Ars takes a quick look at Vista RC1, and concludes: “Using it as my daily workhorse for two weeks has taught me a lot of things, the first of which is that Vista is doing better than many of its critics are claiming. A day after RC1 was available to select partners, the wires lit up with story after story about how ‘Vista isn’t ready’. No, it’s not ready. It’s a release candidate, at best, a late-stage beta at worst. Having actually used the OS for a while, I’m not so sure that the sky is falling claims have much merit.”
I’m supprised that Ars, who’ve written anal retentive articles about the flaws of Aqua (including the PDF button, and coining the term FTFF), can review Vista and not burst a vein in the process. If you make your windows red, and then maximize them, they go black!?
and then maximize them, they go black!?
I’ve already said a few times, but oh well: That’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
When you maximise a window, it means you will work ONLY with that window, and you do NOT wish to be bothered by the transparant blur showing windows underneath. HENCE, it turns black, allowing you to focus on the maximised window completely.
This making black may sound like a bug, but as soon as you use Vista for extensive periods of time, like I have, it makes so much sense.
I’ve been using maximized windows since the GUI has been available to the consumer and I’ve had no issue with how they’ve looked.
Vista’s transparency does not add to its usability. The windows turning black when they maximize is a hack on top of an interface that was not properly thought out to begin with. Its not a feature, it’s an excuse.
sure, ok. I love when people that were not involved at ALL with the design process claim to know exactly what something is.
I bow to your first hand knowledge of Vistas GUI design.
What point are you trying to make? Ars don’t have ‘first hand experience with the design process of Vista’s UI’, nor does OSNews, nor do I, or any website or person who reviews it. It’s a matter of a comparison of personal experiences. In my case, I’ve used windowing systems better than Vista, and worse than Vista over the years, and IMO compared to XP, Vista has several usability regressions – notably things like the window border being so thick at the top of the window, but having no defining edge, that I often resize the window upward instead of dragging it.
It’s a matter of using the product and applying your experience with other systems; how is you claiming that a point is only valid if you’re a Vista programmer, when you’re not one yourself?
“Ars don’t have ‘first hand experience with the design process of Vista’s UI’, nor does OSNews, nor do I, or any website or person who reviews it.”
Perhaps, but Microsoft does, and they pour millions into usability testing. The reason it seems so different is because…well, it is different. Give it a few months and you’ll probably not want to go back to XP’s style of windowing…the same thing happened to me with Office 2007: At first I hated the ribbon, and now I can’t stand using Office 2003 because it seems so archaic and shoddy.
Perhaps it’s because Office 2003 is archaic and shoddy
No, but seriously I was amazed when I discovered a couple of days ago that you can’t do something like open the formatting panel and then switch to another document.
I must says, if this is a feature then it’s not good, I hate having my windows maximized with the black frame, it just looks bad.
Well thats the idea of the blur, so whats underneath dont bother you.
The reason why they do it black is so that it blends in with the screen edges on CRT monitors.
I actually love the black.
In reality, it is hideing the bits of the interface you don’t need to see and putting more of an emphasis on what you do need.
If this is the case then Aero is useless according to what you’ve said. Does this mean people will turn off Aero to get things done?
Umm… what?
There are at least a half dozen different editors at Ars. The guy who typically writes the Mac stuff is John Siracusa, this article was written by Ken Fisher. This was also a 1-page overview, not a 20-odd-page review.
I tend to think that the implementation of full screen windows is a useful feature..not a bug…or a hack.
Ars will definetly put Vista through its paces, AFTER it is released. The article mentions that no purpose is served by ragging on pre-release software.
In my estimation, RC1 is leagues ahead of Beta2. On my HP Media Center, once I had replaced all of the MS supplied drivers with the correct manufacturer supplied drivers (albeit they are XP drivers)–pretty much all of my problems went away. In my view, the OS itself is pretty much done…now MS needs to work on application compatibility and drivers. I suspect it will go to RTM with these same faults still in place, then expect a giant update come next year when it is actually released.
