will not be harder than that. But everywhere I read about it, it says “EXPERIMENTAL”, “DON’T USE ON YOUR MAIN SYSTEM” etc. That’s why I’m not too sure that it will be ready for as much people as Vista will be by the time it comes out.
You know, i really like Linux. It does almost everything i want, but where it fails, it’s almost everytime in thing like graphics or audio. No other major system I know has problems playing several sounds simultaneously. But with Linux, you have several sound systems that do mostly work if you stick to “their” programs. I am just afraid that it will be something like this for accelerated desktops, too.
Also, again you state that i critisize Xgl for what it is today. I think that’s only normal. I can not see into the future and guess how great it will once be. I just see that you can install Vista and it will work with every DirectX 9 card right now, while you still need some magic config file tricks when you try to run Xgl on a non-NVidia system.
there is a big difference between having these effects “just working” (like in OS X
Give me a stable hardware platform like Apple has for OS X, and I’ll show you a stable and efficient Xgl installed as default. If you want to compare, at least provide a level playing field, otherwise your comparisons simply won’t be valid.
I just talked about the user experience, not about the technical aspects. I really hope that you will be able to just install Ubuntu (or OpenSuse, or Fedora) and it will have a working accelerated desktop by the time Vista comes out. But right now, as I stated above, the Vista beta will “just work” with every DX9 card, and Xgl works well with most NV cards and rather badly with almost all the others.
Again, i guess we have to specify whether we talk about the state of things right now, which is very promising for Xgl, but absolutely not ready for daily use (except maybe for some), or about how we guess it will be in 2007.
We agree on most points, I believe. My main point is that Xgl can work now on many types of systems. Of course it’s not packaged yet. Of course there are issues with drivers – but those issues exist whether we consider Xgl or not (there are still issues with the fglrx driver for daily use).
To me, the driver issue is separate from Xgl. Windows still has better ATI video drivers than Linux, and right now if you want to use Xgl you should have a Nvidia system, not because of Xgl’s maturity, but because of ATI’s subpar drivers. So, in order to use Xgl now, you’re faced with the same restrictions as OS X is: you need to used a subset of the general PC hardware.
There’s a difference between “the technology works” and “it’s ready to be used by everyone.”
That’s why I’m not too sure that it will be ready for as much people as Vista will be by the time it comes out.
Maybe, maybe not. For starters, we don’t know for sure when Vista will ship. Maybe it’ll be in January 2007, but maybe it won’t – MS ship dates are notoriously inexact, and I fail to see why this time would be different, considering the increasinly harder task of putting out a new Windows version that keeps backward compatibility with previous ones.
As for what the state of Xgl will be in nine months, well, one just has to look where it was nine months ago…in other words, not much!
Nine months is a looong time in Linux development. In nine months, the next version of Ubuntu after Dapper Drake will have been out for a month…I don’t think it’s unrealistic to have it support Xgl out-of-the-box for an increased number of video cards.
We’ll see in 2007, I guess. Let’s not forget Apple’s gambit with Boot Camp. I’m starting to entertain the idea of a triple booting iMac as my next desktop replacement…
Can’t we all wait until Vista is out before starting all these annoying flame wars?If you like Vista,good for you,you found an OS you like.If you don’t like it,there are many other OSes that could suit your needs.It’s that simple.
Yes I was hoping to prevent some of these flame wars by posting my long review and to give a fair vview on things but dont seem like it worked!
Windows Vista is going to rule! Let’s rename OSnews VistaNews.
So you’re coming to me, and saying that some how, through some devine revolution, we’ll see on mass, people migrating to Linux even though it can’t even handle a VERY common and VERY mainstream chipset like the Intel 925X which comes with a Dell 8400?!
Kaiwai, your problem wasn’t with “Linux”, it’s with Fedora Core 5. As it happens, I’ve installed Ubuntu on a Dell 8400 and it went like a charm.
And before you say “well, Red Hat is THE linux, so it was a legitimate generalization”, consider the fact that Ubuntu has now become the most popular distro.
