Windows Vista

[wyo_rose]

Hey that's good to know! We like W2K. Maybe by 2008, all the kinks regarding Vista will be worked out. MAYBE!

[MIB]

We're not touching Vista with a 10 foot pole. Even this year we finally migrated 20% of our users to XP from W2K. Next we're shooting for 80% XP.

A lot of our educational software isn't even ready for Vista.

Apparently lots of software weren't ready for VISTA, but there again sometime in 2008 Microsoft apparently plans to drop support on Win 2K and XP.May as well stay on Win2K.

[wyo_rose]

We're not touching Vista with a 10 foot pole. Even this year we finally migrated 20% of our users to XP from W2K. Next we're shooting for 80% XP.

A lot of our educational software isn't even ready for Vista.

[MIB]

Well now that Ubuntu 7.04 "Feisty Fawn" is out I upgraded. No noticeable changes, but it's nice to know I have the latest stuff I suppose. I also like SimplyMEPIS 6.5 a lot, SAM2007 and DreamLinux 2.2. The XFCE 4 desktop is more like the latest Mac while Gnome is like an older Mac and KDE is reminiscent of a Windows style desktop. I haven't run Windows on any of my own systems since November.

The only reason we have Windows on the 1 computer is for the bookkeeper.And we gradually converting him. Have got the
new Debian 4.0 Etch and am going to replace the 1 I have now over this coming weekend.

[Wakalapi]

Well now that Ubuntu 7.04 "Feisty Fawn" is out I upgraded. No noticeable changes, but it's nice to know I have the latest stuff I suppose. I also like SimplyMEPIS 6.5 a lot, SAM2007 and DreamLinux 2.2. The XFCE 4 desktop is more like the latest Mac while Gnome is like an older Mac and KDE is reminiscent of a Windows style desktop. I haven't run Windows on any of my own systems since November.

[MIB]

Walalapi, approx. 20% of 160 gig hard drive is Windows,remainder(after swap and boot partitions) is Debian 3.0.Have 1 old laptop with 32 mb ram, and a 500 Mb hard drive with a floppy install of Pocket Linux that people are surprised will get online either on network or dialup(a little slow, but still works)

[OLChemist]

"PC, other Vista users are complaining about their operating systems. Cancel or Allow?" asks Security Daemon Guy, while cleaning his sunglasses.

"Allow," sighs PC.

[andre]

Thank you, Wakalapi, for spreading the love and joy that is Linux. Most I associate with recommend Ubuntu. I personally am using open SuSE 10.2 both on my work laptop and on my PC at home (this is for compatibility with our office computers, not necessarily personal preference).

Personally, I like Windows 2000 Pro for any Windows applications. It is the only one where I have not had software compatibility issues. Most of the places I associate with through business and education refuse to go to Vista because of the performance degradation on their machines. They simply cannot afford the upgrade costs for 4 GB of RAM on their computers.

Getting long-winded, I know, but.... We tested a dual-core system at the university and were unable to get basic applications to run with only 1 GB of RAM. With 2 GB, we saw very very poor performance (and freezing/glitching/etc). Once 4 GB were installed, the system was operating pretty much flawlessly and the applications we were testing ran smoothly. These applications still ran better on a dual-core with 2 GB running XP Pro.

Legal Disclaimer: Andre would like to apologize to anyone in the sacking business at Microsoft who feels threatened by these comments and therefore wants to sack Andre. He gives his assurances that no attack was made here and that he does not want to be sacked for fear that the credits after his sacking will involve Ralph the Wonder Llama and psychedelic colors.

[Wakalapi]

It's not to late to switch to Linux or FreeBSD.

I've installed Windows 3.1, Win95, WinME, Win2000 and WinXP on many systems, large and small, fast and slow. None of them have been as quick and easy to install as some of my favorite Linux distributions, which include Ubuntu 6.10 "Edgy", MEPIS 6.5, PCLinuxOS 0.93a, Mandriva 2007, and DreamLinux 2.2. I've also tried PC-BSD 1.5. Loved them all. My laptop runs Ubuntu, which took maybe half an hour to install, only because there is a 700MB CD chock full of applications, games and tools that can all be installed together with the base operating system. I have an older desktop that is running SimplyMEPIS 6.5, installation took less than an hour. In both cases, the operating systems automatically configured themselves with the right drivers, no hunting the internet for drivers was necessary (except for printers, which were easy to find anyway).

Most distributions of Linux come with office software that can read from/write to files saved by Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Adobe Photoshop and others. There are several web browsers including the Linux version of Mozilla Firefox.

Linux is virtually virus-proof. Hard drives formatted to run Linux use a journaled file system that never needs to be defragmented. Linux is so stable, some production computers have been running just fine, 24/7 for months on end without a reboot.

Most software -- even the advanced stuff -- for Linux is free and GPL licensed so you can legally copy it and install it on as many machines as you want. One free CD can install Linux on every computer in your company or tribal government with licensing issues or copyright violations.
(The makers of Ubuntu will send you a pack of ten CD's just for the asking. Or you can download a CD image and burn in yourself. Nine of the ten CD's should be passed around to friends and co-workers.)


Any drawbacks?

In some rare cases, you might have a peripheral that does not yet have a Linux driver available for it.

Running certain games designed for Windows may require a Windows emulator for Linux. Such emulators include WINe and Cedega.

[txsndn7]

i bought a new desk top with Windows Vista, i dont like it at all. i am trying to stay open minded, but i dont like it. your right, hardly any programs will function properly.

[chazziff]

yea .. here at our office we went with vista and the same day most of the computers froze, wouldnt open files on the shared folder, or started to slow down or jus completely shut down.

but it was the fact that our computers didnt have enough ram to support vista properly. so we all got upgraded and they have been working smoothly since .. well one or two technical glitches not sure if it was vista that caused it or the employee .. haha

[MIB]

Who all bought it and tried it ?Bought a new laptop that had Vista.2 day later I reformated and put 2000 Professional on it.Under Vista half my stuff didn't want to work right.