I feel like this is not the bad Windows of old, dispite the bugs i’m quiet supprised because it’s not in your face.
Control Panel
It’s somewhat confusing with loads of options and the layout is poor IMHO.
Menu
I like it, much more sane aproach than the horrid start menu in XP. The search works well to.
Folder Layout
Putting all the users directory pictures, music, ect into your user directory is much saner, unlike the mess of XP.
Disabling Stuff
The thing that really hacked me off about windows was the crap that you cannot turn off and in your face. Vista RC1 seems to put you in control more and disabling stuff you dont need or want is not a arse to do.
The Look
I have to admit, Aero looks great, icons look so much better than the kinder garden XP look which I really hate.
Windows Media Player
Better and much more in keeping with the Vista look, Unlike XP were they kept switch themes that didnot go with XP. You also get a nice free music video website, just a shame it keeps on going off line for me.
Control Panel:
Barely changed, and actually more intellegently layed out than XP was.
Start menu:
EXACTLY the same as XP save for the inline search and no more expanding menus (which you seem wrote off as something separate).
Folder Layout:
All those user folders have ALWAYS been in the user directory.
Much better, I have to admit I am impressed now if they can get Internet Explorer stable with a Gui that does not bring down the whole system.
than most finished Linux distro. After a long while i again thought of trying linux. I booted Ubuntu drapper drake from CD on my laptop and it worked fine for few minutes but as soon as launched open office document, it hung and now the only way is to reboot the machine.
People who criticize windows should really do a reality check on the state of alternative OS.
OSX is the only other released stable GUI environment i have seen so far.
Ok…and you’re basing your opinion that Windows Vista RC1 is automatically better than of Linux because of one experience where one distribution didn’t work well on your proprietary laptop? Did you try another? There are like several hundred Linux distributions afterall. How many versions of Vista are there? Oh, I forgot, just one. How many years have you been waiting for that to boot up flawlessly on your laptop? Your laptop likely won’t have the horsepower to run the next version of Windows when it’s released sometime in 2012. I bet Ubuntu will come in handy then.
Well ok may be Vista with glass won’t work bit XP works flawlessly and it has more features than most current linux distributions. Also did you find the -1 score on my comment funny?
Why Linux fanboys are so a*al about the criticism?
Plus having one distribution that works on all hardware is better than having 100 that works on some.
Edited 2006-09-20 00:16
Why Linux fanboys are so a*al about the criticism?
… because Vista looks like it might not only see the light of day, but it might also be rather good?
The closer MS gets to release, the louder the howling gets. I’d feel alot better about trying another distro if they would stop focusssing on what MS is doing, and work to get their own house in order. All this FUD spreadinng about Vista just makes them look as if they don’t have any answer to it; so rather than helping spread the word about Linux, it just makes the OS look as though it’s exclusively built for rabid fanboys. If they could just stop and focus on what makes Linux so good, rather than what makes Vista so bad, then I’m pretty sure they could have snatched a pretty decent chunk of the desktop, while MS was running around without a clue.
Such a wasted opportunity.
For a start, don’t split your marketing effort between loads of distros; pick one that is easy to use and has loads of free software and really pile on the driver support. Focus on getting this distro to run and install every possible device right out of the box. Tell folk that this the the Linux for everybody. Joe Public doesn’t want choice; he wants compatibility and uniformity.
Edited 2006-09-20 05:08
You found a few Linuxifieds that are blathering about Vista, and that affects your judgements about Linux? I know people that are doing quite the opposite.
And your “one super Linux distro” idea is so nonsensical, uninformed, and outdated. Variety is choice is competition is quality is happy users. Why need one distro if you can fork all the open source stuff of the competition that you like (and skip the stuff you don’t)? Smaller, focused developer teams work better than huge corporate bureaucracies.
Your statements are typical of a Microsoft dominated age. Which Linux user cares if Vista will be good, great, or awful? It will not change anything because people get Vista “for free” on the new PC they buy anyway, just as it is the case now with XP. Linux’ success will be on its own merits, and every Linux user knows that.
