Vista: Get it now or wait?

[kirinke]

The same rule applies to D&D. Never buy the First Printing.

Shhhh..... Diaglo might hear you.

 

[Mercule]

I thought about upgrading my PC with it, but not my tablet. What kind of tablet do you have ?

Gateway M270.

Oh, and I did get my iPaq to work. The problem was actually user error.

 

[Steel_Wind]

All my install experiences with Linux have been nightmarish, to put it mildly. In OS X you install a piece of software by dragging it into the applications folder, and that's it. In Linux you have to compile it, decipher cryptic warnings about dependency files, find the dependency files, try to compile them, find THEIR dependencies, install the thing, find out something else is broken.

There's a reason ENWorld's server runs MySQL 4.0 instead of 5.1 -- installing ANYTHING on Linux is outside the base package is a pain in the neck even for an experienced computer user. It's worse that getting something to work on Windows 3.1. It took me some 6 hours to update Apache on the box and it's not an experience I'm keen on going through on my home computer.

Yum has alleviated this somewhat - but it's still a headache compared to Windows or Apple. Linux is great for servers - but I've yet to see a good, friendly and easy to use desktop solution.

I won't argue that installing linux for most people is a total pita.

But Ubuntu is different. Ubuntu is linux for people who don't LIKE linux. It's the linux community's attempt to make a slick Windows like
OS for people who really don't like mucking about with stuff and who have not seen a command line in a loooooooong time (if ever).

It is as easy to install as Win XP. Really, it was. The experience is essentially identical to Windows XP - except that at the end of the installation process, Ubuntu has also installed OpenOffice and some other common internet based stuff that is actually pretty impressive and very convenient. And of course, Ubunto was not bugging me for install codes and bugging me to register this that and everything else on first boot.

OpenOffice for 95% of users is every bit as friendly, intuitive and easy to use as MS Word and its compatible with MSWord. Not a small point at all. It looks and acts the same as MS Word for the most part. I got to admit, I was rather impressed with this.

The only knock on Ubuntu is the inability to run DirectX games. Given that games are what I do - that's not a small point for me. In fact, it was a deal breaker.

Games aside though, you can put in an Ubuntu disc and "it just works". Interface is every bit as intuitive and for the most part identical to Windows in all the major respects that matter.

The free disc package thing even ships with an extra Ubuntu run time version of Ubuntu linux. Put it into your CD tray - let it boot and it will do a temp install just to memory to let you try it out without actually installing it on to your hard drive.

For this reason, it's now my rescue disc of choice for Win XP. If something goes horribly wrong, Ubuntu is my version of a Norton life preserver. It is utterly reliable when all else fails.

And Ubuntu is free, as in FREE<beer>. Log on here:

https://shipit.ubuntu.com/

Just fill out the box and ask them to send you a disc - and damn it - they do. No spam. No nagging. Just "Send me a disc please" 1-2 weeks, the discs arrives in the mail in this slick little cardbord dual CD folder. And they don't ask you to pay a single cent for it. No S&H charges, Nothing. Nada. zip.

SW: "I want a disc please. Come to think of it - make it four."
Ubuntu: "Here you go."

It's worthwhile just to have one as a rescue disc for XP, even if you don't plan to install it.

I'm not a great fan of linux and the linux advocates tend to drive me nuts, they really do. But for all that, this Ubuntu stuff really is pretty damned impressive.

 

[drothgery]

Not to sound mean, but if you use IIS you deserve what you get. Apache is *so* superior to IIS it isn't funny. Yeah, IIS has asp, but compared to PHP it's no contest (Yes, I'm aware PHP can be compiled to run under IIS)

Not to sound mean, but you sound like someone whose last context with the Windows web developer world was in about 1997. ASP.NET is not ASP (and quite frankly, classic ASP vs. PHP seems to me to be mainly a decision on whether you prefer quasi-Perl syntax or quasi-VB syntax; it's hard to see how one or the other _could_ be far superior; ASP.NET is another animal entirely). IIS6 is not IIS4. Win2K3 is not NT4.

 

[ssampier]

Why? Most corps haven't stopped using Windows 2000 yet!!

On the desktop? Wow, some corps need to re-evaluate their desktop rotation.

As for servers, yeah, we have plenty of W2k Servers (many were replaced with Linux, of course, most were web servers).