BTW, I believe it is possible to update your iPod through Linux…it may also be possible to update it through VMWare, though I must admit I haven’t tried (my laptop is dual-booting, which is still a good solution to these kinds of issues).
o The whole bloat/forced-upgrade/unreasonable hardware requirement debate happened 5 years ago with XP and originated with 95 and it’s a bit tired, the market will adapt
o Home users simply do not upgrade their OSes in significant numbers, Microsoft knows this, has admitted it and is not banking on it, so why not make your OS a little more forward looking and anticipate future hardware? We’re still talking about a year down the road from now.
o Corporate customers will not upgrade in droves until at least SP1 is released, and even then they will likely be dragged kicking and screaming and if legacy hardware is a concern, it’s a safe bet that IT will simply disable the eye candy
o Xgl is not ready for mainstream use, but it is not that far off either; what’s remarkable about xgl in the context of comparing it to Vista is that xgl went from a theoretical state to a workable state in a matter of months due mainly to the work of one developer working behind closed doors and in the short time it has been re-released as an “open” project many in the community have jumped on it and it’s progressing at a remarkable rate. The OSS community’s approach is sometimes haphazard but when they’re focused they can be incredibly effective
o Some of the initiatives in the xorg community are related to ensuring desktop experience for those without heavy graphics cards, not everyone needs wobbly windows, and to me that is a much more important (and difficult) endeavour… Not everyone is a gamer, not everyone can afford the $500 – $1000 for new hardware that many of us seem to take for granted, and why should the GUI escalate hardware requirements when current processing/memory requirements are more than adequate for the majority of *applications*, the things we actually use computers for?
o The thing about linux that is most worrying for MS is it’s ability to run effectively on legacy hardware, particularly for those users I mentioned above that are not gamers and have simple requirements… Corporate customers fall nicely into that category, hence the reason they’ll be releasing the corporate lite-version of Vista with basic functionality but no eye-candy or serious application capability; it’s sole purpose is to keep corp customers from converting old hardware to linux-based thin client solutions and instead pay a license fee to use convert them to Windows-based thin clients with equivalent functionality. Consumers will not get a similar “lite” option, at least not unless they live in a developing nation, so they’re expected to bite the bullet whether they need to or not
o I’m not an MS apologist, in fact I dropped windows some time ago in favor of linux full-time, but I’m not a zealot and frankly some of the absolutely venomous anti-MS hatred from the community I apparently belong to, typified by this thread, is downright emberassing
But that really isn’t the issue; how can an installation work one day, and I get a perfectly working desktop so that I can write a review ( http://kaiwai.blogsot.com ) and when I go to re-install it, it doesn’t work.
The answer is simple: you installed Windows in between the two Fedora Core installs. The problem is obviously not with FC, but rather with Windows itself. It probably messed up the MBR.
These days Osnews is becoming just another /.
I just love reading all those trolls
Example
I’m paying for the added security, speed, and media center capabilities. Vista also improves productivity by improving search capabilities and it provides smarter file handling.
I will personaly never buy windows vista [will get it for free from MSAA though]
I’ve been using windows for 12 years now, and i’m sick and tired of it. Yes, the stability has improved. But it is, and always was a resource hog.
windows with an antivirus: eating 50% of your system resources and making your 3ghz machine behave like 300mhz one
And windows vista: 512 ram, 1+ghz and 128+ram dx9 card just to show the desktop with all the bells and whistles?
My god, my 6year old 800mhz athlon with 384ram and 32ram gf-2 card can show 90% of all those effect on Xgl.
Xgl is quite stable NOW, as for fast searches, beagle is quite usable NOW.
And for the 342895249832 time, how can you compare free [Linux] with something you pay for [Windows]
Compare Windows with Mac OS X.
A decent mac can show all of the tiger’s effects on a 64mb video card.
Just for some laughs i would recomend you following this link: http://tauquil.com/archives/2006/01/06/re-introducing-the-real-wind…
I think you are trolling, sir, with your comments of windows and an antivirus causing your 3 ghz machine to run like a 300 mhz one. I can assure that is not a fact. You are lying through your teeth because I have a 3.4 ghz machine with XP on it and antivirus and there is no slow down. I have in fact used my machine and this is a laptop, for editiing purposes and I have seen it outperform a 17 in powerbook with 1.5 gigs of ram running Final Cut Pro. The Mac machine slowed to a crawl becasue of thrashing but mine kept on chugging despite the deficit of .5 gigs of ram.
But you are right regarding Vista though. As of the moment it is a lot of bloat. I do not know what effects Microsoft has for Vista that will require a high powered dx 9 class card. But I suspect a 64 mb dx 9 card would be sufficient enough. But I could be wrong. It is still a long while to go before the final Vista builds are released.