And please people, stop equating Linux with Ubuntu.
because Vista looks like it might not only see the light of day, but it might also be rather good?
Given that Windows fanboys have *always* said “Windows is good,” exactly how much notice are we supposed to take of their opinions this time? None whatsoever? Correct.
Of course, it may be the case that the Company That Cried Wolf, this time actually *have* come up with something that is innovative, stable, secure, and doesn’t annoy because of its limitations. As with the boy who cried wolf, however, anyone who has caught on to their game has become, by experience, far too cynical to even have much sympathy for them if it were a great product which bombed (which given their licensing deals with all-and-sundry, you needn’t worry about happening).
Finally i tried to install Ubuntu Drapper Drake Desktop CD version after booting it and install hung at 31% two times.
Really if linux fanboys doesn’t shut up now and do a reality check, it would be plainly ignoring the customers. No i don’t have all the time in the world to keep burning CDs and trying another distro, it is just pretty lame.
5 years back i wasn’t able to install Linux by just putting a CD in my computer and now i am not. And still we keep hearing all the crap about how good Linux is, if it is that good then at least make the installation a stable one and come back.
I am so pi$$ed right now, my whole night got wasted in this stupid shit.
Finally i tried to install Ubuntu Drapper Drake Desktop CD version after booting it and install hung at 31% two times.
Yeah, I have had similar problems with Windows. It pulls a hissy fit if it isn’t the first and only OS on your system.
Really if linux fanboys doesn’t shut up now and do a reality check, it would be plainly ignoring the customers.
Firstly, the phrase “linux fanboys” is plural. Secondly, Linux installs fine on all the hardware I’ve tried it on, most of which is pretty much random and off the shelf. Thirdly, a person who downloads a free distribution and then whines about how much trouble he’s had without even taking the trouble to describe the problems he’s having isn’t a customer.
5 years back i wasn’t able to install Linux by just putting a CD in my computer and now i am not.
Sounds to me like you’ve gone out of your way to install Linux on your Linux-incompatible hardware just so you can have a good moan. That may increase the statistics on the number of Windows users who’ve had zero success with Linux, but it doesn’t increase the number of credible Windows users who’ve had zero success with Linux.
And still we keep hearing all the crap about how good Linux is, if it is that good then at least make the installation a stable one and come back.
Linux works fine for millions of users who wouldn’t dream of installing Windows, and if you weren’t trying to make a virtue out of ignorance, you’d realise that there isn’t a single Linux installation program.
I am so pi$$ed right now, my whole night got wasted in this stupid shit.
That might well describe how I felt after reading your post, assuming I were slow reader, and inarticulate.
There is no reason in the world that installation should hang. Yes it can bail out due to an error but hang is pretty lame and tells me the standards of programming.
Let us not even go there…but if you still think it is ok, then suit yourself. BTW my hardware is not incompatible because live CD worked fine.
There is no reason in the world that installation should hang.
You’re right, but you seem to be suggesting Windows is the bellwether by which Ubuntu should be judged, because the Windows installer never does this. I’ve seen it (the Windows XP installer) do it.
RC1 hang with a blue screen during install:http://netpython.blogspot.com
Ain’t MS technology great?!
As with the boy who cried wolf, however, anyone who has caught on to their game has become, by experience, far too cynical to even have much sympathy for them
Year of the Linux Desktop!!11111oneoneone
😉
For a start, don’t split your marketing effort between loads of distros; pick one that is easy to use and has loads of free software and really pile on the driver support. Focus on getting this distro to run and install every possible device right out of the box. Tell folk that this the the Linux for everybody. Joe Public doesn’t want choice; he wants compatibility and uniformity.
So IBM should buy back Lenovo and introduce its own, non-copyable, non-clonable PC architecture again, should it? Because that worked *so well* for the Commodore Amiga and PS/2.
So IBM should buy back Lenovo and introduce its own, non-copyable, non-clonable PC architecture again, should it? Because that worked *so well* for the Commodore Amiga and PS/2.