Vista's biggest competitor is XP - hands down. The hardware market is stagnated - Vista's beefy requirements on computers is a calculated move to force upgrades, not unlike Windows 95. But unlike Win 95, Vista does NOT offer any real compelling reasons to upgrade, and several reasons not to. For starters, Bill lifted Apple's interface. Arguements as to whether it is better aside, users don't like to relearn things and under Vista you have to relearn a lot ESPECIALLY if you don't use Apple computers. This isn't good - hell Gnome Linux is easier to shift to from Windows XP than Vista is.

I agree.

Gnome Linux isn't that difficult to use (terminal could cause some people to break out in hives). I haven't used Vista so I can't say if it's easier, though. What i seen seemed more like XP SP3.5 (with DRM*).

*might as well rename Windows Vista to DRM 2007.

 

[Mercule]

Not to sound mean, but if you use IIS you deserve what you get. Apache is *so* superior to IIS it isn't funny. Yeah, IIS has asp, but compared to PHP it's no contest (Yes, I'm aware PHP can be compiled to run under IIS)

You don't know as much about computers as you think you do. The only thing PHP has going for it is ubiquity. It's still a generation behind where IIS/.NET is today.

 

[Ranger REG]

Shhhh..... Diaglo might hear you.

I said first printing, not first edition.

IIRC, TSR never bothered to correct the first edition in later printings.

[I know diaglo believes his "sacred" copy is perfectly error-free. For him, Gygax can do no wrong.]

I'll wait until later this year.

 

[Ranger REG]

IronWolf already linked them. Suffice to say I don't want 75% of my processor power protecting $ony et al's profits.

I went to the page via IronWolf's link, read a few line, and fell asleep.

Anybody have a Cliff's Note version?

 

[Steel_Wind]

I went to the page via IronWolf's link, read a few line, and fell asleep.

Anybody have a Cliff's Note version?

Vista will automatically DEGRADE the visual quality of controlled content that it is used to display and deliberately degrades the signal to make it kinda fuzzy. Same thing with music. And Vista will spend a fair number of your dual core CPU cycles making sure that what you just bought won't play properly.

It will show a HD-DVD or HDTV program - it just will not do it properly.

Ever. It's called protected media path (PMP).

This happens even if the system detects that your copy is 100% legitimate. This is an inherent "feature" of Vista. It downsamples and reupsamples the signal being displayed, so that it is lossy and imperfect when displayed or played.

The highest level pf plaback quality supported is about 520k pixels per frame (roughly 960x540). That is as good as it gets with Vista.

720p, btw, is 1280x720. Vista will simply not play that resolution. My monitor runs at 1680x1050 (21" widescreen) Vista is designed to make sure I can't actually make proper use it for HD-DVD movie playback

The DRM inside Vista is intended to protect audio and video so that the quality of the HDTV or movie displayed through Vista is ALWAYS sub-optimal. To get optimal playback, you must buy a dedicated player instead of a computer.

The DRM in use is called "defective by design". The OS has been deliberately crippled so that it does not work with multimedia as it should and otherwise could.

How BAD it is crippled ranges between (real f'ugly - Std TV res) and (crappy but not too crappy, 960x540). This is all part of their PMP "initiative".

The amount of how bad it is is controlled by the chip in your video card. You can't get the better lossy upsample code if your equipment could then be used to copy or circumvent the protected content.

Please observe that none of this technology is necessary in the least. These chips are not decoders like in the old DVD decoder cards in ages past. They will try and pass it off like that but that is NOT what they are. No no no. That ain't it at all. This is artificial DRM.

All of which is designed to prevent people from using their gear to play and copy movies the way they were meant to be seen.

Yes. Pick up that jaw. I'm completely serious.

Vista DRM was created to protect HD DVD and Blu-ray discs. In a nutshell, this is about protecting Sony's interests - not yours. That's the "feature" you get when you "upgrade" to Vista.

"Upgrade" away my friend.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Were you using the RTM? I have none of the issues you have with that version.

Yep, the RTM version. I'd used the various beta and CTP versions on a different PC, and the RTM is a step up from each of those, but just annoys me in the ways I mentioned above. Some of them may be hardware specific glitches (the wireless reconnection thing), and I know there is a patch for visual studio, but a number are design decisions that irritate me.

I've got another one

# IP over firewire removed. Why?!? When I got my shiny new PC last November (XP installed), a simple firewire cable connection to my old PC and I got 400Mbps data transmission of my key stuff over in a snap - much easier than trying to configure ethernet through my router for some reason. Can't do it to get my data back off before I revert to XP though, because IP over firewire has been removed!