Nah it’s hardware there’s plenty of.Would be nice if OS/2 is open-sourced someday:-)
Quote “Ok…and you’re basing your opinion that Windows Vista RC1 is automatically better than of Linux because of one experience where one distribution didn’t work well on your proprietary laptop? Did you try another? There are like several hundred Linux distributions afterall. How many versions of Vista are there? Oh, I forgot, just one.”
Now this is something Linux is going to have to resolve. The biggest problem with Linux is that there are hundreds of different versions. One doesn’t work so what, are users expected to go through the whole gaumat of Linux Distributions until they find something that does work?
I am testing Vista 64 RC1 and I am testing Ubuntu Edgy Eft 64 and at the moment Vista is more usable.
– With Vista I can run 32bit apps easily.
– I don’t have sound support in Vista but I’m supposed to in Edgy but get this, the OS loader has issues with the firmware of my Sound Card so I can’t get the ALSA module to load. The sound card is a Echo Audio Gina 3G for anyone interested. I am on mail notification when Echo Audio get some beta drivers into the works for Vista.
– I did an Edgy upgrade from Knot 2 to Knot 3 and now my Ubuntu system is FUBAR. The OS refuses to load and I am left at a command prompt with no system usability cause Edgy Knot 3 can’t load tty or some such error of which there is no information about.
I will get a Knot 3 install disk onto my system and see what I can do from that, if it loads, but this is a real pain as is getting the same functionability out of it.
* I compare the 2 because both are non release states and 64 bit OS systems and Ubuntu is from a Linux group that make a user friendly system although I am tempted to try ArchLinux 64. Still, at the moment in usability Vista is definately the better with less PITA experiences. I have had it hard lock and blue screen on me but that was through testing a game on it with beta drivers.
My 2 cents.
* I compare the 2 because both are non release states and 64 bit OS systems and Ubuntu is from a Linux group that make a user friendly system
But you have to realize they are in completely different stages of development though, even if neither are currently released. Ubuntu Edgy is current in ALPHA state, currently actively being developed and not at all considered release quality or even beta quality.
Windows Vista is currently in RELEASE CANDIDATE state. RC means its a candidate for release, the developers and the company looked over it and decided everything is in it and its ready for release, but before we do that, we want some more widespread testing to see if other people start having issues with it.
Its absolutely rediculous to compare the stability of a release candidate with an alpha development-snapshot.
aent, are you trying to tell me that with a release for Edgy Eft due in October Knot 2 and Knot 3 are only Alpha State releases?
Wouldn’t the Ubuntu team be cutting it way short if that was the case?
At least Vista is getting a second Release Candidate and will not be let out onto the public until early next year at the very earliest.
I am more of the thinking that they are at a relatively similar state of development but with Vista it is of a less evolving natuture compared to Linux as when MS gets a solid release they usually sit on it for a while where as Linux continues (Ubuntu 6mth release schedule).
In a word, both a far from ready at this point in time.
Edgy Eft builds upon Dapper, and Dapper is rock solid. There are a few things under the hood that are indeed new, but generally speaking it is an evolving thing.
What I don’t understand about Vista: What is so damn new about it that it justifies such a long development circle? I completely fail to see that. But maybe it’s just me …
What is so damn new about it…?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_Vista
aent, are you trying to tell me that with a release for Edgy Eft due in October Knot 2 and Knot 3 are only Alpha State releases?
They are considered alpha by the Ubuntu release team. Of course, since the release cycle is much shorter than Vista’s, it takes a lot less time to go from alpha to beta to release.
with Vista it is of a less evolving natuture compared to Linux as when MS gets a solid release they usually sit on it for a while where as Linux continues (Ubuntu 6mth release schedule).
There are distributions that try to provide the latest developments in the floss world, and others that try to build a solid, stable release to be supported for a very long time.
“are you trying to tell me that with a release for Edgy Eft due in October Knot 2 and Knot 3 are only Alpha State releases?”
That’s how Ubuntu themselves describe it:
“The Edgy Eft Knot 3 is the third alpha release of Ubuntu 6.10”
http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/knot3
And here’s their development schedule:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/EdgyReleaseSchedule
“In a word, both a far from ready at this point in time.”
That would mean that MS is lying about their release actually being a Release Candidate.
I’d agree that both are ready at this point in time, however one is labeled ALPHA while the other one is labeled to be a candidate for RELEASE. Ubuntu is scheduled to go into beta with the appropiate freezes in one week, where then there will be a heavy focus on getting it ready for release by the time the RC is released. At that time, critical remaining bugs will be fixed, not a lot of release work that was known about for a long time. Edgy did have a shorter then usual release cycle (4 months)…
I am testing Vista 64 RC1 and I am testing Ubuntu Edgy Eft 64 and at the moment Vista is more usable.
I have to disagree for example latest nero premium is still not compatible with Vista (can’t be installed).There are a lot of other programs like vmware that doesn’t run either.
Your mileage may vary but i absolutely need both burning software (wether k3b or nero) and vmware.So i rather prefer Edgy Eft on this one.
Ok…and you’re basing your opinion that Windows Vista RC1 is automatically better than of Linux because of one experience where one distribution didn’t work well on your proprietary laptop
… what makes his laptop proprietary in your view? Are you suggesting he buys another laptop and keeps installing distros until he finds one that works?
Did you install it or you just tried it on the CD? Did you try Windows only running from a CD where it will quickly run out of memory as well? My guess is you didn’t have enough memory in your computer to run OpenOffice with the LiveCD all in memory.. OOo is a quite large, hefty program that doesn’t really work well if you have all of your memory already used and absolutely no swap space available. Try installing it and judge it again, don’t just run Ubuntu off a CD and when it becomes slow as a direct result of that, blame all of Linux for it.
The reason i didn’t install it was because if it didn’t work nicely then i will have to go through the pain of reinstalling XP.
I agree that installing will make a difference in performance. I though have 584MB RAM in my laptop so shouldn’t it be ok from live CD?
Anyways i need an alternative free OS anyways because the current XP i have can’t be used for commercial purpose which i need:)
The live CD would generally be ok, but 584 MB isn’t exactly a lot of memory when you’re using it as a hard drive in addition to memory for the system, and there is absolutely no swap space (or page file for the windows equivalent) available when you’re on the Live CD. That means the system can’t deal with using a lot of memory at all. Over 200 MB seems to be direct overhead as a direct result of caching files on the CD, in addition to the normal memory consumption that Linux uses, lets sa another 150 MB. That means about 200 MB is available to the programs, are memory thats in use can’t be copied to the hard drive when its not at all important. Firefox and OpenOffice each usually use about 100 MB after some usage, which means you could have very well run out of ram if anything else started using RAM and you had Firefox AND OpenOffice.
>> … 584 MB isn’t exactly a lot of memory when you’re using it as a hard drive in addition to memory for the system, and there is absolutely no swap space (or page file for the windows equivalent) available when you’re on the Live CD. <<
Couldn’t a Live CD just locate and use the swap partition on the hard drive?
Couldn’t a Live CD just locate and use the swap partition on the hard drive?
If one exists, that’s exactly what it does.
Computers running Windows generally don’t have a swap partition lying around, as he didn’t install it and mentioned he was using Windows already, I highly doubt there is a swap partition on his drive.
Maybe you could try cleaning the CD – or even installing – how is the Vista live CD anyway?
Look at SLED 10, being able to flip your screens around now that is nice. Even if it may be a little buggy, give it 6 months and it will be solid. Plus, it seems that Vista just does not have the customization such as KDE or Gnome offers or ever will. But sometimes these features can cause instablility and problems within the Operating System itself. Internet Explorer needs to be revised to get rid of the 1/2 a dozen security alerts on everything. Now this is overkill and will lead to frustration on the end user.
On the laptop side, maybe it will be less cpu hungry and not want to overwork the machine until the fan runs all the time.
I am sure the user community will be pleased by the work Microsoft has achieved on Vista. Sometimes one has to ask themselves, do I want to change or do I want to stay in the past.
Moving forward is better than going back in time in a machine that is outdated. We have to continue to strive to do our best at hand, always putting forth the effort it requires to ‘write better code’ and make sure we like the end product. It appears that Vista is on that road, almost everyone here has accepted the fact they really like Vista.
I downloaded the ISO, burned it to a DVD and bootet the PC. There were a few screens, and then it said it couldn’t find the install information at D:labla. So much for that. Could it be that nforce4 is not supported well enough? My board is an ASUS K8N-DL with nforce4, 4 GB of RAM, SATA HDs. Windows XP 64Bit worked without problems.
I downloaded the ISO, burned it to a DVD and bootet the PC. There were a few screens, and then it said it couldn’t find the install information at D:blabla. So much for that. Could it be that nforce4 is not supported well enough? My board is an ASUS K8N-DL with nforce4, 4 GB of RAM, SATA HDs. Windows XP 64Bit worked without problems.
If you’re using the Silicon Image controller for your SATA drives, you’ll need to get the necessary storage drivers for that chipset. You can download them from http://www.siliconimage.com/
It looks like the Sil3114 comes with your board, so here’s a direct link to that page:
http://www.siliconimage.com/support/supportsearchresults.aspx?pid=2…
If you use RAID, you can use the XP/Server2k3 x64 drivers:
http://www.siliconimage.com/support/supportsearchresults.aspx?pid=2…
Our Dell 5510 gained a full point on the scale (rising to 4.2),
Would be nice to have the hardware specs in order to judge wether the rating system is more reasonable now 🙂
Given that Knot 2 and 3 are Alpha states, what then, should I consider as comparable with a MS RC1 Build in the Ubuntu world.
As for the detractor stating to try something else than Ubuntu as there is more in the Linux world than just that, Well, Da. I have used RedHat, Suse, Arch Linux, Gentoo, waht I am pointing out is that the “user friendly and popular with good devloper support” Linux distribution is far from perfect. Also the average computer user can’t give a flying F as to all the limitless distros and competition out there in Linux land. At the end of the day they want something that is easy to use, understand and that works.
Until Linux geeks get that into their head, Linux will remain a neich product on the desktop. With Haiku and some other projects maturing out there that look to address these issues, Linux as a desktop experience had better get its ass into gear. No more, no less.
Let’s cut to the chase shall we? People run Windows because it’s maneuvered its way onto 90% of the world’s PC’s by questionable tactics. It’s on the computers at school, at work, and those one buys for home. The vast majority of software is written for Windows and hardware venders include driver CD’s for Windows. That’s it. People don’t run Windows because it’s a superior operating system. They run it because it’s everywhere, it’s convenient to run their crap, and it’s all they know. People who take the time and put in the effort to really learn alternatives, rarely go back to Windows.
I was really into Linux for quite some time, switched my PC’s and Laptops over to it. I just found myself being MUCH more productive in windows rather than Linux. Not taking anything away from Linux tho it really is amazing.
Truth is there isnt all that much wrong with windows. People can complain when get down into specifics but for most people it does the job, which really is what its all about.
I think that that’s part of the problem with why Linux hasn’t seen greater adoption: Windows is simply good enough. And, given the fact that people don’t install operating systems — they get them preinstalled on new OEM PCs — they simply make it work for them.
Windows is simply good enough.
You only have to look at places like China and (especially) Thailand (which just underwent a military coup without much opposition) to see what people will put up with as “good enough”. That doesn’t mean people will be moving in their droves from democratic countries to China and Thailand, or that Western Windows users should agitate for military coups in their own countries, even if I can think of at least one Western country where it might actually be welcome. Equally, it doesn’t mean that Linux users should ditch Linux for Windows for an OS “eXPerience” that is, at best, only as good.
Edited 2006-09-20 17:05